First, if Turkey in Europe is to be broken up, we must have a share in that distribution in the shape of an increase of territory on our frontiers and the ownership of some military point in the Archipelago. To compare the partition of Turkey with the partition of Poland is an absurdity. Secondly, to regard Turkey, as it was during the reign of Francis I., as a useful power to our policy, is to do away with three centuries of history. Thirdly, to pretend to civilize Turkey by giving her steamboats and railways, by disciplining her armies, by teaching her to work her fleets, is not to extend civilization to the East, but to introduce barbarism into the West. Ibrahims to come would be able to carry back the future to the time of Charles the Hammer or to the time of the Siege of Vienna, when Europe was saved by that heroic Poland on whom weighs the ingratitude of kings. I must remark that I was the only one, with Benjamin Constant, to point out the improvidence of the Christian governments: a people whose social order is based upon slavery and polygamy is a people that must be sent back to the steppes of the Mongols. In the last result, Turkey in Europe, become a vassal of Russia by virtue of the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi[674], no longer exists: if the question is to be decided at once, which I doubt, it would perhaps be better that an independent empire should have its seat in Constantinople and form Greece into a whole. Is that possible? I do not know. As for Mehemet Ali[675], the relentless tax-gatherer and custom-house officer, Egypt, in so far as French interests are concerned, is better guarded by him than she would be by the English. But here am I exerting myself to demonstrate the honour of the Restoration: why, who troubles himself about what it has done, who, above all, will trouble himself about it some years hence? It would be as well worth my while to become excited over the interests of Tyre and Ecbatana: that past world is gone, never to return. After Alexander, the Roman power commenced; after Cæsar, Christianity changed the world; after Charlemagne, the feudal night gave birth to a new society; after Napoleon, nothing: we see no empire come, nor religion, nor barbarians. Civilization has risen to its highest level, but it is a material civilization, an unfruitful civilization, which can produce nothing, since life can be given only by moral means; we can arrive at the creation of peoples only by the roads of Heaven: railways will lead us only more swiftly to the abyss. You now have the prolegomena which seemed to me necessary for the understanding of the Memorandum which follows, and which is also to be found at the Foreign Office. [Sidenote: To M. de La Ferronnays.] LETTER TO M. LE COMTE DE LA FERRONAYS "ROME, 30 _November_ 1828. "In your private letter of the 10th of November, my noble friend, you said: