Forty years have passed since the
terrible indictment was put forth; down to its minutest allegation
it has been proved literally true; the arch criminal has fallen
from his estate to die in disgrace, disease, exile. When we talk
to-day with cultivated Frenchmen of that half-forgotten epoch, and
of the book which bared its horrors, we are met by their response
of ardent gratitude to the man who joined to passionate hatred of
iniquity surpassing capacity for denouncing it; their avowal that
with all its frequent exposure of their military shortcomings and
depreciation of their national character, no English chronicle of
the century stands higher in their esteem than the history of the
war in the Crimea.
The close of the book is grim and tragic in the main, the stir of
gallant fights exchanged for the dreary course of siege,
intrenchment, mine and countermine. We have the awful winter on
the heights, the November hurricane, the foiled bombardments, the
cruel blunder of the Karabelnaya assault, the bitter natural
discontent at home, the weak subservience of our government to
misdirected clamour, the touching help-fraught advent of the Lady
Nurses: then, just as better prospects dawn, the Chief's collapse
and death.
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