BETWEEN THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN. 345 Europe. In order to achieve this, it clearly would chap, XV not suffice for France to be merely one of a con- L_ ference of four great Powers quietly and temper- ately engaged in repressing the encroachment of the Czar. Her part in such a business could not possibly be so prominent nor so animating as to draw away the attention of the French from the persons who had got into their palaces and their offices of State. On the other hand, a close, separate, and significant alliance with England, and with England alone, to the exclusion of the rest of the four Powers, would not only bring about the conflict which was needed for the safety and comfort of the Tuileries, but would seem in the eyes of the mistaken world to give the sanc- tion of the Queen's pure name to the acts of the December night and the Thursday the day of blood. The unspeakable value of this moral shelter to persons in the condition of the new French Monarch, and St Arnaud, Moray, and Maupas, can never be understood except by those who look back and remember how exalted the moral station of England was, in the period which elapsed between the 10th of April 1848 and the time when she suffered herself to become en- tangled in engagements with the French Emperor. It would have been right enough that France and England, as the two great maritime Powers, should have come to an understanding with each other in regard to the disposition of their fleets ; but even if they had been concerting for only that limited purpose, it would have been right that the
