The Grove, December 24th.—George Lewis and I have been walking and talking together all the morning. He is fully as pacific as I am, and entertains exactly the same thoughts that I do, of the egregious folly of the war, of the delusion under which the English nation is labouring, and of the wickedness of the press in practising upon the popular credulity in the way it has done. He seems to like to talk to me on this subject, because he can talk freely to me, which he could hardly do with any of his own colleagues, still less in any other society. This morning he again recurred to the circumstances of the negotiations now going on, and he gave me an account of the transaction which puts the whole thing in a very ridiculous light, which would be very comical if it were not so very tragical. 'Think,' he said, 'that this is a war carried on for the independence of Turkey, and we, the Allies, are bound to Turkey by mutual obligations not to make peace but by common consent and concurrence. Well, we have sent an offer of peace to Russia of which the following are among the terms: We propose that Turkey, who possesses one half of the Black Sea coast, shall have no ships, no ports, and no arsenals in that sea; and then there are conditions about the Christians who are subjects of Turkey, and others about the mouths of the Danube, to which part of the Turkish dominions are contiguous. Now in all these stipulations so intimately concerning Turkey, for whose independence we are fighting, Turkey is not allowed to have any voice whatever, nor has she ever been allowed to be made acquainted with what is going on, except through the newspapers, where the Turkish Ministers may have read what is passing, like other people. When the French and Austrian terms were discussed in the Cabinet, at the end of the discussion someone modestly asked whether it would not be proper to communicate to Musurus (the Turkish Ambassador in London) what was in agitation and what had been agreed upon, to which Clarendon said he saw no necessity for it whatever; and indeed that Musurus had recently called upon him, when he had abstained from giving him any information whatever of what was going on. Another time, somebody suggesting in the Cabinet that we were bound to Turkey by treaty not to make peace without her consent, Palmerston, who is a great stickler for Turkey, said very quietly that there would be no difficulty on that score; in point of fact, the Turk evidently
'Stands like a cypher in the great account.'
The Grove, December 26th.—Since I have been here Clarendon has resumed all his old habits of communication and confidence with me, has told me everything and shown me everything that is interesting and curious. I wish I could remember it all. Such fragments as have remained in my memory I will jot down here as they recur to me. Here are letters from Seymour at Vienna describing his good reception there, gracious from the Court, and cordially civil from the great society, especially from Metternich who seems to have given the mot d'ordre. Metternich talked much to Seymour of his past life and recollections, complimented him for his reports of conversations with the Emperor Nicholas, and said that many years ago the Emperor had talked to him (Metternich) about Turkey in the same strain, and used the same expression about 'le malade' and 'l'homme malade,' when Metternich asked him 'Est-ce que Votre Majest? en parle comme son m?decin ou comme son h?ritier?' Also letters from Bloomfield (Berlin) and from Buchanan (Copenhagen) with different opinions as to the probability of Russia accepting or refusing—the former for, the second against; some curious letters from Cowley, full of his indignation against Walewski; the quarrels of Persigny and Walewski; the perplexity of the Emperor, his desire for peace, his hopes that Russia may lend a favourable ear to the proposals; Cowley's suspicions of Walewski, and in a smaller degree of the Emperor himself, especially of His Majesty's communications with Seebach, the Saxon Minister, and not impossibly through him with St. Petersburg.
A curious anecdote showing the strange terms the parties concerned are on: One day Cowley was with Walewski (at the time the question of terms was going on between France and Austria) and the courier from Vienna was announced. Walewski begged Cowley, who took up his hat, not to go away, and said he should see what the courier brought. He opened the despatches and gave them to Cowley to read, begging him not to tell the Emperor he had seen them. In the afternoon Cowley saw the Emperor, who had then got the despatches; the Emperor also gave them to Cowley to read, desiring him not to let Walewski know he had shown them to him!
DISPUTES OF FRENCH MINISTERS.
There has been a dreadful rixe between Walewski and Persigny. I have forgotten exactly the particular causes, but the other day Persigny went over to Paris partly to complain of Walewski to the Emperor. He would not go near Walewski, and told the Emperor he should not; the Emperor, however, made them both meet in his Cabinet the next day, when a violent scene took place between them, and Persigny said to Walewski before his face all that he had before said behind his back; and he had afterwards a very long conversation with the Emperor, in which he told him plainly what danger he was in from the corruption and bad character of his entourage, that he had never had anything about him but adventurers who were bent on making their own fortunes by every sort of infamous agiotage and speculation, by which the Imperial Crown was placed in imminent danger. 'I myself,' Persigny said, 'am nothing but an adventurer, who have passed through every sort of vicissitude; but at all events people have discovered that I have clean hands and do not bring disgrace on your Government, like so many others, by my profligate dishonesty.' 'Well,' said the Emperor, 'but what am I to do? What remedy is there for such a state of things?' Persigny replied that he had got the remedy in his head, but that the time was not come yet for revealing his ideas on the subject.
