SECRET TERMS OF NIEL'S MISSION. 131 their proposal,* the French seem to have thought chap. that, to their own injury, and to the advantage of !_ their English allies, they had been unwittingly drawn into what, on reflection, they judged to be an ugly predicament,! If their chief shared at all in those feelings, he may not have been griev- ously pained, when his Sovereign (through Niel) interposed, and thus — in a manner — released him from the arduous part of his promise. The Imperial plan was one destined to reach a Lengthened t x _ an( j baneful much fuller maturity than Niel at first gave it, incumbency J ° of the Em- but still to be ultimately discarded, though not peror's plan until the end of three months ; and there seems to be no room for doubting that its pendency dur- ing the interval was baneful enough to account for much of what perhaps otherwise might be un- fairly traced to the weakness of an anxious — too anxious — commander. Marshal Canrobert is happily living ; and al- Expiana- rr J ° tions that though of course — being mortal — he may hardly might be & ° . appropri- kiiow what on the whole were his really dominant ateiy given " by Marshal motives, there would still be much interest in canrobert. hearing how far, if at all, he believes that his conduct was swayed by the judgment which nature had given him, and how far pursued under stress of those counsels, scarce short of commands, which (along with the opinions of Niel) had imparted the wish of his Sovereign. One might also be told how the Marshal would
- See ante, p. 23.
f ' Les difticultes de la position que nous ont faite nos allies.' — Bizotto Vaillant, 8th February 1855. ( 6 )
