Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/273

INTERFERENCE OF THE FRENCH EMPEROR. 241 CHAPTER IX. THE NOW ACTIVELY PERTURBING INTERFERENCE OF LOUIS NAPOLEON IN THE WAR FOR SEBASTOPOL. How oppressively Louis Napoleon had been chap. weighing on the allied armies from February to U " the close of April, we have well enough seen : but The hither - A ° ' to paralys- (with the idea of suspending decisive action until ^ s int f e [u er ' after his arrival) he had been hitherto only pre- ^^ Em - venting — not ordering — any attacks. When, however, the 3d of May came, General Canrobert found himself placed under more perturbing in- structions. He learned that his Emperor — this nearly a fortnight before — had entered upon the powchanged system of driving him into warlike activity by j?erC c £'" v orders sent from afar — from indeed — of all the dlctatl0n- places on earth ! — Windsor Castle and Buckino-- ham Palace. At a time in the middle of April when still the His visit to bombardment was raging, when it seemed that ng ' and ' the war was fast entering upon a critical phase, and when also the advance of the spring was in- viting to enterprise, the French Emperor with his VOL. VIII. q