Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/123

 BETWEEN THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN. 81 and assert any policy really her own could no chap. longer be said to exist ; for, by this time, as we 1_. shall by-and-by see more particularly, she had fallen under the mere control of the Second Bonaparte ; and in order to divine what France would do, it was necessary to make out what scheme of action her ruler would deem to be most conducive to his comfort and safety. Even the. supposition that he would copy the First Napoleon gave no sufficing clue for saying what his East- ern policy ought to be, or what it was, or what it was likely to be in any future week. France, as wielded by a Bonaparte, had been known to the Sultan sometimes as a friendly Power, sometimes as a Power pretending to be friendly to him, but secretly bargaining with Puissia for the dismem- berment of his empire ; * sometimes as a mere predatory State seizing his provinces in time of peace and without the pretence of a quarrel,f and sometimes even as a rival Mahometan Power — for it is known that the First Bonaparte did not scruple to call himself in Egypt a true Mussul- man^ and although he now and then claimed to be ' the eldest son of the Catholic Church/ he first introduced himself in the Levant as a soldier of a nation which had 'renounced the Messiah.' Upon the whole, there seemed to be no reason why the new French Emperor should be unwilling + e.g., Bonaparte's predatory invasion of Egypt in time of peace. t A falsified copy of the manifesto was sent to France. The one really issued represented Bonaparte as a Mahometan. VOL. I. F
 * At Tilsit.