:857 TO THE EMPEROR OF THE FRENCH.

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ness of the two countries, which are bound so intimately together.

'If, on the other hand, they ask what might be the basis of an alliance with Russia, they find that there is a complete dissimilitude of views, of feelings, and of ideas; that in the eyes of Russia, Western civilisation, far from having any title to be encouraged, is the enemy that ought above all others to be resisted; and that there exists between the two such an absence of mutual interests that, in truth, if the one ceased to exist, the other would scarcely be affected. Thus they conclude that if, notwithstanding these fundamental differences, the Russian Alliance is desired or sought for, this Alliance can have for its basis nothing but an external and purely political motive. Immediately all Europe sets to work to reflect, and asks itself what this motive is; confidence is shaken; England naturally is the first to take the alarm, which is soon shared equally by the rest of the world. The Queen and myself personally are convinced that your Majesty has no intention of this kind, and, so far as we are concerned, the fresh assurances on this subject which your Majesty has been pleased to give in your last letter were superfluous. At the same time I have thought it well to explain the cause of the susceptibility of the public and the press, which, in my judgment, has its origin in the very idea which is at the bottom of our Alliance.

Your Majesty will find the Grand Duke Constantine a very agreeable man. It is some years since I saw him, but he then struck me as able, intelligent, thoroughly educated, and full of zeal and ardour in everything which he undertakes. Above all, what left the deepest impression on me was his eminently and exclusively Russian characteristics. For him Holy Russia, its beliefs, its prejudices, its errors and its faults, the Paganism of its religion, the barbarism of its populations, are objects of the most profound veneration.

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LETTER BY THE PRINCE.

1857 He adores them with a blind and ardent faith. In a word, he appeared to me, in all the conversations which I had with him, so profoundly Oriental in all his views and aspirations, that it struck me as impossible to make him comprehend the ideas and the sentiments of the West, or to get him to appreciate and still less to like them. I should be curious to learn, if he is still the same man I found him, and what impression he makes upon your Majesty.

'I shall not close this long and friendly chat, without begging you to accept the expression of our warmest good wishes for your Majesty, for the Empress, and the young Prince Imperial. The Queen, who has been greatly touched by your message to her, is in a state of health so satisfactory, that we hope soon to be able to go to the Isle of Wight; but you will be sorry to hear, that the illness of the good Duchess of Gloucester is causing us at this moment the most serious anxiety. I have the honour to be, Sire, your Imperial Majesty's good brother and friend,

'ALBERT.'

This letter, before being despatched, was submitted in the usual way to the consideration of the Prime Minister and Lord Clarendon. By them it was pronounced 'most excellent.' It ought, Lord Clarendon wrote to the Prince, to open the Emperor's eyes to the consequences of his adulation of Russia, and above all to put him on his guard against that extremely well veneered gentleman, the Grand Duke Constantine.'

The Emperor of the French took the Prince's letter in good part, and it was doubtless not forgotten, at least for the time, in his relations with those who were pressing the Russian alliance upon him. Your reflections,' he wrote to the Prince (1st May), 'appear to me most just, but I answer them by this simple remark. When one is following a plain

1857 LETTER OF EMPEROR OF THE FRENCH. 33 straightforward course, when without making advances one is simply meeting civilities with civilities (de bons procédés par procédés équivalents), why disquiet oneself about the mistakes of public opinion? And besides, how are they to be prevented, if they exist, although one's conduct gives no kind of warrant for them?'

This was no doubt written in all sincerity. But it is nevertheless certain, that, unconsciously it may be to the Emperor himself, the flattering advances of Russia, which continued to be persevered in under every discouragement, were not without influence in the end upon his subsequent policy.

CHAPTER LXXVI.

ON the 5th of May, the Prince opened the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition. It had been feared that his intention to do so might have been abandoned in consequence of the death of the Duchess of Gloucester. But no private grief or conventional decorum was ever allowed by the Prince to interfere with the call of a public duty, and there was yet another reason for his going, which was gracefully expressed by himself in replying to the address of condolence presented to him by the General Council of the Exhibition :—

'If I have thought it my duty,' he said, 'to attend here to-day, although her mortal remains have not yet been carried to their last place of rest, my decision has been rendered easy by the conviction that, could her own opinions and wishes have been known, she would, with that sense of duty and patriotic feeling which so much distinguished her, and the generation to which she belonged, have been anxious that I should not on her account, or from private feelings, disturb an arrangement intended for the public good.'

Not the less was the Prince's decision felt to be a crowning kindness to the active help which he had given towards making this Exhibition the great success which it was by this time known to be in itself, and which it ultimately proved to be financially. Early in 1856, the appeal made to him by its projectors to aid them by procuring pictures and other works of art from the Royal Collections, had been most cordially answered by the Queen and by himself. When the arrange

1857

MANCHESter fine ARTS EXHIBITION.

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ments were more advanced, a deputation from the General Committee explained to the Prince, at Buckingham Palace, on the 2nd of July, 1856, their views as to the nature and character of the collection which they proposed to bring together. The great difficulty which they saw before them was to persuade the owners of valuable works of art, who were naturally jealous of their safety, to part with them for however short a time. Next day the Prince, in a letter to the Earl of Ellesmere, the Chairman of the General Committee for the Exhibition, furnished them with what proved to be an effective solution of the problem, by pointing out, that the difficulty would disappear, if it were known that the Exhibition had a higher purpose than that of merely gratifying the public curiosity, and giving an intellectual entertainment to the population of a particular locality. A person,' he wrote, who would not otherwise be inclined to part with a picture would probably shrink from refusing it if he knew that his doing so tended to mar the realisation of a great national object.' A national purpose which might be appealed to, the same letter stated

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'might be found in the educational direction which may be given to the whole scheme. No country invests a larger amount of capital in works of art of all kinds than England; and in none almost is so little done for art-education. If the collection you propose to form were made to illustrate the history of art in a chronological and systematic arrangement, it would speak powerfully to the public mind, and enable, in a practical way, the most uneducated eye to gather the lessons which ages of thought and scientific research have attempted to abstract; and would present to the world for the first time a gallery such as no other country could produce, but for which, I feel convinced, the materials exist abundantly in private hands among us.

As far as painting is concerned, I enclose a catalogue, exhibiting all the different schools, with the masters who illustrate them which able hands have compiled for me, and which was