Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/277

 BETWEEN THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN. 235 been heartily glad to see the Eepublic crushed by chap. some able dictator, there were hardly any public X1V ' men who believed that in the President of the Eepublic they would find the man they wanted. Therefore his overtures to the gentlemen of France were always rejected. Every statesman to whom he applied refused to entertain his pro- posals. Every general whom he urged always said that for whatever he did he must have ' an • order from the Minister of War.' The President being thus rebuffed, his plan of is rebuffed, changing tiie form of government with the assent into other of some of the leading statesmen and generals of the country degenerated into schemes of a very different kind ; and at length he fell into the Motives hands of persons of the quality of Persigny, Morny, pressed and Fleury. With these men he plotted ; and, ward. *" strangely enough, it happened that the character and the pressing wants of his associates gave strength and purpose to designs which, without this stimulus, might have long remained mere dreams. The President was easy and generous in the use of money, and he gave his followers all he could ; but the checks created by the constitution of the Eepublic were so effective, that beyond the narrow limit allowed by law he was without any command of the State resources. In their invet- erate love of strong government, the Eepublicans had placed within reach of the Chief of the State ample means for overthrowing their whole struc- ture, and yet they allowed him to remain subject to the same kind of anxiety, and to be driven to