CHAPTER VII
Thiers; Spanish Marriages; Downfall of Lord Melbourne’s Administration; Corn Laws; Coolness between Panizzi and Thiers.
Amongst the eminent men whose friendship Panizzi had the good fortune to enjoy, not the least was M. Adolpho Thiers, who must ever be regarded as one of the ablest and most honourable, if not the most successful of European statesmen. Thiers and Panizzi first met about 1840. Frequent association community of friends, similarity of tastes, and especially the interest felt by both in political affairs, soon united them in a friendship both intimate and lasting, which bore its fruits in due season. Thiers, writes Panizzi to Lord Rutherfurd, Oct. 30, 1845, has taken up all my time when here. It was I who brought him and Lord Palmerston together, and I have sent him away quite pleased with the reception. We shall talk about it, and you will be amused—if you answer my letters—with what I shall tell you of him and from him, and about him.”
Certain communications from Lord Clarendon to Panizzi contain acute and pertinent remarks on the illustrious Frenchman. For ourselves, we have always believed that an intimate feeling of Anglomisos (to coin a word somewhat milder in significance than Anglophobia) materially influenced Thiers. Himself the very incarnation of the Gallic indoles, it is not to be wondered at that he looked on the most prominent and obnoxious traits of English character as antagonistic and repulsive. Englishmen seemed to him the collective impersonation of a Sabidius, or of a Dr. Fell; but however much he might have disliked the English as a race, he was ever ready, owing to his candour and love of truth, to render full justice to England as a nation, whilst the facility with which he made intimate friends in this country is too well known to require illustration in these pages. The following letters are, however, suggestive:—
“Bowood, Oct. 12, 1845.
“My dear Panizzi,