Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/193

 PRECEDING THE INVASION. 103 Marshal St Arnaud, with his own midnight hand, chap, liad stealthily helped to destroy. Whether he !_ was a man bitterly wronged by his fellow-country- men, or whether what he suffered was mere justice, the state of his repute in the spring of 1854 is a thing lying within the reach of historical certainty. He had an ill name. But State policy is a shameless leveller — is a leveller of even that difficult steep which seems to divide the man of high honour from those of mean repute. The plotters of the 2d of December had overturned the social structure of France. They had stifled men's minds, and had made their eloquence mute. They had forced those who were of high estate by character, or by intellect, or by birth, or by honourable wealth, to endure to see France handled at will by persons of no account, and to submit to be governed by them, and to pay taxes into their hands, and to maintain them in luxury, and in all so much of pomp as can be copied from the splendour of kings. The new Emperor could not but know that he was breaking down yet another of the world's barriers, and was carrying subversion across the Channel, when he contrived that all Europe should see him presenting his fellow- enturer of the December night to the appointed commander of an English army. But when he knew mIio the English General was to be, he might well give the rein to his cynic joy. fie could have been sure that the General placed in command of our armv would