[129] In 1878, Disraeli, after emphasising the Sultan’s friendliness to Greece and the value of a Græco-Turk entente as a bar to “Pan-Slavic monopoly,” said: “... No prince, probably, that has ever lived has gone through such a series of catastrophes. One of his predecessors commits suicide; his immediate predecessor is subject to a visitation even more awful. The moment he ascends the throne, his ministers are assassinated. A conspiracy breaks out in his own palace, and then he learns that his kingdom is invaded, ... and that his enemy is at his gates; yet with all these trials, ... he has never swerved in ... the feeling of a desire to deal with Greece in a spirit of friendship.... He is apparently a man whose ... impulses are good, ... and where impulses are good, there is always hope.”
[130] Cf. his Life of Lord George Bentinck, p. 170.
[131] This was the speech in which Disraeli styled himself as not only a devoted parliamentarian, but “a gentleman of the Press.”
[132] Disraeli always maintained that the expulsion of Louis Philippe was the act of the secret societies, and not that of the French nation. He had reason to know. His letters in 1848 are full of gloom regarding the outlook in Europe. So were Carlyle’s.
[133] Life of Lord George Bentinck (1852).
[134] “... The end of their system ... is the glory of the empire and the prosperity of the people.”
[135] Disraeli was always careful to distinguish between “revolution”—a permanent upheaval, and “insurrection”—a transitory outburst. Thus he expressly terms the continental movements of 1848, “insurrections.”
[136] Though published in 1836, it was written considerably earlier.
[137] Explaining, in 1835, his phrase that “the Whigs had grasped the bloody hand of O’Connell,” Disraeli said: “I mean that they had formed an alliance with one whose policy was hostile to the preservation of the country, who threatens us with a dismemberment of the empire, which cannot take place without a civil war.”
[138] Cf. the “passionate carelessness” in “the old state of affairs” of “this experimental chapter in our history” in the speech of March, 1869. On the “Maynooth Grant” question, also, he observed, in 1846, that the boons offered to the Roman Catholics were, that “two should sleep in a bed instead of three.”