DEATH OF PRINCESS LIEVEN.
Two remarkable deaths have occurred, one of which touches me nearly, that of Madame de Lieven; the other is that of the Duke of Rutland. Madame de Lieven died, after a short illness, of a severe attack of bronchitis, the Duke having lingered for many months. Very different characters. Madame de Lieven came to this country at the end of 1812 or beginning of 1813 on the war breaking out between Russia and France. Pozzo di Borgo had preceded the Lievens to renew diplomatic relations and make arrangements with us. She was at that time young, at least in the prime of life, and though without any pretensions to beauty, and indeed with some personal defects, she had so fine an air and manner, and a countenance so pretty and so full of intelligence, as to be on the whole a very striking and attractive person, quite enough so to have lovers, several of whom she engaged in succession without seriously attaching herself to any. Those who were most notoriously her slaves at different times were the present Lord Willoughby, the Duke of Sutherland (then Lord Gower), the Duke of Cannizzaro (then Count St. Antonio), and the Duke of Palmella, who was particularly clever and agreeable. Madame de Lieven was a tr�s grande dame, with abilities of a very fine order, great tact and finesse, and taking a boundless pleasure in the society of the great world and in political affairs of every sort. People here were not slow to acknowledge her merits and social excellence, and she almost immediately took her place in the cream of the cream of English society, forming close intimacies with the most conspicuous women in it, and assiduously cultivating relations with the most remarkable men of all parties. These personal liaisons sometimes led her into political partisanship not always prudent and rather inconsistent with her position, character, and functions here. But I do not believe she was ever mixed up in any intrigues, nor even, at a later period, that she was justly obnoxious to the charge of caballing and mischief-making which has been so lavishly cast upon her. She had an insatiable curiosity for political information, and a not unnatural desire to make herself useful and agreeable to her own Court by imparting to her Imperial masters and mistresses all the information she acquired and the anecdotes she picked up. Accordingly while she was in England, which, was from 1812 to 1834, she devoted herself to society, not without selection, but without exclusion, except that she sought and habitually confined herself to the highest and best. The Regent, afterwards George IV., delighted in her company, and she was a frequent guest at the Pavilion, and on very intimate terms with Lady Conyngham, for although Madame de Lieven was not very tolerant of mediocrity, and social and colloquial superiority was necessary to her existence, she always made great allowances for Royalty and those immediately connected with it. She used to be a great deal at Oatlands, and was one of the few intimate friends of the Duchess of York, herself very intelligent, and who therefore had in the eyes of Madame de Lieven the double charm of her position and her agreeableness. It was her duty as well as her inclination to cultivate the members of all the successive Cabinets which passed before her, and she became the friend of Lord Castlereagh, of Canning, the Duke of Wellington, Lord Grey, Lord Palmerston, John Russell, Aberdeen, and many others of inferior note, and she was likewise one of the habitu�s of Holland House, which was always more or less neutral ground, even when Lord Holland was himself a member of the government. When Talleyrand came over here as Ambassador, there was for some time a sort of antagonism between the two embassies, and particularly between the ladies of each, but Madame de Dino (now Duchesse de Sagan) was so clever, and old Talleyrand himself so remarkable and so agreeable, that Madame de Lieven was irresistibly drawn towards them, and for the last year or two of their being in England they became extremely intimate; but her greatest friend in England was Lady Cowper, afterwards Lady Palmerston, and through her she was also the friend of Palmerston, who was also well affected towards Russia, till his jealous and suspicious mind was inflamed by his absurd notion of her intention to attack us in India, a crotchet which led us into the folly and disaster of the Afghan war. In 1834 the Lievens were recalled, and she was established at St. Petersburg in high favour about the Empress, but her s�jour there was odious to her, and she was inconsolable at leaving England, where after a residence of above twenty years she had become rooted in habits and affections, although she never really and completely understood the country. She remained at St. Petersburg for several months, until her two youngest children were taken ill, and died almost at the same time. This dreadful blow, and the danger of the severe climate to her own health, gave her a valid excuse for desiring leave of absence, and she left Russia never to return. She went to Italy, where M. de Lieven died about the year 1836 or 1837, after which she established herself in Paris, where her salon became the rendezvous of the best society, and particularly the neutral ground on which eminent men and politicians of all colours could meet, and where her tact and adroitness made them congregate in a sort of social truce.
