Came to town. Talleyrand, Madame de Dino, and Alava came to Stoke yesterday. Talleyrand had a circle, but the Chancellor talked too much, and they rather spoilt one another. He said one neat thing. They were talking of Madame d’Abrantès’s ‘Memoirs,’ and of her mother, Madame Pernon. My father said, ‘M. de Marbœuf était un peu l’amant de Madame Pernon, n’est-ce pas?’ He said, ‘Oui, mais je ne sais pas dans quelles proportions.’
September 20th, 1831
News arrived of great riots at Paris, on account of the Polish business and the fall of Warsaw. Madame de Dino (who, by-the-bye, Talleyrand says is the cleverest man or woman he ever knew) said last night that she despaired of the state of things in France, that this was no mere popular tumult, but part of an organised system of disaffection, and that the Carlists had joined the ultra-Republicans, that the National Guard was not to be depended upon, that ‘leur esprit était fatigué.’ Talleyrand himself was very low, and has got no intelligence from his Government. This morning I met Lord Grey, and walked with him. I told him what Madame de Dino had said. He said he knew it all, and how bad things were, and that they would be much worse if the Reform Bill was thrown out here. I asked him how they would be affected by that. He said that a change of Ministry here would have a very bad effect there, from which it may be inferred that if beaten they mean to resign. He said the French Ministry had been very imprudent about Poland. I said, ‘How? for what could they have done? They could only get at Poland through Prussia.’ He said they might have sent a fleet to the Baltic with our concurrence, though we could not urge them to do so. I asked him what he thought would be the result of the dissolution of Périer’s Government; I said that there appeared to me two alternatives, a general bouleversement or the war faction in power under the existing system. He replied he did not think there would now be a bouleversement, but a Ministry of Lafayette, Lamarque, and all that party who were impatient to plunge France into war. I said I did not think France could look to a successful war, for the old alliance would be re-formed against her. He rejoined that Russia was powerless, crippled by this contest, and under the necessity of maintaining a great army in Poland; Austria and Prussia were both combustible, half the provinces of the former nearly in a state of insurrection; that the latter had enough to do to preserve quiet, and the French would rouse all the disaffected spirit which existed in both. I said ‘then we were on the eve of that state of things which was predicted by Canning in his famous speech.’ Here we met Ellis, and I left them.
I afterwards saw George Villiers, who told me that he knew from a member of the Cabinet that there had been a division in it on the question of going out if the Reform Bill should be rejected, and that it had been carried by a majority that they should. He told me also a curious thing about Stanley’s Arms Bill: that it had never been imparted to Lord Anglesey, nor to the Cabinet here, and that Lord Grey had been obliged to write an apology to Lord Anglesey, and to tell him he (Lord Grey) had himself seen the Bill for the first time in the newspapers. This he had from Lord C., who is a great friend of Lord Anglesey’s, and who had seen Lord Grey’s letter before he left Ireland; but the story appears to me quite incredible, and is probably untrue.
CHAPTER XVI.
Whig and Tory Meetings on Reform — Resolution to carry the Bill — Holland — Radical Jones — Reform Bill thrown out by the Lords — Dorsetshire Election — Division among the Tories — Bishop Phillpotts — Prospects of Reform — Its Dangers — Riots at Bristol — The Cholera at Sunderland — An Attempt at a Compromise on Reform — Lord Wharncliffe negotiates with the Ministers — Negotiation with Mr. Barnes — Proclamation against the Unions — Barbarism of Sunderland — Disappointment of Lord Wharncliffe — Bristol and Lyons — Commercial Negotiations with France — Poulett Thomson — Lord Wharncliffe’s Proposal to Lord Grey — Disapproved by the Duke of Wellington — Moderation of Lord John Russell — The Appeal of Drax v. Grosvenor — The Second Reform Bill — Violence of Lord Durham — More Body-snatchers — Duke of Richmond and Sir Henry Parnell — Panshanger — Creation of Peers — Division of Opinion — Negotiation to avoid the Creation of Peers — Lord Wharncliffe’s Interview with the King — Opposition of the Duke of Wellington — The Waverers resolve to separate from the Duke.
September 22nd, 1831
The night before last Croker and Macaulay made two fine speeches on Reform; the former spoke for two hours and a half, and in a way he had never done before. Macaulay was very brilliant. There was a meeting at Lord Ebrington’s yesterday, called by him, Lyttelton Lawley, and of members of the House of Commons only, and they (without coming to any resolution) were all agreed to prevail on the Government not to resign in the event of the Reform Bill being rejected in the House of Lords. I have no doubt, therefore, in spite of what Lord Grey said, and the other circumstances I have mentioned above, that they will not resign, and I doubt whether there will be any occasion for it.