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we have nothing left to do but to lie down and sleep under the shadow of the laurels we have so gloriously gathered . The latest news from St . Petersburg even announces that the Emperor Nicholas has accepted not only with joy , but with gratitude ( avec reconnaissance ) , the proposals of arrangement offered to him by the Governments of France and England . From this it is concluded that the Czar is too happy to seize the opportunity of getting out of the difficulty with honour , into which he had been heedlessly betrayed { par
ttourderie ) , that he is at least as anxious to make peace as the good people of France and England are to avoid war , that , in short , he is under obligations to Europe for preventing the folly he was about to commit ( qu'il est enfin Voblige de VEurope pour la betise que VEurope Va empSche defaire . ) If ever there existed a fatal illusion , it is this , and I see too much reason to apprehend that ^ those who are so fond of reposing on the comfortable assurances of peace may one day awake at the sound of the guns that will proclaim the attack
of Constantinople . The Emperor Nicholas will surely accept no terms . He cannot , and he will not . Does Europe suppose he has acted in this Eastern dispute heedlessly { avec etoitrderie ) ? It is a disastrous mistake ,. No doubt , if there were any etourderie in the case—if all that Russia has done , were to be attributed to hap-hazard and heedless haste , Russia might recede . But to suppose such an interpretation possible , is to pay but
a poor compliment to the good sense of the Emperor Nicholas , and to hold the stability of his government cheap indeed . Is it not more reasonable to suppose that the Emperor is pursuing a fixed plan , long devised and ripe for execution , and profoundly weighed in all its calculable results , than to suppose that he has been only giving loose to the freaks of a self-willed child , to end by presenting to Europe the ridiculous spectacle of a retreat ?
A despatch , however , which reached the Russian Embassy in this city on the 19 th , direct from St . Petersburg , announces positively that the Czar has accepted the proposals of France and England . Unfortunately , there is a terrible corrective to this despatch The Czar will listen to no conditions about the immediate evacuation of the Dannbian Provinces ; he will only evacuate them , he says , when all the signatures have been affixed to the arrangement proposed . The
net result , then , which our diplomatists boast of having obtained is this : —Russia accepts , but Bhe does not accept . In the face of such a mockery as this , one need be blind not to see that Russia wants to gain time . The Powers flatter themselves that they have terminated the difference by negotiation . Russia is in no hurry to disturb this illusion , —rather , indeed , it is her policy to encourage it . And this is the story of the skilful manoouvre by which she deigns to accept with ioy ( avec honheur ) the accommodation proposed .
Negotiate , then , for the next two months she will , and about the 20 th of September , when the Black Sea will bo closed to the combined fleets , she will find time and opportunity once more to throw off the mask , and to push forward her land armies to Constantinople . Now , is such a denoument , I ask , altogether an unreasonable presumption ? In the first place , the army of occupation consists , not of 25 , 000 men , as was said at first , but of 70 , 000 men . These 70 , 000 men are not distributed as they would be for a pacific occupation : they are concentrated Btrategetically along the Danube in front of Bucharest . In other words , these 70 , 000
men are in position along the left bank of the Danube , in the face of the Turkish army , which occupies the right bank . But this ia not all : 50 , 000 men under General Luders aro in position on the- Lower Danube at Ismail , with two pontoon trains and full materiel , in complete readiness to cross the river lit the firBt signal . Yon may remember the plan of campaign which I described to you Koine wocka ago , as that which would be probably pursued . Believe me , when I assure you that it in more than ever likely to be the very plan we shall shortly witness in operation . Indeed one half of that plan has already been carried out . By the occupation of Moldavia by nnentireuriny , the Turku have been drawn away on their left towards Bucharest .
