Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/156

 12G CAUSES INVOLVING FKANCE AND ENGLAND Even in Prussia, the policy of the State seemed to be always upon the point of being shaken by of Pmss^i."" ^'^^ ^^^^"^ *^^ ^^^^ ■'^^"S ; ^^^ although, up to the outbreak of the war, she was guilty of no defec- tion,* it is certain that the anticipation of finding weakness in this quarter was one of the causes which led the Czar into danger. By uie In France, after the events of the 2d of Decem- Eraperor. ber, the system of personal government so firmly obtained, that the narrator — dispensed from the labour of inquiring what interests she had in the question of peace and war, and what were the thoughts of her orators, her statesmen, and her once illustrious writers — was content to see what scheme of action would best conduce to the wel- fare and safety of a small knot of men then hanging together in Paris ; and when it appeared that, upon the whole, these persons would gain in safety and comfort from the disturbance of Europe, and from a close understanding with England, tiie subsequent progress of the story was singularly unembarrassed by any question about what might be the policy demanded by the inter- ests or the sentiments of France. Therefore the bearing of personal government upon the main- tenance of peace was better illustrated by the French (government than by the Emperor Nich- olas ; for in the Czar, after all, a vast people was incarnate. His ambition, his piety, his anger, were in a sense the passions of the devoted mil- • It was more than three months after the outbreak of the vrar that Prussia faltered.