Nevertheless Russia must have felt great confidence in the agencies she had set to work in Paris, for she not only conveyed to the French Government her determination to accept no proposals that should come in the form of an ultimatum (that is to say, accompanied by a threat of joining the alliance) from Austria, but put forth a proposition of her own, of the most preposterous tenor, respecting the limitation of her power in the Black Sea, the point in which the British people were most interested. She caused it to be proposed " that the Dardanelles should be closed, and that no ships of war should henceforth enter the Black Sea except those of Russia and Turkey, which should be maintained there in such numbers as the two neighbours should agree between themselves, without a voice on the part of the other Powers." That the wolf should thus be left to arrange matters with the lamb would have been a very singular outcome to the costly efforts by which Russia had been reduced to her present condition, and her audacity in still maintaining such pretensions shows how strong was her reliance on the influences at work with the corrupt officials of the French Empire. But
300 Good Faith of Louis Napoleon.
her game of brag was nearly at an end. Austria had at last laid before the Allied Powers a carefully prepared treaty, which, though short in some respects of what England had a right to claim, had been found to be what the British Ministry could accept, and this had now been sent as an Austrian ultimatum to St Petersburgh, the period for the Russian reply being limited to the i8th of January. The Emperor of the French had made it understood that he was prepared either to make peace on these terms, or to continue the war with increased vigour, and he suggested that a council of war should meet in Paris to settle the course of action for the following spring. In consequence, British, French, and Italian officers, convened for the purpose, held their sittings in his capital, while the intention of Russia was still undeclared.
The alliance, thanks to the good faith of Louis Napoleon, having thus proved firm, the hollow pretensions of Russia vanished like a bubble. Her exhaustion left her no choice but to accept. Her losses, never accurately known, had been stupendous. Up to the end of August those in the Crimea alone were estimated at 153,000 men, while hundreds of thousands, drawn from the recesses of the vast Empire, had died of the hardships of the march. Altogether it was confidently believed that her total loss during the war was not less than half a million of men.
On the 1 6th of January she accepted the Austrian terms as the basis of conference, and on the 25th February the Plenipotentiaries of the Powers met at Paris. Their first act was to settle the conditions of an armistice, which
The Treaty of Peace. 301
was to last till the 3ist March. After that, the first point taken was the neutralisation of the Black Sea, and the article opening its waters to the commerce of all nations, and interdicting it to ships of war, was passed with unexpected facility. Another article which excluded Russia from the bank of the Danube was more strenuously contested by her representatives ; but this also was finally agreed to. Also, an article was included which admitted Turkey to a participation in the public law and concert of Europe, and prohibited the other Powers, singly or collectively, from interference in questions between the Sultan and his subjects, or in the internal administration of his Empire.