Rochecotte, August 25, 1842.—Yesterday I had a letter from Paris which seems to give a fair summary of the present position. "The debate upon the Regency was fine and also curious: M. de Lamartine went over to the Left in exasperation with the Conservatives who did not appoint him President; M. Thiers broke his ties with the Left, as he wishes to become a possible candidate; M. Odilon Barrot who had begun the same manœuvre, did not speak at the last moment for fear of losing his popularity with his party. The Legitimists took an inopportunely high tone and were trampled under foot. Such was the drama. It was performed for the benefit of the Ministry, which would have secured no advantage from this little session if it had followed the advice of M. Thiers, for in that case all would have passed off without a struggle. Instead of that he has been used to win battles for the Presidency and the Regency law. This is a first instalment of the real session which will begin with extreme vigour, but the Cabinet has always some chances of success, doubtless uncertain chances, for much depends upon the difficulty of forming another combination and the inclination of the Conservatives to unite against the Left. The attacks will be furious and severe; there is danger, but also hope."

Rochecotte, August 29, 1842.—I heard yesterday of your disembarkation[ [69] at Liverpool. Welcome to our old Europe which, in spite of its unpleasantnesses, is better than the New World.

I hear from Paris: "The Queen is pale, thin and despondent, but calm: she no longer struggles against her grief, and seems now to have accepted it as a necessary element in the whole of her life, though less poignant than it was; she can talk of other things. So I spoke to her of your tears and regrets, at which she cried, 'Oh, I know it and was sure of it: the King and my sister have been deeply touched by all that she has said to them and by the real sorrow she has shown; my poor boy had great confidence in her and was really one of her friends.' All this was said in a manner which you would have been glad to hear. The Duchesse d'Orléans has returned from Dreux, where she had insisted upon going before the journey to Eu. She seems to have had some inclination to settle at the Elysée with her children, but this idea was so definitely rejected that she did not propose it again. The million voted by the Chambers to the Prince Royal falls to the Comte de Paris: his mother, as guardian, has the use of it, while she has also her settlement of a hundred thousand crowns, so that during the minority she will be rich. She has made many minor reforms, but preserves her household of honour and is keeping up all the military household of the late Prince for her son. There is some fear that she may not be quite competent to manage her income: her husband used to settle all details of expenditure, to which she is not accustomed and which she does not understand. Now that the first outburst of grief is over, many little cliques are advancing their claims upon all sides; political intrigues, family jealousies and court rivalry are all obvious, and if the King does not interfere there will be an Orléans party and a Nemours party."

Rochecotte, August 31, 1842.—I have the following letter from Paris referring to the life of the Royal Family before their departure for the town of Eu: "The officers on duty do not enter their room or take meals with them: the King receives in the billiard room people who come to see him or to pay their respects; the Queen, Madame Adélaïde, Princesse Clémentine and the Duchesse de Nemours spend the evening in work at the round table. Now they have started for Eu, and we must hope that the change will do them some good. The little Duc de Chartres gave rise to some anxiety for a short time. The Duchesse d'Orléans lives in some retirement with the Grand Duchesse of Mecklenburg."

Madame de Lieven after spending a week at Dieppe, was so bored that she came back hurriedly to her little Beauséjour, from whence she writes: "Thiers has definitely broken with the Left and is coming forward as the immediate successor to M. Guizot, a move which is not likely to please M. Molé. The Chambers will be convoked for January 9. There is no news concerning Pahlen or Barante. The whole of September will be spent at Eu and they will then return to Saint-Cloud. The Queen of England is taking her husband to Scotland to console him with grouse shooting for the fact that she would not allow him to go to the manœuvres on the Rhine. The journey will be made quite quietly, in fact too quietly. Lord Aberdeen accompanies her."

