H.M. Louis Philippe, King of the French
1841

ENGLAND AND THE
ORLEANS MONARCHY

BY

MAJOR JOHN HALL

AUTHOR OF “THE BOURBON RESTORATION”

WITH A PORTRAIT

LONDON

SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE

1912
All rights reserved

PRINTED BY
WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED
LONDON AND BECCLES

TO
S. H.

PREFACE

In this volume the story is told of the first entente cordiale and of the circumstances which led to its disruption. The questions which occupied the attention of the French and the British governments at that period have now passed into the domain of history. The resentment evoked by the Egyptian crisis of 1840 and the controversies raised by the Spanish marriages has died away. The attitude towards the Liberal and national movements in Europe, adopted, on the one side, by Louis Philippe and M. Guizot and, on the other, by Lord Palmerston, can, at this distance of time, be reviewed dispassionately. In the light of the knowledge of to-day, the difficulties which beset the “Citizen King” may be estimated, and the injustice of many of the attacks made upon the policy of Palmerston can be demonstrated.

Researches in the diplomatic correspondence of the period, both in London and in Paris, have enabled me to place in print, for the first time, many documents bearing upon the part played by Talleyrand in the Belgian question and upon the secret policy of Louis Philippe in the same affair. In these pages some new light has, I venture to think, been thrown upon the situation in Spain during the regencies of Christina and Espartero, and during the early years of the rule of Isabella. In connection, also, with Palmerston’s Eastern policy, certain facts, hitherto unpublished, are now presented for consideration.

During the eighteen years covered by this volume the Whigs were, for the greater part of the time, in office. Amidst the Russells, the Greys, the Spencers and the other powerful Whig families Palmerston was an interloper. Nor was he ever a Whig. In external affairs he remained always a Canningite. Some of the worst miscalculations of Louis Philippe and his ministers were due to their inability to grasp the fact that the foreign policy of the Whigs was in the hands of the most “un-Whiggish” of statesmen. The period was one of political unrest, the precursor of great wars and revolutions. France was disenchanted and profoundly dissatisfied with her “Citizen King.” In Germany and Italy Metternich still maintained his system, but there were symptoms that the end of his long rule was fast approaching. In Spain the transition from autocracy to constitutionalism coincided with a fiercely disputed succession to the throne. Turkey, in the words of Nicholas, was “the sick man of Europe.”

J. H.

Sept., 1912.

CONTENTS

ENGLAND AND THE ORLEANS
MONARCHY

[CHAPTER I]

LOUIS PHILIPPE

The spontaneous rising of the French people to expel their King, Charles X., who had ventured to infringe the Constitution, aroused the enthusiasm of Liberals all over Europe. But the real character of the movement which brought about the downfall of the elder branch of the Bourbons was, at the time, very imperfectly understood. It was not a determination to preserve at all costs the parliamentary system which animated the combatants in the “glorious days of July.” “Long live the Charter” was the watchword of the peaceful bourgeois. “Down with the Bourbons” was the war cry of the men of the barricades.

Outside the limited circle of the old Royalist families the restored monarchy had never been popular. Yet it was unquestionably the best and freest form of government which the country had ever enjoyed. The reason of the unpopularity of the Bourbons lay in the circumstances which had attended their return to France. By the large majority of Frenchmen their restoration was deeply resented, as one of the humiliating conditions imposed upon their country by the allied sovereigns, after Waterloo.

In respect to her frontiers, France in 1815 had been replaced in the position which she had occupied in 1789. Seeing the expenditure of blood and treasure which her wars had entailed upon Europe, these terms cannot be regarded as onerous. Nevertheless, it is not surprising that the treaties of 1815 should have been extremely distasteful to her. They were conceived in a spirit of suspicion and were directed mainly towards securing Europe from a fresh outbreak of her aggressiveness. Nor were the barriers, by which it was hoped to confine her within her boundaries, the only cause of her irritation. Her vanity and love of military glory had been dangerously stimulated by the Republican and Imperial wars, and it was a bitter blow to find that, in the final settlement, France, alone of all the great Powers, was to acquire no increase of territory. Vexation at these conditions was not confined to Republicans and Bonapartists. Hatred for the treaties of 1815 was the one political sentiment which Liberals and Royalists possessed in common.

In 1830, there was no Bonapartist party, but a strong Bonapartist spirit existed throughout the country. Veneration for the memory of “the man”[1] constituted the whole political philosophy of many thousands of Frenchmen. It was to the Bonapartist element that the Liberal party owed its chief strength and influence. Notwithstanding that the Liberals had opposed the Emperor during the Hundred Days, and had insisted upon his abdication after Waterloo, their alliance with the Bonapartists was cemented in the early days of the second Restoration. A common hatred of the Bourbons was the bond of union between them. In the Masonic and Carbonari lodges the bolder spirits of the two parties plotted together against the monarchy. When the reigning dynasty should have been overthrown, the conspirators proposed to proclaim the sovereignty of the people and to declare once more the tricolour the national flag. Then, and not till then, could France regain her “natural frontiers.”[2] It was the practice of these military democrats invariably to assert that the Bourbons were responsible for all the misfortunes of 1814 and 1815. They believed, or professed to believe, that the loss of territory, which France had sustained, was the price which the Bourbons had agreed to pay for their restoration. So long as a Bourbon was upon the throne Waterloo must go unavenged and France must submit to be deprived of her natural boundaries. It was this spirit which had animated the combatants in the Revolution of July. Men who understood and cared nothing for constitutional questions took up arms, believing that a victory over Charles’ guards would be a first defeat inflicted upon the allied sovereigns, and that a successful invasion of the Tuileries would be followed by a great national war upon the Rhine.[3]

The enthronement of the Duc d’Orléans was the strange termination of a revolution, carried out mainly by men who were animated by sentiments such as these. Even on the evening of the third day’s fighting, when the Royal troops had been driven from Paris and when the people were in possession of the Tuileries, the Duke’s name was still unmentioned. Most of the Liberal deputies were disposed to make their peace with their lawful king, and to be satisfied with the withdrawal of the unconstitutional ordinances and with the dismissal of the Prince de Polignac and his colleagues in the government. The extreme party, the old soldiers, the members of the former Carbonari lodges, the students of the polytechnique, the men who had borne the burden of the struggle, were not prepared with an immediate solution of the question. Beyond declaring that they would take up arms again, rather than accept any concessions at the hands of Charles X. or the Dauphin, they had no definite plan to bring forward. Louis Philippe was to owe his crown to a skilfully worded placard, the work of Laffitte the Liberal banker, and of Thiers, a clever young journalist, which on the following morning, greeted the Parisians at every street corner. In this proclamation the enthronement of the Duc d’Orléans was held up as the one solution which would restore public order without further bloodshed. A republic, it was declared, would entail both internal strife and war abroad, whilst Charles X., the monarch who had shed the blood of the people, must be adjudged unworthy to retain his crown. The Duc d’Orléans, on the other hand, was a prince devoted to the cause of the Revolution, who had never borne arms against his own countrymen, but who, on the contrary, had worn the tricolour at Valmy and at Jemappes. Let the people call for him and the Duke would come forward, content to accept the Charter and his crown from their hands.

The prospect of concluding the revolution in this fashion was eagerly adopted by the Liberal deputies and by the middle classes generally. But the more turbulent members of the so-called Hotel de Ville party indignantly repudiated the notion of allowing their glorious achievements to culminate in the enthronement of “another Bourbon.” The allusions in Laffitte’s and Thiers’ placard to the tricolour, to Valmy, and to the crown as the free gift of the people, left them cold. Nor were they to be mollified by a second proclamation, in which it was boldly asserted that the Duc d’Orléans was a Valois, not a Bourbon.[4] No sooner was the Duke put forward as a candidate for the throne, than the demagogues began to exhort the people to call upon La Fayette to assume the presidency of the republic. The old man was, as he had been forty years before, in command of the national guards, and was once more the hero of the mob. He was, however, little disposed to undertake the responsibility which his ultra-democratic friends wished him to assume. Under these circumstances, Rémusat and other of his colleagues in the Chamber, assisted, it is said, by Mr. Rives, the American minister, had little difficulty in persuading him that, were he to play the leading part in founding a Liberal monarchy, it would be accounted, throughout the Old and the New World, the most honourable act of his declining years. Accordingly, on the following day, July 31, 1830, he agreed to receive the Duc d’Orléans, the Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom, at the Hotel de Ville. Upon his arrival he led him to the window and, placing the tricolour in his hands, embraced him warmly before the dense crowd upon the Place de Grève. When this ceremony had been completed the elect of the people rode back in triumph to the Palais Royal, exchanging enthusiastic handgrips with citizens along the road. For the moment, even the most truculent democrats were willing to accept La Fayette’s assurance that in an Orleans monarchy they had found “the best of republics.” Ten days later, on August 9, 1830, the Duke having sworn fidelity to the Charter was formally invested with sovereign power in the Chamber of Deputies, under the title of Louis Philippe, King of the French.

At the time of the Revolution of July Louis Philippe was in his fifty-third year. He was the son of Egalité, and had been educated according to the Liberal views of his father and of Madame de Genlis. Although in 1794 he had deserted from the national armies along with Dumouriez, his commander-in-chief, he could assert truthfully that, throughout the long years of his subsequent exile, he had never turned his arms against his own country. During his wanderings in America and upon the continent, he had mixed with men of all sorts and all conditions. In Switzerland, indeed, he is said to have earned a livelihood by teaching in a school. In 1814 the idea of conferring the crown upon him, rather than upon Louis XVIII., had found favour in some quarters. But although, from this time forward, there had always existed some kind of a party, to which the name of Orleanist might have been applied, the Duke himself would appear to have been innocent of any participation in the proceedings of his adherents.

After Waterloo the plan of substituting him for Louis XVIII. had an increased number of supporters. Louis, who had never liked him, began from this moment to treat him with great suspicion. Both in England, where he continued to reside in a kind of disgrace till 1817, and at the Palais Royal, after his return to France, he was beset constantly by the spies of the police.[5] Charles X. had no share in his brother’s dislike and distrust of the Duc d’Orléans, and one of his first acts, after his accession, was to raise him to the rank of a Royal Highness. But, notwithstanding that, from the beginning of the new reign, more cordial relations were established between the Tuileries and the Palais Royal, there was never any real intimacy between the King and his sagacious relative. Charles was a man of limited intelligence and a bigot in religion. Politically he had not changed since the time when, as the Comte d’Artois, he had emigrated to Coblentz, and had called upon the Powers to assist him with men and with money to re-establish the old régime in France. The Duc d’Orléans, on the other hand, was a well-informed man of the world, a Liberal, who was neither a friend nor an enemy of the clergy.

It is clear that during the whole period of the Restoration the Duc d’Orléans was at pains to impress upon the public how greatly he differed in all matters, both great and small, from his cousins of the elder branch. When the return of Bonaparte from Elba compelled the Royal family to fly once more from France, he had not joined Louis XVIII. at Ghent, but had gone to England and had resided, throughout the Hundred Days, in complete retirement at Twickenham. Moreover, before quitting Lille he had addressed a farewell letter to the general officers serving under him, bidding them act, after his departure, in whatever manner might appear to them the most calculated to promote the highest interests of their country—an injunction which aroused as much indignation among the “pure Royalists” as it elicited commendation from the majority of Frenchmen. As they grew up, his sons, the young princes, were educated like ordinary citizens at the Lycée, and at the Palais Royal a simplicity was observed which contrasted strongly with the ceremony maintained, on all occasions, at the Court and in the apartments of the Dauphin. Nor could it fail to attract remark that men whose fidelity to the reigning dynasty was doubtful and prominent members of the Opposition were his habitual guests.

But, although there may be some circumstances of a suspicious nature in Louis Philippe’s conduct under the Restoration, it is improbable that he ever seriously harboured any thoughts of usurping the crown. His general behaviour is capable of a different explanation. He had tasted the bitterness of poverty, and appears to have been haunted constantly by the dread that his children might, some day, be reduced to the straits under which he had suffered in the early years of his exile. He was too clear-sighted a man not to perceive that the restored monarchy had no place in the affections of the people, and that the first serious mistake on Charles’ part would be the signal for his overthrow. It became, therefore, his policy to dissociate himself, as far as possible, from the Court in the hope that, should the Bourbons be expelled, he might escape from the necessity of sharing in their misfortunes. It is scarcely doubtful that the true motives of his somewhat equivocal attitude, at this period, should be ascribed to a keen desire to be allowed to remain in possession of his great estates, whatever political changes might take place, rather than to any deep-laid schemes of personal aggrandizement.[6]

At the time of the promulgation of the famous ordinances of July the Duke was with his family at Neuilly. For the past four months he had viewed Charles’ obstinate determination to retain his ministers, in defiance of the Chamber, with alarm. Nevertheless, the King’s coup d’état seems to have taken him completely by surprise. His chief endeavour, from the moment that it became apparent that the execution of the ordinances would lead to serious trouble, was to avoid committing himself with either party. Between Monday, July 26, the day on which the decrees were published in the Moniteur, and Friday, July 30, when the success of the revolution was assured, he would not appear to have had any communication with either the Court at Saint-Cloud or the Liberal deputies in Paris. Indeed, on Wednesday, July 28, when the fighting in the streets assumed a very serious character, he secretly withdrew from Neuilly and went into hiding at Le Raincy, another of his residences near Paris. Thiers, in consequence, when he visited Neuilly on Friday morning, was unable to see him, and it was only at last, after repeated messages had been sent him by Laffitte and other supporters, that he ventured to emerge from his retreat and to return secretly, and in the dead of night, to the Palais Royal. It is said that in arriving at this decision he was greatly influenced by his sister, henceforward to be generally known as Madame Adelaïde, to whose opinion in political matters he was accustomed to attach greater weight than to that of his wife, the sweet-natured and dignified Marie Amélie.

After a few hours in Paris any doubts and hesitations with which he may have been beset vanished completely. The old King was in full flight from Saint Cloud, his guards even were demoralized and were deserting him. From country towns came the news that the tricolour had been hoisted, amidst the greatest enthusiasm, and that the revolution was spreading rapidly. When, on that Saturday afternoon, the Duc d’Orléans mounted his horse to meet La Fayette at the Hotel de Ville, he was fully determined to seize the crown, which his unfortunate kinsman had let fall into the gutter.

Legitimist historians and others, professing to write in a more impartial spirit, have commented most adversely upon his conduct in this, the supreme crisis of his eventful life. It must, however, be admitted by everybody who studies the question with an open mind that France was irrevocably resolved to expel the Bourbons. It has, nevertheless, been contended that, had the Duc d’Orléans consented to undertake the regency, no serious objections would have been made to the enthronement of the Duc de Bordeaux,[7] in whose favour Charles and the Dauphin had abdicated on August 2. Unfortunately, however, it was notorious that this young prince was the pupil of the Jesuits, and the prejudice against him, on that account, was unquestionably very strong. Without doubt, had the plan been given a trial, it must have speedily ended in disaster. In addition to the many and great difficulties with which Louis Philippe was confronted, during the whole course of his reign, he must, as Regent, have been perpetually exposed to the suspicion of acting under the inspiration of the young King’s family, and that suspicion would quickly have proved fatal. There were, therefore, but two alternatives, either a republic or an Orleans monarchy. Seeing the dispositions of the continental sovereigns and the condition of France in 1830, the proclamation of a republic, if it had not entailed war, must certainly have produced anarchy and brought untold misery upon the people. On the other hand, the statutory monarchy, at the time when it was set up, had the support of the best elements of the nation, and Louis Philippe, by accepting the crown, can justly claim to have preserved France from the imminent danger of civil and foreign war.

