But the strangest part of the French part of the story is behind. We have seen how Mr Kinglake traces from the first the devious wiles of the French Emperor—how it was his craft that first made the question of the Holy Places important—how his “subtle and dangerous counsels” hurried England into war, and all because war was necessary to the stability of his throne. The complicated texture of his intrigue is followed and traced with immense patience and ingenuity; and yet, when the work is complete, and his imperial victim stands fully detected and exposed as the incendiary of Europe, the detective suddenly destroys his own finely-spun web at a blow. England was the tool of the French Emperor, but the French Emperor was the tool of a still more astute and potent personage. “When the Czar began to encroach upon the Sultan, there was nothing that could so completely meet Lord Palmerston’s every wish as an alliance between the two Western Powers, which should toss France headlong into the English policy of upholding the Ottoman Empire.... As he (Lord Palmerston) from the first had willed it, so moved the two great nations of the West.” The elaborated structure of French intrigue falls, and our gay perennial Premier is discovered smiling amid the ruins. Thus Punch murders his wife and infant, hangs the executioner, and shines as the dexterous and successful villain, till, at the close of the piece, Mr Codlin, the real wire-puller, draws aside the curtain and appears at the bottom of the show, while the great criminal and his victims revert to their proper condition of sawdust and tinsel.