Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/256

 214 ORIGIN OF THE WAR OF 1853 CHAP, any new event, the concert of the four Towers XHI - was suddenly superseded and paralysed by the announcement of a separate understanding between two of them ? It was not for reasons of State that by one of the high contracting parties this evil course was designed ; and in order to see how it came to be possible that the vast interests of Europe should be set aside in favour of mere personnl objects, it will presently be necessary to contract the field of vision, and, going back to the winter of 1851, to glance at the operations of a small knot of middle-aged men who were pushing their fortunes in Paris.