For the present the French had to be satisfied with this exchange of secret assurances and hard cash.  The Czar refused to move further, mainly because the scandals connected with the Panama affair once more aroused his fears and disgust.  De Cyon states that the degrading revelations which came to light, at the close of 1891 and early in 1892, did more than anything to delay the advent of a definite alliance.  The return visit of a Russian squadron to French waters was therefore postponed to the month of October 1893, when there were wild rejoicings at Toulon.  The Czar and President exchanged telegrams, the former referring to “the bonds which unite the two countries.”

It appeared for a time that Russia meant to keep her squadron in the Mediterranean; and representations on this subject are known to have been made by England and Italy, which once again drew close together.  A British squadron visited Italian ports—­an event which seemed to foreshadow the entrance of the Island Power to the Triple Alliance.  The Russian fleet, however, left the Mediterranean, and the diplomatic situation remained unchanged.  Despite all the passionate wooing of the Gallic race, no contract of marriage took place during the life of Alexander III.  He died on November 1, 1894, and his memory was extolled in many quarters as that of the great peacemaker of the age.

How far he deserved this praise, to which every statesman of the first rank laid claim, is matter for doubt.  It is certain that he disliked war on account of the evil results accruing from the Russo-Turkish conflict; but whether his love of peace rested on grounds other than prudential will be questioned by those who remember his savage repression of non-Russian peoples in his Empire, his brutal treatment of the Bulgarians and of their Prince, his underhand intrigues against Servia and Roumania, and the favour which he showed to the commander who violated international law at Panjdeh.  That the French should enshrine his memory in phrases to which their literary skill gives a world-wide vogue is natural, seeing that he ended their days of isolation and saved them from the consequences of Boulangism; but it still has to be proved that, apart from the Schnaebele affair, Germany ever sought a quarrel with France during the reign of Alexander III.; and it may finally appear that the Triple Alliance was the genuinely conservative league which saved Europe from the designs of the restless Republic and the exacting egotism of Alexander III.

Another explanation of the Franco-Russian entente is fully as tenable as the theory that the Czar based his policy on the seventh beatitude.  A careful survey of the whole of that policy in Asia, as well as in Europe, seems to show that he drew near to the Republic in order to bring about an equilibrium in Europe which would enable him to throw his whole weight into the affairs of the Far East.  Russian policy has oscillated now towards the West, now towards the