Officiel," with offering an expedient rather than a solution.

The solution! The Emperor Francis Joseph certainly had it in his hands, and it perhaps depended only on him to render it as decisive and as radical as the most mortal enemies of Russia could wish. Why not confess it? To see the bitter fruit gathered by Austria in consequence of its honorable efforts during the Oriental crisis, and to see the implacable hatred and the cruel disasters which fell to its lot because of its attitude then, one surprises one's self sometimes in regretting that the cabinet of Vienna had so many scruples at this memorable epoch. One almost reproaches it for not having given proof of that independence of heart which seems, alas! the forced, indispensable condition for the independence of states. If Austria had wished to be a little less grateful and a little less politic during this war of the Orient, she would have resolutely joined herself to France and England, she would have taken part in the struggle, and instead of letting the allies rove for years around the borders of Russia, in the Black Sea and Baltic, she would have opened for them the fields of Poland, and have entered there with them. In place of "tickling the soul of the Colossus or of filing off a nail,"—as Russian publicists said later, and not without justice,—they should then have given him a coup au cœur,—one of those blows that the great recluse of Varzin knows how to plan and give. The cabinet of the Tuileries would not have refused to do this. In his dispatch of the 26th March, 1855, M. Drouyn de Lhuys laid down very skillfully the question of Poland; neither would the cabinet of St. James have raised serious objections. As to the probable success of such an enterprise, it suffices to remember that Russia was at the end of its resources, and that Prussia had not yet re-formed its military organization, was not yet in possession of its "instrument," and lastly that in place of William the Conqueror, Frederick the Romantic occupied the throne of the Hohenzollern. The mind is confounded before the contemplation of the consequences which such a decision on the part of the Emperor Francis Joseph might have caused. The face of the world would have been changed; Austria would certainly not have seen Sadowa[9] in 1866; Europe would not have seen the dismemberment of Denmark, nor the destruction of the Bund, nor the conquest of Alsace and Lorraine.

It was in the summer of 1854, as we have said above, that Prince Gortchakof was sent to Vienna. He replaced there, first provisionally, and in the following spring, definitely, Baron de Meyendorf, whose situation had become unpleasant in consequence of his ties of very near relationship with the Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs. Alexander Mikhaïlovitch at last held that post at Vienna to which he had so long a time aspired, the post which, with that of London, was considered, under the reign of Nicholas, as the highest in Russian diplomacy, like the bâton of a marshal in his career. But now how full this honor was of bitterness, and what patriotic pangs accompanied a distinction formerly ardently wished for, to-day accepted through devotion to his sovereign and his country! On this ground, formerly so pleasant and smiling, the envoy of the czar could everywhere see nothing but briers and thorns. In this capital, renowned for its boisterous gayety and too frequent frivolity, he received nothing but disastrous and distracting news. And this "Austrian ingratitude," which he had only had glimpses of and combated from afar during his mission at Frankfort, he could now look in the face—and smile at it! There is a grief greater than the ricordare tempi felici nella miseria; it is to see a dream of happiness turn into a reality of misery, and one can easily understand what a treasure of gall this sojourn at Vienna must have heaped up in the wounded heart of the Russian patriot.[10]

It is superfluous to lay stress upon the activity which the new envoy of the czar displayed in this unhappy mission; to mention the infinite variety of means which he placed at the service of his cause, especially during the conferences of Vienna, which were opened after the death of Nicholas and the accession of the Emperor Alexander II. That was a moving sight and one which was truly not wanting in grandeur, that of the two Gortchakof, one behind the ramparts of Sebastopol, the other before the council board of Vienna, both defending their country with an equal tenacity, only yielding each inch of ground after a desperate combat, forced into their last intrenchments, but honored even to the end by loyal and chivalrous adversaries. To-day an epoch "of iron and of blood" has accustomed us to the summary proceedings—we had almost said executions—of Nikolsburg, of Ferrières, of Versailles, and of Frankfort, and a martial law used by the diplomats in helmets has replaced that which a former Europe, full of prejudices, loved to call the right of nations. To-day it is difficult to resist a sentiment of astonishment, almost of incredulity, in re-reading the protocols of these conferences of Vienna, where everything breathes decorum, politeness, urbanity, and mutual respect. One thinks himself carried back to an idyllic age, one far from us, to a world of ancient gentlemen. M. Drouyn de Lhuys, Minister of Foreign Affairs in France, Lord John Russell, until lately President of the Privy Council of England, did not think it beneath their dignity to go in person to Vienna to discuss there with Prince Gortchakof the possible conditions of a peace. Russia had lost several great battles, the allied fleets had blockaded all its seas and even menaced its capital. That did not prevent the French and English plenipotentiaries from treating it with all deference, with all the respect which the diplomacy of this good old time could employ. They displayed a veritable art in the invention of euphemisms; they gave themselves pains to find the mildest mediums, the most acceptable terms for the representative of a vanquished power. Indeed, that excellent Lord John Russell forced kindness so far as to recall, and that in the face of M. Drouyn de Lhuys, that England had made Louis XIV. submit to conditions much harder and more humiliating.[11] That was, perhaps, the only instance of want of tact which one can find in the conferences of Vienna, and yet what was it but a courteousness from an ally to an ally? As for Austria, it exhausted itself in finding means to spare the susceptibilities of Russia, and ended by presenting a plan of arrangement which was judged inacceptable by the cabinets of London and Paris, and drew on it the reproach of the "Moniteur Officiel," of which we have already spoken.

Negotiations were broken off, and nothing could be done but to await the issue of the supreme combat under the walls of Sebastopol. The Russian plenipotentiary awaited it at his post in Vienna in the twofold anguish of a patriot and a relation. The bulwark of the Crimea fell, and Russia found itself in the most critical situation. It was exhausted,—indeed much more exhausted than Europe then thought,—and the prolongation of the war