Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/180

 138 ORIGIN OF THE WAR OF 1853 CHAP, at baud. Also he had good light to suppose that TX . France would be isolated, for it was not to be believed that EDgland or any other Power would take a part or even acknowledge the slightest inter- est in a question between two sorts of monks. On the other hand, the violent language of Rf. do Lavalette, bis threats, the persistence of the French Government, and the advance of the Toulon fleet to the Bay of Salamis, — all these signs seemed to exclude the expectation that the French Government would easily give way. Here was an error. Zealous himself, the Eussian Am- bassador imagined a zeal in the Government and the Church to which he was opposing himself, and fancied that he saw in the French Ambas- sador's ' resistance a proof of the encroaching ' spirit of that Church which proclaims itself ' universal, and looked for its real cause in the ' unceasing desire of the same Church to extend ' the sphere of its action.' * He failed to see that his French antagonist might suddenly smile and throw off the cause of the Latin Church, and so rob the Czar of the signal triumph on which he was reckoning, by the process of mere concession. But whilst, to the common judgment of men who watched this haughty Embassy, it seemed that the Czar, in all the pride of strength and firm purpose, was descending on his prey, he was ful- filling the utmost hope of the patient enemy in the West, who had long pursued him with a stealthy joy, and was now keenly marking him down.
 * ' Eastern Pnpors,' part i. p. 139.