XLVII. The French government did not take sufficient notice CHAP. of this menace. Sebastiani allowed matters to drag on, and the more liberal members of Soult's cabinet, becoming alarmed, insisted on Sebastiani's being replaced by a more active and independent negotiator. This was no other than M. Guizot. The King objected. A more supple diplomatist, he thought, would be more useful, but he was overruled, and M. Guizot went ambassador to London. M. Thiers at the same time became foreign minister and president of the council. And the fate of the English alliance was thus entrusted to two of the ablest politicians of France, those also most inclined to preserve it. But this change of men and ministers in that country proved but an obstacle in the way of a wisely followed policy. All of them being weak were dependent on public opinion, and were compelled to follow, instead of undertaking either to guide or correct, it. Then, the very eminence of the minister and the ambassador, which rendered them more chary and suspicious about their political character than other men might be, made concessions on their part more difficult. M. Guizot reasoned with Lord Palmerston, but to no effect. M. Thiers told him merely to gain time. The vigilance of both, moreover, was lulled by a random proposition of the Austrian and Prussian envoys to give Egypt hereditarily to the Pacha, and Syria for life. This flattered the French with hopes of success, and yet M. Guizot was not empowered or able to accept the offer. Russia, in the meantime, made propositions for an accord between the four powers without France. The English minister resisted, when certain events occurred which wore the appearance of being produced by intrigue. Khosrew, who governed at Constantinople, and was known to be the declared enemy of Mehemet Ali, was of a sudden dismissed. This had been the repeated demand and known desire of Mehemet. He prepared to reply to it by sending back the Turkish XLVII. СНАР. fleet. And everything portended an accord between the Porte and the Pacha, in which the former was, of course, to yield everything, the latter to come off triumphant, and the four powers, at least the two principal of them, England and Russia, be completely disappointed and befooled. The irritation of the English government and of its minister was extreme. That of Russia was not less. And the result was the signature, on the 15th of July, 1840, of a treaty between them, joined with Austria and Prussia. The 1st article gave Mehemet Ali, if he accepted within ten days, Egypt hereditarily, and the Pachalic, with the citadel, of Acre for life, the frontier to extend from thence to the northern littoral of the Lake of Tiberias. Mehemet was to give up the rest of Syria as well as Crete, Arabia, and the Holy Cities. This treaty Lord Palmerston lost no time in communicating to the French government. The first announcement of the treaty of the 15th of July came like a thunderclap upon Louis-Philippe, and as little less to both the French statesmen, Thiers and Guizot. Neither of them expected anything so sudden. They complained of Lord Palmerston not having warned them that the treaty was on the point of signature, although this would have been playing with and deceiving the three powers with whom England was negotiating. M. Guizot did not believe in Lord Palmerston's powers to effect so great a change. The English government had but just been left in a minority, had dissolved parliament with small hopes of success, and was in fact not an established but an interim administration. The prospect, therefore, was that the Tories and Lord Aberdeen would replace the Whigs and Palmerston, and the French envoy had good hopes of more successfully negotiating with the first. Even after the treaty was signed, M. Guizot thought it could not be executed, and that, if Ibrahim could hold out in Syria, the new alliance *M. Guizot's Memoirs and Correspondence. would find coercion difficult or insufficient, and that CHAP. France and the Pacha would triumph after all. Such were the opinions which M. Guizot expressed at the Château of Eu, whither he went to meet and consult the King and M. Thiers. The latter was by no means satisfied to leave time and circumstances to remedy or to arrange the affront which France had received. This, he thought, could only be done by war. But the country was by no means prepared for it. It wanted troops, equipment, matériel. The fleet, indeed, might cope for the moment with the English at sea, but even victory there would lead to more complete defeat afterwards. It was to the invasion and conquest of Italy that Thiers looked to compensate for the loss of Egypt. Such an expedition, if not crowned with immediate success, might bring the allies once more to Paris, as in 1814. For this M. Thiers