318 ON THE POLICY AND THE POWER OF ^RUSSIA. 



Russian troops ; and subsequently the banner of the Czar has floated 

 over the capital of Francp ; and even Russian grenadiers and Cos- 

 sacks of the Don have regained for the descendants of Hugh Capet 

 their lost throne, and have been seen to protect the new King against 

 his own subjects.* 



The Emperor Alexander did not blush to arrest from the hands of 

 his enemy, Napoleon, a grant of the part of the Prussian- Polish pro- 

 vinces (now East- Prussia) and which Alexander's personal friend 

 and unfortunate ally, Frederick William, was compelled to sacrifice 

 at the peace of Tilsit. With equal readiness did the Emperor Alex- 

 ander, though then not at war with Austria, receive as a present 

 from Napoleon a part of Galicia, wrung from the Emperor Francis, 

 at the peace of Presburg. 



The unexpected surprise of Finland, when without troops or 

 other means of defence, enabled Alexander to wrest from Sweden, 

 in the most disgraceful manner, her finest province by the peace of 

 Abo ; and by such an act of violence Russia was protected in her 

 only vulnerable part. 



In these campaigns the Persians and Turks were deprived by 

 Russia, with a proportionably trifling sacrifice on her part, of pro- 

 vinces, which, on account of their position, are not only of incal- 

 culable value to her, both in -a military and commercial point of 

 view, but by which the Emperor Mahmoud and the Shah of Persia 

 are rendered absolutely dependent on a power, by whose inevitable 

 conquest of those kingdoms a road will be eventually opened to the 

 British possessions in the East. 



The conduct of Europe in the expiring moments of Poland in her 

 last and recent tragedy, and the politico-comic farce in the affairs of 

 Turkey and Egypt (the conclusion of which by the Russian alliance 

 with Turkey must bring on general embroilment), complete the 

 master-policy of the Emperor Nicholas over the Cabinets of Europe. 

 The time appears to have gone by when the policy of Europe can be 

 directed by the Courts of St. James, the Tuileries, the Castle of 

 Vienna and of Berlin. The present high-priests of diplomacy re- 

 ceive their oracles from the palace of the Czar of Muscovy. There 



* The curiosities in Paris were shewn to the Duke of Wellington by a French- 

 man of high rank, and who, when he had asked the Duke, what his Grace thought 

 the greatest curiosity in Paris ? received from the victorious British general this 

 laconic answer : " The Russian Grenadiers." 



The Prefect of the Department of the Rhine and Moselle had erected an obe- 

 lisk of stone in the square before the Castor church in Coblenz, with the boasting 

 inscription 



" Au me'raoire du Napoleon le Grand et de la memorable Campagne en Russie 



en 1'an 1812. 



The Allies at the close of 1813 passed the Rhine at several points. A Russian 

 division occupied Coblentz. The Commanding General Count de St. Priest, after 

 reading the inscription had the following words added to it : 



"Vue et approuvS par moi le Commandant Russe. Coblence le l er m 



Janvier, 1814. 

 " Le Comte de St. Priest, Lieut. -General. 