Louis Philippe was a man of more than usual courage. In his early life he had displayed it at a critical moment upon the battlefield. In his middle age, in his famous progress to the Hotel de Ville, he had never hesitated to ride, without a military escort, through an armed and hostile mob. No king has probably been the object of attacks upon his life of so determined a character as Louis Philippe. The ever-present danger of assassination is said to have broken down the nerves of some of the boldest of men. But, throughout his reign, the “citizen king” always confronted this particular peril, to which he was so constantly exposed, with a serene and lofty courage. In the face of political difficulties, however, he was as timid as he was brave when it was a question of meeting physical danger. His attitude towards the Jacobinical spirit, which the “glorious days of July” had so greatly stimulated, is characteristic of his weakness in this respect. It is not improbable that in his heart he was secretly convinced of the ultimate triumph of revolutionary principles. Be that as it may, he appears to have shrunk from attacking Jacobinism openly and boldly. He seems to have looked upon it as a most dangerous monster which it was advisable to coax and to humour, in the hope that, by careful handling, it might be temporarily subjugated.[8]

In the days which intervened between La Fayette’s acceptation of him and his actual enthronement, he lost no opportunity of putting his theory into practice. Youthful Republicans were admitted into his presence, and he submitted to be questioned about his political principles.[9] It is probable that in some of these discussions he was induced to promise far more than he afterwards found it convenient, or even possible, to perform. On many occasions afterwards he was, in consequence, reminded of a more or less mythical Hotel de Ville Programme, with the conditions of which he was accused of having broken faith. But of all the difficulties by which he was confronted in these early days, the demand for a vigorous foreign policy was by far the most serious to deal with. The convinced democrats, who had been so bitterly opposed to his enthronement, were now the most vehement in insisting upon the adoption of a spirited course of action abroad. Without doubt, these men represented only a small minority of the nation, but, when they talked of military glory and of “natural frontiers,”they appealed to sentiments which a “king of the barricades” could not afford to disregard. It was a matter of indifference to the demagogues of the party that the flower of the army was in Algeria, that many of the regiments at home were demoralized by their recent collision with the people, and that France had neither allies nor financial credit. The war for which they clamoured was to be conducted upon strictly revolutionary principles. “Peace with the nations, war with the kings,” the old cry was to be raised once more under cover of which, in former days, France had acquired her coveted boundaries.

Apart from the question as to whether the conditions of France and of Europe, in 1830, were such as to render it probable that a repetition of the methods of 1793 would be attended with success, the fact that the first shot fired on the frontiers would be the signal for the opening of the floodgates of revolutionary propagandism, made it of vital moment to Louis Philippe to avert the outbreak of hostilities. In a war, having for its loudly proclaimed object the destruction of kings, what hope could he have that his throne, resting upon new and untried foundations, would escape the general ruin? But although he was resolved to use every effort to maintain the peace, it was thoroughly in accordance with his habitual practice to cajole and flatter the faction which desired war. Accordingly, in his replies to the numerous patriotic addresses which were presented to him, he would dilate in fulsome language upon the heroic conduct of the citizens in the recent street fighting. All his speeches and his public utterances teemed with references to Valmy and Jemappes. When the band struck up the Marseillaise, he would beat time with his finger, “casting ecstatic glances at the tricolor like one who has found a long-lost mistress.”[10] Yet, whilst he was thus appealing to the revolutionary recollections and flattering the military vanity of the people, all his thoughts were bent upon obtaining his recognition by the great European Courts. No sooner, therefore, was he enthroned, than he sent off emissaries, upon whose discretion he could depend, bearing letters to his brother monarchs announcing his accession. But in these communications, intended only for the eyes of the sovereigns and their confidential advisers, he was careful to speak of the “glorious revolution” as a lamentable catastrophe which he sincerely deplored.[11]

[CHAPTER II]

THE POWERS AND THE CITIZEN KING

In 1830 England was still suffering acutely from the financial crisis of five years before. The losses of the capitalists entailed distress upon the working classes in the shape of unemployment and diminished wages. The misery of the people led to the commission of acts of violence and incendiarism upon a scale unparalleled in the recent history of England. The advocates of parliamentary reform drew their best arguments, in support of their cause, from the wretched condition of the country. The elections, rendered necessary by the death of George IV., began in the very week which saw France in the throes of her revolution. By the Opposition the victory of the Parisians was acclaimed enthusiastically as the triumph of a neighbouring people over despotism and aristocratic privilege. The downfall of Polignac was celebrated as a crushing blow to Wellington. The belief that the Duke had connived at, if not directly inspired, the French King’s attempted coup d’état, was not confined to ignorant people, but was professed by the leaders of the Whig party.[12] Whilst this supposed connection of Wellington with Polignac increased the voting power of the Opposition, Tory patrons of rotten boroughs, incensed at his Catholic policy, withheld from him their support. The Duke returned from the elections with a diminished majority, and one, moreover, which, such as it was, in no way represented the real opinion of the country.

Wellington had been chiefly instrumental in effecting the restoration of the Bourbons after Waterloo. The news of their expulsion could not, under these circumstances, fail to cause him some personal regret. But, in addition, he was too well acquainted with French affairs not to be aware that the triumph of the democratic party was a grave menace to the peace of Europe. On the other hand, however, far from being, as was supposed, upon confidential terms with Polignac, the French expedition to Algiers had strained seriously the official relations which alone subsisted between them. But any reluctance, which he and his colleagues might have entertained, to recognizing the new régime in France, had to give way before the popular enthusiasm which the revolution called forth throughout England. The Duke, accordingly, lost no time in advising the King to acknowledge Louis Philippe. It was a policy, he maintained, which not only offered the best prospect of preserving peace, but which would meet with the approval of all the great Powers.[13] Consequently, when on August 22 General Baudrand arrived in London, bringing with him a letter from Louis Philippe to William IV., he was accorded a good reception in ministerial circles. Although he fancied he could detect a little coldness in Wellington’s manner, his mission achieved a complete success. After a stay of about a week in London he returned to Paris, taking back with him King William’s answer together with a box ornamented with a portrait of that monarch set in diamonds.[14] Meanwhile, on August 18, Charles X. and the members of his family had arrived at Spithead on board The Great Britain, the American vessel chartered by the French government to convey them to England. The state of public feeling made it inadvisable that they should proceed to London or even land at Portsmouth, and they were, in consequence, taken, a few days later, by steamer to Lulworth Castle, in Dorsetshire, which had been prepared for their reception. The mob which had cheered exultingly as Castlereagh’s body was borne through the streets to its last resting-place at Westminster Abbey, which, two years later, was to threaten Wellington with violence on the anniversary of Waterloo, would have shown scant respect for the misfortunes of the fallen King.

Ever since the days of her crowning disaster at Wagram, Metternich had directed the foreign policy of Austria. Clement Wenceslas von Metternich, Chancellor of the Court and of the State, was descended from a family of counts of the empire and was born at Coblentz in 1773. His predecessors in office, old Kaunitz, the minister of Maria Theresa, Thugut, Cobenyl, and Stadion, had in vain attempted to cope with republican and imperial France. Without doubt, Metternich in the final struggle with Bonaparte was assisted by circumstances not of his own creation, nevertheless he unquestionably proved himself, on many occasions, a crafty, wary adversary, who could await his opportunity patiently. The flattery which was lavished upon him at the peace and the prominent part which he was enabled to play in the great territorial settlement at Vienna stimulated greatly his natural vanity and presumption. In addition, as he grew older, he began to indulge more and more in long philosophical disquisitions upon every kind of political subject. But under his pedantic manner, he retained always his alert resourcefulness and shrewd common sense. In the words of Sir Frederick Lamb, who had transacted much business with him, “he was far too practical a man to regulate his conduct by his doctrines, and far too ingenious a one to be at a loss for a doctrine to cover his conduct.”[15]

Without doubt, Metternich was a man of aristocratic and conservative instincts, but, had he been differently disposed, the conditions of the Empire must have rendered very difficult the adoption of a Liberal policy. At the Congress of Vienna Austria had renounced all claim to her former possessions in the Low Countries and in Western Germany, and had withdrawn to the south and south-east to exercise an uneasy dominion over Slavs and Italians. Progress on national lines was hardly possible in an empire thus constituted, and circumstances contributed to facilitate the imposition of a strictly conservative system. The Liberal impulse, to which the War of Liberation had given birth in Prussia, had no counterpart in Austria, nor had Francis II., like Frederick William III., even in his darkest days, promised constitutional reforms. At the peace, accordingly, Austria reverted uncomplainingly to her old absolutist traditions.

In Italy Bonaparte had encouraged deliberately a spirit of nationality. But the patriotic hopes, which he had raised, were extinguished at the Congress of Vienna. Italy, Metternich decreed, was to be henceforward merely “a geographical expression.” By the settlement of 1815 Austria acquired actually the provinces of Lombardy and Venetia, but her influence extended far beyond these districts. Austrian princes ruled over the Duchies of Tuscany, Modena and Parma. Treaties which provided that Piacenza, Commachio and Ferrara should be garrisoned by Austrian troops gave her military control of the valley of the Po. Tuscany was forbidden to make either peace or war without her consent, and the King of Naples was pledged to introduce no constitutional changes, other than those sanctioned in the Austrian dominions.

In the Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom, as it was termed, it was Metternich’s policy to make the Lombards “forget that they were Italians.” The Austrian code of laws was introduced without regard to native customs and prejudices. The civil service was composed almost exclusively of Germans, and the most trifling administrative questions had to be referred to Vienna.[16] The stagnation engendered by this system could not fail to have a demoralizing effect. At Venice two-fifths of the population were in receipt of charitable relief, the middle classes were without enterprise, the aristocracy fawned upon the Austrians. On the other hand, in Lombardy and Venetia there were few monks and a comparatively good system of popular education existed. The people, moreover, enjoyed equality before the law which, except in political cases, was justly administered. But as in all Italian States, the police were arbitrary and interfering and the censorship of the press was enforced rigidly.

The heterogeneous composition of the Austrian Empire, which demanded a strictly conservative policy at home, prescribed no less urgently the preservation of peaceful relations abroad. Since the conclusion of the great war Metternich’s foreign policy had had no other object than the maintenance of the status quo, by the strict observation of existing treaties. The revolutionary spirit was the most serious danger to the settlement of 1815. Bonaparte might be dead or a prisoner at St. Helena, but Metternich was under no illusion that the peril had passed away for ever. The revolutionary monster still survived and required ceaseless watching. Only, he conceived, by a European Confederation, ruled over by a council of the Great Powers, could complete security be obtained against the common enemy of all established governments. Metternich’s combination of the Powers “for the maintenance of everything lawfully existing,”[17] which has been held up to execration under the name of the Holy Alliance, was an adaptation to practical politics of the fantastic scheme, which Alexander had propounded, on September 26, 1815, after a review of his army on the plain of Vertus. According to the Tsar’s manifesto the relations of all European sovereigns were in the future to be guided by the teachings of Christ. They were to regard each other in the light of brothers and to look upon their subjects as their children. The policy of Metternich’s Holy Alliance was set forth in the famous preliminary protocol of the conference of Troppau, signed, on November 19, 1820, by the plenipotentiaries of Austria, Russia, and Prussia. “States,” it was laid down, “which have undergone a change of government due to a revolution, the results of which affect other States, shall cease to be members of the European Alliance. If owing to these alterations immediate danger threaten neighbouring States, the Powers bind themselves to bring back by force of arms the erring State into the folds of the Alliance.”

Acting upon this principle, Austria, in 1821, invaded the Kingdom of Naples and abolished the constitution which the Carbonari had compelled Ferdinand to accept, whilst Bubna, the Austrian general commanding at Milan, entered Piedmont and suppressed the revolution which had broken out at Turin. The Tsar, Alexander, during these operations, held an army upon the Galician frontier ready to march into Italy, should his assistance be invoked. The same policy, in 1823, dictated the French armed intervention in Spain, when the constitution, which the Liberals had proclaimed three years before, was abolished and the absolute rule of King Ferdinand VII. was restored. But the determination of England “to abstain rigidly from interference in the affairs of other States” deprived the alliance of that appearance of complete unanimity which Metternich hoped would convince the peoples of the futility of attempting revolutions. The Greek insurrection, the quarrel between Russia and the Porte and the conflict of national interests to which the Eastern question gave rise, completed the work of disruption which Castlereagh and Canning had begun.

Metternich received the news of the revolution in Paris and of the downfall of Charles X. at Koenigswart, his country seat in Bohemia. Ever since the termination of the Russo-Turkish war he had been striving to re-establish the concert of the Powers and, more especially, to place the relations of Austria and Russia upon their former friendly footing. Deeply as Austria was interested in all developments affecting the integrity of Turkey, greatly as Metternich mistrusted Nicholas’ designs upon the Porte, the spread of Liberalism constituted in his eyes an even graver danger. The Russian government was intensely conservative and the people were little likely to be affected by the revolutionary spirit of Western Europe. Were a serious crisis to arise it was essential that Austria should be in a position to look to St. Petersburg for support. A visit which Nesselrode, the Russian Chancellor, paid to Carlsbad, in the summer of 1830, afforded Metternich an opportunity of sounding him as to the views of his Court, and it was upon his return from a satisfactory interview with his old friend that he found awaiting him at Koenigswart the first intelligence of Charles X.’s violation of the constitution. On August 6, when the complete triumph of the revolutionists in Paris was known to him, Metternich determined to return at once to Vienna, making another short stay at Carlsbad upon the way. At this, their second meeting, both statesmen affixed their signatures to a short document, which was to acquire a certain celebrity in the chanceries of Europe under the name of the chiffon de Carlsbad. By this agreement the basis was established of the policy which the absolute Powers were to adopt towards France. No attempt would be made to interfere with her, provided that she should abstain from seeking to infringe existing treaties and from disturbing the internal peace of neighbouring States.[18]

Soon after Metternich’s return to Vienna, on August 26, General Belliard arrived, bringing with him a letter from Louis Philippe to the Emperor Francis. Some days were allowed to elapse before he was admitted to an audience, but in the interval he had two interviews with Metternich. The Chancellor accepted his assurances that the King of the French would do all in his power to maintain peace at home and abroad. At the same time, however, he gave him plainly to understand that he had no confidence in Louis Philippe’s ability to carry out his intentions. Both the private and the official answers of the Emperor were coldly expressed, but they contained the definite assurance that he had no wish to interfere with the domestic affairs of France, in which country he sincerely desired to see tranquillity restored. He was determined to abide by treaties, and was gratified to learn that His Majesty, the King of the French, was animated by the same resolution. As Metternich, on September 8, placed these documents in Belliard’s hands he took the opportunity of impressing upon him solemnly that his Imperial master, although he had decided to acknowledge the sovereignty of Louis Philippe, viewed the events which had taken place in France with the utmost abhorrence and was convinced that the new régime could have only a brief existence. In truth Metternich was full of apprehensions, and, in a private letter to Nesselrode, unburdened himself of the conviction that “the end of old Europe was fast approaching.”[19]

The Germanic Confederation had been formed with the object of protecting Germany from external and internal dangers. The thirty-eight States and the four free cities of which it was composed were debarred from entering into any alliance with foreign governments against another member of the Confederation and, in case of need, were pledged to furnish contingents to the federal army. Austria and Prussia, however, in order to preserve the independence of their foreign policy, brought portions only of their territories into the Confederation, which, in consequence, was not committed to the defence of Hungary, Gallicia, Lombardy and Venetia, on behalf of Austria, or to the protection of the Polish provinces of Prussia. Each State was represented at the federal Diet at Frankfort, which assembly was in no sense a federal parliament, but resembled rather a conference of diplomatists, the ministers attending it being strictly bound by the instructions furnished them by their respective Courts. Austria and Prussia had only one vote apiece, Austria, however, held the perpetual presidency.

Prussia in 1815 had been regarded as the champion of Liberalism. The Constitutionalists, however, soon discovered that the hopes which they placed in her were not destined to be realized. In the counsels of Frederick William, the influence of Wittgenstein, the leader of the reactionary party, and the friend of Metternich, soon superseded that of Stein, Hardenburg and the heroes of the War of Liberation. The conditions of the country, it must be admitted, were hardly suitable to the immediate establishment of representative institutions. The inhabitants of the nine provinces which, it had been decreed at the Congress of Vienna, were to constitute the Kingdom of Prussia, were not agreed as to the form of government under which they desired to live. Until they had become Prussians, the Poles of the Duchy of Posen, the Westphaliand, the Saxons, and the Rhinelanders had existed under different codes of law and of administration. The imposition of a uniform system upon the kingdom was a matter of urgent necessity, and it was to administrative measures that the Prussian government devoted its attention exclusively in the years which followed Waterloo. It is clear that there was no strong demand for a constitution among the mass of the people, and Frederick William III. could listen, in consequence, without much danger, to Metternich’s warning that representative institutions must prove incompatible with military strength.

