22 RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



now, the best suit her purpose ; the brunt of which, she well knows, 

 would, from their positions, fall upon England and France on one 

 side, Austria and Prussia on the other. Could she, therefore, only 

 succeed in embroiling these powers could she only see them ex- 

 hausting their energies and their resources in the defence of liberty 

 or of legitimacy, then, unopposed, she might hope toconsummate the 

 conquest of European Turkey. But in embroiling Europe she has 

 not yet succeeded ; it was therefore necessary to secure the co-opera- 

 tion of the only power whose hostility she feared. This power was 

 Austria ; the one, above all others in Europe, who has the greatest 

 interest in the preservation of the Turkish empire, and who, by 

 her geographical position, could the most effectually oppose 

 the designs of Russia. To achieve this the crafty Russian skil- 

 fully exorcised the demon of liberalism, appealed at once to the 

 fears, and calmed the jealousy of the stolid Austria. Thus, 

 Russian intrigue was at the bottom of the emeufe at Frankfort ; 

 Russian gold concocted the Piedmont conspiracy ; Russian agents 

 may be found even in the ranks of La Giovane Italia ; but effectually 

 terrified as is the Emperor Francis by the phantom of a republican 

 propaganda, Nicholas still dreaded the machinations of the arch Met- 

 ternich, who had, for some time past, been watching, with a fore- 

 boding eye, the Russian serpent gradually coiling round the eastern 

 frontiers of his master's empire. Metternich was to be gained, at all 

 hazards ; and this was the real motive of the interview which took 



Elace between the Russian and Austrian emperors in the course of 

 ist autumn. Has, then, the crafty czar attained his object? has 

 Metternich again become a pensioner of Russia? have, during the 

 morning drives of the two sovereigns at Munchen-Gratz, the ambi- 

 tious projects of the great Catherine and Joseph the Second again 

 been revived ? has the imbecile Francis, terrified by the phantom of 

 liberalism, or lured by the miserable hound's portion which his bro- 

 ther despot will throw to him on the partition of the Turkish empire, 

 forgotten the words of his sagacious uncle, " Quefermis nous de Con- 

 stantinople" What, to pursue our questions still further, we would 

 ask of this imperial dotard, is to become of the Danube, that con- 

 ducting artery of the Austrian empire, when the Black Sea is a Rus- 

 sian lake, and Constantinople a Russian city ? will his hold upon 

 Italy be lightened when the Russians are in Epirus? Is there no 

 man in his empire bold enough to ring in his ears the words of Na- 

 poleon, on the ocean rock of his exile, " L'Autriche est dans un 

 peril le plus eminent, se laissant complaisamment embrasser en front 

 par un Collosse, quand elle n'avait pas a reculer d'un pas ; car sur 

 ses derireres et sur ses flancs elle n'avait que des abimes." Prophetic 

 words ! for how long will she retain the allegiance of her Sclavonian 

 and Hungarian provinces, when brought into immediate contact with 

 a nation, between whom and themselves there is identity, of origin, 

 language and creed ? 



Monstrous, then, as it may appear, that Russia has secured the co- 

 operation of Austria in her views upon Turkey, rests on something 

 more than mere conjecture. Since the conference at Munchen-Gratz, 

 the Russian armies in the southern provinces of her empire have been 