determined to be prepared by fortifying the capital, and putting all the frontier fortresses in a state of defence. Besides the great expense of so vast a work, votes of additional estimates were demanded for army and navy, 56,000,000 of francs for the former. To the more pacific views of Guizot and of the King M. Thiers so far submitted as to despatch Count Valewski to Alexandria to recommend the Pacha to be contented with the life possession of Syria, from whence he was to go to Constantinople to recommend a direct arrangement between the Porte and Pacha on these terms. But as their rejection was foreseen, Valewski had ulterior instructions to recommend Ibrahim not to dispute possession of the towns of the coast of Syria, but to concentrate his army in the north of that province, and there await till spring, in order then to co-operate with whatever warlike enterprise France might have set on foot.* Nouvion, Hist. de la Règne de Louis-Philippe ; Regnault, Histoire de Huit Ans; D'Haussonville, His- XLVII. CHAP. In the midst of this rekindling of the spirit and excitement of war, the remains of the Emperor Napoleon were in course of transference from the rock of St. Helena to the mausoleum prepared in the Invalides. One of the first acts of the Thiers cabinet on its installation was to ask England to deliver up the ashes. And the Prince de Joinville sailed to St. Helena to exhume the mortal remains of the Emperor. On opening the coffin, the features of the great man were fully recognisable. They did not reach France till the close of the year. When they were floated up the Seine, received and borne with all due pomp to their final resting place, there was some effort on the part of Republicans to beget a disturbance. But the people considered the act of the King and government magnanimous, which it really was. And all signs of disapprobation were put down.* Far The danger, however, of exhuming and resuscitating patriotic and warlike sentiments appeared when in August, after the Prince de Joinville had gone to St. Helena, but before his return, Prince Louis-Napoleon made a descent upon the shore of Boulogne with a band of devoted friends. The Prince on this occasion repeated his mistake of supposing that the French soldiery were still animated by the spirit of 1815. from this, the peasant recruits of France were the most contented and quiet of the population. Some few officers, indeed, were carried away by enthusiasm for the memory of the great name, to incur the risk of seeking to raise his nephew to the throne. But even these were hesitating. The Prince had vague hopes, first of the support of the 42nd regiment, of which the principal portion was at Lille, with detachments in Boulogne, Calais, and St. Omers. Yet he was certain but of one lieutenant of the regiment, Aladenize. Had a regiment declared for * Journals of the time. him-a French regiment counts nearly 3,000 men-he had reason to think that General Magnan, commanding the division of the north, would join him. With such hopes he landed on the beach near Boulogne. Met merely by Aladenize, though he had expected a large body of adherents, Louis-Napoleon marched in the early morning of the 6th of August to the barrack of Lower Boulogne, where two companies of the 42nd lay. The soldiers marched forth, listened to the Prince's harangue, some showing signs of adherence, some not, when their officers, above all Captain Puygellier, arrived, who being a Royalist made courageous efforts to maintain his men in their duty. There ensued a kind of struggle, in which the Prince fired a pistol in the face of a grenadier, who no doubt wanted to seize him. The little band of conspirators found it necessary to withdraw, the soldiers and officers not preventing them. They then marched to the high town of Boulogne, trying to induce soldiers or people to join them. Finding this too vain, they retreated across fields to the Napoleon column, and thence descended the cliffs to the sea. They embarked in a small boat, but the National Guard began to fire at them, and even killed one. The boat was too slight to go to sea in, and it, moreover, soon upset. The Prince and Colonel Vaudrey, who were in it, were seized, and some fifty in all made captive. Prince Louis was then brought before the Court of Peers, and necessarily condemned. His penalty was perpetual imprisonment in the castle of Ham, to which he was immediately consigned, and in which he passed six years, by all accounts not ill employed in study and in reflection.* In the midst of these events of Napoleonic homage and failure, the Eastern question pursued its course. Early in September Admiral Stopford cannonaded Beyrouth, and landed a number of troops, destined to support the Syrian insurrection. Sidon surrendered *Annuaire, report of the trial. CHAP. XLVII. |