Successful as he had been in persuading Frederick William to withhold a constitution from Prussia, Metternich could not prevent certain rulers of the minor States from complying with Article XIII. of the Federal Act, and from establishing representative government within their dominions. In 1816, the Liberal Duke of Saxe-Weimar granted a constitution, and his example was followed by the Kings of Bavaria and of Wurtemburg and the Duke of Baden. A wave of Liberalism swept over Northern Germany. The universities were affected profoundly by the new ideas. In their lecture-rooms, professors denounced existing governments and harangued their pupils in the language of demagogues. The agitation culminated, on March 23, 1819, in the murder of the dramatist and publicist Kotzebue, who was said to be in the pay of Russia, by Karl Sand, a student of Jena University and a lecturer to the Burschenschaft. This crime and an attempt to assassinate Ibell, the minister of Nassau, gave Metternich the opportunity for which he had been waiting. In the month of July of this same year he had an interview with Frederick William at Teplitz, in the course of which the King promised never to give Prussia a constitution, to place his confidence only in ministers of the type of Bernstorff and Wittgenstein, and to sanction such repressive measures as the Austrian Chancellor might see fit to suggest. After a conference of the ministers of the different States at Carlsbad, Metternich’s decrees were submitted to the Frankfort Diet, on September 20, 1819, and adopted forthwith.

Under the provisions of the celebrated Carlsbad decrees, the ruler of every German State was bound to appoint commissioners to regulate the universities and to impose a censorship upon all newspapers and matter printed within his dominions. Furthermore, a central tribunal was established at Mainz to inquire into the doings of the secret societies, and upon the members of this court was conferred the power of arresting the subjects of any German sovereign, and of demanding from any law court the production of documents. These decrees, however, did not constitute the sum total of Metternich’s measures of precaution. In November, 1819, he convened a council of German ministers at Vienna, when, under the pretext of defining the functions of the Diet, sixty-five new articles of a repressive character were introduced into the Federal Act. The general effect of the Vienna resolutions, as these measures were termed, was to impose upon the Federation the duty of defending absolutism by force of arms in small States in which the sovereigns might prove incapable themselves of maintaining a despotic form of government.

Metternich’s manipulation of the Diet was the great triumph of his home policy. By converting the Federation from a combination of States into a league of sovereigns against their own subjects, he averted the danger that it might promote the cause of Liberalism or of national unity. From this time forward Metternich, to all appearance, dominated the Court and the Cabinet of Berlin, and held in leading strings the minor princes of the Confederation. Nevertheless, the position of Austria as a German Power was weakening steadily. At the Congress of Vienna he had craftily withdrawn the empire from the post of danger, and had thrust upon Prussia the task of protecting the western flank of Germany. To his secret satisfaction, he saw her pour out her treasure to defend the frontier from which Austria had recoiled. He believed that by his Carlsbad decrees and his Vienna resolutions he had rendered national unity impossible, and had condemned Northern Germany to the political stagnation in which the empire appeared contented to repose. But the enlightened bureaucratic system of Prussia was incomparably superior to that of Austria. In educational matters she was the foremost State in Europe, and already she was drawing the minor States into her system of internal free trade—the famous Zollverein which was to prove so important a factor in the struggle for Prussian hegemony and national unity. Even in 1830, acute observers could perceive that the people were stifling within the narrow confines of their duchies, and that, when the day of Germany’s awakening should come, it would be to the Power standing on guard upon the Rhine that they would look for leadership.[20] But that hour had not yet struck, and, in the question of the attitude to be observed towards France, after the Revolution of July, Prussia, as was her wont, shaped her policy upon that of Austria. The Emperor’s acknowledgment of Louis Philippe carried with it, accordingly, Frederick William’s recognition of the King of the French.

At St. Petersburg it was not until August 19 that any mention of the Revolution of July was allowed to appear in the newspapers. Two days earlier a new levy of two men in five hundred had been called up for service in the army, all Russians had been ordered to leave France, Frenchmen had been refused admission to Russia, and any display of the tricolour had been forbidden. But Lord Heytesbury,[21] the British ambassador, was informed that this increase of military strength had no reference to French affairs, and that the recall of Russian subjects from France was a simple measure of precaution.[22] In the eyes of Nicholas any rising of the people against their lawful sovereign was necessarily a highly offensive proceeding, and in this instance it had the additional disadvantage of disturbing a condition of affairs, the continued duration of which was very favourable to the national policy of Russia. Under the different governments of the Restoration an excellent understanding had been established between the Courts of the Tuileries and of St. Petersburg. The Eastern question, which had brought Russia to the verge of war with England and which had interrupted the smooth course of her relations with Vienna, had, on the contrary, drawn France towards her. When, in the campaign of the previous year, Constantinople had appeared to lie at the mercy of General Diebitsch, politicians as opposed as Chateaubriand and Polignac had been disposed to look upon the situation complacently, in the hope that the disruption of the Turkish Empire might lead to a readjustment of the map of Europe, which might enable France to rectify in her favour the treaties of 1815. Furthermore, since the intervention in Spain, in 1823, there had been little cordiality between the Cabinets of London and Paris. This estrangement had been intensified by the French occupation of Algiers, the one important measure of foreign policy of the last government of the Restoration. These circumstances rendered it very improbable that Russia in the near future would have to confront a coalition of the maritime Powers. But now that a new régime had been set up in France, the possibility of that dreaded contingency would have to be seriously considered.

In spite of the Tsar’s military preparations, Lord Heytesbury had no fears that he proposed to attack France. Nicholas informed him that he had directed his ambassador “to remain in Paris, but to remove immediately from the house furnished to the Russian embassy by the government of France.” He was constantly to hold himself in readiness to quit Paris at an hour’s notice, and to leave at once, should the English, the Prussian, the Austrian or the Dutch ambassadors be compelled to depart. “En âme et en conscience he never would consider the Duc d’Orléans in any light except that of a usurper.” Nevertheless he had no intention of intervening, unless France were to attempt to disseminate revolutionary doctrines in other countries or to carry her arms beyond her frontiers.[23] In due course Baron Atthalin arrived at St. Petersburg, bringing with him a letter from Louis Philippe to the Tsar, and, on September 8, was received in private audience by Nicholas. On this occasion the question of the acknowledgment of the King of the French was avoided, the Emperor being resolved to reserve the matter for further consideration. But at Tsarskoye Selo, a week later, Nicholas, whilst regretting that the British government should have so hastily decided to recognize Louis Philippe, gave Lord Heytesbury to understand that his own acknowledgment of the King of the French would not be deferred much longer.[24]

In the meantime, an event had occurred which threatened seriously to aggravate the embarrassments of the situation. The creation of the Kingdom of the Netherlands occupied a most important place in the territorial settlement following the overthrow of Bonaparte. British statesmanship had been largely responsible for the union of Belgium with Holland, and for the formation of a strong State of secondary rank which was to act as a barrier against France. Under Wellington’s advice the great Powers, at their own expense, erected a line of fortresses, connected with Prussian territory upon the left bank of the Rhine, to protect the southern frontier of the new kingdom. From a purely military point of view the plan may have been sound, but to propose to mould the Belgians and the Dutch into a nation was to treat as of no account the differences of race and of religion which divided the two peoples. The Belgians soon began to complain that they were very inadequately represented in all branches of the public service. Questions relating to education, taxation, and the freedom of the press increased their discontent. The Dutch, who could look back proudly upon two centuries of independence, despised them as having been constantly under the dominion of a foreign Power. In 1830 it was generally recognized that the attempt to fuse the two peoples into one nationality had failed. The Belgians, however, still remained loyal to the House of Nassau and desired only administrative separation under the reigning dynasty.

The Revolution of July in Paris created an immense excitement at Brussels. The town was the favourite place of refuge for the political offenders of all countries. Yet in spite of the prevailing unrest the authorities neglected to take the most ordinary precautions against a popular rising. A performance of Scribe’s opera, La Muette de Portici, which treats of the insurrection of the Neapolitans against the Spaniards, furnished the spark which was to cause the explosion. Serious rioting began on the night of August 25, and continued throughout the following day. The military commander appears to have acted with a strange irresolution, and on the 28th, the insurgents being complete masters of the town, a deputation of notables carried a respectful address to the Hague praying for the redress of their grievances. The next three weeks were spent in fruitless attempts to arrange a compromise. The Prince of Orange, who was personally popular, visited Brussels, but his efforts to solve the question met with no success. After the failure of his eldest son’s mission the King consented to dismiss van Maanen, the unpopular governor of Brussels. But this concession was made too late. Encouraged by emissaries of the revolutionary clubs in Paris, and emboldened by the weakness of the government, the advocates of complete separation pressed their demands with increasing violence. At last the King ordered Prince Frederick of Orange to advance from the camp of Vilvorde against the town. On September 23 the attack began. The troops penetrated into the park, but failed to carry the barricades which obstructed the streets beyond. After three days’ fighting the Prince abandoned the struggle and withdrew from the neighbourhood of Brussels. The discomfiture of his army left King William no alternative but to appeal for assistance to the Powers, whilst at Brussels a provisional government declared Belgium independent, and convened a national congress.

This attempt on the part of a neighbouring people to imitate “the glorious days of July” was exceedingly gratifying to the republicans and the military democratic party in Paris. Their orators and journalists loudly declared that the revolt of the Belgians was an opportunity both for extending the French frontiers, and for effecting a breach in the treaties of 1815. Louis Philippe, however, was resolved not to be drawn into an adventure of this kind. He knew that the powers would never tolerate an invasion of the Low Countries, and he realized that the French army was in no condition to oppose a European coalition. Accordingly, as it was not in his power to silence the cries for intervention or to repress the noisy sympathy for the Belgians indulged in by a large section of the press, he determined to give to foreign governments a practical proof of his pacific intentions by despatching to London, as his ambassador, the aged statesman who, sixteen years before, had figured so conspicuously at the Congress of Vienna.

The Prince de Talleyrand was in his seventy-third year. Notwithstanding the great services which, in 1814, he had rendered to the cause of Legitimate Sovereignty, the Bourbons of the elder branch had never been able to forget his conduct under the Republic and the Empire. At the second Restoration he had been appointed President of the Council, but had retired before the Chambre introuvable and the Royalist reaction, and neither Louis XVIII. nor Charles X. had given him a second opportunity of returning to office. Upon the triumph of the popular party in July, he had promptly placed his services at the disposal of Louis Philippe. But, in spite of his Liberal opinions, Talleyrand retained the language, the habits, and the appearance of a noble of the old régime. It might have been expected that all the King’s ingenuity would have been required to impose so fine a gentleman upon a Cabinet, which counted among its members the democratic M. Dupont and the elder M. Dupin, famous for his hobnailed boots and his affectations of middle-class simplicity. Louis Philippe’s ministers, however, were agreed upon the necessity of preserving the peace, and, when it was proposed at the Council table that Talleyrand should be sent to London, no opposition was made to the suggestion. Guizot, who was Minister of the Interior at the time, supposes that those who disliked the appointment must have stated their objections to the King in private.[25]

But if Louis Philippe and his ministers were determined to abstain from any intervention in Belgium, they were bound to insist that other Powers should adopt the same attitude. It was, therefore, notified to foreign governments that French policy, in the future, would be based strictly upon the principle of non-interference in the domestic affairs of other nations. It was a system to which both the great parties in England had declared their adherence, and its adoption by France might, in consequence, be expected to facilitate the establishment of cordial relations between the two countries. But the declaration of such a principle could not fail to be highly displeasing to the absolute Courts. Already movements of troops were in progress in the Rhine provinces which suggested an intention on the part of Frederick William of rendering military assistance to his brother-in-law, the King of the Netherlands. Baron Werther, the Prussian ambassador, although still without official credentials, had been instructed to remain in Paris. Molé, Louis Philippe’s first Minister for Foreign Affairs, accordingly arranged to meet him at a private house, where he gave him clearly to understand that the entry of a Prussian army into the Low Countries would be regarded as an act of war directed against France. This threat, which evoked much indignation in Berlin and at Vienna, was effectual in inducing King Frederick William III. to renounce any thoughts, which he may have entertained, of reducing the Belgians to submission by force of arms.[26]

Talleyrand arrived in London on September 24, and in a despatch, sent off the next day, expressed his satisfaction at the reception accorded him.[27] He was accompanied by the Duchesse de Dino, who officiated as hostess at his table, and presided over his household. In 1807, at the conclusion of the campaign in Poland, Talleyrand, then Napoleon’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, had obtained for his nephew, Edmond de Périgord, the hand of Dorothée, the daughter of the last reigning Duke of Courland. After a few years of married life, however, husband and wife agreed to live apart, and Madame Edmond from that time forward took up her residence with Talleyrand. She accompanied him to Vienna, in 1814, and brought back from the Congress the title of Duchesse de Dino. In return for the services he had rendered him, the King of Naples had conferred this dukedom upon Talleyrand, who had asked that the title might be assumed by his nephew. The duchess’ position in Talleyrand’s household was so generally recognized that, upon their arrival in London, King William IV., at Wellington’s request, allowed her to take rank as an ambassadress.[28] The Comte Casimir de Montrond, another frequent guest at Valençay, and at the house in the Rue Saint-Florentin, followed the ambassador to London. Talleyrand’s friendship with this curious individual appears to have begun under the Directory. In the terrible days which preceded the downfall of Robespierre, Montrond had been an inmate of the prison of Saint-Lazare. The fortunate possession of some ready money, a rare commodity at the time, had, however, enabled him to effect his escape, and that of the citizeness Franquetot, the heretofore Aimée de Coigny, Duchesse de Fleury, the heroine of André Chénier’s poem.[29] After this miraculous deliverance, Aimée de Coigny, who under the emigration laws had divorced the Duc de Fleury, married the man to whom she owed her life. But, after a brief and most unsatisfactory experience of matrimony with the gay incroyable, she again contrived to obtain her freedom. Montrond’s introduction to London society appears to date from the year 1812, when, having incurred the grave displeasure of Bonaparte, he succeeded in eluding the French police and in reaching England. He seems to have become very rapidly a well-known and popular member of the fashionable world in London. During all this period of his life he is believed to have been totally without regular means of subsistence, and to have existed solely by play, assisted by an occasional windfall in the shape of employment upon any secret political work which Talleyrand, when in favour, was enabled to procure for him. But from the earliest days of the Monarchy of July his circumstances began to improve. From this time forward he appears to have drawn a pension of about £1000 per annum from the secret service funds of the French Foreign Office.[30] This allowance is said to have been granted him in order that “he should speak well of Louis Philippe in the London clubs.” It was, moreover, strongly suspected that he had obtained knowledge of certain of the King’s proceedings during the emigration which His Majesty had good reasons for wishing to keep secret.[31]

The uneasiness aroused in London by the first news of the insurrection in Brussels developed into serious alarm, when the triumph of the revolutionists over the Royal troops became known. Wellington openly declared that it was a “devilish bad business,”and many people began to fear that a great European war was inevitable.[32] The British government, whilst prepared to accept as an accomplished fact the complete separation of Belgium from the Kingdom of the Netherlands, held that no changes must take place of a nature to interfere with the efficiency of the barrier fortresses, these defences “being necessary for the security of other States.” After drawing up instructions to this effect for Lord Stuart de Rothesay, Aberdeen intimated that the government was desirous of conferring upon the situation “in friendly concert with France and the other Powers.”[33] Talleyrand was of opinion that it was a matter for congratulation that the first offer of co-operation should have come from England, and strongly recommended that the proposal should be responded to cordially. An entirely passive attitude, he wrote, must deprive France “of that influence which they are disposed to ascribe to her over here.”[34]

Meanwhile, in Paris, notices were appearing in the papers calling upon men to enroll themselves to assist their Belgian brothers. The Society of the Friends of the People equipped a battalion which actually set out for the northern frontier. La Fayette was still the recognized leader of the ultra-Liberals, and his house was a meeting-place for the Carbonari and the revolutionists of every country. But he was occupied chiefly in encouraging insurrectionary movements in Spain and Italy. The union of Belgium with France was advocated mainly in the ranks of the Bonapartist or military democratic section of the party. The protestations of Louis Philippe and Comte Molé were probably true that the government in no way favoured their designs, and that strict orders had been given to the prefects to prevent the passage of arms into Belgium. On the other hand, however, their assertions to Lord Stuart were untrue that they were innocent of conniving at the proceedings of the Spanish revolutionists. Broglie and Guizot, both members of the Cabinet, admit that in order to compel the King of Spain to acknowledge Louis Philippe, facilities for assembling their followers upon French territory were accorded to the Spanish insurrectionary leaders. This rather disingenuous policy appears, without question, to have contributed materially to the establishment of diplomatic relations between Paris and Madrid at the end of the month of October.[35]

