The Queen took a thoroughly sensible view of the situation. The atrocities of December and the confiscation of the Orleans property had not prepossessed her Majesty in favour of the French Emperor. But in her opinion there was no essential difference between such a Republic as had been established by the _coup d’état_ strengthened by the Constitution of January, and a military Empire without glory or genius. If the vast majority of Frenchmen were desirous of transforming their Prince-President into an Emperor, that was their affair, and Foreign Courts had no concern in the matter. The Queen was, therefore, strongly in favour of recognising the title of the Emperor of the French, and of according to him the customary courtesy of addressing him in ceremonial communications as _mon frère_.[79] The Northern Courts, however, could not bring themselves to treat as an equal, an adventurer who, to use his own expression in announcing his marriage in the Chamber on the 22nd of January, 1853, “had frankly taken up before Europe the _position de parvenu_.” Ultimately they all yielded to facts, and with the exception of Russia, agreed to address Charles Louis Bonaparte as their “brother.” The haughty autocrat of Muscovy, who had smiled on him approvingly when he strangled Liberty in France, frowned on the attempt to raise on its ruins a fabric of Empire, claiming parity with the ancient dominion of the Romanoffs. The Czar, therefore, persisted in addressing the French Emperor, not as “my brother,” but “my cousin.” This trivial slight is mentioned here, because it had subsequently a potent influence on the fortunes of England.