Volume 3 — CHAPTER XXIII. (continued 2)

After I left her in the morning I drove all over Paris: to the University to see Cousin, who lives up a staircase just like a Bencher or a Collegian. He was not at home, nor anybody there to answer the bell, so I stuffed my card through a crevice in the door. He is a Peer. Then to Prince Czartoryski's, who lives in a great old house in the Isle St. Louis, close to the Pont d'Austerlitz. The establishment is curious and interesting. The Princess told me she wanted a house which was spacious and cheap, and not therefore in the fashionable and dear part of the town. They were fortunate enough to find this, which exactly suits them. It was the hotel of the Duc de Sully, and there was formerly a subterraneous passage with a communication to the Arsenal. It afterwards fell into the hands of Lambert, a great financier, and is still called the Hôtel Lambert. Madame du Châtelet had it, and they show the apartment which Voltaire occupied for many years. At the Revolution it became a shop or magasin, I forget of what, but no change was made in the building. The Czartoryskis found it all délabré and dirty, bought it very cheap, and spent twice as much as the purchase-money in restorations. It is a great fine house, handsome staircase and gallery, very vast, with court and garden, and a delightful airy prospect towards the river and the Jardin des Plantes. The thick coat of dirt which was cleared away had preserved the original painting and gilding, which have come out, not indeed bright and fresh, but still very handsome, and they have furnished it in a corresponding style. It is not, however, for the purpose of being well lodged that they have thus provided themselves, but to perform a great work of beneficence and charity. The Princess has converted the whole of the upper stories into a great school for the daughters of distressed Polish officers and gentlemen, where they are lodged, fed, clothed, and educated, and what is left of their fortune they spend in this manner. She took me all over the apartments; they are like those in a very well-regulated pauper school, clean to an extreme nicety, but modest and economical. The girls crowded about her to kiss her hand. There they are prepared to become governesses; the Princess's daughter is their 'Professeur d'Anglais,' she told me. It is a very striking sight and well worth support. I went from thence to the Place Royale; then to where the Bastille formerly stood, and down the whole length of the Boulevards, which is the way to see this curious town.

FALL OF THE SPANISH GOVERNMENT.

Wednesday.—Yesterday morning news came that the Spanish Ministry was out; a majority in the Cortes on the question of the Presidency, composed of Progressistas and discontented Moderados, turned them out. The movement is anti-French and said to be brought about by a coalition of the two brothers against the Queen-mother. Guizot is evidently disconcerted by it; Madame de Lieven affects a supreme indifference; she told me that Sotomayor was making a Government, a Moderado Government, that he had proposed to Mon to remain. Mon would not without Pidal (his brother-in-law), and the others were willing to have Mon, but would not have Pidal, because the two would make the Cabinet too French. They now acknowledge that 'sans contestation vous n'avez jamais voulu ni rien fait pour le Cobourg.' I asked her whether this was Guizot's opinion, and she said 'parfaitement.' This is incomparably cool. After having had the most reiterated assurances before the fact, which they utterly disregarded, and did not choose to believe, now that the fact is accomplished, and it suits their purpose to make it up, they acknowledge that they were in error, and acted on a mistaken notion.

I went last night to Madame de Circourt, who has a brilliant salon, but I knew none of the people; then to Madame de Girardin, where were people of a totally different description.

Thursday.—I prevented Normanby from going to Thiers' salon the night before last, and yesterday morning I gave him to understand as delicately as I could that all his communications with him and others in opposition to the Government were noted, reported, and much resented. He is, however, still impressed with the notion that Guizot may be got out, and that his connexion with his opponents may conduce to that object, in my opinion a dangerous error.

Kisseleff gave me an account of what had passed between him and Guizot about the despatch which he read in the Chamber. Kisseleff said it was very irregular and improper, but he did not think it had done any harm. Kisseleff received it the morning of the debate in the Peers, and took it to Guizot, telling him it might be of use to him to know the contents. Kisseleff left it with him to read at his ease, and begged him to return it directly, giving him no authority to produce it. Guizot read it in extenso. He said afterwards that he believed it was the best thing he could do for France and Russia too. Strange that a man so formal should be so loose in his transaction of business.