None of the Powers evinced any intention of responding to the King of Holland’s request for military assistance to subdue the revolted Belgians. The English proposal that a conference should be held to consider the situation was generally regarded as the best solution of the question. “Austria and Prussia,” wrote Talleyrand on October 11, “intend to follow the lead of England with respect to Belgium, and there can be little doubt that Russia will adopt the same course.”[36] The French government at this time was greatly incensed at the conduct of the Cabinet of the Hague. No official appeal for help had been sent to Paris, but in a letter to Louis Philippe the Prince of Orange openly accused the French authorities of encouraging the disturbances in Belgium, and suggested that the King should make a public declaration of his intention not to meddle with the affairs of the Low Countries. In return, the Prince undertook to use all his influence with the Tsar in favour of the acknowledgment of the sovereignty of the King of the French. At a Council of Ministers it was resolved that Talleyrand should be instructed to bring the affair to the notice of the British Cabinet, and that Molé should draw up a note for presentation at the Hague, expressing surprise at the continued silence observed towards the French government. Two days later, however, the news was telegraphed from Strasburg that General Atthalin had passed through the town, bringing with him the Tsar’s recognition of Louis Philippe. But, upon the general’s arrival, the satisfaction caused by this intelligence was diminished by the cold and formal language of Nicholas’s letter, and by his pointed omission to address the King as “his brother,” the designation generally employed by sovereigns in their communications with each other.[37]

The proposal of the English government that a conference should be held upon Belgian affairs having been accepted by the Powers, it remained only to decide upon the town in which the deliberations should take place. London, where for some time past the representatives of Russia, France, and Great Britain had been engaged in settling the frontiers and discussing the future of Greece, appeared to be the capital in which, by reason of its proximity to Brussels, the plenipotentiaries could assemble with the least inconvenience. France alone dissented from this view, and urgently demanded that the conference should be held in Paris. Aberdeen, when Talleyrand communicated to him his instructions upon the subject, would appear to have seen little to object to in the French proposal. Wellington, however, refused to entertain the suggestion, for a moment. It was highly important, the Duke contended, that matters should be settled promptly, and he was confident that he could induce the ministers attending the conference to agree to the French and English proposals, provided they were to meet in London. On the other hand, were Paris to be the scene of their deliberations, they would insist upon referring every question to their respective Courts. Talleyrand, who considered that there was much sound reason in the Duke’s contention, was nevertheless directed to reiterate his demand. But his further representations only evoked the reply that the English Cabinet regarded Paris as un terrain trop agité, and at a subsequent interview, on October 25, in the presence of the ambassadors of Austria and Prussia, the Duke assured him that the Powers were unanimous in opposing the notion of discussing the affairs of the Low Countries amidst the tourbillon révolutionaire of the French capital.[38]

In his conversations with Lord Stuart de Rothesay in Paris, Molé, in order to gain his ends, had recourse to a singular argument. Talleyrand himself, he explained, constituted the true reason why the government was desirous that the Belgian conference should not take place in London. He never would have been accredited to the Court of St. James’ had ministers foreseen how greatly the public would resent his appointment. To allow him to represent France at a very important conference would expose the Cabinet to attacks which must prove fatal to its existence. “This extraordinary reason for objecting to our proposition,”wrote Aberdeen, “does not appear to His Majesty’s government to be entitled to serious consideration.” Molé nevertheless continued to press his point with much warmth, and it was only after several more interviews with Lord Stuart that he began to talk of sending a second plenipotentiary to the London conference to be associated with Talleyrand.[39] This plan, which was probably not put forward seriously, was certainly never carried into execution. At the end of October, the Cabinet was reconstructed, and Molé resigned the portfolio of Foreign Affairs. After his retirement no further allusion appears to have been made to the alleged inconvenience of Talleyrand’s presence at the London conference. Molé was perhaps jealous of allowing him to conduct these important negotiations, in which he probably desired himself to play the chief part. He was a highly cultivated man, with much charm of manner, and of an ancient family, and in Imperial days had enjoyed the favour of the Emperor, and had held important positions. Under the Restoration he had been Minister of Marine in Richelieu’s first administration, and in this capacity had incurred Louis XVIII.’s displeasure by intriguing against his favourite the Duc Décazes.

The Cabinet, known as that of August 11th, had never been a united body. Guizot, Broglie, Molé and Casimir Périer constituted the Conservative element, whilst Laffitte and Dupont were opposed to all measures which savoured of resistance to progress upon democratic lines. The riots of October 17 and 18, in Paris, the mob’s protest against the apparent intention of the government to abolish the death penalty in political cases, in order to save the lives of the imprisoned ex-ministers of Charles X., brought matters to a crisis. Seeing that the King decidedly inclined to the views of Laffitte and the so-called party of laissez-aller the Conservatives, advising him to give the policy of their dissenting colleagues a fair trial, tendered their resignations. Laffitte was accordingly charged with the task of reconstructing the Cabinet.[40]

On November 2, the day on which the composition of the new French ministry was published in the Moniteur, King William IV. formally opened the British Parliament. In the Speech from the Throne, the Belgians were described as “revolted subjects” and the intention was expressed of repressing sternly disturbances at home. In the House of Lords, Grey deprecated the employment of such language, and, in reply, Wellington made his declaration against Reform. A fortnight later, upon a motion of Sir Henry Parnell for referring the Civil List to a select committee, the government was placed in a minority. The Duke thereupon resigned and advised the King to send for Grey. Lord Grey undertook to form a ministry upon the understanding that he was to bring forward a measure of Reform.

[CHAPTER III]

THE CREATION OF BELGIUM

The accession to power of Lord Grey was an event justly calculated to raise the hopes of those who wished to see more cordial relations established between France and England. The Whigs had been out of office during the whole period of the Imperial wars; they had not been concerned in the territorial settlement at the peace, nor were they responsible for the measures which had been taken to ensure the safe custody of Bonaparte after Waterloo. Many prominent members of the party had avowed their sympathy for France, and, moreover, the revolution of July had, unquestionably, contributed to the overthrow of the Tories. Under the new régime in France political power was to rest with the bourgeoisie. It was by the support of the trading and commercial classes that the Whigs purposed to carry out their scheme of Parliamentary Reform. Nor were these the only circumstances which seemed to indicate that the two countries would, in the future, develop upon parallel lines. Although William IV. had succeeded to the throne legitimately, whilst a revolution had placed the crown upon the head of Louis Philippe, and although no two men could be more different in character, there were, upon the surface, curious points of resemblance between them. Both were, or were supposed to be, Liberals, both were simple and unostentatious in their tastes and habits, both had succeeded sovereigns of reactionary views who had been rigid observers of courtly ceremony and etiquette.

“England,” wrote Talleyrand in a despatch in which he reviewed the situation created by the change of government, “is the country with which France should cultivate the most friendly relations. Her colonial losses have removed a source of rivalry between them. The Powers still believe in the divine right of kings; France and England alone no longer subscribe to that doctrine. Both governments have adopted the principle of non-intervention. Let both declare loudly that they are resolved to maintain peace, and their voices will not be raised in vain.”[41]

Lord Palmerston, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, was in his forty-sixth year. From 1811 he had continuously held the post of Secretary-at-War in succeeding Tory administrations until the year 1828, when, with other Canningites, he had seceded from the Duke of Wellington. He was an excellent linguist; indeed, in the opinion of so competent a critic as Victor Cousin, there were not twenty Frenchmen who could lay claim to his knowledge of their language.[42] In the course of a visit which he had paid to Paris, in the year 1829, Palmerston had made the acquaintance of most of the prominent members of the Liberal party under the Restoration. From his conversations with these men, who were now the masters of France, he had carried away the conviction that they chafed bitterly at the treaties of 1815 and were determined, at the first opportunity, to extend the French frontiers to the Rhine. General Sébastiani, who, on November 15, had succeeded Marshal Maison as Minister for Foreign Affairs, had, whilst in opposition, been one of the loudest advocates of a policy of expansion.[43] The recollection of his boastful language and of the aggressive schemes which he had heard him propound was always present in Palmerston’s memory, and was sensibly to influence his conduct of his first negotiations with the French government.

The general outlook in Europe in the autumn of 1830 augured ill for the continued maintenance of peace. Great military preparations were reported to be in progress in Russia. Marshal Diebitsch, the hero of the recent war with Turkey, was at Berlin upon a mission which, although it was described, as “wholly extra official,”[44] excited considerable apprehension in Paris. Insurrectionary movements, the repercussion of the Revolution of July, had taken place in Saxony and other States of Northern Germany. Metternich was said “to have proposed certain armaments to the Diet, wholly out of proportion to the necessities of the situation.” The King of Prussia, although he was universally credited with a sincere desire for peace, was suspected, nevertheless, “of preparing quietly for war.” The alarm was not dispelled by the assurances which, in London, Prince Lieven gave to both Palmerston and Talleyrand that the Russian armament was merely a measure of precaution necessitated by treaty obligations with the King of the Netherlands, and that, under no circumstances, would his Imperial master take action except in combination with the Powers.[45] On December 1 the French Chamber voted supplies for a considerable increase of the army.

The suspicion that the three Northern Courts were meditating an unprovoked attack upon France was unfounded. As Lord Heytesbury pointed out, the cholera, which had made its appearance in the Tsar’s dominions, threw an insuperable obstacle in the way of recruiting upon a large scale. Russia indeed, he considered, might almost be looked upon as hors de combat.[46] Nor was Metternich proposing to begin hostilities against France. “Austria’s task,” he instructed Esterhazy, the ambassador in London, “consists in suppressing any insurrectionary movement in Italy.” But should the French interpose in favour of the revolutionists, their action must be resisted vigorously. It was expedient, therefore, for the three great continental Powers to hold their armies in readiness. “The British government must be brought to understand that Austria cannot accept the principle of non-intervention. England, as an insular State, can adhere to it without danger, but when adopted by France it imperils the existence of neighbouring Powers. The proclamation of such a doctrine can be compared only to the complaints of thieves about the interference of the police.”[47] But, although the absolute Courts were certainly innocent of any desire to provoke a war deliberately, there were serious elements of danger in the situation. The King of the Netherlands, without doubt, looked upon the outbreak of a great European war as the only chance of regaining his Belgian provinces. Charles X. was once more installed quietly in his old quarters at Holyrood, but his adherents, the Legitimists, or Carlists, as they were more usually termed, were convinced that a war must prove fatal to the new régime in France. Talleyrand suspected that they were in league with the military party in Paris, and suggested that an agent should be sent over to London to watch them. He had no complaints to make about the assistance afforded him by the Home Secretary, who placed all the information he could obtain about them at his disposal, but, “in a country in which the police system was so bad, such reports had little value.”[48]

At the Congress of Vienna nearly the whole of those territories, known as the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, had been constituted into the Kingdom of Poland and assigned to the Tsar. Under the terms of the treaty, which was guaranteed by the Five Powers, the crown of the Kingdom was to be hereditary in the Imperial family of Russia. The Poles, however, were to be granted a constitution, and were to be allowed to maintain a national army. These stipulations were duly carried out by Alexander. But, as the Tsar’s Liberalism waned, the first conditions were considerably modified, and, after the accession of Nicholas, the Poles appear to have suspected, with perhaps good reason, that the Imperial Cabinet purposed to abolish gradually all their special privileges. Suddenly, on November 28, 1830, an insurrection broke out at Warsaw. The Viceroy, the Grand Duke Constantine, was driven from the town and several of his generals were murdered. The revolution spread rapidly through the country, and, after some vain attempts to negotiate a compromise, the Grand Duke retreated across the frontier with his Russian troops. On December 5, Chlopicki, a popular Polish general, who had served with distinction under Bonaparte, was proclaimed Dictator. Nicholas, whilst collecting his troops to reconquer his revolted kingdom, declared that the French revolutionary propaganda and the creation of Lancastrian schools[49] were responsible for the insurrection.[50]

The rebellion evoked the utmost enthusiasm in Paris. The designation of “the Frenchmen of the North,” which it became the fashion to apply to the Poles, tickled the national vanity. It was remembered that they had remained true to Bonaparte in his misfortunes, and that the unsympathetic treatment which they had experienced at the hands of the sovereigns at Vienna had been the penalty of their fidelity. Moreover, it was a natural consequence of their hatred of the treaties of 1815 that Frenchmen should feel drawn towards those countries which, like Poland or Italy, had cause for dissatisfaction with the conditions settled at the Congress of Vienna. Unquestionably this was the secret of much of that sympathy for “oppressed nationalities” which, from 1830 onwards, manifested itself so keenly in France. The war party and other factions hostile to the monarchy encouraged the popular ferment. Lord Stuart de Rothesay was disposed to think that Louis Philippe and his ministers regarded the excitement with secret approval, in the hope that it would distract public attention from the impending trial of the ex-ministers of Charles X.[51] In addition to Polignac himself three members of the Cabinet, who had signed the ordinances of July, had failed to escape abroad. The King, however, notwithstanding that the populace called furiously for their heads, was determined to save their lives. This merciful intention he was enabled to carry out successfully. On December 21 the peers adjudged them guilty of high treason but, in deference to Louis Philippe’s wishes, sentenced them only to perpetual confinement. Meanwhile Montalivet, the Minister of the Interior, had personally conducted the prisoners back to Vincennes, where they were lodged in safety before the mob, which thronged all the approaches to the Luxembourg, realized that it had been baulked of its prey. The satisfactory conclusion of this momentous trial was followed by an event of no less happy augury for the future. Nettled by a resolution of the Chamber affecting his position, La Fayette retired from the command of the national guard. The government accepted his resignation with grave misgivings, but, to the general surprise, the fickle multitude saw their hero replaced by Mouton de Lobau with comparative indifference.

But of all the questions which threatened to disturb the peace of Europe, that of Belgium, by reason of the conflict of national interests to which it gave rise, was by far the most delicate. It is not without cause that, for centuries, the Low Countries have been the chief battle ground of the Powers. Bonaparte is supposed to have described the possession of Antwerp as “a loaded pistol held at England’s head.” Unquestionably, during the great war, England had had experience of the difficulties of watching the coastline of Belgium and Holland united to that of France. The lesson had not been thrown away upon Lords Grey and Palmerston, who were fully determined to resist, at all costs, the acquisition of any portion of the Low Countries by a first-class military Power. On the other hand France had excellent reasons for objecting to the system under which the Kingdom of the Netherlands had been created, and the barrier fortresses erected. In the words of General Lamarque, the chief parliamentary spokesman of the war party, these defences constituted, within four days’ march of Paris, a tête de pont behind which the armies of a hostile coalition might assemble at leisure. Moreover, France, in 1815, had been deprived of the fortresses of Marienburg and Philippeville, both of which had been incorporated into the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and it was hoped that in any scheme of re-arrangement these two places would be restored to her. All supporters of the new monarchy were keenly alive to the immense satisfaction with which the smallest modification of the hated treaties of 1815 would be received throughout the country. Men of moderate views, such as Charles de Rémusat and Guizot, looked upon “a brilliant diplomatic triumph” or “some acquisition of territory towards Belgium” as conditions essential to the stability of the Orleans throne.[52] On the other hand, it was the policy of Austria, Prussia and Russia, as it was that of Great Britain, to preserve intact the territorial settlement of 1815 and to resist the aggrandisement of France. But the attitude of the Northern Courts was also greatly influenced by the marriages which connected the King of the Netherlands and the Prince of Orange with the Royal family of Prussia and the Imperial House of Russia. In addition to these considerations of relationship the sympathies of the absolute sovereigns necessarily went out to a monarch struggling with a rebellion of his subjects, and they could not but be reluctant to participate in measures tending to legalize a revolution.

