With great imprudence and impropriety, in my opinion, Normanby, with Palmerston's concurrence, has been in confidential communication with Thiers for the purpose of enabling the latter to attack the Government in the Chamber, it being of course expected and understood that we were to make a strong case against Guizot at home. All the world here knows of this connexion and blames it. Guizot is of course indignant at it, and it renders all communication between him and Normanby as cold and distant as possible. Thiers is as sulky as a bear; he knows that his alliance with the Embassy has done him no good, and now it seems unlikely to enable him to do anybody else any harm. It is clear to me that we are in great danger of cutting a contemptible figure and something more, for nothing can be so impolitic as to create a belief here that the people of England are resolved to submit to anything rather than go to war, and that the French Government may follow their own devices without hindrance, for if the Minister for Foreign Affairs (especially Palmerston) remonstrates and complains he will probably not be supported at home. The fact is, Palmerston's mismanagement of his case and his most unwise persistence in his argument about the Treaty of Utrecht have ruined him and given gain de cause to Guizot. I must say that I begin to think no reliance is to be placed on him, and that he really is a very bad and dangerous Minister. It appears that before the Session opened Lansdowne wrote to Palmerston and desired to know what he meant to do, what to insist on, and, in short, how they stood. He wrote back word that he had no thoughts of insisting on any renunciations, as it was clearly impossible to obtain them, and that he was ready to go on with France amicably and frankly on all matters of common interest, though of course there could not be the same confidence as heretofore. On this Lansdowne made his speech. But yesterday morning in the midst of all these honeyed words there arrives a letter from Palmerston to Normanby desiring him to go and complain formally of the affair of the extracts, and particularly that what he did publish was not textually correct, and that Guizot's excuses were not satisfactory. Normanby never told me of this till the evening when he had done it. He went to him and read the letter, and Guizot was very angry and said excuses was not a proper word between gentlemen, and that it was difficult to carry on communications when such expressions were used. Normanby said he could only answer for the English word in which sense he ought to have understood it.
M. DE TOCQUEVILLE.
Evening.—I saw the despatch this morning; it was short enough, but it would have been better not to have read it to Guizot. This evening, however, Normanby met him at Madame de Lieven's, when he told him he thought it not worth while to write to Palmerston what had passed between them yesterday, as he had misunderstood the meaning of the English word. Guizot said as that was the case he had nothing to say, and thought too it would be as well to say nothing to Palmerston about it. So this matter is in a manner blown over, but the same animus will probably generate fresh things of the same kind.
This morning I called on Tocqueville and sat some time with him and his wife, an Englishwoman. He looks as clever as he is, and is full of vivacity, and at the same time of simplicity, in his conversation. He gave me an account of the state of parties in France substantially the same as I had heard before; the schism of Billault and Dufaure, to whose section he belongs; they could not go on any longer with Thiers, who, he says, does not command above twenty or thirty votes, and is out of the question. He had formerly belonged rather to Odilon Barrot than to Thiers; said the marriage question was most decidedly popular in France, because considered as having given us a check which had paid off old scores, and that the being now quits had rendered a future good understanding more easy; and never did he remember so general a disposition to be on friendly terms with us, and to act in concert with us; he thinks the King could turn out Guizot and make another Government, but that he is not likely to do it.
I went last night to a ball at the Hôtel de Ville, where amongst many fine people were all the bourgeoisie. It was a magnificent ball and very well worth seeing, many of the women very good-looking and all well dressed. There must have been two thousand people there, and the house extraordinarily fine. From thence to a ball at Madame Pozzo di Borgo's, the most beautiful house I ever saw, fitted up with the greatest luxury, and recherché and in excellent taste. There were to be seen all the exquisitely fine people, the cream of Parisian society, all the Faubourg St. Germain, the adherents of the old and frondeurs of the new dynasty who keep aloof from the Court, and live in political obedience to, but in social defiance of, the ruling powers. They are knit together by a sort of compact of disloyalty to the de facto sovereign, and if any one of them suffers himself or herself to be attracted to Court the offender immediately loses caste, is treated with the utmost scorn and indignation, and if a man very probably does not escape without some personal quarrel and is sure to be deserted by his friends.
M. GUIZOT AND LORD NORMANBY.
January 26th.—Yesterday morning the 'Morning Chronicle' came with a bitter and violent article against Guizot's speech in the Chamber; the courier at the same time brought copies of our printed papers, and I took one to Madame de Lieven. There I found Guizot furious at this article, which he said he was sure had been dictated by Palmerston himself. I said I was as much shocked at it as he was, and that Normanby regretted it very much, but that I was persuaded Palmerston had had no hand in it, and no knowledge of it; that he had written to Lord Lansdowne the day after his speech saying he entirely approved of it and agreed in all he said, and it was impossible he should have at the same time written such a letter and sanctioned such an article, but that I was sorry he had not taken means to prevent such diatribes, and inspired the 'Chronicle' with a better spirit. It was preaching to the winds. His dislike of Palmerston is so great, and his conviction of the reciprocity of the sentiment so rooted, that he will not allow himself to doubt. I left them because I was engaged, and promised to return in the afternoon to her. When I did return I found the perusal of the papers had made a great impression on her. She said there were many curious things she did not know before. I said 'Certainly, so I told you,' and I then pointed out to her certain letters and asked her if they did not prove to demonstration, first, that the proposal of a Coburg came entirely from Madrid and was the desire of the Spanish Court; secondly, that we had constantly refused to lend ourselves to it; and thirdly, that if we had answered the appeal to us according to the disposition they always had imputed to us, the marriage might have been made. She was obliged to own that it was so, but then again returned to the old question 'Why, then, did you name him?' I said once more for the fiftieth time that it never had entered into the head of Palmerston or of anybody else that the mention of his name would have raised such a notion or suspicion in them or in anybody, and that it was wonderful they would not see that if he had had the intention and that this letter contained the expression of it, the last thing he would have done would have been to show it to them. She then talked again about the 'Chronicle' and the difficulty of going on, of the unsatisfactory relations between the Foreign Office and the Embassy, and of the great difficulty of ever restoring them to such a condition as they ought to be in for any useful purpose. 'How,' she asked, 'could M. Guizot open his mind to Normanby, or talk confidentially to him, when he knows he is intimately connected with the Opposition, and that what he says may be repeated the next moment to Thiers and appear in the "Constitutionnel" on the following morning?' This is the real embarrassment, and it is not easy to see how it is to be got over. Guizot and Normanby are on civil terms, and that is all. When they meet on business they discuss the particular matter in hand, and never anything more; to William Hervey Guizot does not speak at all; when they meet at Madame de Lievens, Guizot appears not to see him. She says that I am the only Englishman to whom he can talk openly, and consequently they are very sorry for my departure.
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.