Friday.—I saw Guizot yesterday, my last day; he is very sorry I am going, being the only Englishman he could speak to; he does not see how he can go on with Normanby in his notorious relations avec tous ses ennemis; then as to the press, the 'Morning Chronicle;' Palmerston's connexion with it is so notorious that one might as well try and persuade him day was night as that Palmerston was not concerned in the 'Morning Chronicle.' I told him frankly that I regretted both the appearance and the existence of intimacy between the Embassy and the Opposition, that it was exaggerated, but that I could not be surprised at its producing an effect on him. I did not think it worth while to go again into the case or to triumph over the effect produced by our blue book; I only said 'that he now admitted himself that he had been wrong about Palmerston before, and that this might inspire him with more confidence for the future;' but he said, 'No, he did not admit it; that Palmerston had come into office with the resolution of attacking him anywhere; that the Marriage question in Spain was merely subsidiary to that object, and he had only put forward Don Enrique in order to set up the Progressista party against him and French influence.' He said the greatest danger proceeded from les agents subalternes; that he had given a proof of his resolution to act justly by at once recalling the French Consul at the Mauritius, for which he was well aware he should be attacked here, but that it was right, and he had therefore done it. He said he would communicate with me, but he thinks the disposition of the other Ministers of little consequence so long as Palmerston's are what they are. All our conversation ran on this; his on the difficulty of going on after all that had passed, mine on the necessity of trying. I said what I could for Normanby, and assured him he would find him personally easy to deal with. I then went to Madame de Lieven, who followed in the same strain, and said what is true enough, that Normanby, once having let himself drop into Thiers' hands, will find it difficult to get out again. This has always struck me. I have said what I could to Normanby, but I came too late for that. I am certain they are very uneasy at the effect produced both in England (even in the midst of its apathy) and here by the publication of our papers. Here it is unquestionably great, although they have not yet been distributed fully. I met Cousin last night, who was vehement on the subject, and told me, if he had been aware of their contents, nothing should have prevented his replying to the Duke de Broglie. Tocqueville told me that they had produced a very great effect; that men like himself who approved of what had been done were inexpressibly shocked at the way in which it had been done, and at the revelation of so much that was false and dishonourable in the conduct of the French Government.

THE EMBASSY AND THE OPPOSITION.

Saturday.—Just setting off to London and not sorry to leave Paris, where I am, after all, a fish out of water. I have been most kindly and hospitably entertained, interested, and amused, but the excitement of the particular question once over, I feel that I have no business here, that I am not fit for the society, and should never take root in it; the exertion required, the stretch and the continual alacrity of attention, would be intolerable. I have fallen in here with Scrope Davies, a social refugee, whom I have not seen these twenty-five years, almost the last remnant of a circle of clever men of the world, and once the intimate friend of B.

Yesterday I went about taking leave and went to both the clubs: with Mrs. Austin to M. de Triqueti's studio, and then of course to Madame de Lieven. At the clubs I learnt the confirmation of what I had been led to believe the day before, the extraordinary impression made here by the publication of our blue book. It quite surprised me, not because I do not think it very strong; but having been myself long ago convinced and familiar with most of the details, I did not know that people here were so little prepared for what they had seen. There can be no doubt of the reality and vivacity of the impression. Francis Baring told me that men who had before told him they thought Guizot had the advantage, now came to tell him how entirely their opinions were changed; in short, if it be any advantage, it has done our case infinite good and prodigiously disconcerted the Government. I found Madame de Lieven very low and full of resentment, especially for the publication of Normanby's conversation with Guizot, which she said must make their personal relations still more difficult and unpleasant. It is, however, this document which has produced the strongest effect of all. I told her all I had heard, and that Guizot must make up his mind to be bitterly attacked in the Chamber by Lamartine, Billault, and Thiers. She said that she had no doubt of his coming triumphantly out of the fight.

BITTERNESS OF M. THIERS.

Last night there was a party at the Embassy, at which Thiers and Duvergier were present. Thiers had been with Normanby in the morning. He made an attack on me for believing all Madame de Lieven told me; said I was 'une éponge trempée dans le liquide de Madame de Lieven,' and tried his best to persuade me that Guizot was weak, his majority not worth a rush, and that the King could and would get rid of him whenever he found himself in any sort of danger. 'Tell Lord Palmerston,' he said, 'when he speaks, to say "beaucoup de bien de la France, et beaucoup de mal de Monsieur Guizot."' I said I should give him one-half the advice and not the other, and that Palmerston's wisest course would be to hold moderate language, tell his story, and leave everybody to draw the inferences. I have no doubt he will make a very powerful speech and present an admirable résumé of the whole question. But this new vigour infused into the Opposition, which will bring on an acrimonious debate, though it may cover Guizot with mud, will not shake him from his seat. I told Thiers he was quite mistaken in supposing that I took my opinions from Madame de Lieven or believed one half she told me, but nevertheless I could not believe that the King would part with Guizot if he could possibly help it, for he would look in vain for so supple an instrument, and one so well able to defend him and his measures in the Chambers. However, Thiers thinks of nothing but mischief, of gratifying his own personal passions and resentments. He has evidently persuaded Normanby, and I have no doubt Normanby tries to persuade Palmerston of the same. The cool people here meanwhile tell me that Guizot will not be turned out, and I am inclined to believe it. I leave the Embassy in certainly a very painful and unbecoming condition. Normanby seems not to care who sees his intimacy with Thiers, and he has none whatever with Guizot. They do not and cannot converse on anything but the merest matters of business, and their relations get worse, and seem likely to do so; the obstacles to an understanding sufficiently frank to be useful appear almost insurmountable. Thiers, having got Normanby into his clutches, will not easily let him go again, and the resentment of Guizot will hardly be appeased, nor do I see any chance of their ever being on really good terms. So ends my mission, and it only now remains for me to give the truest account I can of the state of affairs here to those whom it most concerns to know it; but then it will be very difficult for them to adopt any decisive and satisfactory course.