had been exhausted, in a vain endeavour to reconquer for Christendom the places which are indelibly associated with the life of the Divine Man who founded Christianity. In modern Europe devout Christians adopted the easier course of making pilgrimages to the spots which are hallowed by the memory of Christ. Members of the Latin as well as of the Greek Church composed these pilgrimages. Members of the Latin as well as of the Greek Church guarded the sanctuaries and officiated at the shrines.

More than a century before the Crimean War, France, in a treaty with the Porte, obtained for the Latin Church possession of all the places which it owned in 1740.1 The most important of these were the great Church of Bethlehem, the Sanctuary of the Nativity, the Tomb of the Virgin, the Stone of Anointing, and the Seven Arches of the Virgin in the tomb of the Holy Sepulchre; but the Latins also claimed the right of repairing the Cupola of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The atmosphere of the eighteenth century, however, was opposed to any zealous retention of these privileges, and the Latin races, reading Rousseau and Voltaire, had not much thought for Holy Shrines in Palestine. But the Greek branch of the Christian Church was not affected by the influences which ultimately enshrined Reason in the capital of France. Its members still repaired in their hundreds and in their thousands to the Holy Shrines of Palestine. They occupied the places which the Latins neglected, they repaired the edifices which the Latins suffered to fall into decay, and they obtained special permits from the Porte authorising them to execute these works. If, therefore, the Latins had originally a treaty right, the Greeks in the course of time acquired by usage a right to occupy these sacred places.

The religious revival of the nineteenth century, affecting other countries besides England and Scotland, again directed

1 'Les religieux Latins, qui résident présentement, comme de tout temps, en dedans et en dehors de Jérusalem, ... resteront en possession des lieux de pélerinage qu'ils ont dans la manière qu'ils les ont possédés par le passé." Art. 33 of Treaty of 1740. Eastern Papers, Part i. p. 5.

2 Ibid., p. 4; but cf. p. 22, where a more extended list is given.

the attention of religious people to the scenes which were permanently associated with the life and labours of Jesus Christ. England, in conjunction with Prussia, resolved on the strange expedient of appointing a Protestant Bishop of Jerusalem. Roman Catholics in France again cast their thoughts to the Holy Places which their ancestors had neglected. Louis Napoleon, after his accession to the Presidency of the Republic, anxious to induce the Conservatives of France to range themselves behind his chair, grasped at a question which was interesting to every religious man. The same causes which induced him to restore the Pope to Rome with the assistance of French bayonets induced him in May 1850 to assert the right of France to place the Latin monks in possession of the Holy Places.

demand.

The paper in which the French formulated their demand was subsequently described by a Russian official authority as The French an ardent polemic.1 Other Roman Catholic Powers, however, supported the demand; and the Porte, reluctant to refuse France, and equally unwilling to offend Russia, offered to refer the French demand, the treaty of 1740, and the firmans which had been granted by the Porte both before and after that year on the subject, to a mixed commission. The French, in the first instance, objected to referring to a commission firmans issued subsequent to 1740 without the cognisance of France. But the inquiry ultimately took place first before a mixed commission, and afterwards before a Turkish commission of inquiry. In January 1852 the Porte arrived at a decision on the points in dispute which was embodied in a letter to the French chargé d'affaires on the 9th of February, and in a firman addressed to the Greek patriarch at Jerusalem; and diplomatists, believing that the tempted com- whole question was finally though not formally promise. settled, breathed in peace. But the dispute was desire to please both

The at

not settled. The Porte, in fact, in its

The Russian description of

1 The paper is in Eastern Papers, Part i. p. 4. it is in the Diplomatic Study of the Crimean War from Russian Official Sources, vol. i. p. 127. This work will in future be referred to as the Diplomatic Study.

parties employed different language in its letter to France and in its firman to the Greeks.1 In the letter the Porte laid stress on what it yielded to France; in the firman it dwelt on the claims which it disallowed. In the letter it directed that the Latins should have keys of the north and south gates of the Great Church of Bethlehem and of the Grotto of the Holy Manger. In the firman it stated that the arrangement under which Greeks, Armenians, and Latins held keys to the gates should continue, but that no change should be made in their state. It went on to declare that the Latins had "no right" to exclusive possession of the Holy Places, and that they are not right in the pretension that the tomb of the Blessed Mary belongs exclusively to them. The language of the letter was drawn up to satisfy France, the language of the firman was strengthened to conciliate Russia. 2

1 It may perhaps be well to bring out distinctly the difference between the letter and the firman :

The Letter.

