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THE COUNSELS OF THE ALLIES. 205 camp did not see in him a general ovcvruled by CHAP. liis colleague ; and, on the other hand, the com- . L_ mon cause of the Allies was sheltered from the dangers to which it must have lain exposed if the soldiery could have said that it was Canrobert vho prevented an assault by his resistance to English counsels. The attainment of this con- venient result M-as perhaps, in some measure, helped by the publicity of Cathcart's proposals ;* for, to meet the exigency of camp gossip, in its search after those who desired to assault, there was needed at least some one man with whom to connect such a project, and the account of Sir George's advice came apt to the moment. Eu- mour fastened itself on his name so content with a morsel of truth that it failed to catch what had been passing between Lord Eaglan and Canrobert. When once General Canrobert had definitively declared his opinion to be against assaulting, it followed that he would prevail. Many English, no doubt, at this time were entertaining a notion that, in warlike alliances no less than in common addition, one and one when united must have all the value of two ; and that, because the old rivals stood shoulder to shoulder fast linked in the bonds of a treaty, they were equal to what, in hard al- gebra, a man might call 'England plus France;' but the world in general knew that there were fallacies in such a computation, and that one • Of my own knowledge I can speak to the publicity of Cath- cart's proposals ; and it is certainly curious, though not the less true, that Burgoyne did not hear of them.