Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/87

On the secret motives of the Emperor's conduct it is dangerous to speculate. That he had broken a treaty to which he had sworn with peculiar solemnity certainly cannot be questioned; and the English Government with full justice declined to believe that a statesman of Charles's experience could suppose himself exempted from the obligations of a formal alliance by the loose delivery of a verbal message. His march to Chasteau Thierry may have been only an act of extraordinary folly; but the folly of a military commander rarely results in an advantageous peace; and the composure with which he witnessed the embarrassment into which he precipitated his ally, throws suspicion backwards over the steps which led him up to the violation of his engagements. The excuse of the siege of Boulogne was negatived by his own delay at St Dizier; his insincerity in the message which he sent through Arras was proved by his retreat before the return of a reply. Unscrupulous as Charles repeatedly showed himself, it is hard to suspect him of conscious dishonour. The responsibility of public actions is ever rested on princes; and we accuse a sovereign of treachery, of caprice, of ambition, of cruelty, when often the truth is merely that especial circumstances have given preponderance to the councils of different ministers, that the ministers represent parties in the State which it is dangerous or impossible to resist. And therefore it is that conjectures hazarded as certainties, that rash assertions of motives, are unpermitted even to contemporaries; and historians, who can recover at best little more than the husk and shell of