[119] In 1840 the Sultan was Abdul Mejed, who ascended the throne the preceding year.
[120] Rosas secured his appointment in 1829 as Governor of Buenos Ayres in 1835. This dictator had a serious quarrel with France owing to his refusal to satisfy the claims of the French residents. After a long blockade the quarrel was satisfactorily terminated in 1840 by Admiral de Mackau.
[121] The Princesse de Lieven had hired in the house recently bought by M. de Rothschild in the Rue Saint-Florentin the first-floor rooms, which the Prince de Talleyrand had occupied for many years when he was in possession of this residence. The Princesse thought that there she could recover the political atmosphere which suited her taste. She stayed there until her death in 1857.
[122] The Duchesse de Talleyrand had bought a little house with a court and garden at Paris in the Rue de Lille, No. 73, in the year 1840. This house, which in size was a mere temporary abode, was bought in 1862 by the Comtesse de Bagneux.
[123] After ending the civil war (aroused by Don Carlos on the death of his brother, Ferdinand VII.) by the capitulation of Bergara, Marie Christina attempted to begin a reactionary policy. In 1840 she presented to the Cortes the law of the Ayuntamientos, intended as a restriction upon municipal freedom. An insurrection at once broke out in Barcelona, and rapidly spread to Madrid and a large number of other towns. This movement was supported by Espartero. The Queen-Regent summoned him and commissioned him to form a Ministry on September 16, 1840, but he imposed such severe conditions upon her that she thought acceptance impossible. On October 2 she resigned the regency.
[124] Madame Lafarge, with whom several people in French society were compromised, was first accused of stealing diamonds and then of poisoning her husband. The first accusation was never entirely cleared up, but the second was proved. The Court of Assizes condemned Madame Lafarge to penal servitude. She remained in prison for twelve years, at the end of which she was pardoned owing to her enfeebled health. She died a few months later, in 1852.
[125] At the age of fourteen the Duc de Richelieu, then Duc de Fronsac, married Mlle. de Noailles, by order of King Louis XIV. In 1734, after the sieges of Kehl and Philippsburg, where he greatly distinguished himself, Richelieu married Mlle. de Guise, Princess of Lorraine, and at the age of eighty-two he married a third wife, Madame de Roothe. It is said that after the marriage ceremony he went home to change his clothes, threw down the ribbon of his order on the bed, and said to his footman: "You can go; the Holy Spirit will do the rest.">[
[126] King Frederick William IV. was not exactly crowned, but he went to Königsberg to receive the homage (die Huldigung) of his subjects, who took the oath of fidelity to him through their Deputies on September 10, 1840.
[127] From Racine's tragedy Britannicus, Act IV. scene ii.
[128] The memorandum addressed by the French Government to Lord Palmerston will be found in the Appendix.