I am not my own master, and they who rule me presume to dictate my course as regards my heart.

Brain and sword are theirs, but I shall feel too ignoble a slave if I sacrifice my love for you to _la haute politique_." "Sacrifice your love! That would be odious--that must not be! Do you mean that they want you to marry?
How cruel!" He did not smile at the absurdity of her protest, it was so sincere.
"Well, Cesarine, they are blind here, and deaf to the signs along their own frontier.

The French rely on a Russian alliance, when already Herr von Bismarck, the Prussian ambassador at St.Petersburg, long ago secured its suspension.

Besides, the Crimean War will always be remembered against Napoleon--it is so easy not to ally oneself with England, and, considering her proverbial ingratitude, so rarely profitable.

I spoke of Bismarck! This man of a million, with deep, dark eyes, fixed and unreadable, with a cold, mocking mouth, iron will and mighty brain, is soon to be pitted against Napoleon, the shadow whom you have seen.