I went in the afternoon to see the Imperial stables, a wonderful establishment; and then the stallions, near Passy. In the evening to Madame Baudon's, where I was presented to General Cavaignac, but had no conversation with him. He is a tall, gentlemanlike man with a very military air. I was surprised to see him there in the midst of the Legitimists, he, a republican, but it seems he was once near marrying Madame Baudon, who was sous-gouvernante des Enfants de France when Madame de Gontaut was Gouvernante.
March 9th.—Went about visiting as usual. Called on Achille Fould, who introduced me to Magne, Minister of Finance, said to be a great rogue. Everything here is intrigue and jobbery, and I am told there is a sort of gang, of which Morny is the chief, who all combine for their own purpose and advantage: Morny, Tould, Magne, and Rouher, Minister of Commerce. They now want to get out Billault, Minister of the Interior, whom they cannot entirely manage, and that ministry is necessary to them, on account of the railroads, which are under his management. Fould was full of civilities and offers of services, and he told me the Emperor has a mind to talk to me; whether anything will come of it I know not. I went thence to Madame de Galliera's, where I met Thiers and made a rendez-vous with him for to-day; then to Madame de Lieven who had had Orloff with her; lastly to Madame de Girardin and renewed our old acquaintance, dined with Delmar, and came home to a great party here.
CONVERSATION WITH M. THIERS.
March 10th.—I called on Thiers yesterday, and had a long talk with him; he declared he was happier unemployed and quite free than he had ever been; he had been all for the war, and was now as much for peace—like every other Frenchman he considered it a necessity; anxious as ever for the English alliance, and ridiculed the idea that we had not accomplished everything that our honour and glory required; bitter against this Government, and maintained that the Emperor might very safely relax the severity of it without giving up anything; indignant with the peculation and corruption that prevailed, and the abominable acts of injustice committed, one of which he mentioned towards his own family. Very pleasant as usual.
The news of the day was the dangerous illness of King Jerome, whose life hangs on a thread. This morning I went to St. Germains to see a stag hunt in the forest—a curious sight, with the old-fashioned meute; the officers, and those privileged to wear the uniform, in embroidered coats, jackboots, and cocked hats; piqueurs on horseback and foot with vast horns wound round their bodies; the costume and the sport exactly as in the time of Louis XIV., rather tiresome after a time. The old chateau is a melancholy d�labr� building, sad as the finishing career of its last Royal inhabitant. These recollections come thick upon one—Anne of Austria and the Fronde, Louis XIV. and Mademoiselle de la Valli�re—for here their lives began. When the Queen was here she insisted on being taken up to see Mademoiselle de la Valli�re's apartment, to mark which some slight ornaments remain. Here too James II. held his dismal Court and came to his unhappy and bigoted end. After it ceased to be a palace, it became successively a prison, a school, and a barrack, and now the Emperor has a fancy to restore it. I went at night to a great concert at Walewski's, where I fell in with Clarendon, and found he was quite prepared to make peace even on such terms as he can get, in which I encouraged him, and to my surprise he said he did not think it would be a bad peace, though it was not so good as we might have got if the generals had done all they might, or if we had had another campaign. He asked me how I thought people would look on it in England, and I told him from all I heard I thought now the wish was for peace, and that the peace would be well enough taken. This he now thinks himself, and he said peace would certainly be concluded before the end of the month.
March 15th.—From Cowley's account the Conferences appear to be drawing to an end, as a committee has been formed to draw up the Treaty. It consists of Cowley, Bourqueney, Brunnow, Cavour, Buol, and the Grand Vizier. Cowley is still bemoaning the insufficiency of the terms, and while he admits the necessity of peace here, maintains that if the Emperor would only have joined us in insisting upon the terms we wished to impose, it is certain the Russians would have consented to everything, for he says they now know from unquestionable information that the Russians expected much harder terms. The Emperor was, however, so beset by his entourage, and so afraid of running the slightest risk of the Russians breaking off the negotiations, that he would not insist on anything which he was not certain the Russians would agree to, and Cowley says he thinks Clarendon was not so firm as he might have been, and if he had pressed the Emperor more strongly, that the latter would have yielded and told Orloff that, though anxious to make peace, he was still more anxious to continue on good terms with us, and that if the Russian Government wanted peace, they would only have it on such and such terms. All this may be true, and I am myself inclined to think the Russians would have agreed to our terms, if those terms had been heartily backed up by the Emperor; but except to give something more of a triumph to the English public, I am not of opinion that the difference between what we required and what we shall get is worth much. When the d�nouement is before the world, it will appear how insane it was to plunge into such a war, and that the confusion and unsettled state of affairs which will be the result of it are more dangerous to the stability of the Turkish Empire than the ambitious designs of Russia ever were. Whether the Emperor Nicholas was premature or not in his idea of 'the sick man,' it will soon appear how sick the man will be left by the doctors who have stepped in to save him, and I believe the bouleversement of the old Turkish dominion will have been greatly accelerated by the war and the consequences which will flow from the successes of the allies.
THE CIRCASSIANS.
What Cowley particularly laments over is having failed to dismantle Nicolaieff and to stop the outlet from the Bug to the Black Sea, and having got no satisfactory arrangement with regard to the Circassian coast and the contiguous provinces which were ceded to Russia by the Treaty of Adrianople. We wanted that Russia should acknowledge the independence of these provinces or of some part of them; but I cannot see of what use this would have been, and it would have been a matter of the greatest difficulty how to secure their independence and under what Government. There is a sort of sympathy with the Circassians in England, which would have made some stipulations with regard to them popular; but the independence would be illusory, Russia would soon reassert her authority, and our stipulations would become a dead letter, or we should be involved in endless disputes without any satisfactory results. As to forming another coalition for the sake of semi-barbarous nationalities on the coasts of the Caspian, nothing would be more impossible. England herself, who will soon recover from her madness, would not hear of it, and France still less. The war was founded in delusion and error, and carried on by a factitious and ignorant enthusiasm, and we richly deserve to reap nothing but mortification and disappointment in return for all the blood and treasure we have spent.
March 16th.—We passed the day in momentary expectation of hearing of the Empress's confinement. No news arrived, but at six in the morning we were awakened from our beds by the sound of the cannon of the Invalides, which gave notice of a son. Will his fortune be more prosperous than that of the other Royal and Imperial heirs to the throne whom similar salvoes have proclaimed? It is a remarkable coincidence that the confinement was as difficult and dangerous as that of Marie Louise, with the same symptoms and circumstances, and that the doctor accoucheur (Dubois) in this instance was the son of the Dubois who attended the other Empress. From all I hear the event was received here with good will, but without the least enthusiasm, though with some curiosity, and the Tuileries Gardens were crowded. People were invited by the police to illuminate.