Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/194

 1G4 TRANSACTIONS CHAP, be an officer of unsullied name ; but he who had XII. been chosen was one whose life was mixed with history — the friend, the companion of WellingtoiL It is true this Englishman was known to be very simple, very careless of self — a man hardly cap- able of imagining that he could be humbled by obeying the orders of his sovereign ; and it is true also that the mass of the English people, being eager in the war, and little used to lay stress, as the French do, on the impersonation of a principle, were blind to the moral import of what their Government was doing. But the French Emperor understood England ; and he remembered that his coming guest was one of a great and powerful body of nobles, who were proud on behalf of this favourite member of their class, and fenced him round with honour. Eor the levelling of these heights, and for the bringing down of those in Europe who were tall with the pride which sustains man's old strife between good and evil, no dreamer could dream of a solenmisation more signal than the coming together of Marshal Le Roy St Arnaud, and him whom old friends still called Lord Fitzroy Somerset. The French Emperor knew that the mind of Germany and France would be swift to interpret this public contact, and would see in it the terms of a great surrender. LorJ I conceive that in these latter times the scale Kaglaii. upon which we measure warlike prowess has been brought down too low by the custom of awarding wild violent praise to the common