Note 41 — Chapter XXXV · 1874 LORD BEACONSFIELD

Curiously enough it was Disraeli himself who let the cat out of the bag. It was he who called the attention of George Smythe (Lord Strangford), his old colleague in the Young England Party, to an article in the Morning Chronicle in 1848, in which the words of Thiers were translated. The Globe published Disraeli’s speech and Thiers’ article in columns side by side—and George Smythe told the whole story in defence of Disraeli in a letter to the Times. It is always said that Thiers’ “speech” was a panegyric on the death of Marshal St. Cyr. This can hardly be right, for St. Cyr was alive in 1848 and Thiers would scarcely have pronounced such a eulogy upon a third-rate living General. See Mr. T. P. O’Connor’s “Life of Lord Beaconsfield,” p. 452.