[126] In the session of January 14, the Chamber of Peers resumed discussion of the seventh paragraph of the Address referring to Switzerland, and M. de Montalembert obtained one of his finest oratorical triumphs when he stigmatised in the loftiest terms the iniquitous and barbarous abuses of the revolutionary tyranny of which Switzerland was providing sad and grievous instances.
[127] The policy of Lord Palmerston who had returned to the Foreign Office in 1846, had once more resumed a revolutionary character; particularly in the affair of the Sonderbund he was seen to be supporting Ochsenbein and Dufour against the Catholic Powers. He tricked M. Guizot who was negotiating to secure armed intervention with the help of Prussia and Austria and to oppose the English policy at a time when the submission of the seven cantons was already accomplished.
[128] Extract from a letter addressed to M. de Bacourt who had just been appointed French Minister at Turin.
[129] King Christian VIII. of Denmark was suddenly taken ill on January 6, 1848, and died on the 20th of the same month. Frederick VII., his son by his first marriage, succeeded him.
[130] By birth Princess of Schleswig-Holstein.
[131] The same meteor was seen in France a few days previously above Doullens: a sheaf of luminous rays extended horizontally from north to south, giving off light denotations comparable to those produced by a rocket.
[132] Cardinal Diepenbrock.
[133] The arms of Sagan were an angel upon a golden background.
[134] King Louis Philippe who had resolved too late upon electoral reform and the dissolution of his ministry, was surprised by the massacre of the Boulevard des Capucines on February 23. On the 24th the whole of Paris was in a ferment, the revolution was triumphant and the King resolved to abdicate. He left the Tuileries and took refuge at first in the Castle of Eu and was under the delusion that his grandson, the Comte de Paris, might succeed him, but on the 25th he learnt that the Republic had been proclaimed and was forced to take refuge in England.
[135] The Marquise de Castellane had gone with her children to La Délivrande, a village near Caen, which owes its origin to a famous pilgrimage of the Virgin. Mgr. de Quélen had there uttered ardent prayers that M. de Talleyrand might die a Christian death.