"The want of foresight is great: Austria, which applauds herself for organizing the Ottoman Armies, would be the first to bear the penalty of her joy; if the Turks beat the Russians they would be all the more capable of measuring their strength with the Imperials their neighbours. This time, Vienna would not escape the Grand Vizier. Would the rest of Europe, which thinks it has nothing to fear from the Porte, be in greater safety? Passionate and short-sighted men want Turkey to be a regular military Power, to enter into the common right of peace and war of civilized nations, all in order to maintain some balance or other, of which the mere word, void of sense, dispenses those men from having any idea: what would be the consequences were those wishes realized? Whenever it pleased the Sultan, under any pretext, to attack a Christian government, a well-manœuvred Constantinopolitan fleet, augmented by the fleet of the Pasha of Egypt and the naval contingent of the Barbary Powers, would declare the coasts of Spain or Italy in a state of blockade and land fifty thousand men at Carthagena or Naples. You do not wish to plant the Cross on St. Sophia: continue to discipline the hordes of Turks, Albanians, Negroes and Arabs, and, in less than twenty years, perhaps, the Crescent will gleam on the dome of St. Peter's. Will you then summon Europe to a crusade against infidels armed with the plague, slavery and the Koran? It will be too late. "The general interests of society would therefore benefit by the success of the arms of the Emperor Nicholas. "As to France's own interests, I have proved sufficiently that these lie in an alliance with Russia, and that they may be singularly favoured by the very war which that Power is to-day waging in the East." [Sidenote: Summary.] SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND REFLECTIONS "To sum up: "1. If Turkey were to consent to treat on the basis of the treaty of the 6th of July, nothing would yet be decided, since peace has not been made between Turkey and Russia; the chances of the war in the Balkan Passes would at every moment change the _data_ and the position of the plenipotentiaries occupied with the emancipation of Greece. "2. The probable conditions of peace between the Emperor Nicholas and Sultan Mahmud are open to the greatest objections. "3. Russia can defy the union of England and Austria, a union more formidable in appearance than in reality. "4. It is probable that Prussia would join hands with the Emperor Nicholas, the son-in-law of Frederic William III., rather than with the Emperor's enemies. "5. France would have everything to lose and nothing to gain by allying herself with England and Austria against Russia.