The faith of the commander of the rabble of the Faith in Austrian
assistance was a Viennese inspiration, and was meant to induce him to
resist to the last. Nor was it altogether false; for the Kaiser and
Count Rechberg appear to have believed that they could induce the
governments of Russia and Prussia to support them in a crusade in behalf
of Rome and Naples, which was to rely upon Lutherans and supporters of
the Eastern Church for the salvation of the Western Church and its worst
members. The first interview between Rechberg and Gortschakoff, if we
can believe a despatch from Warsaw, led quickly to a quarrel, which must
have taken place not long after their chiefs, the Kaiser and the Czar,
had been locked in each other's arms at the railway-station. It is but
just to the Austrians to state, that they probably had received from St.
Petersburg some promises of assistance, which Alexander found himself
unable to redeem, so determined was Russian opinion in its expression of
aversion to Austria when its organs began to suspect that the old game
was to be renewed, and that Alexander contemplated doing in 1861
what Nicholas had done in 1849,--to step between Francis Joseph and
humiliation, perhaps destruction.
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