COURSE TAKEN BY LOUIS NAPOLEON. 345 avowed an unqualified reluctance to accept the c ^ p * Austrian plan ; but it was necessary of course !_ that our Government, though desiring to act in that sense, should first take counsel with France. And it proved that Louis Napoleon disagreed and by the h- » French Bib with the English Cabinet. On the 2/th of April peror. at the latest, and possibly two or three days be- fore, he had found himself obliged to abandon his idea of going out to the Crimea ; and thenceforth, it would seem, for a time he was anxious that the war should cease. ' I don't know/ he said to Lord Cowley, 'what is thought of the English ' generals, but ours seem to know little of Euro- ' pean war, and this double command is fatal.' * Accordingly, on the last day of April, the Em- peror was in a good mood for listening with favour to his Minister, M. Drouyn de Lhuys, who had brought him back from Vienna what was called the Third Austrian Proposal, and now advised its acceptance as a measure that would secure what he judged to be a safe and honourable peace. The Emperor and his Minister examined the pro- ject together, made in it some changes which were afterwards pronounced to be wholesome, and de- termined that in this matured state it might be imparted to our Government as a measure ap- proved by France. Lord John Eussell apprised of all this wrote from London to M. Drouyn de Lhuys : — 1 My dear Colleague, — I congratulate you on
- Senior's Conversations, vol. i. p. 338 et seq.