There ' s not a single man in front of the second Russian army at Ismail . When tlio time Iisih arrived , thin second army can pass tho Danube , and in three days bo on the right flank of tho Turkish army , under tho command of Oiner Pacha , who , finding himself outflanked , will bo forced to abandon tho borders of tho Dunnbo from Rustchuk to Silintria -. and it in then that tho KuHHinn army of Wallacbin will piiurt tho Danube in its turn without firing a shot . Tho Turkish army pressed in front by Gorteelmlcoff , and out-flanked by IiUder » , will bu compelled to retreat indefinitely . If it halt ut Schumln , on account of the entrenched camp there , tlio two UuHuian general *! have only to feign a match upon the Balkan , threatening by thin movement
to cut off the communication between the Turkish forces and Constantinople , and they will soon dislodge them from Schumla , and this again without firing a shot . No doubt such is the plan of the Russians . A third corps d ' armee , of 60 , 000 men , has just replaced , on the banks of the Pruth , the troops which have entered Wallachia . This third corps is evidently intended ; to support the flank movements of General Luders . A fourth corps is on the march and has already reached the Dnieper . In fine , as if 240 , 000 men were not enough ( and of these 180 , 000 men in position ) , there are 30 , 000 marines ( homntes de debarquement ) on board the fleet at Sehastopol . These 30 , 000 men are destined to turn the line of the Balkan as the cow * under General Luders to turn the position
of the Danube . The whole plan is perfectly calculated : too powerfully and too skilfully , one might imagine , not to be carriedinto execution . The occupation of Wallachia , in which the diplomatists are obstinately determined not to discover a casus belli , is , in the eyes of all military men , a fact of the utmost urgency , an act of war of the most decisive nature ; since it has already determined a grave error in the operations of the Turkish forces , in drawing them away to the left of their position . According to diplomatists , it may be war is not yet begun ; according to military men , war is not only begun but over , and the victory belongs to Russia before a blow has been struck . Does not the conduct of the Russians in Wallachia
sufficiently prove that they don't intend , this time at least , to let their new conquest slip from their hands ? I told you last week that they were exercising acts of suzerainty everywhere . At present they are engaged in fortifying themselves in the country . They have seized all the fortresses , and all the important military positions , and have established -garrisons in those places . Moreover , they appear specially desirous to gain the public feeling of the inhabitants . Their emissaries scour the country in all directions , representing to the people the Russian occupation as the deliverance of
Moldo-Wallachia from the hands of the Infidels . The Greek clergy of-the country have received orders to make prayers for the success of the good cause . In short , the'aim and intent is to fanaticise the spirit of the populations , so as to render their return to Turkish allegiance impossible . The same intrigues are being praptised in Bulgaria , perhaps on a much vaster scale . At Schumla , Varna , Silistria , Widdin , the proclamations of liberation ( les proclamations liberatrices ) by the Russians , have been placarded in the Greek churches , and received with transports of joy by the populations . All this does not sound well . And we are to believe
that the Czar is simple enough to abandon all those chances of success for the sole end of pleasing two nations of hucksters and shopkeepers , who are afraid of war—of two nations which he despises , and may have only too good reason to despise ! But even if war should not come from Russia it must come from Turkey . I told you in a former letter that an insurrection would infallibly break out in Turkey if the Ottoman Government had the weakness to yield .
Such an insurrection is now imminent . Yesterday there was a rumour at tho Bourse that an attempt had taken place on the 7 th instant . The plot was to dethrone Abdul Medjid nnd to put Iub brother in his place . The brother and brother-in-law of Abdul Mcdjid are , it sccniH , at the head of tho old Turkish party . Irrespective of this conspiracy , too , it is said that at the news of tho passage of the Pruth by the Russians the old Turkish party had bo entirely surrounded tho Sultan , that ho bad decided to dismiss Rescind Pacha as tho
representative of the peace party . Rescind Pacha did , in fact , cease to bo minister for four hours . But , on the representations of tho united ambassadors , the Sultan decided to recall him , and not to declnro war . I much fear tho poor Sultan is staking his own head on this terrible game- ! Yesterday a note was spoken of which tho Turkish Government had addressed to the different Powers , in which it declared that it would only treat with the five Powers united . Thin resumption of firmness looks as if tho peace party at Constantinople began to discern that weakness would bo tho death of Turkey . Our own Bourse ban had a grand rino . The moneyed warriors aro already discounting their protended victory .
In other renpects nothing is changed in France . It is tho sinne regime of compression , tho same rago for arrests . To believe the juges d'instruolion ( examining magistrates ) , all the students in Paris had a hand in that affair of tho Opera Coiniquo ! Nevertheless , if I am credibly informed , it in certain that all the cflbrta of all tho officers of justice , all the inquisition *? , perquisitions , and investigations , have been ineffectual to penetrate into the organization of tho secret Hocictics ; they have laid hands on hoiuo few linka , but isolated links , and bo without romilt .
Disappointed at malting no discoveries among Jfce working- men , the magistrates turned to the students . First of all they made a few arrests quite at random , then addressing themselves to the cafes " and lodgings frequented by . these young men , they obtained ; the names and addresses" of their relatives ; thereupon a second batch of arrests ,, and presently , by the , satne means of information , a third . At this moment they have got to the seventh , or eighth ; in fact , there is no earthly reason why they should not proceed to arres * the 12 , 000 students of the Quartier Latin , since they are all directly or indirectly known to one another .