The Grotto of the Holy Manger is at present a place visited by the various Christian nations, and it has been ordained from a very early period that a key of the North Gate of the Great Church at Bethlehem, a key of the South Gate of that Church, and a key of the gate of the Grotto above mentioned should be in the custody of the Latin Priests also. In case, then, the keys are not in the possession of the Latins, a key of each of these gates must be given them, in order that they may have them as of old. Parl. Papers, pp. 37, 38.

The Firman.

In former times a key of the two gates of the Great Church of Bethlehem and of the Holy Manger was given to each of the Greek, Latin, and Armenian nations,-a measure which was also confirmed by the firman delivered to the Greek nation in the year of the Hejira 1170, and that arrangement shall still continue. But as it does not follow from this that it is permitted to alter the existing state of things in that Church, or to prevent the Latins officiating there, or, in short, to make any new arrangement calculated to incommode other sects, either in the passage from the Church to the Holy Manger, or in other respects, the smallest pretension in regard to this shall not be allowed or entertained on the part of any one whatsoever. No change shall be made in the present state of the gates of the Church of Bethlehem. Parl. Papers, p. 41.

There was equal difference in the wording of letter and firman in other

points.

2 Eastern Papers, Part i. pp. 41, 42.

The begin. ning of the dispute.

When the discrepancy between the firman and the letter became known fresh irritation was excited. The French declared that they had consented for the sake of peace to waive the undoubted rights which the treaty of 1740 gave them, and that those rights were decided against them in the firman.1 The Russians, on the contrary, declared that they only accepted the compromise because the firman practically decided many points in the dispute in their favour.2 The Russians consequently, relying on the firman, insisted on its being publicly read at Jerusalem. The French, protesting against it, obtained a promise from the Porte that it should not be read in that city.

A quarrel, therefore, temporarily allayed in the spring, was ready to burst into a fresh flame in the summer.

Russia and the French Republic.

And it so happened that another circumstance was producing estrangement between France and Russia. The Russian Court had seen without regret the election of Louis Napoleon to the Presidency of the French Republic. The President was identified with the cause of order, and in the Conservative atmosphere of St. Petersburg order was of paramount importance. For the same reason it had seen with pleasure the conduct of the President in December 1851. "The coup d'état" was a genuine service rendered to order and peace, and a title to gratitude earned by Napoleon from the various Governments." 3 Behind the President's chair, however, there soon loomed a vision of another Empire. Wherever the President went he was invited to assume the imperial crown; and invitations of this character, when sedulously repeated, are not likely to be continually refused. It is true that Napoleon at first endeavoured to explain away the cheers of "Vive l'Empereur!" which everywhere greeted him. The cry was, he declared, a souvenir which touched his heart rather than a hope which flattered his pride. It is true also that he afterwards endeavoured to reassure a startled Continent. "L'Empire c'est la 1 Eastern Papers, Part i. p. 42. 2 Diplomatic Study, vol. i. p. 134. 3 Ibid., vol. i. p. 73.

Russia and the Second Empire.

paix" so ran the assurance which he gave-"L'Empire c'est la paix." For France desires peace, and when France is satisfied the world is tranquil.1

As the autumn wore on, moreover, worse things than the restoration of the Empire occurred. To the horror of Nicholas, the French Senate not merely pronounced Napoleon emperor, they hailed him as Napoleon the Third; 2 to his still greater horror, the act of the Senate was ratified by the people, and Napoleon owed his throne to the vote of more than seven millions of Frenchmen. There was an eloquence in both these circumstances which Nicholas could not ignore. The mention of "the Third" expressed what the English Parliament had intended to express, nearly two centuries before, when it placed at the head of the Statutes of 1660 the assertion that they were made in the twelfth year of the reign of our Most Gracious Sovereign Lord, Charles the Second. The disagreeable parenthesis of the reigns of Bourbon kings and of the Man of July was ignored as completely as the disagreeable parenthesis of the English Commonwealth had been ignored before. Other Powers besides Russia were alarmed at the adoption of a number which avenged Waterloo without the interchange of a blow. Other Powers, however, were pacified by the assurance that the number had only an insignificant meaning. The new emperor, whatever title he might assume, boasted that he owed his throne to the suffrages of the people. But this second circumstance, however much it might appease other statesmen, only increased the apprehensions of Nicholas. The Czar had been ready enough to applaud a President who had placed aside constitutional institutions;" he could not forgive a ruler who had appealed to universal suffrage.

But Nicholas stood alone. The logic of facts was too strong for other Powers; and men prepared to recognise Napoleon

1 Ann. Reg., Hist. 1852, pp. 256, 259; cf. Malmesbury's Memoirs of an exMinister, p. 268.

2 The origin of the III. is well known. "The Prefect of Bourges had given instructions that the people were to shout 'Vive Napoleon!' but he wrote ' Vive Napoleon!!!' The people took the three notes of interjection as a numeral." Memoirs of an ex-Minister, p. 290.