54 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND CHAP. Society of Friends, who had been prominent ' members of this Farty, now thought it becoming or wise to proceed to St Petersburg and request the Emperor of all the Russias to concur with them in preserving Europe from the calamity of war. A little later, and the Czar Nvould have stamped in fury and driven from his sight any hapless aide-de-camp who had come to him with a story about a deputation from the English Peace Party ; for the hour was at hand when his curses were about to fall heavy on the men who had led him on into all his troubles by pretending that Eng- land was immersed in trade, and resolved to engage in no war.* But at this time his hope of seeing our Government held back by the Peace Party had not altogether vanished, and he resolved to give this strange mission a genial welcome. Of course, the political conversation between the booted Czar and the men of peace was sheer nothingness ; but what followed shows the care with which Nicholas had studied the middle classes of England. When he thouj^ht that the first scene of the interlude had lasted long enough, he sud- denly said to his piim visitors, ' By the by, do you know my wife ? ' They said they did not. The Czar presented them to the Empress. She charmed them with her kindly grace. They came away sor- • The scene of violence here prospectively alluded to will bo mentioned in a later volume : it occurred in the autuniu.
