EDINBURGH, March, 1848
I heard from two or three different sources that your Ladyship was to be blessed by an addition to your family....
I once made a pledge, that I would gladly leave all to watch and guard over your safety if you desired me. I have not forgotten the pledge, and am ready to redeem it--but not for fee or recompense, only for the love and pleasure of being near you at a time I could possibly show my gratitude by watching over your valued health and life.... With almost all my medical brethren here I use chloroform in all cases. None of us, I believe, could now feel justified in not relieving pain, when God has bestowed upon us the means of relieving it.
May 16, 1848
With a thankful heart I begin my diary again. Another child has been added to our blessings--another dear little boy. John was with me. Oh! his happiness when all was safely over. This child has done much already to restore his health and strength. Summer weather and the success of all his political measures for the last anxious months have also done much.
But the Irish troubles were by no means over; on July 21st Lord John introduced a Bill for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland. His case rested on Lord Clarendon's evidence that a rebellion was on the point of breaking out, and circumstances seem to have justified this precautionary measure. The Bill was passed without opposition and with the support of all the prominent men in Parliament.
July 21, 1848
Irish news much the same. A Cabinet at which it was determined to propose suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. John accordingly gave notice of it in the House. I had hoped that a Whig Ministry would never be driven to such measures. I had hoped that Ireland would remember my husband's rule for ever with gratitude.
Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby
LONDON, July 28, 1848
I have another letter to thank you for. You really must not describe the beauties of that place to me any more. It must so perfectly satisfy the longing for what, after some years of such a life as ours, seems the height of happiness--repose. I struggle hard against this longing, but I doubt whether I should do so successfully without that blessed Pembroke Lodge, from which I always return newly armed for the turmoil. After all, I am much more afraid of my husband being overpowered by this longing than myself. He can so much seldomer indulge in it. He is so much older, and it is so much more difficult for him to portion out his employments with any regularity, which is his best preservative against fuss. Yesterday was a most trying day for him, and the more so as he had looked forward to it as one of rest and enjoyment. It was Baby's christening-day, and we meant to remain at Pembroke Lodge after the ceremony to luncheon; but just as we were going to church came a letter from Sir George Grey with news of the whole South of Ireland being in rebellion, with horrible additions of bloodshed, defection of the troops, etc. As it has, thank God, turned out to be a hoax, a most wicked hoax, of some stockjobbing or traitorous wretch at Liverpool, I shall not waste your time and sympathies by telling you of the anxious hours we spent till seven in the evening, when the truth was made out.
And now let us trust that real rebellion may not be in store. It is dreadful to think of bloodshed, of loss of life, of the desolation of one's country and of the many, many imaginable and unimaginable miseries of civil war; but one thing I feel would be more dreadful still, weak and womanly as I may be in so feeling--to see one's husband unable to prevent the miseries, perhaps accusing himself of them, and sinking, as I know mine would, by degrees under his efforts and his regrets. Let us trust and pray, then, that we are not doomed to see the reality of so gloomy a picture. It is always difficult to me to look forward to great political failures and national misfortunes, perhaps because I have never known any; but the alarm of yesterday has made them seem more possible.
Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby
LONDON, August 3, 1848
... I do not care for my country or my husband's success a bit more than is good for me, and I often wonder at and almost blame myself for not being more disturbed about them.
I know that he does his best, and that is all I care very deeply or very permanently about; though there may now and then be a more than commonly anxious day. If I thought him stupid, or mean, or ignorant, or thoughtless, or indifferent in his trade, I should not be satisfied with his doing his best even; but as I luckily think him the contrary of all these things, I am both satisfied and calm, and his own calm mind helps me to be so. Sometimes I think I care much more about politics at a distance than when I am mixed up in them. The fact is that I care very much for the questions themselves, but grow wearied to death of all the details and personalities belonging to them, and consequently of the conversation of lady politicians, made up as it is of these details and personalities. And the more interested I am in the thing itself, the more angry I am with the nonsense they talk about it, and had rather listen to the most humdrum domestic twaddle. Mind, I mean the regular hardened lady politicians who talk of nothing else, of whom I could name several, but will not.
PEMBROKE LODGE, November 24, 1848
We have just had a visit from Louis Philippe. He spoke much of France--said that his wishes were with Louis Bonaparte rather than with Cavaignac for the presidency.
John expressed some fear of war if Louis Bonaparte should be elected; the King said he need have none, that France had neither means nor inclination for war. His account of the dismissal of Guizot's Ministry was that he said to Guizot "What's to be done?"--that Guizot gave him three answers: "Je ne peux pas donner la Réforme. Je ne peux pas laisser dissoudre la garde nationale. Je ne peux pas laisser tirer les troupes sur la garde nationale." Upon this he had said to Guizot that he must change his Ministry: "Cela l'a peut-être un peu blessé--ma foi, je n'en sais rien. Il a dit que non, que j'étais le maitre."
When he heard that the National Guard said, if the troops fired on the mob, they would fire on the troops, he knew that "la chose était finie," and when he went out himself among the National Guard, to see what the effect of his presence would be, La Moricière called out to him, "Sire, si vous allez parmi ces gens-là je ne réponds pas de votre vie. Ils vont tirer sur vous." He answered whatever might come of it he would "parler à ces braves gens"; but they surrounded him, grinning and calling out "La Réforme, nous voulons la Réforme," pointing their bayonets at him and even over his horse's neck.
Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby
WOBURN ABBEY, December 10, 1848
The great question of the French Presidency is decided, whether for good or for evil to other countries none can foresee, but certainly to the disgrace of their own. For here is a man, known only by a foolish attempt to disturb France, to whom no party gives credit for either great or good qualities, raised to the highest dignity in the new Republic, one of the advantages of which was to be that men should rise by their own merits alone. The common language of Frenchmen, or at least of French Royalists on the subject, is that they consider his election as a step to the restoration of Monarchy--but it is a shabby way of making the step, or it may prove a false one. You know we have had Louis Philippe and his family as near neighbours at the Star and Garter for some weeks, and we have seen him several times, to thank us for our inquiries after the poor Queen and Princes while they were so ill. Only think how strange to see this great King, this busy plotter for the glory of his own family and the degradation of England, taking refuge in that very England, and sitting in the house of one of those very Ministers whom he had been so proud of outwitting, giving the history of "ma chute." This he did with great bitterness; representing the whole French nation as a mass of place-hunters, without patriotism and without gratitude, and with no tenderness to Guizot. There is nothing noble and touching in his manner or conversation, or I am sure he would have inspired me with more pity in his fallen state, in spite of many faults as a King.[34]