Paris, June 23rd.—I came here to pass through to Vichy, and accordingly on Tuesday last to Vichy I went. I arrived there in the evening, found a detestable apartment without a fireplace; the weather was intolerable, it never ceased raining, and the cold was intense. Finding that it was useless to take the waters or baths in such weather, and being disgusted with the whole thing, I resolved to return to Paris, which I did on Friday, and here I am comfortably established in the Embassy again.
On my arrival I was greeted with the painful intelligence of the repulse sustained by the French and English on the 18th in the attack on the Mamelon and Redan batteries, and of the great losses which both armies had suffered. This failure has cast a great gloom over Paris and London, and the disappointment is greater because we had become so accustomed to success that everybody regarded failure in anything as impossible. Cowley told me that the Emperor was excessively annoyed, and the more because they entirely disapprove of P?lissier's proceedings. Without tying him down or attempting from hence to direct the operations of the campaign, they had given P?lissier the strongest recommendations to abstain from assaults which they had reason to believe would not be decisive and would cost a vast number of lives, and they were very anxious the operations against the Russians in the field should be pressed instead. There had been some half angry communications between the Government and P?lissier, who had talked of resigning the command. The opinions of the Government had been principally formed from those of General Niel, who had constantly reported his conviction to the above mentioned effect, and had earnestly deprecated these assaults. Then there is reason to apprehend that such unsuccessful attempts may produce bad blood and mutual accusations between the allied forces. Already P?lissier and Raglan have begun to cast the blame of the failure on each other, though apparently the difference has not yet swelled to any serious amount. I have always thought that it would have been better to have no divided command, but to place an English corps under a French commander-in-chief, and a French squadron under an English admiral. This was what the Emperor proposed, and he wrote a letter himself on the subject, which Cowley promised to show me. We have had much conversation about the Emperor, his character and his capacity, and I am puzzled how to understand and to do justice to the latter. Being such as he is represented to be, and having the defects he has, it is difficult to comprehend his having accomplished the great things he has, and raised himself to such a situation and such a height of personal power.
June 24th.—Last night I went to Thiers', where I found Mignet, Roger du Nord, and others of his adherents, none of whom I recollected, nor they me. This morning I called on Achille Fould, who told me the Emperor knew I was here and would like me to be presented to him, and it was settled that this should be done. I am nothing loth, for I have a curiosity to see this remarkable man and to converse with him. Madame de Lieven told me this morning that not long before the Revolution of '48 J?rome Bonaparte had entreated her to exert her influence to get him made a peer.
A DINNER AT THE TUILERIES.
June 26th.—Yesterday morning arrived an invitation to dine at the Tuileries the same evening. I went there, was ushered into a room with eight or ten men in it, none of whom I knew except Count Bacciochi, whom I had met at Fould's the day before—three in uniform, the rest in plain clothes. A man, whom I suppose to be the aide de camp de service, came forward to receive me and invited me to sit down. Presently the same or another man came and said 'Milord' (they all milorded me), 'vous vous mettrez ? table, s'il vous pla?t, ? c?t? de l'Empereur ? sa droite.' I was then taken into the next room, which adjoins the cabinet of the Emperor. In a few minutes His Majesty made his appearance; he immediately came up to me, bowed very civilly, and asked me the usual questions of when I came to Paris, etc. In a minute dinner was announced and we went in. As we walked in he said to me, 'L'Imp?ratrice sera bien f?ch?e de ne vous avoir pas vu.' At dinner, which did not last above twenty-five minutes, he talked (a sort of dropping conversation) on different subjects, and I found him so easy to get on with that I ventured to start topics myself. After dinner we returned to the room we had left, and after coffee, seeing me staring about at the portraits, he said all his family were there, and he told me who they all were and the history of these portraits, which, he said, had made the tour of the world.
After this he asked me to sit down, which I did at a round table by his side, and M. Visconti on the other side of me, and then we had a conversation which lasted at least an hour and a half on every imaginable subject. It was impossible not to be struck with his simplicity, his being so natural and totally without any air or assumption of greatness, though not undignified, but perfectly comme il faut, with excellent manners, and easy, pleasant, fluent conversation. I was struck with his air of truth and frankness, and though of course I could not expect in my position and at this first interview with him that he should be particularly expansive, yet he gave me the idea of being not only not reserved but as if, when intimate, he would have a great deal of abandon. It was difficult to bring away all the subjects he discussed, and I do not know that he said anything wonderfully striking, but he made a very favourable impression on me, and made me wish to know more of him, which I am never likely to do.