I do not know at what exact period it was that she made the acquaintance of M. Guizot, but their intimacy no doubt was established after he had begun to play a great political part, for his literary and philosophical celebrity would not alone have had much charm for her. They were, however, already great friends at the time of his embassy to England, and she took that opportunity of coming here to pay a visit to her old friends. The fall of Thiers' Government and Guizot's becoming Minister for Foreign Affairs of course drew Madame de Lieven still more closely to him, and during the whole of his administration their alliance continued to be of the closest and most intimate character. It was an immense object to her to possess the entire confidence of the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, who kept her au courant of all that was going on in the political world, while it is not surprising that he should be irresistibly attracted by a woman immensely superior to any other of his acquaintance, who was fully able to comprehend and willing to interest herself about all the grand and important subjects which he had to handle and manage, and who associated herself with a complete sympathy in all his political interests. Their liaison, which some people consider mysterious, but which I believe to have been entirely social and political, grew constantly more close, and every moment that Guizot could snatch from the Foreign Office and the Chamber he devoted to Madame de Lieven. He used to go there regularly three times a day on his way to and his way from the Chamber, when it was sitting, and in the evening; but while he was by far her first object, she cultivated the society of all the most conspicuous and remarkable people whom she could collect about her, and she was at one time very intimate with Thiers, though his rivalry with Guizot and their intense hatred of each other eventually produced a complete estrangement between her and Thiers.
CHARACTER OF PRINCESS LIEVEN.
The revolution of 1848 dispersed her friends, broke up her salon, and terrified her into making a rather ludicrous, but as it turned out wholly unnecessary, escape. She came to England, where she remained till affairs appeared to be settled in France and all danger of disturbance at an end. She then returned to Paris, where she remained, not without fear and trembling, during the period of peril and vicissitude which at length ended, much to her satisfaction, with the coup d'�tat and the Empire. Guizot had returned to Paris, but constantly refused to take any part in political affairs, either under the Republic or with the new government of Louis Napoleon. This, however, did not prevent Madame de Lieven (though their friendship continued the same) from showing her sympathy and goodwill to the Imperial r�gime, and her salon, which had been decimated by previous events, was soon replenished by some of the ministers or adherents of the Empire, who, though they did not amalgamate very well with her old habitu�s, supplied her with interesting information, and subsequently, when the war broke out, rendered her very essential service. When the rupture took place all the Russian subjects were ordered to quit Paris. She was advised by some of her friends to disobey the order, for as she was equally precluded from going to England, the circumstances in which this order placed her were indescribably painful and even dangerous, but she said that however great the sacrifice, and though she was entirely independent, she was under so many obligations and felt so much attachment to the Imperial family that, cost her what it might, she would obey the order, and accordingly she repaired to Brussels, where for a year and a half or two years she took up her melancholy and uncomfortable abode. At last this banishment from her home and her friends, with all the privations it entailed, became insupportable, and she endeavoured, through the intervention of some of her Imperialist friends, to obtain leave of the French Government to return to Paris, either with or without (for it is not clear which) the consent of her own Court. The Emperor Napoleon seems to have been easily moved to compassion, and signified his consent to her return. No sooner did this become known to Cowley and the English Government than they resolved to interpose for the purpose of preventing her return to Paris, and Cowley went to Walewski and insisted that the Emperor's permission should be revoked. The entente cordiale was then in full force, nothing could be refused to the English Ambassador, and Madame de Lieven was informed that she must not come back to Paris. She bore this sad disappointment with resignation, made no complaints, and resolved to bide her time. Some months later she caused a representation to be made to the French Government that the state of her health made it impossible for her to pass another winter at Brussels, and that she was going to Nice, but as it was of vital importance to her to consult her medical adviser at Paris, she craved permission to proceed to Nice vi� Paris, where she would only stay long enough for that purpose. The permission was granted. She wrote me word that she was going to Paris to remain there a few days. I replied that I was much mistaken in her if once there she ever quitted it again. She arrived and was told by her doctor that it would be dangerous in her state to continue her journey. She never did proceed further, and never did quit Paris again. The Government winked at her stay, and never molested or interfered with her. She resumed her social habits, but with great caution and reserve, and did all she could to avoid giving umbrage or exciting suspicion. It was a proof of the greatness of her mind, as well as of her prudence and good temper, that she not only testified no resentment at the conduct of Cowley towards her, but did all she could to renew amicable relations with him, and few things annoyed her more than his perseverance in keeping aloof from her. From the time of her last departure from England up to the death of Frederic Lamb (Lord Beauvale and Melbourne) she maintained a constant correspondence with him. After his death she proposed to me to succeed him as her correspondent, and for the last two or three years our epistolary commerce was intimate and unbroken. She knew a vast deal of the world and its history during the half century she had lived and played a part in it, but she was not a woman of much reading, and probably at no time had been very highly or extremely educated, but her excessive cleverness and her finesse d'esprit supplied the want of education, and there was one book with which her mind was perpetually nourished by reading it over and over again. This was the 'Letters of Madame de S�vign�,' and to the constant study of those unrivalled letters she was no doubt considerably indebted for her own epistolary eminence, and for her admirable style of writing, not, however, that her style and Madame de S�vign�'s were at all alike. She had not (in her letters at least) the variety, the abundance, or the abandon of the great Frenchwoman, but she was more terse and epigrammatic, and she had the same graphic power and faculty of conveying much matter in few words.
