GENERAL PELISSIER. 245 at Marseilles — the further flight of the letter he chap. IX had sent off by mail to Pelissier.* ' On the whole, one may say that the too often success of threatening rupture between the Emperor and eiTortsV his general at the seat of war was always fended rupture; off by the Minister in time to avert public mis- chief. Whilst thus achieving an object of vital moment to France, and, through France, to the whole Alli- ance, Marshal Vaillant, moreover, found time and ins endeav- gracious, considerate words as from comrade to solace and comrade, with which, in so far as he could, to Pa ° soothe the wounded feelings of Niel whilst suffer- ing under the treatment remorselessly inflicted upon him by a furious Commander-in-chief. However foolishly wielded, a Government of Longcoa- the sort called despotic in form may long main- the truth % tain an appearance of something like competency Govern-" by the simple expedient of selecting facts meet for disclosure, and hiding all its worst nonsense from the eye of the world. It was only after the fall of the second French Empire, and even in- deed of Thiers (who was averse from disclosures he thought detrimental to France), that the antag- onistic relations which long had severed the Em- peror from his general in the field became known to more than a few.
- Kousset, vol. ii. pp. 292, 293. The inchoate dismissal of
Pelissier took place after the close of the period with which this Narrative deals, but is mentioned nevertheless, because not fairly separable from my previous account of the relations, between Louis Napoleon and his general.