The first sitting of the conference of the five Powers upon Belgian affairs took place at the Foreign Office in London, on November 4, on which occasion it was decided to impose an armistice upon the contending parties. According to the protocol, the Dutch and Belgian armies “were to retire behind the line which, previous to the treaty of May 30, 1814, separated the possessions of the sovereign prince of the United Provinces from the territories which have since been joined to them.”[53] No further step of much importance was taken until December 20, when Talleyrand proposed that the conference should proclaim the independence of Belgium.[54] After a discussion of seven hours’ duration, the objections of the plenipotentiaries of the absolute Powers were withdrawn, and the plan was acceded to unanimously. A month later, on January 20, 1831, the frontiers of Holland and Belgium were defined, and Belgium was declared neutral under the guarantee of the Powers. At the sitting of January 27, the plenipotentiaries apportioned the share of the general debt which each State would be called upon to bear.[55]

The difficult question of selecting a sovereign for Belgium was not lost sight of, whilst the delimitation of frontiers had been proceeding. As early as October 19, Molé informed Lord Stuart in confidence that M. Gendebien had brought proposals from the provisional government in Brussels for the enthronement of one of Louis Philippe’s younger sons. But he assured the British ambassador that, as France was about to confer upon the situation with the other Powers, the offer would not be entertained for a moment.[56] Again Talleyrand, on November 7, reported that “a kind of agent of the provisional government” was in London seeking to ascertain whether the elevation to the Belgian throne of the Duc de Leuchtenberg, a son of Eugène de Beauharnais, would be permitted.[57] At first the Powers, France included, had regarded the enthronement of the Prince of Orange as the safest solution of the difficulty. But after the bombardment of the town of Antwerp by the Dutch, at the end of October, he became very unpopular, and, on November 24, the national congress at Brussels resolved that all members of the House of Orange-Nassau should be excluded from the throne.[58] In consequence, possibly, of this action by the Belgian deputies, Lords Grey and Palmerston appear to have mentioned the Archduke Charles of Austria to Talleyrand as a suitable candidate. But he objected, reminding them that his enthronement would constitute a restoration, which the most famous of Whigs had once described as “the worst of revolutions.” Moreover, Metternich, who had no desire to extend the influence of Austria in that direction, soon afterwards declared that the Archduke would decline the crown, both for himself and for his children, were it to be offered to him.[59] Talleyrand himself appears to have been the first to suggest that Leopold of Saxe-Coburg might with advantage be chosen to rule over the new State.[60] In putting forward this plan he seems to have been actuated chiefly by a desire to please the British government, but, for reasons which will be explained later, his proposal met with very little response. Meanwhile, the language of Mauguin and Lamarque in the Chamber, and the evident intention of the military party to object to any settlement which should not admit of the future union of Belgium with France, were rapidly impelling Louis Philippe to adopt an attitude of opposition to Great Britain and the other Powers.[61]

At the first sitting of the conference it had been decided that M. Bresson, the first secretary of the French embassy in London, and Mr. Cartwright, who held a similar position at the British embassy at the Hague, should act as the commissioners of the Powers at Brussels. Cartwright, however, had soon been recalled in order that he might assume the duties of British minister at Frankfort, and Lord Ponsonby had been sent to take his place at Brussels. Ponsonby was the brother-in-law of Lord Grey and was reputed to be the handsomest man of his time. There was a story that as a youth he had been set upon by the mob in the Rue Saint-Honoré, in the early days of the revolution, and that it was only the protests of the women, that he was too good-looking to be hanged, which had saved him from “la lanterne.” Canning is said to have sent him to Buenos Ayres, in 1826, upon his first diplomatic mission of importance, in order to please George IV., whose peace of mind was disturbed by Lady Cunningham’s too evident admiration of him.[62] In Belgium, at this time, the two chief political parties were the French party, consisting of the advocates of a union with France, and the Orange party, the members of which favoured the enthronement of the Prince of Orange. The first were unquestionably by far the most numerous, but the Orangists, who were to be found chiefly in business and commercial circles, were not without power and influence. Bresson, from the first moment of his arrival at Brussels, appears to have identified himself closely with the aspirations of the French party, whilst Ponsonby espoused no less zealously the cause of the Prince of Orange.[63] There was, thus, keen rivalry and apparently much personal dislike between these two representatives of the conference.

Louis Philippe would never appear seriously to have entertained the notion of allowing one of his younger sons to accept the crown of Belgium, or of consenting to the union of Belgium with France. Lord Grey had given Talleyrand, who had been directed to sound the British government upon the subject, clearly to understand that the enthronement of a French prince would be regarded as a case for war—a declaration, which, in the words of Sébastiani, “had at least the merit of frankness.”[64] Of all the possible candidates for the Belgian crown Louis Philippe justly considered the Duc de Leuchtenberg to be the most undesirable. To have allowed any one connected with the Bonaparte family to become King of Belgium would have been exceedingly dangerous to the French monarchy. “There are no personal objections to him,” wrote Sébastiani to Bresson, “but all considerations must give way before the raison d’état.”[65] The candidate for whose success Louis Philippe was in reality most anxious, and whose selection Sébastiani instructed both Bresson and Talleyrand to advocate cautiously, was Prince Charles of Naples. This young prince was a Neapolitan Bourbon, a brother of the Duchesse de Berri and a nephew of the French queen, Marie Amélie, and Louis Philippe was always as desirous as any king of the old régime to promote the aggrandizement of his family. But when Talleyrand mentioned his name to Lord Grey he was told at once that his connection with the reigning House in France constituted an insuperable objection,[66] whilst from Brussels Bresson reported that “the Prince of Naples had no following.”[67]

A second attempt, on the part of the provisional government at Brussels to persuade Louis Philippe to accept the crown for his son, was made in December 1830. On that occasion M. Van de Weyer carried the proposal to Paris. British hostility was to be overcome by the marriage of Nemours, the young prince whom it was proposed to elevate to the throne, to an English princess, and by the conversion of Antwerp into a free port and by the destruction of its fortifications.[68] Louis Philippe declined the offer, but the already-mentioned instructions sent to Talleyrand to ascertain the views of the British government upon the subject were probably a consequence of Van de Weyer’s mission. Bresson, however, soon after he had received Sébastiani’s despatch, informing him of the King’s determination to refuse the crown for his son, expressed great fear lest Leuchtenberg should be selected. His candidature was, he reported, the result of a Bonapartist intrigue organized in Paris, but the Belgians were tired of their unsettled condition and were anxious that a ruler of some kind should be chosen.[69] Some ten days later he forwarded intelligence of a more precise and of a yet more disquieting nature. The French party, led by M. Gendebien, in consequence of the refusal of Nemours, had now definitely adopted Leuchtenberg as their candidate. Moreover, three notorious Bonapartist generals, Excelmans, Lallemand and Fabvier, were reported to have arrived at Namur and Liège. This news was followed the next day by a despatch in which he complained of Ponsonby’s activity on behalf of the Prince of Orange and, at the same time, accused him of being favourable to the election of Leuchtenberg.[70]

Louis Philippe was genuinely disquieted by Bresson’s news. He was resolved, he told Lord Granville, who, early in January, had replaced Lord Stuart de Rothesay at the British embassy, to send the Comte de Flahaut to London to impress upon the government the keen anxiety with which he regarded the march of events at Brussels. By existing treaties, he reminded him, no member of the Bonaparte family was allowed to live in Belgium, and, in the course of conversation, he hinted that a Neapolitan prince would be the best king for the new State.[71] Flahaut was a distinguished general officer of the empire and was, besides, the admitted father of that half-brother of Louis Napoleon, who was to acquire celebrity under the name of the Duc de Morny. During the greater part of the Restoration period Flahaut had lived in London, where his attractive manners and charm of conversation had made him a popular member of society. Moreover, during his residence in England, he had married Miss Mercer Elphinstone, a great heiress of her day.[72] The mission, upon which he was now despatched to London, was not confined merely to the communication to the British government of Louis Philippe’s fears respecting a Bonapartist candidate for the Belgian throne. But, as his instructions are not to be found among the diplomatic papers of the period, the exact nature of the proposals he was empowered to make can only be conjectured. In a private letter to Granville, on February 8, Palmerston speaks of a suggested offensive and defensive alliance between France and Great Britain “which was to be kept an entire secret from all the world,” to which proposal he had replied, “that these alliances are not popular in England, but that if France were attacked unjustly, England would be found upon her side.”[73] From the despatches of Granville and of Talleyrand it may be inferred with certainty that some scheme was on foot whereby France was to acquire a part of Belgium and, in return for her consent to this plan, England was to have the right of garrisoning Antwerp, which was to be declared a free port.[74] Talleyrand, whilst favourable to the idea of converting Antwerp into a Hanseatic town, was very much opposed to the notion of assisting England to regain a footing upon the continent. It would be too high a price to pay, he contended, even for so popular a measure as the extension of the French frontiers into Belgium.[75]

Whilst Flahaut was thus engaged in London, Colonel the Marquis de Lawoëstine, a former aide-de-camp of Sébastiani and a Belgian of good family, had been despatched to Brussels. In his case also the precise object of his errand can only be surmised. It is clear, however, that M. Juste[76] is mistaken in supposing that he was sent to urge the national congress to elect the Duc de Nemours. “In general,”wrote Sébastiani to Bresson, when announcing the despatch of Lawoëstine, “you must say as little as possible about his mission, but you need make no mystery about it to Lord Ponsonby,”[77] a sentence which precludes the possibility that his journey to Brussels can have been connected with the election of a son of Louis Philippe. Without doubt Lawoëstine was primarily charged to combat the candidature of Leuchtenberg, but it would seem that he was directed quietly to oppose Prince Charles of Naples to him. “It will be difficult,” answered Bresson upon receipt of Sébastiani’s despatch, “to keep secret the object of Lawoëstine’s mission. The candidature of Prince Charles of Naples has been talked about and the factions in Paris are working against him. Even M. de Mérode[78] is threatening to abandon Prince Charles and to vote in favour of the Duc de Leuchtenberg.”[79]

Lawoëstine, after “seeing all the chief people,”appears to have returned to Paris to lay before the King the urgency of the situation, whilst the tone of Bresson’s despatches, during the next few days, became yet more alarming. The bust of the Duc de Leuchtenberg, he reported, had been crowned at the theatre amidst cries of “Vive August 1^er, Roi des Belges.” Only, he considered, by the nomination of the Duc de Nemours could Leuchtenberg be combated effectually.[80] Bresson himself, probably on either January 25 or 26, seems to have paid a hurried visit to Paris. On February 1 the national congress was to proceed to elect a King for Belgium, and, presumably, he wished to obtain fuller instructions as to the attitude he was to adopt in the different eventualities which might arise. By this time the 11th protocol of the London conference, that of January 20, 1831, defining the boundaries of Holland and Belgium, had been received by Lord Ponsonby and himself for communication to the provisional government. The conditions of separation, as laid down in that document, fell far short of the hopes of the Belgians. They claimed the districts of Luxemburg and Limburg, but the Powers assigned these provinces to Holland. The King of the Netherlands was also Grand Duke of Luxemburg and as such was a member of the Germanic Confederation. His position had been recognized by the conference which, in its protocol of December 20, 1830, had formally declared its incompetence to interfere with territories forming part of the Confederation, a decision which excited equal dissatisfaction in Paris and in Brussels. If she could not obtain Luxemburg for herself, France hoped to see this province withdrawn from the Germanic Confederation and handed over to Belgium.

On January 29 Bresson reported his return to Brussels, having performed the journey from the French capital in twenty-five hours. He would appear to have been empowered by Louis Philippe himself to assure the members of the national congress that, were Nemours to be elected, he would be allowed to accept the crown. It is probable, however, that he was instructed only to resort to this step should he find it impossible to oppose Leuchtenberg successfully by other means. It may be inferred that neither Bresson nor Lawoëstine felt any enthusiasm about the election of a Neapolitan Bourbon, and were only too anxious to bestir themselves actively on behalf of a French prince. “Ponsonby supports Leuchtenberg as leading up to the Prince of Orange,” wrote Bresson on the day of his return.[81] “The effect of Lord Ponsonby’s communication to the congress of the protocol of January 20 has been very great,” reported Lawoëstine, who also was back in Brussels. “The only way of preventing the election of the Duc de Leuchtenberg is by bringing forward the Duc de Nemours. Even at the risk of a war with the Powers this course should be adopted. Belgium would be with us heart and soul, and we should begin the campaign in possession of the 23 frontier fortresses, all of which are provided with an immense matériel.”[82]

On receipt of this news from his agents at Brussels Sébastiani, in order, presumably, to influence the national congress in favour of the French candidate, despatched a letter to Bresson the contents of which were intended for communication to the Belgian deputies. In this document, dated February 1, Sébastiani stated that France could not give her consent to the delimitation of frontiers or to the apportionment of the debt, as laid down in the 11th and 12th protocols of the London conference, unless these conditions should be deemed satisfactory by both the States concerned. The French government, holding that the conference had been convened for purposes of mediation only, could not allow it to assume a different character.[83] On February 3 the Duc de Nemours was elected King of the Belgians, and a deputation started at once for Paris to communicate the news officially to Louis Philippe.

In the meantime Sébastiani, on February 2, had informed Talleyrand that, were the Belgians to elect a son of Louis Philippe for their King, he would decline to accept the crown, but the occasion was to be utilized for bringing forward the Prince of Naples. He was confident that, in order to escape from the complications entailed by Nemours’ election, the Powers, at present hostile to the Neapolitan prince, would look upon his enthronement as a happy alternative. On February 4 he again affirmed the King’s intention of declining the crown for his son, but his despatch of the following day was replete with complaints of Ponsonby’s efforts upon behalf of the Prince of Orange, a course of conduct which, he declared, would inevitably lead to civil war. Were serious disturbances to break out in Belgium, France would be driven to intervene, and it was, therefore, necessary for Lords Grey and Palmerston to understand that the situation was extremely critical.[84]

Talleyrand, however, was doing all in his power to convince his government of the disastrous effect which the rumours from Brussels were having upon public opinion in London. His declaration to the conference, on February 7, that the King of the French would refuse the crown of Belgium for his son had made a very good impression, and it had induced the plenipotentiaries to guarantee that, were Leuchtenberg to be elected, he would not be acknowledged by their respective Courts.[85] But, on the same day, he reported that the Cabinet, after a prolonged sitting, had resolved to declare war upon France, should the crown of Belgium be accepted by Nemours, and he begged Sébastiani to reflect most seriously upon the consequences of a naval conflict. Bresson’s behaviour at Brussels, he complained, had placed him in a very difficult position, and if the King could not see his way to follow his advice, his continued presence in London could no longer serve any useful purpose, Montrond, who by his desire was returning to Paris, would tell the King and his ministers that in London, at the clubs and in society, the prospects of a war with France were the chief topic of conversation.[86]

Although Louis Philippe and Sébastiani repeatedly assured Lord Granville that there was no intention of accepting the crown for Nemours,[87] it was not until February 17 that the King officially received the members of the deputation and signified to them his refusal. The interval, between their arrival in Paris and their formal interview with Louis Philippe, appears to have been employed in vain attempts to induce them to pronounce themselves in favour of the Neapolitan prince. “We have tried to make them see,” wrote Sébastiani to Talleyrand, “the advantages which would accrue to all parties from the enthronement of Prince Charles of Naples.”[88] But, in the meantime, his letter to Bresson of February 1, in which he had declared that the French government could not adhere to the 11th and 12th protocols of the conference, had been published in the Belgian newspapers and had caused Palmerston to instruct Granville to demand an explanation. The ambassador was to point out that, “when a government sees fit to disavow the acts of its plenipotentiary, it should acquaint the parties with whom the engagement has been made of the fact, not, as in this case, communicate its disavowal to third parties.” Palmerston’s despatch concluded with the intimation that “His Majesty’s government had only allowed the conference to continue because it was convinced that satisfactory explanations would be forthcoming.” Instructions of a like nature were received by the Russian, the Prussian and the Austrian ambassadors.”[89]

