Rochecotte, November 12, 1840.—The Abbé Dupanloup arrived here yesterday to consecrate my chapel. The ceremony is to take place immediately. Yesterday's post brought news of the confinement of the Duchesse d'Orléans. I am delighted to hear of the birth of a second son.[ [139] Madame de Lieven writes that she is somewhat dissatisfied with the beginning which the new Ministry has made.
Rochecotte, November 14, 1840.—I had wished the first mass said in my chapel to be for the repose of the soul of M. de Talleyrand, but an inaugural mass cannot be one of mourning. At the ceremony of the day before yesterday, therefore, colours were worn in honour of St. Martin; yesterday's mass was for the dear departed. The altar is exactly where his bed used to stand in the room which has been replaced by the chapel; the coincidence affected me deeply.
Rochecotte, November 17, 1840.—M. de Salvandy, who has most obligingly undertaken to send me a little weekly bulletin, tells me that the Diplomatic Body at Paris was almost as keenly excited by the last note from Lord Palmerston as the Chamber itself.[ [140]
It seems that Count Apponyi has written everywhere pointing out the danger of urging France to revolution and to war when she is attempting to throw off the yoke of anarchy. Lord Granville and Herr von Bülow disavow the acts of Lord Palmerston. If he really wished to drive France to extremities, it may be believed that neither Austria nor Prussia would support him. Even Russia seems to have moderated her language.
My son-in-law writes me from Paris on the 15th: "The state of affairs here seems to me very confused. The transition from revolutionary provocation to a demeanour of humility can only be effected amid uproar in order to put shame out of countenance. To this end everybody is working. There is a general cry for peace and for the support of the former Ministry, and a general outcry against the cowardice and degradation of the supreme power, though no one can say exactly what should have been done. These indeterminate attacks never produce a really embarrassing situation, and as they make an uproar without doing any harm, the men against whom they are ineffectually directed obtain the credit of success. It thus seems generally admitted that the Ministry will gain a majority. M. Guizot, for instance, was saying the day before yesterday in his salon, with the heroic air characteristic of General Guizot: 'Gentlemen, we have just begun the campaign; the war will be long and severe, but I hope that we shall gain the victory.' Though the Chamber desires peace at any price, it is not compliant. The greater its anxiety, the louder its outcries, which will only end with its unregretted fall. The Address, which is to be drawn up, people say, by M. Passy or M. de Salvandy, will be very bellicose, so much so as to embarrass the Government, although it had been decided to create as little trouble as possible on this point.
"You will have read the answer of Lord Palmerston to the memorandum of October 8. It is an important matter. His disdain for us is obvious, and is not even disguised by forms or ceremonies. It seems, moreover, that this feeling towards us has grown remarkably of late. None the less the note has caused much embarrassment to M. Guizot, who had told everybody that since his entry upon office the situation in England had entirely changed and that Lord Palmerston was an altered character. He summed up his views in these words: 'I have peace in my pocket.' This is how he explained Lord Palmerston's note when he was talking at the house of the President of the Chamber[ [141] two days ago: 'Lord Palmerston has a theological mind; he will let no objection pass without an answer, so that this note means nothing; it is merely a question of principle.' M. Dubois, of the Loire-Inférieure, who is a clever man, and a strong supporter of the new Ministry, then took M. Guizot aside and told him that he would be making a great mistake if he repeated that observation in the Chamber. M. Guizot merely answered by repeating his statement, with which he was so delighted that he caused it to be inserted that evening in his own newspaper, Le Messager, in the form of a note at the foot of the memorandum, merely suppressing the term 'theological.' At the same time the incident has caused some stir, which has not yet died away, and would make M. Guizot cut a ridiculous figure if things seemed what they are in this country. The Ministry proposes to make peace, and everybody thinks that it will be successful. After that it will perish, for no obvious reason, in a hurricane; this also seems to be generally believed. Then M. Molé, who now remains in isolation, will come to power. He will probably be welcomed by every one, not because he is any more popular in the Chamber than he used to be, but because every one's energy is exhausted, while the King remains master. The matter will depend upon the King, who is ill-disposed to M. Molé at this moment, and uttered a remark concerning him which others attribute to M. Guizot, but which is too good to come from more than one source: 'M. Molé is an excellent looker-on, but is a bad actor.' I have an idea that the remark is mine, and that some one stole it from me five years ago.
"The Syrian campaign is decidedly favourable to the allies. The English have displayed much energy. They are inducing the Turks to strike hard, and everything is yielding before them; the force of Ibrahim was a myth. At every moment we are expecting the news of the capture of Saint-Jean d'Acre, which will be an important success both here and there. The saddest part of it is that there is no certainty concerning the possible safety of Egypt. Already rumours are present of a probable revolt at Alexandria, of the assassination of the Pasha by knife or poison; while you have seen that Lord Palmerston, with his theological mind, no longer speaks of the deposition of the Pasha as he did three weeks ago. There is no certainty that we shall not yield upon that point here, and it would be a tremendous concession.
"So much for the present. I now turn to the past. Thiers has shrunk in everybody's eyes: his timidity has been invariably as great as his imprudence and his superficiality. He dismissed the French Consul at Beyrout because he wished to serve the Pasha in Syria by calming the revolt, and it has never been possible to induce him to send reliable agents to Syria for the purpose of finding out the exact extent of Ibrahim's power. Hence we have been deceived, and the attitude of France has been guided by unrealised expectations. M. de Broglie thinks that the King was greatly mistaken in dismissing the Ministry of M. Thiers, because he would in any case have fallen a victim to public ridicule at this moment. This opinion is based upon the fact that if one stakes a large sum upon one card and it does not appear the ridicule is universal. The person to whom he was speaking on the matter yesterday evening thought, on the other hand, that while the Chamber might fear war, it would never have been strong enough to overthrow the Cabinet.
"The speech drawn up by Thiers did not propose a new levy of a hundred and fifty thousand men, but merely wished to anticipate the new levy by three months, whether for peace or for war, this being the levy ordinarily made in the spring. Moreover, the tone of the speech was quite moderate; but the fact is that neither he nor the King was sincere and it was a mere pretext on either side.
"There was a Ministerial crisis, of which we had no suspicion, after the capture of Beyrout. The Ministry wished to make a demonstration by sending the fleet to Alexandria, but the King was opposed to this idea. M. de Broglie was asked to mediate between the two parties, and patched the matter up, on the theory that it was impossible at that moment to appoint a permanent Ministry if those in power resigned upon such a question. He was also opposed to the idea of sending a fleet to Alexandria, believing that the measure was good in itself, as likely to cause the allies anxiety while giving them no reason for complaint, and thinking it a measure which an absolute Government would have every right to carry out; but in French practice, on the other hand, as soon as this measure had been executed, the Press would have driven the fleet into action, whether they wished or not, and war would have been the result. All this argument, in any case, is based upon the fact that this measure or anything like it could only be carried out by violent means of which the public must hear, such as a resignation, a crisis, and so forth. If the matter had been quietly arranged with the private knowledge of the King, the case would have been very different. Moreover, M. de Broglie is by no means well disposed towards the King. He says, however, that it is all a matter of indifference to him apart from the outward disturbance; that he will support any possible Ministry, that not only will he make no attempt to overthrow them, but will not even try to shake their stability, seeing that any of the said Ministries are always more reasonable than the Chamber. In short, he says that he is part of the Ministerial suite, an avowal which no one had yet ventured to make, and that he greatly envies you the prospect of spending his winter in the country. His calmness is quite Olympian, though tempered with bitter and piercing irony.