of excluding her from a fair share; but beyond that she would not go. Fearing the probability of a cordial union between England and France—an event which, so long as Lord Aberdeen directed the affairs of state, he would not believe possible—the whole force of the Emperor’s policy was directed to prevent it, or break it off if it had been already formed. Heretofore the Czar had fully approved the conduct of his noble friend, and we find more than once, in the papers laid before Parliament, the warm expression of imperial gratitude. Happy minister! It falls to the lot of few to be enabled to boast of such certificates of conduct as those from Louis Philippe in 1846, and from Nicholas in 1853. It is true that the excellent qualities so much admired rendered it easy for a hypocrite to overreach, and an overbearing despot to insult, England. The English and French alliance must be broken off at any cost. The insults to the French Emperor, and the French people, were still ringing in the ears of the public. The impertinencies of two members of the Aberdeen Cabinet—the wriggling of miserable sycophancy which met with the contempt it merited—when alluding to the ruler of France, were fresh in the memory of all. The invasion fever had not been entirely allayed; the old suspicions of the insincerity of the French Government, and the jealousies and hatreds which had been dormant, might again be roused. France must be isolated, and the partisans of the Orleans family, the “Fusionists,” or by whatever nickname they are known, already exulted in the shame which they invoked at the hand of a foreign despot on their own country. The Chancellor of the Russian Empire brought all his ability to the task. He accused France of ambition, and reproached her with being the cause of the quarrel by her conduct in the question of the Holy Places. The point was a sore one, as, however disingenuously it was revived by Russia, it was nevertheless a fact that the quarrel followed hard on the demands of M. de Lavalette. M. de Nesselrode, with true Muscovite candour, omitted to add that he himself had expressed his satisfaction and approbation of the fair and honourable manner in which the French Government had brought that question to an issue. That account had been finally closed. A considerable portion of the despatches of M. Drouyn de Lhuys is taken up with a refutation of those charges, and it is admitted on all hands that his refutation of them is satisfactory and complete. With the history of Russian aggression for the last century before us, the charge of ambition against another power was strange in the mouth of a Russian minister. But the capitulation of 1741, which confirmed the previous immunities of the Latin communion in the East, were not, after all, of a nature to offend or alarm any one. The sort of protectorate which they established, was not menacing to any power in Europe, inasmuch as they applied to establishments which were