Sébastiani, whilst pretending that Bresson had no authority to make public his letter, maintained that the London conference had no power to do more than mediate between the contending parties, and that France “could not be a member of a revised Holy Alliance which was to decide arbitrarily upon the affairs of nations.” Furthermore he declined to recall M. Bresson from Brussels, unless Lord Ponsonby were removed at the same time.[90] Fresh instances were soon forthcoming, however, of Bresson’s opposition to the decisions of the conference of which he was nominally the agent. Since the conclusion of the armistice between the Belgians and the Dutch, disputes had been frequent as to the infractions of its conditions. The Dutch, in violation of the terms imposed by the Powers, held the citadel of Antwerp and closed the navigation of the Scheldt, whilst, as a reprisal, the Belgians set up a blockade of Maëstricht. The conference had, in consequence, instructed its representatives at Brussels to warn the provisional government that, unless communications were opened between Maëstricht and the surrounding country, the Federal Diet would be invited to raise the blockade by force of arms. But M. Bresson, alleging as a reason for his conduct des motifs à lui personnels, declined to sign the note which Lord Ponsonby duly presented to the Belgian Minister for Foreign Affairs.[91] Lord Granville was in consequence directed to inform Sébastiani that the conference could no longer regard M. Bresson as its agent.[92] When the contents of Palmerston’s despatch were read out to him Sébastiani declared that he should retain him at Brussels as French minister.[93] This was, however, but an empty threat. Bresson, since Louis Philippe’s refusal to allow his son to be proclaimed King, was most unpleasantly situated towards the members of the national congress, to whom he had given the most positive assurances that, were Nemours to be elected, he would be permitted to accept the crown. It is very probable that in order to overcome the hesitation of his government he may deliberately have expressed exaggerated fears about the prospects of Leuchtenberg’s enthronement. The complete subsidence[94] of the agitation on behalf of the Bonapartist candidate certainly accords ill with the alarming reports about the strength of the movement in his favour which he had transmitted to Sébastiani. But it would appear that when he paid his visit to Paris, at the end of January, he was himself deceived by Louis Philippe, and that his promises to the Belgian deputies, that Nemours would accept the crown, were made under the honest impression that the King’s objection had been withdrawn. “You know the august mouth from which issued my last orders,” he wrote to Sébastiani on February 9. “You heard them. Do not fear, they shall remain hidden at the bottom of my heart. But I cannot go back upon my footsteps. I cannot be the agent of another change of policy. I must ask you to replace me. I can sacrifice my interests, not my honour.”[95] “The painful and difficult situation in which you are placed,” answered Sébastiani, “is well understood here, but the King does full justice to your conduct and to your zeal for his service.”[96]

On March 6 Bresson formally transmitted to London his resignation of the post of commissioner to the conference and returned to Paris, being replaced at Brussels, as the agent of the French government, by General Belliard. The rapid advancement which awaited him was to compensate him amply for the loss of this appointment. But it was not alone from foreign governments that Sébastiani received complaints about these proceedings at Brussels. Talleyrand expressed the greatest indignation at the ignorance in which he had been kept of the instructions sent to Bresson. The whole affair, he pointed out, had placed him in a false position with Palmerston and the ministers of the Powers, and had laid him open to the most injurious suspicions. It must appear either that he was unacquainted with the intentions of his government, or that he was in league with Bresson to deceive the conference.[97]

In the meantime, Paris had been the scene of disturbances which were to change completely the course of French policy. On February 14, the anniversary of the death of the Duc de Berri, the Carlists decided to hold a memorial service in the church of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois. But the ceremony was interrupted by a mob, which had collected at the rumour that a portrait of the Duc de Bordeaux[98] had been crowned. The church and the palace of the archbishop were sacked, and much valuable and beautiful property was destroyed. The authorities made only the feeblest attempts to restrain the rioters, and cast the whole blame for the disorder upon the Carlists.[99] Moreover, as a concession to the rabble, all crosses were removed from in front of churches, the bust of Louis XVIII. was destroyed at the Louvre, and Louis Philippe even sanctioned the erasure of the lilies from his coat of arms. The indignation with which these despicable signs of weakness were greeted, soon convinced him, however, that he might with safety abandon his policy of truckling to the mob. For some time past, the hopes of all lovers of order had been centred in, Casimir Périer, as the one man capable of maintaining peace abroad, and of combating anarchy at home. Negotiations were accordingly begun, and, on March 14, the Moniteur announced that Laffitte had been replaced as President of the Council by Casimir Périer, who had, besides, assumed the duties of Minister of the Interior. With two exceptions the members of the new Cabinet had all held office in the Laffitte administration. But so little were the rules of the party system observed, that they were quite prepared to enter a government, formed upon principles diametrically opposed to those which had guided the policy of the former Cabinet. Casimir Périer was pledged to the stern repression of internal disorder, and to the maintenance of external peace. In addition, he had asked that the King should be absent from meetings of the Cabinet—request to which Louis Philippe had given a grudging and a qualified assent.[100]

The news that M. Casimir Périer had assumed office was received with feelings of intense relief at the Courts and in the Cabinets of Europe.[101] The new President of the Council belonged to a family of high repute in banking and commercial circles. Under the Restoration he had been an eloquent and much respected member of the Liberal party. Heinrich Heine, who disliked the French as keenly as he admired the English statesman, has declared that Casimir Périer strangely resembled George Canning in personal appearance. In both he perceived the same expression of “invalidity, over-excitement and lassitude.”[102] Sébastiani’s continued retention of the portfolio of Foreign Affairs was also a subject for congratulation. In spite of his Corsican excitability, he had, upon the whole, won the confidence of the ministers with whom he had had business to transact. “The Dips,” wrote Lady Granville to her sister, “are all pleased that Sébastiani remains, he is decidedly pacific.”[103]

The state of affairs in Europe, at the time of the formation of Casimir Périer’s government, still bore a most disquieting appearance. At the beginning of February, 1831, General Diebitsch entered Poland at the head of a strong Russian army, and, on the 25th, there was fought at Grochov one of the fiercest battles of the century, with results rather favourable to the Poles. At the same time the Italian States were in a condition of acute discontent. The Duke of Modena had been compelled to invoke Austrian assistance against his revolted subjects, and, on February 5, the Carbonari raised the standard of rebellion at Bologna. The States of the Pope extended from the Latin coast across the Campagna to the marches of Ancona, and, spreading out into the plains of Romagna, were bounded by the Po. In the opinion of Chateaubriand,[104] who was ambassador at Rome in 1828, one of the chief defects of the Papal government lay in the fact that “old men appoint an old man, and he in turn makes none but old men cardinals.” This feature of the Pontifical rule seems to have attracted the attention of Charles Greville[105] when he visited Rome, in 1830. “The cardinals,” he records, “appear a wretched set of old twaddlers, all but about three in extreme decrepitude. On seeing them and knowing that the sovereign is elected by and from them, nobody can wonder that the country is so miserably governed.” But it was the doctrine that only ecclesiastics could administer a government of divine appointment which constituted the radical vice of the Papal system. Cardinals ruled over the four Legations of Romagna—Bologna, Ferrara, Ravenna and Forli. Generally speaking, their administration was both bigoted and corrupt. The finances were constantly in a condition of hopeless confusion—a circumstance hardly to be wondered at, seeing that a prelate in charge of the Exchequer is said to have refused to study political economy, because some of the text books were upon the Index. The roads were bad, few in number, and infested with brigands. Taxation was light, but trade was hampered by customs barriers. An arbitrary and interfering police system was supplemented by the Holy Office of the Inquisition, which still repressed heresy among Roman subjects, although it did not venture to meddle with foreigners. Lastly, it was estimated that not more than two per cent. of the population attended school.

Bologna was the most flourishing manufacturing town in the dominions of His Holiness, and Ancona the only port which could boast of a real trade. Probably it was because of their comparative prosperity that the people of Romagna were in a chronic state of unrest. The Pontifical troops, sent to suppress the insurrection, quickly proved their inability to carry out the task, and His Holiness appealed to Vienna for assistance. Sébastiani, so soon as he received intelligence that this request had been made, instructed Marshal Maison to warn Metternich that France could not consent to the entry of Austrian troops into the Papal States, and, on February 24, he informed Apponyi in Paris that, in accordance with its principle of non-intervention, the French government would regard the passage of the Piedmontese or Roman frontiers by an Imperial army as a declaration of war.[106] But Metternich had already sent off the Comte Athanase d’Otrante, a son of Fouché, the famous regicide and Minister of Police, to Paris, with documents to prove that the Italian insurrections were fomented by the Bonapartists. It was always in the power of Austria, he pointed out significantly, to put an end to the republican agitation in Italy, Spain, Germany or France, by simply allowing the Duc de Reichstadt, the heretofore King of Rome, to be proclaimed Emperor of the French.[107] It was perfectly true that the Bonapartes were concerned in the Italian revolutionary movement. Both Prince Charles and his brother Prince Louis Napoleon held commands in the rebel army at Civita Castellana. Without doubt this was a circumstance calculated to induce Louis Philippe to exercise the greatest caution. It was decided, accordingly, to despatch the Comte de Sainte-Aulaire to Rome to urge upon the Papal government the expediency of withdrawing from ecclesiastics the administration of the provincial affairs of Romagna, and of confiding the management of local business to the nobility and middle classes. Maison was to press the Cabinet of Vienna to join with France in persuading His Holiness to inaugurate these reforms, whilst in London Talleyrand was to seek to obtain the co-operation of the British government. Palmerston, who looked upon the condition of Italy as a perpetual menace to the peace of Europe, readily consented to instruct Sir Brooke Taylor, the British Minister at Florence, to proceed to Rome to take part in the conference.[108] Metternich agreed with equal alacrity to the French proposals. But it was not his policy to allow reforms of any kind to be introduced into Italy, and he was fully resolved that the deliberations should lead to no results of any consequence. “We risk nothing,” he wrote to Apponyi. . . . “Count Lützow[109] is a man of character, he knows what is practicable.”[110]

But the good effect of Metternich’s consent to confer with the Powers, upon the condition of affairs, in the Papal States, was dispelled by a false report which reached Paris of the conclusion of a treaty between Austria and His Holiness. This news was followed, on March 18, by the intelligence that an Imperial army had entered Bologna. War, Sébastiani informed Granville, was now inevitable. Nevertheless, in the evening, when the ambassador read over to him the account of their conversation which he proposed to send to London, he suggested that the words “war was very probable” should be substituted for his statement that “war was inevitable.”[111] For the next fortnight the situation continued to wear a most critical appearance. At a Cabinet Council, held on March 28, it was resolved to demand the evacuation of the Papal States, and to ask the Chambers for a vote of credit, to enable the King to mobilize the army. Casimir Périer,[112] however, reassured Lord Granville by telling him that the Austrians would assuredly have crushed the insurrection in Romagna before Maison’s instructions could reach Vienna, and that the message to the Chambers, far from being a measure calculated to bring about war, would, on the contrary, assist the King to preserve peace. Were the government to appear indifferent to the entry of the Austrians into the Papal States, the military party would at once raise the cry that ministers wanted peace at any price. Louis Philippe himself expressed to the British ambassador the greatest confidence that hostilities would be avoided. The preservation of the temporal power of the Pope, he went on to tell him, was a cardinal feature of French policy. Five or six millions of his subjects professed the Roman Catholic religion,[113] and he was determined to remain upon good terms with the head of the Church.[114] The King of Prussia, Lord Granville was satisfied, was resolved to take no part in the struggle, should the Austrian intervention in Italy lead to a collision with France.[115] Heytesbury, on the other hand, reported that Nicholas, although the cholera was raging in Russia and notwithstanding that he had still the Polish war upon his hands, had announced his determination “to bring the whole force of his Empire to the assistance of his Austrian ally.”[116] But Metternich, in the meanwhile, had empowered Apponyi to declare that no treaty had been concluded, and to support his statement by the production of a copy of His Holiness’ appeal for help to the Emperor Francis. Moreover, he promised that the Legations should be evacuated “as soon as they should have been purged of the Carbonari vermin with which they were infested.”[117] In effect the Austrians experienced little difficulty in dispersing the insurgents and in restoring a semblance of tranquillity in the disturbed districts, whilst at Rome His Holiness undertook to initiate certain reforms, in accordance with the spirit of the proposals which the western Powers urged him to adopt. By July 17 the complete withdrawal of the Imperial troops from the territories of the Pope had been carried out.

The effect of Casimir Périer’s assumption of office upon the course of the Belgian negotiations was soon apparent. Nothing more was heard of the candidature of Prince Charles of Naples. “As a member of the elder branch of the Bourbons, France,” wrote Sébastiani, “would reject him with indignation.”[118] Under these circumstances the French government decided to exert its influence in favour of Leopold of Coburg, although his enthronement, Louis Philippe assured Lord Granville, would not be well received in France. He will be looked upon as an English viceroy, but, insinuated the King, the nation could be reconciled to the choice of this prince, were it possible to announce that those portions of her northern territory, of which she had been deprived by the treaties of 1815, were to be restored to France.[119]

Leopold, the youngest son of Francis Duke of Coburg, was born in 1790. On May 2, 1816, he married the only daughter of George IV., the Princess Charlotte, who died the following year, five hours after giving birth to a dead child. As a widower, the Prince continued to live in England in enjoyment of the pension of £50,000 a year which Parliament had settled upon him for life. In 1829 he was chosen by the Powers for the throne of Greece, but, after signifying his acceptation of the crown, he saw fit to change his mind, alleging that the frontiers, which the conference purposed to impose upon the new State, were regarded as unsatisfactory by the Greek nation. There would appear to have been good reasons for his withdrawal, but it, nevertheless, caused the greatest annoyance to the Tories who were then in office. The Whigs, although less bitter against the Marquis Peu-à-Peu, as George IV. nicknamed him, had certainly no very high opinion of his ability to fill a difficult position.[120] It was clear, however, that all hope must be abandoned of inducing the Belgians to accept the Prince of Orange for their King. This Prince had been spending the winter in London where, according to Greville, “he made a great fool of himself and destroyed any sympathy there might have been for his political misfortunes.”[121] In the words of Talleyrand, Palmerston was, in consequence, prepared to accept “sans chaleur,”[122] the candidature of Leopold of Coburg, whilst maintaining that, before electing their Sovereign, the Belgians must adhere to the 11th and 12th protocols, which laid down the conditions under which their country was to be separated from Holland.[123]

On April 17 Talleyrand was in a position to announce to the conference that France now gave her unqualified assent to the proposed terms of separation. On this occasion it was resolved, at the suggestion of the French plenipotentiary, that, should Belgium decline to adhere to the conditions in question, which the King of the Netherlands had accepted, all relations should be broken off between the five Powers and the Belgian authorities. To prove the satisfaction which this changed attitude on the part of the French government afforded them the plenipotentiaries of Austria, Prussia, Russia and Great Britain met, and recorded their agreement to the principle of the destruction of the barrier fortresses, the protocol of this conference of the four Powers being communicated in confidence to Talleyrand.[124]

The question of the nature of the coercion which should be applied to the Belgians, should they persist in laying claim to Luxemburg, was not easy of solution. The Grand Duchy formed part of the Germanic Confederation, and therefore it should have devolved upon the Federal Diet to take the steps required for restoring the sovereignty of the King of the Netherlands. Sébastiani, however, deprecated the idea of employing German troops for the purpose of enforcing the decisions of the conference. But on the understanding that both the strength of the contingent, which was to enter Belgium, and the date on which the military operations were to begin should be settled by the five Powers, the French government withdrew its objections.[125] Prince Leopold, at the same time, informed the members of the deputation, who had come to London to offer him the crown of Belgium, that he could not listen to their proposals, until the national congress should have accepted the conditions of the 11th and 12th protocols. No persuasion could move him from this resolution which met with the full approval of the British government. Talleyrand, however, as a compromise appears to have suggested the plan of proposing to the King of the Netherlands the cession of the province of Luxemburg, without the fortress, in return for a pecuniary indemnity.[126] This solution of the difficulty was considered so practicable by Lord Ponsonby that, upon his own responsibility, he left Brussels and journeyed to London to urge its adoption. The conference, in consequence of his representations, agreed to open negotiations with the King of the Netherlands for the purchase of Luxemburg and for “so much of the province of Limburg as would connect Maëstricht with North Brabant.”[127] But when June 1, the date which had been assigned as that on which the Belgians must signify their agreement to les bases de separation, went by without a favourable answer having been received from Brussels, the conference withdrew Ponsonby and decided to resort to measures of coercion. The action of the national congress, in electing Prince Leopold King of the Belgians on June 4, had no effect upon the decision of the Powers. “It has been used,” wrote Palmerston, “as a fresh opportunity for putting forward pretensions to portions of the territory of the King of Holland and by implication, at least, of repeating their determination to gain possession of them by force.”[128]

But, as the moment approached for setting in motion General Hinüber’s Federal corps d’armée, the French government evinced symptoms of alarm. Sébastiani begged Talleyrand to try by all means in his power to discover some less objectionable method of terminating the difficulty. The King and his ministers, he assured him, placed their entire trust in his wisdom and vast experience.[129] Casimir Périer impressed upon Lord Granville that he would be powerless to restrain the army, were the Prussians and the Dutch to attack the Belgians “ranged under the tricolour.” “Sufficient allowance,” he pleaded, “was not made for the weakness of a government sprung from a revolution.”[130] Talleyrand, however, reported that, in spite of his efforts and of those of Prince Leopold to make the Belgians listen to reason, they refused obstinately to accept the conditions imposed upon them. At the Hague there was, he believed, a keen desire to bring on a general war, whilst the Tsar Nicholas was not sorry that the attention of the western Powers should be diverted from Poland to the Low Countries. In England men’s minds were concentrated exclusively upon the Reform Bill, and the knowledge that France and Great Britain were confronted by grave domestic problems undoubtedly encouraged the Belgians to defy the conference. Under these circumstances, his favourite scheme, the partition of the country, appeared to him the only practicable solution of the question. But on this occasion the idea of acquiring some part of Belgium offered no attractions to the French government. “We are disposed to think,” answered Sébastiani, “that any partition would recall that of Poland, and would not be popular.”[131]

The determination of the Powers to impose by force of arms the terms of the protocols of January 20 and 27 was, however, growing weaker. In their desire to avoid a general war they agreed to depart from a decision, which they had once pronounced to be irrevocable. The event was to prove that by this concession they had sensibly increased the danger of that armed conflict between the nations, which they were so anxious to avert. At the sitting of the conference, on June 26, the plenipotentiaries, “in the interests of the general peace,” affixed their signatures to a protocol of eighteen articles for acceptance by Holland and Belgium.[132] The altered conditions, although they did not fulfil all their aspirations, were far more favourable to the Belgians than the terms of the former bases de séparation. The most important modification consisted in a provision for maintaining a status quo in Luxemburg, pending the negotiations which were to be carried out between Belgium, on the one hand, and Holland and the Germanic Confederation, on the other. Prince Leopold, when the protocol of the eighteen articles was laid before him, agreed to accept the crown provided, always, that the national congress could be brought to assent to the new conditions which it set forth. After several stormy debates in the assembly this stipulation was complied with, and on July 11, a deputation arrived in London to conduct the King to Belgium.

