Count Vitzthum doubts whether the Emperor really contemplated the taking of Constantinople, but it is plain that he meant to crush the Turkish Empire, and England, knowing that the man had masterful instincts and ambitious schemes--that suggest, at all events, a passing comparison with Napoleon Bonaparte--took alarm at his restlessness, and the menace to India, which it seemed to suggest. 'If we do not stop the Russians on the Danube,' said Lord John Russell, 'we shall have to stop them on the Indus.' It is now a matter of common knowledge that, when the Crimean War began, Nicholas had General Duhamel's scheme before him for an invasion of India through Asia. Such an advance, it was foreseen, would cripple England's resources in Europe by compelling her to despatch an army of defence to the East. It certainly looks, therefore, as if Russia, when hostilities in the Crimea actually began, was preparing herself for a sudden descent on Constantinople. Napoleon III., eager to conciliate the religious susceptibilities of his own subjects, as well as to gratify the Vatican, wished the Sultan to make the Latin monks the supreme custodians of the Holy Places. Complications, the issue of which it was impossible to forecast, appeared inevitable, and for the moment there seemed only one man who could grapple with the situation at Constantinople. Lord Palmerston altogether, and Lord John Russell in part, sympathised with the clamour which arose in the Press for the return of the Great Elchi to the Porte. [Sidenote: LORD STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE]