"In any case I am convinced that the Government itself does not know what the result will be. I trust that diplomacy may avoid any resort to cannon-shot. I have been to see the Duchesse d'Orléans at Saint-Cloud; she is very thin, but does not complain of her health; she is often to be seen driving in the Bois, with the Duc d'Orléans riding by the carriage. Madame de Flahaut is at Dieppe, and her husband at Paris; he often dines with the Prince Royal. His position is likely to become embarrassing during the trial of Louis Bonaparte."
Baden, August 22, 1840.—My son M. de Valençay, who has returned to Paris, tells me he has seen the Duc d'Orléans, who says: "Thiers and Guizot seem to distrust one another profoundly. Guizot supposes that Thiers wished to throw the responsibility of the present crisis upon him and allowed suspicions to arise that he had not kept his Government informed. He has therefore sent copies of his despatches to his friends in Paris, who threaten to use them if the Ambassador is attacked. According to these friends, Guizot informed Thiers accurately of the course of events, but the latter declined to give him instructions or to reply before consulting Mehemet Ali, but simply sent instructions to London to say neither yes nor no. Palmerston, on the other hand, wished to drive Thiers into a corner. Thiers on his side said: 'Palmerston is playing diamond cut diamond, but I will balk him,' an expression which seems to have become a diplomatic term. At length Palmerston, worried and impatient, is said to have settled the business. There is a strong feeling in favour of war; Guizot, however, still believes in peace, but he writes that as a matter of fact a mere spark, a blow given to a sailor, would be enough to fire the most terrible war in the world."
Umkirch, August 26, 1840.—Yesterday when I was half-way from Baden on the road here a formidable storm burst, and we were obliged to take shelter in a barn; hailstones fell as big as nuts. Notwithstanding the delay I arrived at six o'clock in the evening. The Grand Duchess had kindly sent her horses to meet me at Friburg. When I arrived Herr von Schreckenstein told me I should find her in bed, where she had been with a chill since the evening before.
The new lady-in-waiting, Frau von Sturmfeder, a widow who seems to be about fifty years old, with pleasant manners, took me to the Duchess. I found her very feverish, but no less talkative than usual; very exasperated by her invalid state, and nearly as much by the arrival of Duke Bernard of Saxe-Weimar, who was paying her an unexpected visit. After half an hour Princess Marie took me to dinner. The large assembly room and the dining-room are in a separate building, a hundred yards away from the castle; nothing could be more inconvenient; after rain and without goloshes it would be impossible to get there.
I already knew Umkirch. I did not care for it in past times, nor does it please me any better now. The main residence is small and the rooms are low; mine, however, which is on the first floor, has a fine view of the mountains.
At dinner all the guests were assembled—that is to say, Princess Marie; Duke Bernard, with his aide-de-camp, old Madame de Walsh, who is here on a visit, though her days of official service are over; her son and daughter-in-law, the Baroness von Sturmfeder; Herr von Schreckenstein; Fräulein Bilz, a little hunchbacked music-mistress; and M. Mathieu, the French painter, who is giving lessons to Princess Marie. After dinner I went back to the invalid, and stayed with her until tea-time. She seems delighted to see me. She continues very anxious to see her daughter married, and has just had an offer from Prince Hohenlohe; he, however, was thought to be not sufficiently distinguished, and his request has been refused; the old Count of Darmstadt would also be ready to marry her, but he is thought to be too old and too ugly. There is an idea that Prince Frederick of Prussia, the Prince of Düsseldorf, exhausted and wearied by the extravagance of his wife, will procure a divorce, and will then turn his thoughts to Princess Marie, who would be quite ready to take him. Such is the desire at this moment. They would like me to send a good account of the Princess to Berlin.
Very little interest is shown in Louis Bonaparte, whom they would like to see confined in a fortress.
Madame de Walsh, who is a friend of the Abbé Bautain, told me that he had just been summoned to Paris by M. Cousin and by the new Archbishop; there is apparently a proposal to form a faculty for advanced theological study, with M. Bautain at the head of it. He is certainly an intelligent and talented man, but not entirely reconciled to Rome. Hot-headed and ambitious, his relations with his bishop have long been strained; he has not that readiness to submit upon points of doctrine which is inherent in Catholicism and the foundation of its permanency. His appointment will therefore arouse some mistrust among the clergy, and not without reason. I shall hear the truth of the whole matter at Paris from the Abbé Dupanloup.
The Duke of Saxe-Weimar, though heavy in appearance, is not without common sense and learning. To my great astonishment I found him a strong supporter of the house of Orléans; he asserted his strong affection for the Duchesse d'Orléans, his niece, and entrusted me with a letter for her. He is very anti-Russian and anti-English, and went so far as to say that if war should break out the King of the Low Countries ought to make common cause with France. He is at this moment on the unattached list, and is provisionally established at Mannheim, whence he is very anxious to make a journey to Paris.
The Grand Duchess and Princess Marie knew all about the presents and the trousseau given by Russia to Princess Marie of Hesse. The Emperor gave her two rows of pearls with a sapphire clasp, supposed to be worth two hundred thousand francs; the Empress gave her a bracelet to match; and her fiancé, the Grand Duke, gave her his portrait framed in diamonds and a parasol adorned with emeralds and pearls, together with maps of the Russian Empire and views of St. Petersburg nicely bound, and, lastly, the present left by the will of the late Empress Marie to her grandson's future wife, which is a Sévigné in three pieces, each as large as a breastplate.