[36]. Louis McLane, of Delaware, became Secretary of State in May, 1833. He was succeeded by John Forsyth, of Georgia, in June, 1834.
[37]. Mrs. Buchanan died on the 14th of May, 1833, at the house of her daughter, Mrs. Lane, in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. The letters of Mrs. Buchanan, of which I have seen many more than I have quoted, although rather formal in expression, show a mind of much cultivation, imbued with a fervent religious spirit, and of very decided and just opinions. In one of her letters to her son James, written in 1822, she says: “Harriet and myself, at the request of Mr. S., a clergyman, are engaged in reading Neale’s History of the Puritans, in which I observe a development of Queen Elizabeth’s character and management, not much to her honor; however, it appears evident, in opposition to her own intentions, she was made an instrument in the hands of Providence, of promoting the Reformation, which has certainly rendered an essential service to the world.” If the good lady had read Mr. Hallam’s very impartial account of Elizabeth’s management of the two opposite parties among the English Protestants, she would not have had much reason for changing the opinion which she formed from reading Neale, although it would not have been correct to say that the Queen’s course was in any just sense dishonorable to her. The truth probably is, that Elizabeth, in nearly everything that she did in regard to religion, was governed by motives of policy, and not by convictions or special inclinations. In many respects, she was not a Protestant, according to the Puritan standard, and in many others she was not a Catholic.
[38]. George IV.
[39]. This remarkable woman is regularly chronicled in Encyclopedias and Biographical Dictionaries as a Russian diplomatist. She certainly fulfilled that character in an extraordinary manner for a period of about forty years. When Mr. Buchanan met her, on his passage down the Baltic, she was on her way to join her husband in London. She was then forty-nine. The children referred to both died in 1835. The princess died at Paris, January 25, 1857, at the age of 73. She is said to have been a Protestant. In her later years she was a very intimate friend of M. Guizot, who was present at her death-bed. See further mention of her, post.
[40]. Henry Wheaton, the learned author of “Elements of International Law,” long in the diplomatic service of the United States.
[41]. At that time American chargé d’affaires in Paris.
[42]. Carlo Andrea Pozzo di Borgo was a native of Corsica, born at Ajaccio, in 1764. His efforts, along with those of Paoli, to accomplish the liberation of Corsica from the French power, and place it under the protection of England, produced in him a decided leaning against France through his whole career. In 1803 he entered the diplomatic service of Russia, in which he continued for the remainder of his long life, under both the emperors Alexander I and Nicholas I. He was Russian ambassador at Paris from 1815 to the time of his death, with temporary absences in London on special missions. He died in 1845. At the period of Mr. Buchanan’s visit to Paris, di Borgo was seventy years old, with as full and varied a diplomatic experience as any man of his time. He was celebrated for the brilliancy of his conversation in the French language. In the private journal of the late Mr. George Ticknor, written at Paris in ——, I find the following passage: “I do not know how a foreigner has acquired the French genius so completely as to shine in that kind of conversation from which foreigners are supposed to be excluded, but certainly I have seen nobody yet who has the genuine French wit, with its peculiar grace and fluency, so completely in his power, as M. Pozzo di Borgo.” In a note to this passage Mr. Ticknor adds: “I have learned since that he is a Corsican, and by a singular concurrence of circumstances, was born in the same town with Bonaparte, and of a family which is in an hereditary opposition to that of the emperor.” It was no doubt with singular zest, that di Borgo, in 1814–15, took part in the great European settlement which dethroned Bonaparte.
[43]. American friends.
[44]. See post, in relation to this collision between France and the United States.
[45]. The wife of Prince Talleyrand’s nephew, the Duc de Dino.