Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/328

 2 l JG RESIGNATION OF GENERAL CANROBERT. chap, pose, can have thought that this second invasion . — of the Crimea — without an English army to share take the y. — wou y k e rea lly undertaken by Canrobert. Duration of Big with Louis Napoleon's scheme, the baneful the harm »«■••• » w 1 -r-i done by ' Mission of Niel began, as we saw, to clog T ranee General. ° ' ° Niei-s; mis- m the first days of February ; so that, when the design — meeting criticism at the seat of war — collapsed in the middle of May, its incumbency had been keeping the siege in a state of impuis- sance for nearly three months and a half. Nor even then — strangely enough — shall we see its effects wholly cease. The Emperor was never informed that his Plan, at the touch of realities, had collapsed in the way we have seen ; and accordingly did not attempt to remove or break down the huge obstacles it had encoun- tered at the seat of war, nor to build up anew calculations there roughly upset; but, as though he were walking in sleep, he still carried with him his dream, still went on vainly commanding that people would hear and obey it. IV. General Whilst in conference on the 14th of May, first endeav- General Canrobert was either fast reaching, or himself of already had reached, the conclusion that, con- the com- mand, sistently with his sense of duty, he could no longer command the Erench army. Producing the Dormant Commission, he placed it in the hands of General Pelissier, and requested