Note 7 — Chapter XXXI

[M. Thiers came into power for the first time as Minister of Foreign Affairs and head of the Government on the 22nd of February, 1836. He had boasted that he should be able to engage the King in a more active intervention in Spain in favour of the young Queen—‘Nous entraînerons le Roi’ was his expression—but in this he was deceived, and his Administration came to a speedy termination. Lord Palmerston proposed on the 14th of March that some of the ports on the coast of Biscay should be occupied by British seamen and marines, and that Passages, Fontarabia, and the valley of Bartan should be occupied by the French. This scheme was strenuously opposed by the King, though M. Thiers was willing to assent to it. The Revolution of La Granja in August only increased the repugnance of Louis Philippe to interfere actively in Spain, and early in September the Thiers Cabinet was dissolved. Mr. Villiers’s narrative of the revolution of La Granja is alluded to in the passage next following.]