"Russia cannot feel any alarm at the power of Prussia,"[124] said Prince Gortchakof, in reply to the representations which were made him from the beginning of the Hohenzollern affair on "the danger which would result to Russia from the aggrandizement of Prussia, and from the extension of its influence in Europe." As to the Spanish candidature of the Prussian prince, the chancellor recalled that "when Prince Charles of Hohenzollern became (in 1866) sovereign of Roumania, with the support of France and in spite of Russia, this latter had limited itself to remonstrances, and had then accepted the fact, he did not see why to-day Prussia could be more responsible for the election of another member of the royal family to the throne of Spain." Thus spoke the minister of the czar at the very beginning of the conflict, the 8th July, 1870, before the renunciation of Prince Anthony, before any exhibition of anger on the part of the cabinet of the Tuileries, and at the moment when Europe still thought well of the legitimate susceptibilities of France. However, when the hour of blindness and giddiness came, and when the government of Napoleon III. lost all the profit of a great diplomatic success by its provoking language before the legislative body, by its demands of Ems, and its fatal declaration of war (15th July), illusions could no longer be cherished concerning the true sentiments of the cabinet of St. Petersburg. "With all due deference to General Fleury," wrote with humor M. de Beust to Prince de Metternich, the 20th July, "Russia perseveres in its alliance with Prussia so far, that in certain eventualities the intervention of the Muscovite arms must be looked upon not as probable, but as _certain_." Soon after the declarations of war of the 15th July, the Russian government had addressed to Vienna the very clear and categorical notice that it would not allow Austria to make common cause with France. General Fleury was even soon to think himself lucky with having at least made sure that this invalidating clause touching the empire of the Hapsburg was not explicitly mentioned in the declaration of neutrality which the Emperor Alexander II. published the 23d July.[125]