I believe that a law existing over the whole Continent
must in time influence the laws of Great Britain, notwithstanding the
sea, and notwithstanding the habits and institutions, which, still more
than the sea, have separated you from us, up to the present time.
My prophecies may not be accomplished in our time; but I should not be
sorry to deposit this letter with a notary, to be opened, and their truth
or falsehood proved, fifty years hence.
Compiegne, February 23, 1855.
... My object in my last letter was not by any means, as you seem to
think, to accuse _your aristocracy_ of having mismanaged the Crimean war.
It has certainly been mismanaged, but who has been in fault?
Indeed I know not, and if I did I should think at the same time that it
would not be becoming in a foreigner to set himself up as a judge of the
blunders of any other Government than his own.
I thought that I had expressed myself clearly. At any rate what I wanted
to say, if I did not say it, is, that the present events created in my
opinion a new and great danger for your aristocracy, and that it will
suffer severely from the rebound, if it does not make enormous efforts to
show itself capable of repairing the past; and that it would be wrong to
suppose that by fighting bravely on the field of battle it could retain
the direction of the Government.
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