Asked if he will not introduce
a Te Deum on the fall of Louis Napoleon, he answered that to write
without the stimulus of combat would be a task beyond his energy;
"when I took the trouble to compose that fourteenth chapter, the
wretched Emperor and his gang were at the height of their power in
Europe and the world; but now!" He was insatiate as to fresh facts:
utilized his acquaintance with Todleben, whom he had first met on
his visit to England in 1864; sought out Prince Ourusoff at a later
time, and inserted particulars gleaned from him in Vol. IX.,
Chapter V.
In 1875 he told Madame Novikoff that his task was done so far as
Inkerman was concerned, and was proud to think that he had rescued
from oblivion the heroism of the Russian troops in what he calls
the "Third Period" of the great fight, ignored as it was by all
Russian historians of the war. He made fruitless inquiries after a
paper said to have been left behind him by Skobeleff, explaining
that "India is a cherry to be eaten by Russia, but in two bites";
it was contrary to the general's recorded utterances and probably
apocryphal.
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