"Allied with the House of Austria, I found in that marriage the strongest reason why my voice should be heard in England at a conjuncture (crise) when Austria needed an advocate there. But this is not all. You know how long and how sedulously I have laboured to get the Emperor Nicholas to accredit an ambassador from Russia to Belgium. His Majesty has, for years, disdained my request with Northern haughtiness (fierté), but, either for reasons of mine or his own, he has at last accorded the favour. Since that boon, it is well known to you that Russia has had only to ask and to have in Belgium. I was therefore doubly bound to undertake my English mission, charged as I was with the interests of Austria and of Russia.
"That the Prince Consort of England and myself retired into the shooting field together—for the Sovereign of England has a certain straightforwardness (droiture) which makes it difficult to urge diplomatic considerations in her hearing—you may have learned. If I alluded to the danger which might accrue to Saxe Gotha in the event of Russia, Austria, and Prussia not regarding its princes as their friends, I am sure the august sportsman to whom I addressed such a speculation will not have listened to me in vain. The friends of Mary Henrietta and of our newly-arrived ambassador have no reason to be dissatisfied with the effect I produced.
"I may therefore felicitate you, Gentlemen, and myself, on the perfect concord which exists between Russia, Austria, Saxe Gotha, and Belgium, and I am glad to add that the aged and accomplished prime minister of England, the good Aberdeen, fully concurs in the sentiments of those four powers.
"Details of your own finance and other topics affecting yourselves will be supplied by my Ministers, but I could not refrain from personally informing you of the quadruple alliance which I, and our charming Mary Henrietta, have done so much to cement, and which I trust you will remember should we ask for any little addition to the estimates.
"That the blessing of, &c."
THE "GOD OF RUSSIA."
Nicholas is the acknowledged deity of the Muscovites. A god standing six feet four in his sacred stockings. The manner in which he recruits his army to carry on his Holy Wars is very celestial. Sometimes he causes his angelic Cossacks to surround a boys' school and carry off the scholars, promoting them from the birch to the knout. In one particular case two boys, one 12 and the other 14, were carried away, their old grandmother of 85 raising her hands, doubtless in prayer for the God of Russia. Who can doubt the Christianity of an Emperor, who is at once the heart and soul of such a system? Poor fellow! In his last proclamation he says "He has been goaded into war by the Porte." Goaded is the word. Only think of the nasty red-wattled turkey gobbling at and goading a poor, harmless, innocent bear! We shall next have the Christian dove pecking out the eyes of the twin-headed eagle.