The King said, 'I see it.'
However, notwithstanding this, they say he is so weak that he may adopt a violent course.
Nothing can be more correct than the conduct of M. Molé, the French Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. He is most anxious to preserve peace in Europe, the new King's Government in France, and himself in office. He is much alarmed by the events in Belgium, and wished our Minister to join the French Minister at Brussels in recommending some concession to the King of the Netherlands. The Duke has, as Rosslyn told me, written a memorandum to serve as the basis of Aberdeen's dispatch, very civil indeed to Molé, very much satisfied with the disposition evinced by the French Government, but, in our ignorance of the real state of things, declining to advise the King of the Netherlands.
It is very amusing to see the French Government most liberally permitting the Bonaparte family to return to France, and most prudently sending circulars to all the Ministers of the Powers which signed the protocols of 1815, urging them in the name of that treaty not to allow the members of the Bonaparte family to leave their present residences.
It seems this is very necessary; for although their partisans can do little without their presence, they might do much with it.
Martignac has got together sixty members of the Chamber of Deputies who will act en masse for royalty.
There is no military force to keep people in order, and the National Guard does not like doing so. In fact the Revolution is not over. Things may go on as they are, but we have as yet no security. The French seem heartily sick of Algiers. It costs a great deal of money. Tropical products will not grow there. The climate does not suit the French troops, who have besides a most extraordinary maladie de pays. They must send 15,000 men more there to maintain it, as now they have no more than the town. They are willing to give it up to the Sultan if he will renounce tribute, &c.
I never considered the acquisition of importance to France. I always felt we might vex the French to death by the use of a little money which would at any time have brought forward all the Arabs from the desert. The port will only hold a few vessels.
The Emperor of Russia proposes to cut the Greek question short by proposing the crown at once, without the intervention of France, to Prince Frederick of Orange, and if he should refuse, then to Prince Charles of Bavaria, who we know will accept.
I should say from all I have read to-day that if France should make an aggressive movement all Europe would be united against her as in 1813; but if she remain quiet within her own frontier no Power will wish to molest her.