He talked of the war and its conduct, of the faults committed, and of the characters and talents of the generals engaged, comparing them, much to their disadvantage, with the generals of the Empire. I asked him which were the best, and he said all the African generals were much of the same calibre: Changarnier, Lamorici?re, St. Arnaud, Canrobert, P?lissier—very little difference between them. The war they waged in Africa was of a peculiar character, and did not render them more capable of conducting great strategical operations in Europe. He talked of Thiers and Odilon Barrot, and described scenes with the latter in Council when Barrot was his Minister; of the 'Times' and its influence; of Spain; in short, of a vast variety of subjects; of the Exhibition here, and with some appearance of disappointment that the people will not go to it. His simplicity and absence of all faste were remarkable; thus, I asked him what he thought of the Hango affair, when he said it was not so bad as had been reported. 'I have had an account of it from Admiral Penaud to-day; should you like to see it?' I said 'Yes,' when he got up, went into his cabinet, and came back with the letter in his hand; and a little while after, when we were talking of the siege of Sebastopol, he asked if I had ever seen a very good engineer's map of the whole thing; and when I said I had not, he said, 'Then I will show you one;' and he again went into his cabinet and brought it out. After this long palaver he took leave of me, shaking hands with much apparent cordiality.
June 27th.—Bosquet has written to the Emperor that these assaults on the Russian works are only a useless waste of time. Marshal Vaillant has told Cowley that they agree in this, but they must either recall their general or let him go on in his own way, and if they interfere, the blame of any disaster will inevitably fall on them, no matter what might be the cause. I dined with Flahaut yesterday; in the morning rode round all the boulevards, a grand promenade by which Paris is well seen; and I met Guizot at Madame de Lieven's, who talked of the war and asked how it was ever to end. 'People go to war,' he said, 'to make conquests or to make peace; you profess not to intend the first, how do you propose to effect the second? By reducing Russia to accept your terms—can you do so? will she yield? If not, what then?—you may wound her, but you can't strike her in a vital part; and the more barbarous she is, the more she will consent to suffer and the less she will be disposed to yield.' He gave me an account (in short) of the bother about the Academy and the Emperor's interference. They do not mean to give way, but they think he will; if he does not, he will have to dissolve them.
DEATH OF LORD RAGLAN.
Paris, July 5th.—One of my attacks of gout came on this day week and disabled me from going anywhere, doing anything, and still more from writing anything. In the meanwhile we received the news of Lord Raglan's death.[1] Though they do not care about it here, there has been a very decent display of sympathy and regret, and the Emperor wrote to Cowley with his own hand a very proper letter. There is good reason to believe that the fatal termination of Lord Raglan's illness was in some (perhaps in great) measure produced by vexation and disappointment at the failure of the 18th, and annoyance at the many embarrassments of his position. It is certain that for a considerable time great disunion and poignant differences existed between him and the French generals. Canrobert wrote home a very unhandsome letter, in which he gave as one of his reasons for resigning the impossibility of going on with Raglan. I believe Raglan complained of Canrobert with much better reason. On the 18th P?lissier changed the plan of attack that had been agreed on between them; and, besides all the mistakes that occurred in the French operations, there seems to have been a want of continual and active concert between the two commanders-in-chief during the operations. Raglan proposed a general attack on the town when the assaults failed, which P?lissier refused to agree to. There is a fair probability this would have succeeded, as an English force did get into a part of the town, stayed there some time, and got away unobserved. There is now a bad feeling, a disposition to recrimination, between the two armies which may have very bad effects, and it is awful to think our army is under an untried man of whom nothing is known, and who is not likely to have more weight with, and receive more consideration from, the French generals than his predecessor. However desirable unity of command may be, in the present temper of the troops and after all that has occurred it would be impossible. General Torrens, who is here, speaks in high terms of Raglan, especially of his magnanimity in bearing all the blame which has been thrown upon him and never saying one word in his own vindication, which might have entirely exonerated him but have done some injury to the cause. Torrens thinks that in all or almost all in which he has appeared most obnoxious to censure he could have triumphantly excused himself, and have proved that the causes were attributable to others and not to himself. His must have been a painful as it was an ungrateful service, and it was a melancholy and untimely end.