Disraeli proved that “empress” was an old ascription even in England, and that “emperor” even in the Western mind was not a title bound up with “bad associations.” Macaulay had singled out the age of the Antonines as a signal era for the world, and the Antonines had been emperors. In the early ’sixties a definite and powerful party had conspired to break the unity of the empire and the dignity of the kingdom, to sacrifice everything to material considerations, to convert _a first-class monarchy into a second-class republic_. It was not enough that the national sentiment should be diverted from appeals to pocket by appeals to patriotism; that the gush of utilitarian cold water should be arrested from drowning the rekindled flames of public spirit. The coloured imagination of the East must also be brought into line with the soberer background of the West. Nor was the relation of the measure less weighty to Europe. Europe, too, must realise that India was a trust which Britain was resolute never to abandon. These objects Disraeli effected by his “Royal Titles Bill,” a conception as simple as it was daring. “They know in India,” he urged, after imploring the House to “remove prejudice from their minds”--“they know in India what this bill means, and they know that what it means is what they wish.... Let not our divisions be misconstrued. _Let the people of India feel that there is a sympathetic chord between us and them, and do not let Europe suppose for a moment that there are any in this House who are not deeply conscious of the importance of our Indian Empire._ Unfortunate words have been heard in the debate upon this subject; but I will not believe that any member of this House seriously contemplates the loss of our Indian Empire.... If you sanction the passing of this bill, it will be an act, to my mind, that will add splendour even to her throne, and security even to her Empire.” In a subsequent chapter I shall show that these ideas of sympathy with India had animated him while the great Mutiny was raging.