As we went to town, we talked over the terms proposed to Prussia. Clarendon said he could not understand the policy of Austria nor what she was driving at. She had entered very heartily into plans of a compulsory and hostile character against Russia, who would never forgive her, especially for proposing the cession of Bessarabia. I said I thought the most objectionable item of their propositions (and I believed the most unprecedented) was the starting by making it an Ultimatum. He replied that it was Austria who tendered the Ultimatum, and that it was not exactly so, the sharp edge having been rounded off by the mode to be adopted, which was as follows: Esterhazy was to communicate the project to the Cabinet of St. Petersburg, and say he had reason to believe that the Allies would be willing to make peace on those terms; he was then to wait nine days. If in that time the Russian Government replied by a positive negative, he was, as soon as he got this notification, to quit St. Petersburg with all his embassy; if no answer was returned at the end of nine days, he was to signify that his orders were to ask for an answer in ten days, and if at the end thereof the answer was in the negative, or there was no answer, he was to come away, so that there was to be no Ultimatum in the first instance. 'But,' I said, 'what if Russia proposed some middle course and offered to negotiate?' 'His instructions were not to agree to this.' 'Well,' said I, 'but when you abstain from calling this an Ultimatum, it is next to impossible that Russia should not propose to negotiate, and if she does beg that her proposal may be conveyed to the Allies before everything is closed, it will be very difficult to refuse this; and is it not probable that France and Austria will both vote for entering into pourparlers; and, if they do, can you refuse?' He seemed struck with this, and owned that it was very likely to occur, and that, if it did, we should be obliged to enter into negotiation. So probable does this contingency appear, that there has already been much discussion as to who shall go from hence to the Congress, if there is one. I said he had much better go himself. He expressed great dislike to the idea, but said the Queen and Prince wished him to go, and that Cowley urged him also, and was desirous of going with him. I see he has made up his mind to prevent any negotiation if he can, and, if it is unavoidable, to take it in hand.
NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE.
This afternoon Persigny arrived from Paris and came directly to the Foreign Office. The Emperor had given him an account of his interview with M. de Seebach,[1] who had gone off directly afterwards vi? Berlin to St. Petersburg. The Emperor told him to do all he could to induce the Russian Government to consent to the terms, and to assure them that, if they did not, it would be long enough before they would have any other chance of making peace; that he wished for peace, but that above everything else he was desirous of maintaining unimpaired his alliance and friendship with England; that England had most fairly and in a very friendly spirit entered into his difficulties and his wishes; that she was a constitutional country with a Government responsible to Parliament, and that he was bound in honour to enter in like manner into the obligations and necessities of this Government. They had had some differences of opinion which were entirely reconciled; they were now agreed as one man, and no power on earth should induce him to separate himself from England or to take any other line than that to which he had bound himself in conjunction with her. This announcement, which the Emperor made with great energy, carried consternation to the mind of Seebach, and he resolved to lose no time in getting to St. Petersburg to make known the Emperor's intentions.
It is thus evident that the Emperor's mind is divided between his anxiety to make peace and his determination to have no difference with England; but his desire for peace must be great when, as Clarendon assures me, it was not without difficulty that he was deterred from ordering his army away from the Crimea. The feeling here towards the Emperor seems to be one of liking and reliance, not unaccompanied with doubt and suspicion. He is not exempt from the influence of his entourage, though he is well aware how corrupt that is, and he listens willingly to Cowley and to whatever the English Government and the Queen say to him, but his own people eternally din into his ears that we are urging him on to take a part injurious to his own and to French interests for our own purposes, and because our Government is itself under the influence of a profligate press and a deluded people; and although he knows that those who tell him this are themselves working for their own private interests, he knows also that there is a great deal of truth in what they say. His own position is very strange, insisting upon being his own Minister and directing everything, and at the same time from indolence and ignorance incapable of directing affairs himself, yet having no confidence in those he employs. The consequence is that a great deal is ill done, much not done at all, and a good deal done that he knows nothing about, and he is surrounded with quarrels, jealousies, and struggles for influence and power both between his own Ministers and between them and the foreign diplomatists at his Court.