374 APPENDIX. he is expressing the view of the French military authorities gen- erally, or simply his own personal opinion) can hardly have meant to say that the siege against the Town front had become so decisively 'secondary' as to warrant acquiescence under the enemy's encroachments in that part of the field. I have myself, it is true, represented that, considering the immense value of the Malakoff position, an earnest conflict main- tained in that part of the field would more and more draw to itself the energies of both the besiegers and the besieged ; but this was not originally the idea entertained by the French them- selves, and the paper they framed on the 2d of February 1855 was so worded as to exclude with great care any notion that the siege against the Town front was to lose any part of its impor- tance. From that day, accordingly, until after the opening of this period, the siege against the Town front (which was con- ducted by the formidable Pelissier) continued to be pressed on with vigour, whilst the new siege — the one against the Malakoff — was maintained, as we have seen, with so little resolution that — far from advancing — it retrograded. Note 2. — Somewhat unscrupulous. — The Czar naturally pro- tested against this unprovoked Declaration of War by Sardinia ; but except on the principle that sanction for any opinion can be gathered from the teachers of 'International Law,' a denouncer, treating Cavour's intervention as 'unscrupulous,' could hardly be recommended to look for support in his Grotius. When once war is constituted between two or more Powers, the quaint, old, unheeded admonitions against ' unjust wars ' don't aim, I think, even in theory at the conscience of any other Power disposed to join in the fray. Note 3. — Always thoroughly cordial. — I had the honour at one time of being acquainted with the late Count Genoa de Revel,* the Sardinian officer acting at the English Headquarters as an organ of communication with General la Marmora, and it was always in terms of devoted, enthusiastic attachment that the Count used to speak of Lord Raglan.
- A brother of the late Count Adrian de Revel, long the Sardinian
Minister at the Court of St James's, and greatly loved and esteemed in this country.
