A fortnight later came a proposal from the Emperor that he and the Empress should pay a visit to the Queen. The notice was short, because he still intended to go to the Crimea at the end of April. Fresh opportunities of inspiring him with doubts of the expediency of that step were foreseen in this visit, and on other grounds also it was cordially welcomed. On the i6th April the Imperial guests entered London, on their way to Windsor. All classes in the capital greeted them with extraordinary enthusiasm. There was a background in the recent past well fitted to bring his present position into
222 Terms proposed at Vienna.
striking relief. He had lived here a powerless exile, unregarded except by the great world, where he was, indeed, well liked, but nevertheless looked on as a dreamy adventurer. His wildest dreams were now realised, and when the master of France, the ally of England, the most powerful antagonist of Russia, after passing through cheering crowds in Pall Mall, entered King Street, he there emphasised the contrast between now and then, by pointing out to the Empress the modest lodging (now bearing on its front the record of the fact) where he had lived in the days of his exile. At Windsor a reception no less gratifying, in a quieter and deeper form of welcome, awaited them, and their whole visit was an unbroken triumph.
Meanwhile the conference was holding its sittings at Vienna. Its proceedings were not of a kind to confer credit on any of those who took part in it. On the side of the Allies, the terms offered were absurdly easy in comparison with the vast efforts they were making, and if accepted, would have left neither to France nor England anything to be proud of. On the other hand, the part played by Russia was hardly consistent with common sense, or even with sanity. Russia always has a breed of negotiators who, without making themselves conspicuous for exalted views, are quick to perceive advantages, and the use to which they can be turned, and who are nothing short of audacious in their mode of conducting the contests of diplomacy. Too much alive to the triumphs of mere cleverness, they often seem to make some empty victory at the conference board an
Austria frames a Proposal. 223
all important object. The article on which her Envoy now rejected all compromise was that which would limit the Russian Fleet in the Black Sea. On this point he took ground that might have been maintained had the naval power of Russia proved in any degree successful against that of the Allies. Judging by his pretensions, it might have been thought that her fleet was still holding the Euxine ; but in view of the actual condition of that fleet, great part of it at the bottom of the sea, the rest penned up hopelessly in the harbour of Sebastopol, his language was preposterous. Again, by seeming to accept the terms offered, he might have procured an armistice, and with it an apparent triumph — Russia would have had time to rally from some of her disasters, to recruit in many ways, while a period of inglorious delay might well have tended to disgust the Allies with a war never popular in France. But he preferred, with the haughty, even insolent, air absurd in any but the victorious, to cast away the opportunity that stood between his country and a continuance of ruinous disaster. The conference broke up without any result but this, that Austria made a last effort at compromise, in the form of a proposal that Russia should maintain in the Black Sea a naval force not greater than that which she possessed there before the war, and that the Allies, including Austria, should enforce the condition by war against her if she were to evade it. To which an observation in the Prince Consort's memorandum is the best reply : " The proposal of Austria to engage to make war when the Russian armaments should appear to have become excessive is of no kind
224 The Emperor abandons His Intention.
of value to the belligerents, who do not wish to establish a case for which to make war hereafter, but to obtain a security upon which they can conclude peace now."