Yesterday , the conspiracy , entitled the complot rouge , was to come on for trial with closed doors . This title , invented I suppose to frighten the old women , led one to imagine some terrible affair . But it was all a sham . The whole matter consists in the arrest , at Paris , of a refugee from London , by name Bravard , who had returned to France under cover of the amnesty for all offences of the press . As it was necessary to give some colour to his arrest , it was supposed that his
presence in Paris was connected with some . Propagandist movement , and as one or two copies of a proclama tion by Felix Pyat were found on his person , the police had no difficulty in forging what they called the complot rouge . In this famous complot rouge the principal delinquents are Felix Pyat , Caussidiere , and Boichot , refugees in London , accused of being the authors of republican proclamations . Bravard and two or three other persons ( among " them , an old woman ) figure in the second rank at the head of the Propagande of these proclamations . Such is this famouscomplot rouge which , for the last three months , the police have been holding in terrorerk over the heads of the sitnple > honest people of their own party . t
On the other hand , to-day is to be argued , in he last resort , before the Court of Cassation , the case of the Correspondents . The Court of Cassation is calledr upon to decide whether the new jurisprudence , lately introduced by the Government with regard to the secrecy of private letters , shall or shall not henceforward have force of law in France . The question is immense . M . Dupin , unfortunately , no longer sits on that tribunal . Were the judges restrained by the pre ~ sence of his caustic severity , they would never dare to sanction this monstrous right to violate the secrecy of letters which Bonaparte claims . But now that the-Court is composed almost exclusively of the creatures of the Emperor , we may expect anything and everything from its servility .
Just now a deep discontent prevails again among : the working population of , Paris . The price of bread has risen again : this measure bar caused frequent gatherings of the people ( rassemllemens )—some tumulituous , some pacific—in the faubourgs and the suburbs : ( banlieue ) . If the working men assemble as often as the price of bread is raised , I much fear they will have frequent occasion to meet for some time yet . Th& harvest is decidedly a bad one , only half an averageone , in fact ( iln ' y aura qu ' une demi-annee )—that is to *
say , sixty millions of hectolitres instead of 120 millions . En revanche , the Empress promises abundance ( L'TmpSratrice est feconde ); she is once more in an " interesting situation . " But she narrowly escaped being killed tho other day , with her august husband , on the Versailles railway . Bonaparte wanted to cross the railway just as a train was passing : ho had only just time to get across—the engine almost grazed his ear ~ riiige . Tlio imperial ingrnte lias forgotten this time to have a Te Deum chanted ! S-
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CONTINENTAL NOTES . Tun Moniteur of lust Thursday contained the- following * decree-, which denotes some apprehension of » doficlmt harvest . It will affect tiro operations of Movk-lano considerably : —¦ " Tho prohibitions imposed by tho ordonnance of the 8 th of February , 1826 , will coaso provisionally as to corn nnd flour imported from tho possessions of tho United Kingdoms of Great Britain , in Europe . " Tho King of Naples 1 ms , by decree , prohibited tho exportation of corn from his dominions .
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Tho following letter haa boon addressod by M . Drouyn . 1 do riluyH , the French Minister of Foreign Affairs , to the diplomatic n < ronf . B of tho Imperial Government , a « a reply - to tho second circular note of Count Nesaelrode . . ' ' ¦ ' « Tiir-iB , July 15 . " Sin , —Tho now despatch of tho Count lie Nesselrodo ; . which tho Journal do St . Patci'sburg published on tho day following that on which it wan sent to all tho legations , off Russia , has produced on the Govorninont of tho JCnaporoir an iniprcHHion which bin Imperial Majesty bun ordered moto communicato to you . without evasion . " Wo cannot but deplore seeing Itufmiu , at tho very m <» rn « nfc when tho efforts of all tho Cabinots to bring about ft satisfactory solution of tho present difficulties testify bo clearl y to their moderation , take an attitude which render * tho succour of thoir negotiations moro uncertain , and' imposofl on sorno of thorn tho duty of repelling tho responsibility which it has in vain been attempted to throw upon thoir policy .
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¦ ¦ _ . THE LEADER . |^ A * trKDA »; i If At . ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ "¦ ¦¦ ¦ ¦ . ' . ¦ ¦ " ¦ ' . — . ^ Mm ^ J ^^^^^^^^ m ^^^^ m ^^^ mtmmam ^ mmmmmmmmmmmmml ^ mmKmm ^ mmmmam ^ mmmmam / mtmamm
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 23, 1853, page 702, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1996/page/6/
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