The speech of the Emperor Napoleon at the opening of the French Chambers has already been referred to. The sentences alluding to the Treaties of 1815, and to the summoning of a European Congress, not only to settle the Polish Question, but other questions affecting nationalities struggling to be free, soon received a practical comment, for in Paris the Funds fell with startling rapidity. A few days after the speech was delivered the Emperor addressed a circular to the Powers which fully justified the warnings that the Queen had given to her Ministers, from the day the Polish Question was raised. Napoleon, in fact, invited the Sovereigns of Europe to meet in Congress and settle the affairs of the Continent, and the tone of the circular, combined with the veiled threat of war in his speech, really transformed the invitation into a summons. Italy and Prussia accepted the proposal, the former because she saw in it an opportunity for wresting Venice from Austria. As for Lord Russell, he met the project with a refusal couched in terms that stung the French Emperor to the quick. Writing on the 29th of November, Lord Malmesbury, in his “Diary,” says, “Mr. Seymour Fitzgerald arrived from Paris, where he says the refusal of our Government to attend the Congress proposed by Napoleon, and especially the rude tone of Lord Russell’s despatch, has created great irritation. The correspondence between the English and French Governments respecting the Congress is published in to-day’s papers. Lord Russell’s despatch is published in the _Gazette_, and I am not surprised that the French are angry; for not only is it very rude, but it was sent without the least delay, and published in the _Times_ before it was delivered to Drouyn de Lhuys.”[161] The despatches, however, merely reveal the customary combination of dogmatic argument with a supercilious affectation of infallibility, which gives a distinctive mark to all Lord Russell’s diplomatic correspondence. Napoleon, too, had laid himself open to a rebuff by not sounding England on his proposal, before he sprang it on the world. Count Vitzthum says that the despatch was approved at a meeting of the Cabinet on the 19th of November, after which it was submitted next day to the Queen at Windsor, who, according to Lord Russell’s statement to the Count, “had given her assent with pleasure to the refusal to take part in the Congress.”[162] Still Napoleon was not without his consolations. In Mexico Forey’s victories enabled the French to bring together a Mexican Assembly of their partisans, who recommended the establishment of a mimic Bonapartist Empire under the Archduke Maximilian. This unfortunate Prince consented to take the Crown, provided the Mexicans sanctioned his dynasty by a _plébiscite_.