[1] Mr. Spring Rice was Chancellor of the Exchequer in Lord Melbourne’s second Administration until 1839, when he was raised to the peerage under the title of Lord Monteagle of Brandon.

Dover, January 12th, 1837

Having resolved, after many struggles, to go to Paris, here I am on my way, and on arriving find that it blows a hurricane, and there is little or no chance of being able to cross to-morrow; for all I know I may be kept here for the next three days.

January 13th, 1837

I might have gone very well this morning, but was persuaded not to start by the mate of the Government packet, and, like a fool, I listened to him. It was a fine calm morning.

Paris, January 17th, 1837

Arrived here last night at five, having left Dover at a quarter to one the day before; three hours to Boulogne, twenty-two to Paris.

I made a very prosperous journey; went to the Embassy in the evening, and found a heap of people—Molé, Montalivet, Lyndhurst, Madame de Lieven, Madame de Dino, Talleyrand, &c.

Paris, January 19th, 1837

On Tuesday went about visiting; found nobody but Madame Alfred de Noailles and Raikes; was to have gone to the Chamber, but the ticket did not arrive in time; dined at the Embassy. Wednesday, in the morning, to the gallery of the Louvre; dined with Talleyrand; to Madame de Lieven’s and Madame Graham’s. Talleyrand as well as ever, except weaker on his legs; asked me to dine there whenever I was not engaged. In the morning called at the Tuileries, and left a note for the Duke of Orleans’s aide-de-camp, asking to be presented to his Royal Highness; and at night my mother went to Court, and begged leave to bring me there to present me to the Royal family. Lyndhurst sets off to London this morning, and I had only an opportunity of exchanging a few words with him. He told me he had never passed such an agreeable time as the last four months; not a moment of ennui; had become acquainted with a host of remarkable people of all sorts, political characters of all parties, and the littérateurs, such as Victor Hugo, Balzac, &c., the latter of whom, he says, is a very agreeable man. He told me that ‘Le Père Goriot’ is a true story, and that since its publication he had become acquainted with some more circumstances which would have made it still more striking. He has been leading here ‘une vie de garçon,’ and making himself rather ridiculous in some respects. He said to me, ‘I suppose the Government will get on; I’m sure I shall not go on in the House of Lords this year as I did the last. I was induced by circumstances and some little excitement to take a more prominent part than usual last session; but I don’t see what I got by it except abuse. I thought I should not hear any of the abuse that was poured upon me when I came here, and got out of the reach of the English newspapers, PRINCESS LIEVEN IN PARIS. but, on the contrary, I find it all concentrated in Galignani.’ Lyndhurst and Ellice have been great friends here. Madame de Lieven seems to have a very agreeable position at Paris. She receives every night, and opens her house to all comers. Being neutral ground, men of all parties meet there, and some of the most violent antagonists have occasionally joined in amicable and curious discussion. It is probably convenient to her Court that she should be here under such circumstances, for a woman of her talents cannot fail to pick up a good deal of interesting, and perhaps useful, information; and as she is not subject to the operation of the same passions and prejudices which complicated and disturbed her position in England, she is able to form a juster estimate of the characters and the objects of public men. She says Paris is a very agreeable place to live at, but expresses an unbounded contempt for the French character, and her lively sense of the moral superiority of England. I asked her who were the men whom she was best inclined to praise. She likes Molé, as pleasing, intelligent, and gentlemanlike; Thiers the most brilliant, very lively and amusing; Guizot and Berryer, both very remarkable. She talked freely enough of Ellice, who is her dear friend, and from whom she draws all she can of English politics; that he had come here for the purpose of intriguing against the present Government, and trying to set up Thiers again, and that he had fancied he should manage it. Molé[2] was fully aware of it, and felt towards him accordingly. Lord Granville, who was attached to the Duc de Broglie, and therefore violently opposed to Thiers, when he became Minister, soon became even more partial to Thiers, which sudden turn was the more curious, because such had been their original antipathy that Lady Granville had been personally uncivil to Madame Thiers, so much so that Thiers had said to Madame de Lieven, that ‘he would have her to know it was not to be endured that an Ambassadress should behave with such marked incivility to the wife of the Prime Minister, and if she chose to continue so to do she might get her husband sent away.’ The other replied, ‘Monsieur Thiers, if you say this to me with the intention of its being repeated to Lady Granville, I tell you you must go elsewhere for the purpose, for I do not intend to do so.’ I asked her whether it had been repeated, and she said she thought probably it had been through Ellice for soon after all was smiles and civility between them. She talked a great deal about England, and of the ignorance of the French about it; that Molé, for example, had said, ‘It is true that we are not in an agreeable state, but England is in a still worse.’ The King, however, is of a different opinion, and appears better to understand the nature of our system. She described him (Molé) as not the cleverest and most brilliant, but by far the most sensible, sound, and well-judging man of them all.