gold”--precisely the language which the same kind of people in England applied to Lord Aberdeen. In fact, the Czar himself was rapidly losing his popularity and authority because of the deference he was showing to the Powers, and it is probable that if he had made further concessions he would have been assassinated. But inasmuch as Nicholas himself, in spite of the advice of his three ablest servants,[142] had roused the fanaticism and fury of his subjects by his policy, even this defence, though it explains, does not justify his conduct. [Illustration: RUSSIAN REPULSE AT SILISTRIA.] [Illustration: LORD RAGLAN.] Yet, by a strange stroke of fortune, war between Russia and the Western Powers was still avoided. War with Russia was hateful to the French people--almost as hateful as a military alliance with Turkey. But the Emperor Napoleon III., for dynastic reasons, was committed to such a war, and on the 29th of January he accordingly wrote a pacific letter to the Czar couched in language certain to provoke his wrath. Nicholas answered it with infinite _hauteur_, two contemptuous sentences in his reply stinging the Bonapartists into rage.[143] France now had her War Party rampant, and this did not improve the outlook. Still, one last effort was made in the cause of peace. On the 22nd of February the Austrian Minister, Count Buol, told the French Ambassador at Vienna that if England and France would only fix “a delay”[144] for the evacuation of the Principalities, and agree to keep the peace till that term ran out, Austria would join them in sending Russia a summons to retire across the Pruth. It was tolerably certain that what Austria did, Prussia would do, and here again the European Concert was united in putting irresistible diplomatic pressure on Russia. Lord Clarendon, hearing of this, very naturally asked the German Powers how they would act if the joint summons were ignored by the Czar. Clarendon seems to have taken it for granted that they would in that case join England in going to war, for, without waiting for their reply, he sent to St. Petersburg on the 27th of February an ultimatum to Russia, demanding the evacuation of the Principalities under threat of war. When the replies from the German Powers arrived on the 28th of February, Lord Clarendon found that Austria merely promised to support England in sending the summons, but not to support her in any action she might take in the event of its being ignored; whereas Prussia, though she thought the summons a good thing to send, was not quite sure if she would join the other Powers in sending it. Thus the English Government, by Lord Clarendon’s impetuous indiscretion, again broke up the European Concert; but now under circumstances of supreme peril, for he had positively committed England to enforce alone against Russia, a proposal which not only originated with Austria, but in the enforcement of which the interest of Austria, menaced by a Russian occupation of Moldavia, was