Lord John went away the day I came. He is in high spirits, on good terms with the Queen, and well satisfied with the political aspect of his affairs. He seems very honourably and wisely disposed, meaning well and conscientiously, with no rash designs and extravagant projects, but, on the contrary, desirous of doing nothing but what public opinion and public necessity really demand, and determined to avoid all extremes, such as might rouse any great interest to a furious opposition against him. He resists a dissolution, which is strenuously urged upon him by Ellice and others. He seems to be wonderfully free from any spirit of jobbing and favouritism in his appointments of all sorts, and, without losing sight of party and political ties and obligations, to be resolved to do what is right and just and good for the public service. It is curious to see what good terms he is on with the Duke of Wellington, who is much more cordial and communicative with him than he was with his former colleagues. But Lord John is very civil and deferential to him, and he has no reason to find fault with the Whig Minister who always has been a Whig; he could not forgive his old friends for their new Whiggism, which was odious to him, and in which he found himself involved against his inclination.
They are all very much annoyed at the Montpensier marriage, and the way in which Louis Philippe has carried his point. They say that he has effected it by a long course of duplicity and intrigue, but that Aberdeen had suffered the marriage question to go so far, that they had not time or power to stop it. But Clarendon, who told me this, had just before told me that a proposition had come from France for some joint action about the Queen's marriage, and that Palmerston left this unanswered for above a month. At last Clarendon received a letter from William Hervey,[139] complaining of this, and saying how mischievous it was, which letter he took to John Russell, and resolved to urge him to press Palmerston to send an answer. Lord John pulled out of his pocket one he had received from Normanby to the same effect. He did speak to Palmerston after (or, indeed, it may have been before) Palmerston wrote a despatch to Bulwer, which Clarendon said was quite admirable; but long before this reached Madrid the mischief was done. Now I find there is a difference between Palmerston and Jarnac about some matter of fact, and on the whole matter our Government considers that they have been deceived and ill-used, and that the independence of Spain, in which we have an interest, is about to be completely sacrificed. It is, however, now too late for us to take any energetic steps to prevent this marriage, and Palmerston, however angry, seems to take a very dispassionate and prudent view of the situation. But there is and must be an end of the intimacy between the two Governments, and probably between the two Courts, for the Queen and Prince Albert partake of the indignation and resentment of her Ministers. I confess I can feel none of the apprehensions that my friends do. I don't believe the influence of France will be increased in Spain by the marriage; more likely the reverse; and if it were, I do not see how it ever can be exercised in a manner injurious to us. There never can be a renewal of the family compact. Spain has no colonies except Cuba and no navy, nor will have any for many years to come; the old dangers that excited the alarm and indignation of Chatham have long ceased to exist or to be possible. I believe that it will be attended with no greater evil (but that is a great one) than the revival of jealous, semi-hostile feelings between France and England, and the termination of that state of cordiality and confidence which have been, and would be, instrumental in maintaining the peace of the world.
THE SPANISH MARRIAGES.
September 24th.—Went to Broadlands on Friday last. Palmerston was so engaged, messengers arriving all day long, that there was no possibility of conversing with him for some time; but on Sunday morning, after breakfast, he gave me a very clear and succinct account of the Spanish marriage question. He is very much disconcerted, and very indignant at all that has taken place, and he thinks that the consequences will be, sooner or later, very mischievous. It seems that the question of the Montpensier marriage had been touched upon some time ago, but Guizot gave assurances to Aberdeen, and Louis Philippe did the same to the Queen, that there should be no question of it till the Queen of Spain was married and had got children (in the plural[140]). It was therefore impossible not to rely on an engagement so positive as this. Meanwhile the different actors in this drama seem to have been pulling different ways, and all sorts of intrigues were going on both at Paris and Madrid. Christina wanted the Queen to marry the Coburg Prince, and urged us to support this marriage. We refused. Louis Philippe was violently against this match, which he affected to consider as an English object, besides that he is not a Bourbon. The French Government instructed Jarnac to go on offering to settle the matter in concert with us, but at the same time, and without any instruction to us, they were concerting the scene that was acted at Madrid, and preparing for the simultaneous announcement of the two marriages. Palmerston told Jarnac that we would have no concern with the Coburg candidate as Christina wished. If we had chosen to consent to this, and to connive at his being sent at once to Madrid and the match concluded, Palmerston says we could have made a bargain with Christina, and got her to prevent the Montpensier marriage, but this would have savoured of intrigue on our part, and have been false and underhand, the same sort of conduct that we now reproach France for having been guilty of. Palmerston therefore said to Jarnac, 'Why don't you at once take one of the Spanish princes, Don Francisco's sons? Of the two, Don Enrique seems the least objectionable, and would be preferred by Queen Isabella to his brother, whom she dislikes. We are quite ready to concur with you in this settlement and to communicate with the Spanish Government accordingly.' Jarnac appeared to acquiesce, but Palmerston says that it is quite clear that this did not suit Louis Philippe, and that he thought Enrique so much better a man, better endowed morally and