The Eastern Question, however, slumbered until, in 1851, the matter of the Holy Places was raised by Napoleon III., involving the whole question of the influence in Ottoman affairs of France under the capitulations of 1740 and of Russia under the treaty of 1774.
Moreover the effacement of old boundaries, the overthrow of ancestral governments, and the invocation, however hollow, of the sovereignty of the people, awoke national feeling which had slumbered long and prepared the struggle for national union and independence in the 19th century.
Its most valuable lessons to the world were preserved in Christianity; but the grand simplicity of its monism slumbered for fifteen centuries before it was revived by Spinoza.
Both were feeble, and, in Gibbon's phrase, slumbered on their thrones, leaving the government to others.
The cause slumbered, till in1742-1743the outbreak of wars with France and Spain gave Prince Charles a chance of showing his mettle.
