Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/367

 BETWEEN THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN. 32o 'even to his last crown-piece, and charged Col- chap. ' onel Fleury to go to the soldiers, conquerors "* ' of demagogy, and distribute to them, brigade by ' brigade, and man by man, this his last obolns.' * The President had said, in one of his addresses to the army of Paris, that he would not bid them advance, but would himself go the foremost and ask them to follow him. If it was becoming to address empty play-actor's words of that sort to real soldiers, it certainly was not the duty of the President to act upon them ; for there could not well be any such engagement in the streets of Paris as would make it right for a literary man (though he was also the chief of the State) to go and affect to put himself at the head of an army inured to war ; but still there was a contrast between what was said and what was done, which makes a man smile as he passes. The President had vowed he would lead the soldiers against the foe, and instead, he sent them all his money. There is no reason to suppose that the change of plan was at all displeasing to the troops ; and this bribing of the armed men is only adverted to here as a means of getting at the real state of the President's mind, and thereby tracing up to its cause the massacre of the 4th of December. Another clue, leading the same way, is to be found in the Decree by which the President en- acted that combats with insurgents at home should count for the honour and profit of the troops in the same way as though they were
 * Granier dc Cassngnac, vol. ii. p. 431.