physically, than his brother, that as soon as he found we were ready to join in settling such a marriage, he sent off orders to Madrid at once to clinch the affair with the Duke of Cadiz. All this was done without any intimation to us of his designs; on the contrary, Jarnac was deceiving Palmerston here, at the very time all this intrigue was working at Madrid. The nocturnal Council was held, and the young Queen compelled, much against her inclination, to accept as her husband a miserable creature, whom she dislikes and despises. They told her if she did not take him she should not be married at all. He is known to be imbecile, and supposed to be impotent; but it is possible in this latter respect the world may be mistaken, and that he may be the means, after all, of continuing a race of imbeciles, of which the Royal family of Spain has generally consisted. As to the other child, though policy would forbid the banns, she is well enough off. The Duc de Montpensier is probably a far better husband in all ways than she would have found elsewhere, and to be transplanted to Paris and made a member of such a family as that of Louis Philippe, people who have brains and hearts, is a blessed lot for her in comparison with that of her elder sister. But without any question the manner in which all this has been done is odious and offensive to the last degree, and of necessity puts an end to all the intimacy which has existed between the two Governments and the two Courts. It has been a great damper to the Queen's engouement for the House of Orleans, for she fully enters into the feelings and sentiments of her Ministers upon the whole question. She wrote to the Queen of the French a letter, in which (though I suppose in very measured terms) she made known her thoughts. We have done all we can do with propriety and dignity in such a case. The long and short of it is that we have been tricked and deceived, but we cannot quarrel outright about it. We have remonstrated and given our opinion upon it, but the matter has now proceeded too far to be stopped, and Louis Philippe would not be such a fool as not to clutch the prize, when he has subjected himself to all the odium, nor could he now retract if he would.
SPANISH INTRIGUES.
At Madrid and in Spain the French alliance is very unpopular, but the Government is sold to Christina; the Cabinet is nothing but a knot of her satellites; Munoz, Isturitz, Mon, and Pidal are all leagued together with Bresson, the French Ambassador; the Cortes is packed, the Press is gagged; the people cannot make themselves heard. The elements of disorder are, however, scattered about. In the midst of a chaos of intrigue and anger and dissatisfaction, the Pretender has escaped from France, and Narvaez has been recalled to Madrid. He goes with the privity of the King, and the two worthies have an understanding together; but while the wily King thinks to make the brutal Spaniard his tool, the Spaniard, not less wily, quite as unscrupulous, more passionate and vindictive, and swelling with an ambition of his own, is gone back with a resolution to play a very different part from what is expected of him—to throw over Louis Philippe and Christina, rouse the sentiment of national independence and hatred of France, and deliver his country from the yoke of French domination or influence.
I saw Clarendon for a few minutes on Tuesday, who showed me a very curious and by no means ill-written letter from Narvaez, setting forth these designs, but saying that he must proceed with great caution in order to ensure success. This letter was written in Spanish to Madame Marliani at Paris (from whom and her husband he seems to have no secrets), and she translated it into French and sent it to Clarendon. It will be exceedingly curious to watch the progress of these complicated affairs. Louis Philippe, while accomplishing his darling scheme, may find that he has over-reached himself and plunged into a sea of troubles. Both Palmerston and Clarendon attach far greater political importance to the Montpensier marriage than I am disposed to do; they think it will rivet French influence on Spain. I think (though it may do so) that it is more likely to arouse and keep alive the jealousy of French influence. There can be no doubt that it is the interest of Louis Philippe to prevent the triumph of constitutional principles in Spain, and to make the Government as arbitrary as he can; while it is ours to promote their ascendency, because the more free the nation becomes, the less will they endure the domination of France. He has seen this all along, and I have not much doubt that what Palmerston told me about the Quadruple Alliance is true. He said that when he proposed it to Talleyrand, the latter jumped at it. He said, 'This is the very thing we most desire. What I want is to sign something, no matter what, with you, that our names should appear together in some public act demonstrative of our union.' Accordingly the Quadruple treaty was signed. It answered the end. The other Governments took alarm at the union between France and England, and began to make advances to France. Then Louis Philippe, having got all the good he expected out of this treaty, turned his thoughts to the object of improving his relations with the other Powers who had hitherto treated him so coldly. Pozzo went to him and remonstrated with him on the Quadruple treaty, and he replied (so Palmerston says), 'Mon cher, je vous donne ma parole d'honneur que je n'ai signé le traité que pour ne pas l'exécuter.' It seems hardly credible that he should have so broadly announced his intentions, but whether he said it or no, he acted in exact conformity with the speech that is attributed to him, for it was nothing but the connivance of the French Government in the transport of stores from France to the Carlists which kept the war alive so long, and as soon as that connivance ceased the war was brought to an end. Jarnac tells people here that Palmerston wanted the Coburg alliance, which is certainly false, and he must know it to be so. He went down to Broadlands the other day with M. Dumont, and on that occasion Palmerston is said to have told him that 'it was the first time a King of France had broken his word,' but it is hardly possible he should have said this, though it may be true.[141]
THE QUEEN'S INTEREST IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS.
