Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/124

94 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND CHAP, and that this kiud of alliance within alliance was ^^' a structure not fatal — nay, even perhaps con- ducive — to peace. England was And, after all, England was not free : she was gagemeiits bouud to the Frcnch Emperor. No treaty of French alliance had been signed, but the understanding Eiiipeior. , p disclosed in the summer of the year beiore was still riveted upon the members of the English Government. They had been drawn into a weighty engagement in 1853, and now they had to perform it. In the midst of perfect concord between her and her three allies, England had to stand forward with one of them in advance of the rest, and thus ruin that security for the main- tenance of peace which depended upon the united action of the four great Powers. As the price of his consenting to join reluctant France in an alliance with Turkey, the French Emperor was justly entitled to insist on the other terms of the bond, and not only to be signally coupled with Eni^laud in a course of action which was to separate her from the great German States, but to have it blazoned out to the world beforehand that, distinctly from the concord of the four Powers, the Queen of England and he were act- ing together. The Poyal Speech of January 1854 was as clear in this as the Speech of the previous August. Both disclosed a separate understanding with the French Emperor. In both, as any one could see who was used to State writings, the mark was set upon England with the same branding-iron.