“I wrote a short letter to the President, and not of congratulation. May he find many friends as disinterested and sincere.”
Wellington also judged Napoleon’s rise to power in France as propitious, and wrote to D’Orsay on 9th April 1849:—“Je me réjouis de la prospérité de la France et du succès de M. le Président de la République. Tout tend vers la permanence de la paix de l’Europe qui est nécessaire pour le bonheur de chacun. Votre ami très devoué.
“Wellington.”
Though D’Orsay was not Napoleon’s active ally, he watched his progress with interest, and, despite the opinion he held of the means employed, apparently with approbation also up to a point. To Madden on the first day of the Presidential election, a Sunday—but really we must here have Madden’s own words:—“He came to my house before church-time, and diverted me from graver duties, to listen to his confident anticipations of the result of that memorable day. ‘Think,’ said he, ‘what is the ordinary November weather in Paris: and here is a beautiful day. I have watched the mercury in my garden. I have seen where is the wind, and I tell you, that on Paris is what they will call the sun of Austerlitz. To-morrow you shall hear that, while we are now talking, they vote for him with almost one mind, and that he has the absolute majority.’”
And later, he wrote to Richard Lane, the artist: “Rely upon it, he will do more for France than any sovereign has done for the last two centuries, if only they give him time.”
Even previous to this exciting period, at the time of the Boulogne descent, Lady Blessington was shedding ink in the defence of D’Orsay; writing to Henry Bulwer:—
“Gore House, 17th September 1840.
“I am never surprised at evil reports, however unfounded, still less so at any acts of friendship and manliness on your part.… Alfred is at Doncaster, but he charges me to authorise you to contradict, in the most positive terms, the reports about his having participated in, or even known, of the intentions of the Prince Louis. Indeed, had he suspected them, he would have used every effort in his power to dissuade him from putting them into execution. Alfred, as well as I, entertain the sincerest regard for the Prince, with whom, for fourteen years, we have been on terms of intimacy; but of his plans we knew no more than you did. Alfred by no means wishes to conceal his attachment to the Prince, and still less that any exculpation of himself should in any way reflect on him; but who so well as you, whose tact and delicacy are equal to your good-nature, can fulfil the service to Alfred that we require?
“Lady C⸺ [15] writes to me that I, too, am mixed up in the reports. But I defy the malice of my greatest enemy to prove that I ever dreamt of the Prince’s intentions or plans.”