Leopold had been assured that, even should the King of the Netherlands decline to accept the eighteen articles, the Powers would none the less recognize him as the Sovereign of Belgium. But, when the refusal of King William was known in London, the plenipotentiaries of Austria, Prussia and Russia declared that their respective governments had decided to withhold their recognition of him. Leopold, however, wisely determined to adhere to his resolution and to be satisfied with the acknowledgment of France and Great Britain. Before finally leaving London he informed Lord Grey of his intention to renounce his English pension. Claremont was to be kept up and all his debts were to be paid, but, when these conditions had been fulfilled, his trustees would pay the balance of his annuity into the English exchequer. His decision to act in this manner was quickened, without doubt, by learning that in the House of Lords, Londonderry, an Opposition peer, purposed to raise the question of his retention of his English pension.[133]

During the month of July an affair of some delicacy was amicably settled between the Cabinets of London and Paris. For some time past the government of M. Périer had been trying to obtain redress for the indignities to which French subjects, especially those suspected of affiliation to masonic lodges, were exposed in Portugal. Palmerston admitted the justice of the French complaints and raised no objections when it was proposed to send a fleet to Lisbon to demand satisfaction.[134] On July 8, accordingly, Admiral Roussin forced the entrance to the Tagus and ranged his squadron within gunshot of the quays of Lisbon. The Portuguese government, under these circumstances, was compelled to accede to the demands which the admiral had been instructed to make, and the French fleet, shortly afterwards, withdrew, carrying off with it, however, several Portuguese vessels of war. But, although the affair gave rise to no complications between England and France, it was seized upon by an embittered Opposition in London, as an opportunity for denouncing the failure of the government to protect England’s “most ancient ally.”[135]

The refusal of the King of the Netherlands to accept the new conditions of separation, as defined in the protocol of the eighteen articles, was communicated to the conference by the Dutch minister, Verstolk. The despatch, dated July 12, 1831, concluded with the menace that, “were any Prince to accept the crown of Belgium without having acceded to les bases de séparation as laid down in the protocol of January 20, he would be regarded as in a state of war with His Majesty and as his enemy.”[136] The representatives of the Powers appear to have treated these ominous words very lightly. An intimation was conveyed to the Hague that hostilities must not break out afresh, but no active measures were taken to prevent a rupture of the peace. It was soon evident, however, that the King was fully resolved to put his threat into execution. On August 1, Chassé, the Dutch general commanding the citadel of Antwerp, denounced the armistice and gave notice that hostilities would begin on the 4th. Leopold at once appealed for help to France and England, and then placed himself at the head of a wing of his army upon the Scheldt. But the retreat of General Daine, commanding the Belgian division upon the Meuse, who abandoned his positions without firing a shot, compelled the King to fall back to Louvain. Here he made his dispositions for withstanding the Dutch inroad, but, in spite of the gallant example which he set his men, his army, at the first contact with the enemy, fled in wild confusion. In the meantime, however, Marshal Gérard had entered Belgium in command of 50,000 French troops, and, when Leopold was upon the point of being surrounded, Sir Robert Adair, the British minister at Brussels, prevailed upon the Prince of Orange to suspend hostilities. The Dutch, shortly afterwards, began their retreat closely followed by the French, and, by August 20, the last of the invaders had evacuated the territory of Belgium.

It had been an easy matter to bring the actual hostilities to a close, but the Dutch raid had none the less created precisely that situation which British diplomacy had always striven to avoid. The French were now in complete possession of Belgium. Palmerston, indeed, strongly suspected them of having instigated the King of the Netherlands to break the peace. Sir Richard Bagot, the British ambassador at the Hague, inclined to the belief that a secret understanding existed between the Dutch and French governments. “Talleyrand,” wrote Palmerston in a private letter to Granville, “proposed to me some time ago that we should goad the Dutch on to break the armistice, cry out shame upon them, fly to the aid of the Belgians, cover Belgium with troops and settle everything as we choose.” “It would seem,” reported Granville, “that the King of Holland rather expected from the French government approbation than opposition to his invasion.”[137] It is not improbable that the Cabinet of the Hague may have been led to believe that a rupture of the armistice would meet with approval in Paris. But, in order to have furthered French designs, it should have taken place at an earlier date. Talleyrand’s proposal to Palmerston, it is clear, must have been made in June, when he was telling Sébastiani that he could devise no other plan for settling the question of Belgium but that of partition. Once Leopold had been enthroned, however, he knew full well that no British government could acquiesce in the appropriation by France of any portion of his kingdom. The Dutch invasion, which might have served French policy, had it occurred whilst matters were still unsettled in Belgium, became simply an embarrassment and a certain cause of discord between France and England, after Leopold’s arrival at Brussels.[138] Talleyrand, therefore, who regarded the maintenance of cordial relations between the two countries as an object of far higher importance that any extension of French frontiers into Belgium, strove by all means in his power to second the efforts of the British government to bring the French occupation to a close as speedily as possible. But, whilst Palmerston attributed to French intrigues the Dutch attack upon Belgium, he himself was suspected by Stockmar[139] of having known of the King of Holland’s plans and of having connived at the invasion. A few weeks later, however, when in London upon a confidential mission, Leopold’s trusted counsellor satisfied himself that Palmerston was wholly innocent of any double dealing in the affair.

Casimir Périer had been on the point of resigning, in consequence of the defeat of the ministerial candidate for the post of President of the Chamber, when the news reached Paris of the Dutch inroad into Belgium. This new development at once caused him to change his plans and to decide to remain in office. Talleyrand was instructed to explain in London that it was only the necessity for immediate action which had induced the French government to order a French corps to enter Belgium, without previous consultation with the Powers. Lord Granville, at the same time, was informed that, upon the withdrawal of the Dutch, the French troops would return to France.[140] The news of the French intervention in Belgium aroused great excitement in London. The funds fell, and Palmerston was sharply questioned upon the matter in the House.[141] Ministers, however, reassured by the accounts of the intentions of the French government transmitted by Granville, took a cheerful view of the situation.[142] At a sitting of the conference, on August 6, Talleyrand announced that Marshal Gérard’s occupation of Belgium would cease directly the Dutch should evacuate the country. On this same occasion it was agreed that the scope of the French operations should be decided by the conference and that, under no circumstances, should they be extended to the right bank of the Meuse. It was further resolved that siege should not be laid to either Maëstricht or Venlo, on account of their proximity to the Prussian frontier.[143]

But, when the Dutch withdrew and the French showed no disposition to follow their example, the affair began to assume a very different complexion. Sébastiani, changing his ground completely, declared that Marshal Gérard’s occupation must continue until the conclusion of a definite treaty of peace between Holland and Belgium. In the Chamber, Soult, the Minister of War, stated explicitly that the retreat of the Dutch did not entail the evacuation of Belgium by the French army. The unfavourable impression created by these words was not removed by Casimir Périer’s promise to Lord Granville, that he would say something from the tribune calculated to diminish the importance of the Marshal’s pronouncement. Sébastiani’s conversations with the British ambassador, and the reports forwarded by Adair from Brussels made it too clear that the French government purposed to avail itself of the presence of its troops in Belgium for coming to a separate agreement with King Leopold, respecting the immediate destruction of the frontier fortresses. This was an arrangement which the Cabinet of Lord Grey was determined to oppose, even to the point of war.[144]

Talleyrand, as was his invariable practise in these disputes between France and England, left no stone unturned to dissuade his government from embarking upon a course of conduct destined inevitably to revive the old rivalry between the two countries. Were France to break her word and to retain her troops in Belgium, he was convinced that Lord Grey and his colleagues would be driven from office and their successors would be men far less well disposed towards France. Palmerston, he wrote, was assailed by questions in the House and must before long make some definite statement. Sébastiani, in reply, expressed regret for the difficulties by which Lord Grey was beset, but maintained that the French government, were it to allow the army to return home empty handed, would be confronted by a still more unpleasant situation. Talleyrand, however, might announce that, in consequence of the retirement of the Dutch, 20,000 of Marshal Gérard’s troops would be recalled and that the remaining 30,000 would be concentrated at Nivelle.[145] The news of this partial evacuation caused much satisfaction in London, but none the less Palmerston, on August 17, instructed Lord Granville formally to demand the complete withdrawal of the French army corps. He was directed to remind the French government of its pledges and to point out that, by the protocol of April 17, the four Powers had agreed to the principle of the destruction of the frontier fortresses, “the satisfactory execution of which arrangement could only be impeded by any measures having the appearance of making the protracted occupation of Belgium by the French army bear upon it. . . .” He was to speak “in terms of friendship and goodwill, enforcing at the same time the just expectations of His Majesty with firmness and decision.”[146]

On August 23 the conference decided to impose an armistice upon the Dutch and Belgians, to expire on October 10.[147] The French government, however, declared that a mere undertaking by the King of the Netherlands, not to begin hostilities afresh, could not provide a guarantee for the maintenance of peace of sufficient weight to permit of the complete withdrawal of the French army. General Baudrand, moreover, was sent to London with a letter from Louis Philippe to Talleyrand, in which the King expressed his displeasure with his action in signing a document of that nature. Baudrand during his stay in England had interviews both with Grey and Palmerston.[148] He appears to have expatiated upon the outcry which would be raised in the Chamber, were France to gain neither moral nor material advantages, in return for the expense to which she had been put by her intervention in aid of the King of the Belgians. Palmerston assured him that his colleagues and himself were sincerely anxious that M. Casimir Périer should remain in office, but, he added pointedly, “when to keep in a ministry of peace it became necessary to comply with the demands of the party which was for war, it was problematical what decree of advantage was thereby to be acquired.”[149] Talleyrand appears to have been little moved by the censure passed upon him. He contended that he had acted for the best, and that no fears need be entertained that the Dutch would again attack Belgium. At the same time he continued to urge the necessity of bringing the occupation of Belgium to a close. “There is more real anxiety over here than I have yet seen,” he wrote on August 27. “People are all talking of an interview between the Duke of Wellington and Lord Grey.” A few days later he again pleaded earnestly for evacuation, suggesting that the withdrawal of the troops might be carried out so slowly that some portion of them should still be in Belgium, at the expiration of the armistice.[150]

In the meantime General La Tour-Maubourg had arrived at Brussels, on August 18, furnished with the draft of a treaty which he was to conclude with the Belgian government for the destruction of the barrier fortresses. In the first instance it was probably intended to keep his mission a secret, but different counsels seem to have prevailed, and, a few days after his departure, Sébastiani informed Granville of the reason of this officer’s journey to Brussels. France, he told the British ambassador, claimed the right to negotiate with regard to the fortresses and it was hoped that powers would be given to Sir Robert Adair to act with La Tour-Maubourg in the matter. This request, when in due course Granville transmitted it to London, was refused. Palmerston, in a long interview with Talleyrand, had already declared, in the most uncompromising language, that the pretensions of the French government to have a voice in determining the fate of these fortresses, erected at the expense of Great Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia, could not be entertained.[151] Immediately on hearing of La Tour-Maubourg’s arrival at Brussels Sir Robert Adair, guessing the object of his mission, sought an audience with Leopold. Both to the King and to Meulinäer, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, he asserted emphatically that his government could never admit that the withdrawal of Gérard’s troops could be made to depend upon the conclusion of an arrangement between France and Belgium, respecting the fortresses.[152]

Leopold was in a most difficult situation. Although he had invoked the assistance of France and England the moment the Dutch had announced their intention of beginning hostilities, he had only invited Marshal Gérard actually to cross the frontier when the misconduct of General Daine had seriously compromised his position.[153] He appears to have greatly distrusted the intentions of the French and to have proposed that England should occupy Antwerp in the name of the five Powers. Three days later, however, he desired Sir Robert Adair to consider this suggestion as withdrawn, stating that he was satisfied with Belliard’s assurances that the French would withdraw, as soon as the Dutch should have effected their retreat.[154] After the retirement of the Prince of Orange he was pressed, on the one side, by Sir Robert Adair to declare that he no longer required the presence of the French for his protection, whilst, on the other hand, General Belliard urged him no less vigorously to invite Marshal Gérard to remain in Belgium. Without doubt he was in a most cruel dilemma. He had no army worthy of the name, and was at the mercy of the Dutch should they return to the attack. Moreover, he had every reason to apprehend that the Republican and Orangist factions would regard the disturbed condition, to which the invasion had reduced the country, as a favourable opportunity for putting their designs into execution. Against the external and internal perils by which he was threatened he could only look for active assistance to the French. England was very jealous of French intervention in the Low Countries, but he had no grounds for supposing that Lord Grey would stir a finger to defend him from a rebellion of his subjects. The British government, indeed, had declined to send the fleet to the mouth of the Scheldt. The desire to afford the French no pretext for remaining in Belgium undoubtedly dictated this refusal, which nevertheless increased Stockmar’s distrust of Palmerston’s policy. Adair soon discovered that, in his endeavours to obtain the speedy departure of the French, he could expect no assistance from Leopold. He could discern, he reported, no sense of shame nor of humiliation in the attitude of ministers or of the people generally. They appeared to regard the presence of Marshal Gérard’s troops simply as a means of extorting better terms from the Dutch.[155]

When Palmerston was informed of La Tour-Maubourg’s mission he at once directed Adair to remonstrate against any separate negotiation between France and Belgium, on the question of the fortresses. But his first interview with Meulinäer, after the receipt of his instructions, convinced Adair that “this delicate matter had already proceeded so far that no choice was left to him except to object in toto to every sort of communication on the subject.” A solution of the difficulty was discovered, however, in a suggestion, brought forward by the British minister, that “the King of the Belgians should declare to the King of the French, through M. de La Tour-Maubourg, that he was taking measures, in concert with Great Britain, Austria, Russia and Prussia, for the demolition of some of the fortresses erected since 1815.” A few days later Adair was informed that General Goblet would be despatched to London to negotiate a convention, whilst Leopold, on September 8, affixed his signature to a document, wherein he undertook to instruct his plenipotentiary to act in accordance with the wishes of the French government in the matter of the selection of the fortresses to be dismantled.[156]

