'His other mistake was the attempt to enforce on Turkey the capitulations
of 1740, and to revive pretentions of the Latins in Jerusalem which had
slept for more than a century. This, again, was a legacy from Louis
Philippe. It was Louis Philippe who claimed a right to restore the dome,
or the portico, we forget which, of the Holy Sepulchre, and to insult the
Greeks by rebuilding it in the Latin instead of the Byzantine form. Louis
Napoleon has the merit, rare in private life, and almost unknown among
princes, of having frankly and unreservedly withdrawn his demands, though
supported by treaty, as soon as he found that they could not be conceded
without danger to the conceding party.
'With these exceptions, his management of the foreign relations of France
has been faultless. To England he has been honest and confiding, to
Russia conciliatory but firm, to Austria kind and forbearing, and he has
treated Prussia with, perhaps, more consideration than that semi-Russian
Court and childishly false and cunning king deserved. He has been
assailed by every form of temptation, through his hopes and through his
fears, and has remained faithful and disinterested.
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