Your Majesty will have probably seen by this time the report from your Majesty's Consul at Boulogne of the mad attempt of Louis Bonaparte.28 It is rather unfortunate that it should have taken place at this moment, as the violent and excited temper of the French nation will certainly lead them to attribute it to England. It will also be highly embarrassing to the King of the French to have in his possession a member of the family of Bonaparte and so many Bonapartists who have certainly deserved death but whom it may not be prudent or politic to execute.
Footnote 28: The Prince, afterwards the Emperor Napoleon III., descended on Boulogne with fifty-three persons, and a tame eagle which had been intended, with stage effect, to alight on the Colonne de Napoléon. He was captured, tried for high treason, and sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. He effected his escape, which was undoubtedly connived at by the authorities, in 1846.
The King of the Belgians to Queen Victoria.
THE CONVENTION OF 1828
Wiesbaden, 22nd September 1840.
My dearest Victoria,—I was most happy in receiving this morning per messenger your dear little letter of the 15th, though it is grown a little elderly. The life one leads here is not favourable to writing, which, besides, is prohibited, and easily gives me palpitation enough to sing "di tanti palpiti!" I get up at half after six and begin to drink this hot water; what with drinking and walking one comes to ten o'clock or half after ten for breakfast. Then I read papers and such like things. At one o'clock I have been generally bored with some visit or other till two o'clock. I try to finish some writing, and then I walk and ride out till dinner-time, generally at seven. In the evening I have written sometimes, but it certainly does one harm. You see that there remains but little time for writing.
I am most happy to find that you are well; the papers, which don't know what to invent to lower the Funds, said that you had been unwell on the 10th, which, God be praised! is not at all true.
I pity poor Princess Augusta29 from all my heart. I am sure that if she had in proper time taken care of herself she might have lived to a great age. I have not time to-day to write at any length on the politics of the day, but I am far from thinking that the French acted wisely in the Oriental affair. I must say that I think the King meant well, but I should not have abstained from the Conference as he did, though, in France, interference with Mehemet Ali was certainly not popular. In England much of the fond is logical, but the form towards France was, and is still, harsh and insulting. I don't think France, which these ten years behaved well, and the poor King, who was nearly murdered I don't remember how often, deserved to be treated so unkindly, and all that seemingly to please the great Autocrat. We must not forget what were the fruits of the first Convention of July 1828—I think the 16th or 26th of that month; I ought to remember it, as I took its name in vain often enough in the Greek affair.
This first Convention brought about the battle of Navarino and the second campaign of the Russians, which ended with, in fact, the demise of the poor old Porte, the Treaty of Adrianople.30 Your Majesty was then afflicted with the age of ten, in itself a good age, and may not remember much about it except that in 1829 the affair about my going to Greece began, and that your affectionate heart took some interest in that. Lord Melbourne, however, you must encourage to speak about this matter. Canning's intention was this: he said we must remain with Russia, and by this means prevent mischief. The Duke of Wellington, who came to me shooting at Claremont in 1828, really did cry, though he is not of a crying disposition, and said "by this Convention the Russians will have the power of doing all they never would have dared to do single-handed, and shielded by this infernal Convention, it will not be in our power to stop them." Russia is again in this very snug and comfortable position, that the special protection of the Porte is confided to its tender mercies—la chèvre gardant le chou, the wolf the sheep, as I suppose I must not compare the Turcs to lambs. The Power which ruined the Ottoman Empire, which since a hundred and forty years nearly pared it all round nearly in every direction, is to be the protector and guardian of that same empire; and we are told that it is the most scandalous calumny to suspect the Russians to have any other than the most humane and disinterested views! "ainsi soit-il," as the French say at the end of their sermons. This part of the Convention of the 15th of July 1840 strikes impartial people as strange, the more so as nothing lowers the Porte so much in the eyes of the few patriotic Turks who remain than the protection of the arch-enemy of the concern, Russia. I beg you to read this part of my letter to my good and dear friend, Lord Melbourne, to whom I beg to be kindly remembered.
Footnote 29: Princess Augusta, second daughter of George III. See below [second letter, 26th September, 1840.].