Between this Spanish question and the increasing destitution in Ireland, the Government are very uneasy, and Lord John particularly is very nervous and alarmed. They are now discussing the question of calling Parliament together in order to ask for money, for the Irish are clamorous for money, and Lord John is indisposed to make any considerable advances without the sanction of Parliament, but it would be very unpopular and very impolitic to assemble Parliament, and for such a purpose.
October 7th.—At the Grove the last two days, with Lord and Lady Lansdowne, Panizzi, and a Spaniard with a name like this—Buschenthal,[142] really an Alsatian, I believe, and the Hollands. Clarendon told me some things I had not heard before relating to the Spanish and other questions; among others about the Queen and Palmerston, which is remarkable, because it proves two things: one, that the Queen takes a more serious and prominent part in business than I was aware of; and the other, that Palmerston's independent action in the Foreign Office has received a complete and final check. It is pretty clear that although John Russell is so different from Melbourne, Palmerston had resolved to make an attempt to go on in his old way. It was about the end of August that he wrote a despatch to Bulwer of a very important character, both with regard to the sentiments of England on the marriage question and the relations which he wished Bulwer to establish with the Progressista party. This despatch he sent to John Russell, requesting it might be immediately returned that he might send it off. It reached John Russell on a Sunday morning as he was going to church. He was not at all pleased at the hour and the day on which it was sent to him, and he kept it till the next day. He then returned it to Palmerston with an intimation that such a despatch could by no means go without being previously submitted to the Queen. He sent it to the Queen, who kept it two days and then returned it with her own comments and objections. Her letter was remarkably well written, and all the objections concisely but ably put, and it exhibited a very correct knowledge of the state of parties in Spain. The consequence of the Queen's letter was that John Russell assembled Palmerston, Lord Lansdowne, and Clarendon at his house, where they discussed the matter for two hours, and finally agreed on a letter to be written in place of that which Palmerston had first composed. It was divided into two parts and into two separate despatches. Though they did not separate till past twelve at night, Palmerston re-wrote these despatches before he went to bed, and the next morning they were again sent to the Queen, who returned them with her approbation. But on my expressing my surprise at this, Clarendon told me that the Baroness Lehzen had told him long ago that the Queen kept a journal in which she entered everything remarkable that came under her notice, with her own observations and thoughts thereupon, and that after every important debate she consulted all the newspapers, and taking what appeared to her the best reports of the most remarkable speeches, she made a précis from them of the whole. Nothing, it appears, can exceed her indignation and that of the Prince at the conduct of the King of the French, and she spoke of it to Clarendon in the most unmeasured terms. The entente cordiale is at an end, and can hardly be revived. 'He did not write to me himself,' she said, 'but made the Queen write. I don't think they will be much pleased with my answer.' I heard also a miserable subterfuge of Guizot's, for which I feel quite sorry and ashamed. He gave (either to Normanby or to William Hervey) a positive assurance that there was no design of making the marriages simultaneous, of marrying the Infanta at the same time as the Queen. When he was subsequently called to account for this fresh piece of falsehood and deceit, he was not ashamed to descend to so paltry a subterfuge as to say that he never intended anything but that they were not to be married by one ceremony, that they were not to stand at the altar together![143] He had much better have brazened it out, and said that it had not been originally intended, but that they had changed their minds. Peel met John Russell at Windsor. He came one day and Lord John went away the next, which was a judicious way of managing their invitations. He told Palmerston that he and Aberdeen and Graham were as indignant at what had passed and at the conduct of the King and Guizot, as any of the Ministers could be, and I saw a letter from Graham to George Lewis in the same strain.