The French commanders were not hampered by the muzzled Paris Press,
which had long since ceased to utter any but dictated sentiments;
they suffered even more disastrously from the imperious
interference of the Tuileries. Canrobert's inaction, mutability,
sudden alarms, flagrant breaches of faith, were inexplicable until
long afterwards, when the fall of the Empire disclosed the secret
instructions--disloyal to his allies and ruinous to the campaign--
by which Louis Napoleon shackled his unhappy General. In
Canrobert's successor, Pelissier, he met his match. For the first
time a strong man headed the French army. Short of stature, bull-
necked and massive in build, with grey hair, long dark moustache,
keen fiery eyes, his coarse rough speech masking tested brain power
and high intellectual culture, he brought new life to the benumbed
French army, new hope to Lord Raglan. The duel between the
resolute general and the enraged Emperor is narrated with a touch
comedy. All that Lord Raglan desired, all that the Emperor
forbade, Pelissier was stubbornly determined to accomplish; the
siege should be pressed at once, the city taken at any cost, the
expedition to Kertch resumed.
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