Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/401

 BETWEEN THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN. 359 mately assenting to their presence. Nearly at the c H A p. same time the writer of the French Foreign Oflice despatches pursued the Czar through Europe with his bright, cutting, pitiless logic* Of course, the vivacity of France and England tended to place Austria at her ease, and to make her more backward than she would otherwise have been in sending troops into the Ban at ; and, more- over, the separate action of the "Western Powers was well calculated, as will be seen by-and-by, to undo the good which might be effected by the Conference of the four Powers at Vienna. The The Vienna Conference, however, did not remit its labour. The mediating character which belonged to it in its original constitution was gradually changed, until at length it represented what was nothing less than a confederacy of the four Powers against Russia. It is true that it was a confederacy which sought to exhaust persuasion, and to use to the utmost the moral pressure of assembled Europe before it resorted to arms ; and it is true also that it was willing to make the Czar's retreat from his false moves as easy and as free fiom shame as the nature of his late errors would allow : but these were views held by the English Cabinet as well as by the Conference ; and it is certain that, if our Government had seen clear, and had been free from separate engagements, it would have stood fast upon the ground occupied by the four Powers, but it was commonly believed at the time that they were written by a man on the permanent stall' of the French Foreign Ollice.
 * These despatches bear the signature of M. Drouyn de Lhuya,