Rochecotte, September 8, 1842.—One of our friends who is now in England writes as follows from London: "I have seen one of our friends here, the excellent Dedel, the minister of the Low Countries who is sincerely attached to us. We talked a great deal together of past times, and he told me some curious details which may perhaps seem to you somewhat like ancient history but which appear to me to be not without interest. At the accession of Queen Victoria, even before the members of the diplomatic body had had time to receive new letters accrediting them, the Queen wished to see them at Kensington Palace. They were all introduced one by one by Lord Melbourne and Lord Palmerston. When the first three, namely Prince Esterhazy, General Sébastiani and Baron Bülow had been introduced, Lord Melbourne took them aside and said, 'Well, what do you think of my little queen? Is she not excellent? She is admirably well disposed to all foreign sovereigns and I can assure you that she will live in peace with every one. There is one, however, for whom she has an extraordinary hatred: it is childish and foolish and I hope that we shall overcome her antipathy, but she has a violent dislike for the King of the Low Countries.' It is even more difficult, said Dedel, to imagine such language in the mouth of an English Prime Minister. He then went on to say that since Sir Robert Peel had been at the head of affairs, the Queen no longer interferes and leaves him entirely to himself. She had taken a keen interest in Lord Melbourne's Ministry, as the precarious condition of his Cabinet kept her in a continual state of excitement. Now she knows that nothing can shake Sir Robert Peel for a long time and her interest in state affairs is gone. This change has been unfortunate for Prince Albert, to whom she devotes her entire attention: she holds him in, does not give him a moment's freedom, and actually tyrannises over him; and the poor Prince sometimes finds it difficult to conceal his disgust and weariness of this treatment. The Queen, moreover, has retained some affection for Lord Melbourne who used to amuse her, and was the first to initiate her in affairs of state. Her hatred for the King of the Low Countries can be explained by the influence which the King of the Belgians long exerted over her, but the antipathy seems to have grown much weaker of late. Dedel says that the diplomatic body at London cuts a very poor figure now, that it has no social standing or consideration. The Russian Minister, Baron Brunnow, is an extremely clever man and a business man of high capacity: he is false to the point of trickery, a true Russian-Greek, and a dangerous person with whom to do business. Dedel admits that Brunnow's diplomatic success in London has been great. General kindness has been shown to M. and Madame Sainte-Aulaire; she is reputed courteous and he amusing. M. de Barante has made a good impression on those who have talked with him. On the whole, said Dedel, General Sébastiani was the most successful of the three ambassadors who followed M. de Talleyrand at London: his judgment was excellent; his early impressions in business were invariably good; his great disadvantage was his inability to develop his ideas clearly. He had a sound understanding of the Eastern problem and would have settled it suitably if he had been left at his post. M. Guizot committed constant mistakes at London and clearly showed his profound ignorance of diplomacy: he thought himself at Paris where everything goes on by means of parliamentary intrigue, and attempted to detach Lord Holland, Lord Clarendon and Lord John Russell from Lord Palmerston, forgetting that the latter was the brother-in-law of Lord Melbourne, the ultimate master; he also tried to overthrow the Cabinet, a very imprudent and dangerous attempt for a Foreign Minister to make; he also tried to stir some Radical members of the House of Commons to rebel against Lord Palmerston, and was even so imprudent as to dine with them privately at the Star and Garter at Richmond. Lord Palmerston once said to Bülow, 'M. Guizot should be obliged to me for not making use of the evidence in my hands, which clearly shows his attempts and intrigues to overthrow the Cabinet; they are of such a nature that they would authorise the Queen's Government to hand him his passports.' The journey of Madame de Lieven to England also damaged Guizot's credit in a large degree. Lord Palmerston, who knew Madame de Lieven's hatred for himself, regarded her arrival as a further blow at himself, and his vengeance then knew no bounds. On the whole, France, the French and their Government have been in very bad repute in England for the last two years, and it is considered that the present French Embassy is not likely to bring about a change in feeling. The present English Cabinet which blames Lord Palmerston's conduct, thinks that it has taken every possible step since it has been in power to restore good feeling with France. The Cabinet recognises its failure with regret, but it has decided to do nothing more but to await results and to be in readiness for any eventuality.

"Affairs are going badly in Holland, where the House of Orange is becoming more and more unpopular. The old King is not forgiven for his rapacity, for the manner in which he has made money out of the country for the last twenty-five years, and further, for his marriage with a Belgian Catholic, while for two years he had condemned the country to support conditions that were at least as burdensome as war without any of its glory or profit, and all for the aggrandisement of his own family. The new King is fickle, inconsiderate, and imprudent; people criticise him for throwing himself into the arms of France, which is a new and adventurous policy for Holland; he is also blamed for his obstinacy in maintaining an army upon a war footing which is ruinous to the country. The Budget remains at an enormous height: eighty million florins for a population of less than three millions. The nomination of Baron Heskern as Minister of the Low Countries at Vienna has caused a great scandal in Holland, and revived unpleasant reports."

Rochecotte, September 11, 1842.—Yesterday I had a letter from M. de Salvandy, of which the following is an extract: "Thiers has plunged in extraordinary style; apologies to the Government have been complete, and he has kissed hands. I should have thought him clever if he had been more dignified, but such things often happen. I do not think that he has thus opened a road for his immediate return to power, but by the mere fact that he seems to have done so, the advance becomes more difficult for any one else. One of the consequences of this great flattery is to make the King unmanageable. M. de Lamartine has never been anything more than a meteor; he writes to M. Villemain that he will form part of 'the great opposition': the only great thing about him will be his powerlessness and his fall."

I propose to start for Valençay in a few hours, and to spend a month with my son in fulfilment of a long-standing promise.

Valençay, September 24, 1842.—I have been deeply grieved to hear of the death of my poor and excellent cousin, Princesse Pierre d'Arenberg. Both she, her husband, and all that branch of my family have been very kind to me, and I am deeply attached to them all. The Sister of Charity who nursed Madame d'Arenberg heard her say immediately after receiving extreme unction, "Oh, God, Thy will be done!" I am convinced that she was fully aware of her danger during the last forty-eight hours of her life, and that she did not speak more clearly of her death from strength of mind, and because she would not deprive those about her of the consolation of thinking that she was still under a delusion. She was one of the elect.