PRINCESS LIEVEN.
Nothing could exceed the charm of her conversation or her grace, ease, and tact in society. She had a nice and accurate judgement, and an exquisite taste in the choice of her associates and friends; but though taking an ardent pleasure in agreeableness, and peculiarly susceptible of being bored, she was not fastidious, full of politeness and good breeding, and possessed the faculty of turning every one to account, and eliciting something either of entertainment or information from the least important of her acquaintance. It has been the fashion here, and the habit of the vulgar and ignorant press, to stigmatise Madame de Lieven as a mischievous intriguer, who was constantly occupied in schemes and designs hostile to the interests of our country. I firmly believe such charges to be utterly unfounded. She had resided for above twenty years, the happiest of her life, in England, and had imbibed a deep attachment to the country, where she had formed many more intimacies and friendships than she possessed anywhere else, and to the last day of her life she continued to cherish the remembrance of her past connexion, to cultivate the society of English people, and to evince without disguise her predilection for their country. She had never lived much in Russia, her connexion with it had been completely dissolved, and all she retained of it was a respectful attachment to the Imperial family, together with certain sympathies and feelings of loyalty for her native country and her Sovereign which it would have been unnatural and discreditable to disavow. Her well-known correspondence with the Imperial Court was only caused by the natural anxiety of those great persons to be kept au courant of social and political affairs by such an accomplished correspondent, but I do not believe she was ever employed by them in any business or any political design; on the contrary, she was rather distrusted and out of favour with them, on account of her being so denaturalised and for her ardent affection for England and the English. Russia was the country of her birth, France the country of her adopted abode, but England was the country of her predilection. With this cosmopolite character she dreaded everything which might produce hostile collision between any two of these countries. She was greatly annoyed when the question of the Spanish marriages embittered the relations between France and England, but infinitely more so at the Turkish quarrel, and the war which it produced. Those who fulminated against her intrigues were, as I believe, provoked at the efforts she made, so far as she had any power or influence, to bring about the restoration of peace, an unpardonable offence in the eyes of all who were bent on the continuation of the war. She lived to see peace restored, and closed her eyes almost at the moment that the last seal was put to it by the Conference of Paris. Her last illness was sudden and short. Her health had always been delicate, and she was very nervous about herself; an attack of bronchitis brought on fever, which rapidly consumed her strength, and brought her, fully conscious, within sight of death; that consummation, which at a distance she had always dreaded, she saw arrive with perfect calmness and resignation, and all the virtues and qualities for which the smallest credit was given her seem to have shone forth with unexpected lustre on her deathbed. Her faculties were bright and unclouded to the last, her courage and presence of mind were unshaken, she evinced a tender consideration for the feelings of those who were lamenting around her bed, and she complied with the religious obligations prescribed by the Church of which she was a member with a devotion the sincerity of which we have no right to question. She made her son Paul and Guizot leave her room a few hours before she died, that they might be spared the agony of witnessing her actual dissolution, and only three or four hours before the supreme moment, she mustered strength to write a note in pencil to Guizot with these words: 'Merci pour vingt ann�es d'amiti� et de bonheur. Ne m'oubliez pas, adieu, adieu!' It was given to him after her death.
A SERMON BY MR. SPURGEON.
February 8th.—I am just come from hearing the celebrated Mr. Spurgeon preach in the Music Hall of the Surrey Gardens. It was quite full; he told us from the pulpit that 9,000 people were present. The service was like the Presbyterian: Psalms, prayers, expounding a Psalm, and a sermon. He is certainly very remarkable, and undeniably a very fine character; not remarkable in person, in face rather resembling a smaller Macaulay, a very clear and powerful voice, which was heard through the whole hall; a manner natural, impassioned, and without affectation or extravagance; wonderful fluency and command of language, abounding in illustration, and very often of a very familiar kind, but without anything either ridiculous or irreverent. He gave me an impression of his earnestness and his sincerity; speaking without book or notes, yet his discourse was evidently very carefully prepared. The text was 'Cleanse me from my secret sins,' and he divided it into heads, the misery, the folly, the danger (and a fourth which I have forgotten) of secret sins, on all of which he was very eloquent and impressive. He preached for about three-quarters of an hour, and, to judge of the handkerchiefs and the audible sobs, with great effect.