Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/255

 TROUBLED COUNSELS. 223 in obedience to General Niel's 'mission.' Whilst chap. viii confronting at close quarters a powerful enemy, 1- and having encamped at his side an unsuspecting ^m^ou. ally kept in ignorance of the all-ruling 'mission,' he had patiently held the command during several weeks of what I called ' an army in waiting ' ; and against the strange lot cast upon him, his pride, it seems, had not rebelled. But when the time for a great artillery effort drew nigh, the French Emperor dimly perceived that he had been plac- ing his army in a predicament which might prove under certain conditions to be one of an odious sort, and well calculated, if the truth should leak out, to bring his name into disgrace. If indeed the bombardment should produce good and whole- some results, yet not of a kind so conspicuous as to be appreciable by all observers, its success might be ignored, concealed, and denied; but what if its destructive power should prove over- whelming ? If Sebastopol should seem to be lying at the mercy of a French army, was Can- robert still to be hindered from laying his hand on the prize by the exigencies of the Imperial mission ? Plainly under the stress of such thoughts, yet clinging still to a hope that both the French army on the Chersonese, and the Army of Eeserve at Constantinople might be kept in unimpaired force to await his good plea- sure, he did, as too often men must, when torn by conflicting motives. He tried, as well as he could, to give some effect more or less to each of the opposing forces which strove for the mastery