340 ORIGIN OF THE WAR OF 1S53 CHAPTER XV. CHAP. XV. Immediate effect of the coup d'etat upon the tranquillity of Europe. The turlm lent policy it engen- dered. Almost instantly the change which was wrought by these French transactions began to act upon Europe. The associates of the Elysee well under- stood that if they had been able to trample upon France and her laws, their success had been made possible by the dread which the French people had of a return to tumult ; and it was clear that, until they could do something more than merely head the police of the country, their new power would be hardly more stable than the passing terrors on which it rested. What they had to do was to distract France from thinking of her shame at home by sending her attention abroad. For their very lives' sake they had to make haste, and to pile up events which might stand between them and the past, and shelter them from the peril to which they were brought whenever men's thoughts were turned to the night of the 2d of December, and the Thursday, the day of blood. There could be no hesitating about this. Ambi- tion had nothing to do with it. It was matter of life and death. If Prince Louis and Morny and
