have trusted, and whose cruelty and despotism he must have loathed. It was impossible for England to look for any other ally. Russia, Austria, and Prussia were wild against England, regarding her as the great stronghold of constitutional principles, and believing that to her encouragement was due the revolutionary outbreak of 1848. The immunity of England herself from disorder did not open their eyes to see that it was their own misgovernment which had produced revolution. It only rendered them the more furious, as they believed that England had preached insurrection, while other Governments bore its penalties. It was touch-and-go in the first year of Napoleon III.'s reign whether he would try to put himself at the head of a European combination against us, or whether he would become our ally and fight one of the other Powers. He certainly believed that was necessary in order to divert the attention of France from domestic politics, to conciliate the army, and thus on both sides to consolidate his own position. The almost universal feeling in England was that he was going to fight us. The common opinion was that the new Emperor's first thought would be to avenge Waterloo. By 1853, however, Louis Napoleon had decided not to fight us, but to fight with us against Russia. This was due more to Palmerston than to any other Englishman.
Greville reports a conversation early in 1853 between himself and Comte de Flahault (afterwards French ambassador in London), who had just returned from Paris, where he had been in constant communication with the Emperor. Flahault said that the rancor and insolence against England on the part of Austria, Russia, and Prussia, were almost inconceivable; he added that Louis Napoleon had had offered to him in the first year of his reign a position which it had been
