At this time the Emperor of the French had taken a remarkable step on his own account, and without consulting his allies. He wrote a letter himself to the Emperor Nicholas, in the hope of averting the dangers which menaced the peace of Europe. It was dated January 29th, five days after M. de Kisseleff had demanded explanations, but before that envoy had announced his determination to quit Paris. The Emperor Napoleon began his letter, "Sire"--not "Sire, my brother," the usual form--for Nicholas had never addressed him in the usual form. He ended it by styling himself his Majesty's "good friend," and good friend was long a cant name at St. Petersburg for the Emperor Napoleon. In this extraordinary Imperial missive the French Emperor coolly recapitulated the history of the Eastern Question, not from the beginning, but from the time of the Menschikoff mission; and he told it in a manner showing, and intended to show, that the Emperor Nicholas had by his acts caused the Maritime Powers to adopt what Russia called a system of pressure; but what the Emperor Napoleon said was a system "protecting, but passive." It was the Czar, he said, who, by invading the Principalities, took the question out of the domain of discussion into that of facts. Now, there must be a prompt understanding or a decisive rupture. He offered the Czar peace or war. Let him sign an armistice, and let all the belligerents' forces be withdrawn. Then he politely told the Czar, in direct terms, that, as he desired, he "should" send a plenipotentiary to negotiate with a plenipotentiary of the Sultan, respecting a convention to be submitted to the Four Powers. The letter drew from the Czar a haughty and brief reply.