But in Paris the ambassadors of the four Powers had protested formally against the protracted occupation of Belgium by a French army. Palmerston, in forwarding to Granville a memorandum of the points he was to urge in his conference with Sébastiani, directed that this document “was not to be handed to that minister as a note, but that it was to be read to him confidentially . . . a course which has been adopted out of delicacy, and under the conviction that we shall hear in a few days that the French government has, of its own accord, given orders for the evacuation of Belgium.”[157] These representations obtained the desired effect. At Brussels Leopold suddenly discovered that the presence of Marshal Gérard’s soldiers were no longer necessary for his safety.[158] The announcement in the Moniteur, of September 15, of the ministerial decision to recall the army from Belgium was the signal for a violent outburst in the newspapers against the poltroonery of the government, in yielding to the dictation of the conference.[159] In London satisfaction at the French withdrawal was marred by the publication of a long list of officers, appointed by Marshal Soult, to inspect and organize the Belgian army. This circumstance was seized upon by the Opposition as an opportunity for attacking the foreign policy of the government. The Reform Bill was before the House of Lords and party spirit was running high. “King Leopold’s intention to employ French officers in his army,”declared Lord Londonderry, “was more prejudicial to his independence than the retention of 12,000 French troops in Belgium.” His Lordship then proceeded to review Talleyrand’s career, and to asperse his conduct, under the various régimes which he had served, with a virulence of language which has never since been used in that dignified assembly about the ambassador of a friendly Power. “There was a flirtation,” he asserted amidst much laughter, “going on between the government and France which he thought most improper. . . . To see ministers running to consult with that individual (Talleyrand) was creating a disgust which he thought most natural.” The Duke of Wellington, however, spoke up strongly for Talleyrand. In the many transactions upon which they had been engaged together, he assured the House that the Prince had always conducted himself with honour and uprightness. “He believed that no man’s public and private character had been so much maligned as that of that illustrious individual.”[160] Talleyrand was deeply moved by the Duke’s conduct on this occasion. “He was especially grateful to him,” he told Lord Alvanley, who the next day found him perusing an account of the debate, “because he was the only public man in the world who had ever said a good word for him.”[161]

Following closely upon the announcement that the French government had agreed to evacuate Belgium came the intelligence of the defeat of the Poles and of the entry of the Russians into Warsaw. The news was the signal for the outbreak of disturbances in Paris. Sébastiani’s famous statement to the Chamber “l’ordre règne à Varsovie,” was denounced with indignation by the demagogues. Both he and Casimir Périer were surrounded by a furious mob upon the Place Vendôme, and were for a time in no little danger. The rioters interrupted the performances at the theatres, crying out that all places of amusement must be closed on a day of mourning. The marked reluctance of the national guards to act against their fellow-citizens imparted a serious aspect to the situation. But the regular troops retained their discipline and dispersed the rabble.[162] At the first outbreak of the rebellion in Poland the French government had sought to induce England to join with it in a proposal to mediate between the Emperor and his revolted subjects. Talleyrand, however, who was always disposed to create difficulties for Russia, was obliged to report regretfully that British ministers were extremely averse to embarking upon any diplomatic action calculated to add to the Tsar’s embarrassments.[163]

In March, 1831, a false report had reached London and Paris of the total defeat of the Poles, whereupon Sébastiani again instructed Talleyrand to urge, in the most pressing language, the British government to unite with France in insisting upon the humane treatment of the rebels. Palmerston, believing the insurrection to be at an end, readily promised to direct Lord Heytesbury to support the representations upon their behalf which the Duc de Mortemart had been enjoined to make at St. Petersburg.[164] Heytesbury, accordingly, intimated to Count Nesselrode that, were any measures to be adopted towards Poland at variance with existing engagements, both Great Britain and France would be under the necessity of remonstrating formally. The Kingdom of Poland, it should be remembered, had been constituted in 1815 under the guarantee of the five Powers, and it was, in consequence, possible to contend, with some show of reason, that all of them were equally concerned in the maintenance of the liberties conceded to the Poles, under the terms of the Vienna treaty. Heytesbury’s conversations with Count Nesselrode convinced him, however, that, although the letter of that agreement might be observed, the Polish constitution would be virtually abolished. But, in reporting the nature of the intentions by which he conceived the Russian government to be animated, the able and experienced diplomatist who then represented Great Britain at St. Petersburg was at pains to point out the difficulties of the Tsar’s position. In Russia there was a strong public opinion which even the autocratic Nicholas could not afford to disregard. Were former conditions to be restored in Poland, and were the authors of the cold-blooded assassinations at Warsaw to be permitted to escape unpunished, great indignation would be aroused throughout the Empire. His representations had been well received, but he was plainly allowed to see how deeply the St. Petersburg Cabinet regretted the existence of the close understanding between France and England, which his action had revealed. He could perceive clearly from the demeanour of his Austrian and Prussian colleagues that neither the Court of Vienna nor of Berlin would be disposed to interfere upon behalf of the Poles. France not Russia, he pointed out, was now looked upon as an object of common danger.[165]

French sympathy for the Poles was so keen that, in July, Talleyrand was again instructed to invite the English government to join with France in proposing “a mediation in the bloody struggle raging in Poland.” Palmerston, in reply, appears to have suggested that the French government should set forth its views upon the matter in writing. Talleyrand, accordingly, transmitted this request and, at the same time, begged Sébastiani to remember, when framing his proposals, that “he was dealing with cold-blooded people and that it would be well therefore to avoid the use of emotional language.” But, on July 22, Palmerston informed him that the Cabinet could not entertain the suggestion of addressing to Russia any demand for a cessation of hostilities, nor was he able to report better success when, in September, whilst the Belgian difficulty was at its height, he was once more directed to approach the British government upon the subject of Poland. “No party in the Parliament,” he wrote, “was in favour of intervention, and the newspapers merely spoke of the Poles in sympathetic language.”[166] Heytesbury, who at St. Petersburg was in a position to judge correctly of the national resentment which any attempt at foreign interference in Polish affairs would create, strove to convince his government of the unwisdom of impairing the good relations of Russia and England by raising a question in which no British interests were involved. Remonstrances, he was prepared to admit, might effect an improvement in the condition of the people of the Kingdom of Poland. But, even under these circumstances, the sum of human misery, which the rebellion must entail, would not be lessened, inasmuch as the revolted Russo-Polish provinces, not included in the Kingdom, would be treated with increased severity.[167]

But, with the complete suppression of the insurrection, Lord Grey and his colleagues assumed a more sympathetic attitude towards the vanquished Poles. In a closely reasoned despatch Palmerston, on November 23, formulated the arguments which Heytesbury was instructed to press upon the Cabinet of St. Petersburg. The most important passage in this long document was that in which the interpretation was set forth which the English government placed upon the wording of the treaty of Vienna. The futility of the plea that no specific constitution had been guaranteed to Poland, a contention which Heytesbury had warned his chief the Russian government would certainly set up, was clearly exposed. “Surely,” wrote Palmerston, “it was no forced construction of the meaning of the treaty to consider the constitution, which the Emperor had given, as existing under the sanction of the treaty.” The constitution contained no clause reserving to the Sovereign the right of modifying its provisions. The action of the Poles in declaring themselves separated from Russia could not be held to absolve the Emperor from adhering to his compact. “Wrongs committed by one side,” he concluded, “were not to be punished by the commission of wrongs on the other.”[168]

Heytesbury, after prefacing his disagreeable task of communicating these instructions by assurances that his government was only desirous of tendering friendly advice to a former ally, proceeded to read out to Count Nesselrode Lord Palmerston’s despatch. “The Count,” he reported, “listened with great attention and in silence, but his silence was not the silence of assent.” The Russian Chancellor expressed his regret that the British government should have seen fit to make representations of this nature, notwithstanding the intimation, conveyed to it by Prince Lieven, that the Tsar could not admit of foreign interference in the Polish question. The official answer of the Imperial Cabinet was in due course communicated to Palmerston by the Russian ambassador. As Heytesbury had foreseen, Nicholas, “strong in the support of Austria and Prussia and in the unanimous approbation of the Russian nation,”[169] refused to adopt the interpretation of the treaty which it was desired to place upon it in London and in Paris.

In the meantime, important progress had been made towards a settlement of the Belgian question. At the end of August, Baron Stockmar, Leopold’s confidential adviser, proceeded to London to watch over his interests in conjunction with Van de Weyer, the Belgian minister at the Court of St. James’. Stockmar realized speedily that the Belgians would have to suffer for the defeat inflicted upon them by the Dutch. In the treaty of peace and separation, which the conference was resolved must be concluded without delay, they could not hope to obtain the favourable terms conceded to them in the convention of the eighteen articles. Should they refuse to agree to the necessary concessions, Palmerston warned him that the conference would be broken up, and the King of Holland would be left free to fight out his quarrel with Leopold. Stockmar, however, continually impressed upon his master that this was a threat which he could safely afford to disregard. The French had always considered the union of Holland and Belgium and the creation of the Kingdom of the Netherlands as a diplomatic combination directed against them. Public opinion in France might, therefore, be depended upon to compel the government to resist any attempt on the part of the Dutch to reconstitute the kingdom by force of arms. But, although he admitted that Leopold could only expect active assistance from France, Stockmar strongly deprecated the idea of using French intervention as a means of intimidating the conference. Such a course, he was convinced, would simply incline the four Powers to lean all the more towards Holland. Lords Grey and Palmerston were well disposed, but they had to reckon with national sentiment, which was more favourable to “England’s ancient allies,” the Dutch, than to the Belgians. Nevertheless, although the British government might be unable to render him practical assistance, Leopold, Stockmar considered, should strive to gain its moral support. The prolonged occupation of Belgium by the French was to be deplored, because it engendered the suspicion in London that the King was over-anxious to place himself under the protection of France. In order effectually to put a check upon both Dutch and French intrigues Leopold, in Stockmar’s opinion, would be well advised to propose for the hand of a daughter of Louis Philippe.

After the French evacuation Stockmar urged unceasingly the necessity of a speedy conclusion of a definite treaty of peace. Russia, he pointed out, was no longer distracted by the Polish rebellion, and the sympathies of the Tsar were entirely with the King of the Netherlands. This was a circumstance bound to have a considerable influence upon the policy of the Courts of Berlin and of Vienna. It was of the highest importance, therefore, that Leopold should bring his ministers and the Chambers to recognize that the conditions of separation, set forth in the protocol of the eighteen articles, could no longer be obtained, and that only those stipulations should be insisted upon which were essential to the independent existence of Belgium. As Stockmar had foreseen, the new treaty, known as that of the twenty-four articles, which the conference proceeded to frame, imposed harsher terms upon Belgium than those contained in the protocol of June 26. That part of the province of Limburg which lay upon the right bank of the Meuse was now assigned to Holland, and Belgium was called upon to contribute an increased share of the public debt of the two countries. In other respects also the Belgians had to suffer for their military inferiority to the Dutch. Nevertheless, when all efforts to induce the conference to modify its terms had proved useless, Stockmar, scouting the notion of abdication, counselled Leopold to agree to them. “Let the King,” he wrote, “cry aloud against the injustice which has been done him . . . Let him show that he went to Belgium under perfectly different conditions . . . Let the Belgian ministry cry out equally loud. But in the meantime let everything be done to induce the Chambers to accept the treaty.”

Leopold having let it be known that, were the deputies to refuse to agree to the terms imposed by the conference, he would be driven to abdicate, the Chambers, on November 3, authorized him to conclude a formal treaty of peace and separation upon the basis of the twenty-four articles. This document was accordingly signed in London, on November 15, 1831, by the plenipotentiaries of Belgium and of the five great Powers. The King of Holland refused to be a party to the agreement, but, before the expiration of the armistice, he had been warned that any act of hostility against Belgium would be treated as a declaration of war against the Powers. In addition, by a supplementary article, the contracting parties guaranteed to Belgium the execution of the treaty. Ratifications, it was laid down, were to be exchanged within the space of two months.[170] At various periods during these negotiations Talleyrand had experienced considerable difficulty in persuading the French government to agree to the decisions of the conference. When at last it had reluctantly given its assent to the conditions of separation he was at pains to show the advantages which France would derive from the treaty. The Duchy of Bouillon, he pointed out, no longer formed part of the Duchy of Luxemburg, whilst the incorporation of Arlon with Belgium increased the strength of the French frontier towards Longwy. Furthermore, the cession of half of the Duchy of Luxemburg to Belgium placed the Germanic Confederation at a greater distance from France and, inasmuch as the fortress was no longer to form part of a military system,[171] it would cease to have any importance. With regard to the repartition of the debt, which the French government had objected to as pressing unduly upon Belgium, Talleyrand contended that the general interests of Europe urgently demanded a settlement of the whole question, and that the Belgians, after their wretched display in the summer, had been treated with more generosity than they had any right to expect.[172]

Whilst the conference had been framing the conditions of separation between Holland and Belgium, the French government had brought forward a scheme for a general disarmament. Sébastiani in the summer had proposed a reduction of establishments to a normal peace footing, but had found that the German Powers were unwilling to revert to ordinary conditions of military strength, until the Polish insurrection should be at an end. After the Russian entry in Warsaw, however, the French overtures met with a ready response. The continental Powers agreed to begin disarming on January 1, 1832, and to proceed until their armies should be reduced to their peace establishments. Inasmuch as England had not added to her naval or land forces she could not enter into an agreement to disarm, but Lord Granville was instructed to communicate to Sébastiani the satisfaction which so practical a manifestation of peaceful intentions afforded to the British government.[173]

The question of the demolition of the barrier fortresses had been proceeding side by side with the settlement of the conditions under which Belgium was to be separated from Holland. Talleyrand, however, was not admitted to these negotiations which were conducted between the plenipotentiaries of Great Britain, Austria, Russia and Prussia and those of Belgium. The result of their deliberations was embodied in a document, known as the Fortress Convention, which was signed by the representatives of the five Powers concerned on December 14, 1831. When La Tour-Maubourg had been sent to Brussels, during the French occupation of Belgium, he had been instructed to press for the demolition of the fortifications of Ath, Mons, Menin, Charleroi and Tournay. The Powers, however, elected to preserve the defences of the two last-named towns and to dismantle in their place the works of Philippeville and Marienburg. Palmerston, without doubt, was mainly responsible for this decision which was to create great dissatisfaction in Paris. He was resolved, under no circumstance, to admit the principle of allowing France to have a voice in determining which of the fortresses, erected at the expense of the four Powers, should be destroyed. After her attempts to arrive at a separate understanding with Belgium concerning them, he may have thought that she required to be reminded of the true state of the case. Yet it would appear that the mere fact that her plenipotentiary had not appended his signature to the convention must have made her position in the matter sufficiently clear to the world. But, in persuading the members of the conference to substitute Philippeville and Marienburg for Charleroi and Tournay, Palmerston was not actuated by a desire wantonly to slight France. In the question of the destruction of the Belgian fortresses Grey’s Cabinet was in a very delicate position as regards the Parliament.[174] An embittered opposition was bound to demand to know on what grounds the government proposed to justify its policy of sanctioning the demolition of fortifications, which the greatest captain of the day had pronounced to be necessary to the security of Europe. Now Wellington, it would appear, considered Charleroi and Tournay as of more importance to the defence of Belgium than Philippeville and Marienburg, and Lord Grey and his colleagues could not afford to disregard his opinion. It must be remembered also that, on several occasions during the course of the negotiations, France had shown a strong desire to regain possession of these two places of which she had been deprived after Waterloo, and it was hoped that, were their fortifications to be demolished, they would cease to offer the same attractions to her.[175]

Without doubt the decision of the Powers to deprive France of any voice in the settlement of the question of the fortresses placed her in a very anomalous position. She was a party to the treaty which established the independence, defined the frontiers and guaranteed the neutrality of Belgium, nevertheless Austria, Prussia, Russia and Great Britain had proceeded to conclude at once a separate convention with Belgium against her. By her own action, however, she was debarred from bringing forward this aspect of the case as an argument against her exclusion from the fortress agreement. Far from raising any objections to the conduct of the four Powers in drawing up the protocol of April 17, without consultation with her, she had expressed the greatest satisfaction with its contents. At her request it was communicated to her officially, in order that an allusion might be made to it in the Speech from the Throne. Louis Philippe, in opening the Parliament on July 23, 1831, accordingly announced the early destruction of the barrier fortresses, as a proof that the four Powers had abandoned the system established against France in 1815. In point of fact the apprehensions of her aggressive spirit had been intensified by the Revolution of July and, in deciding to demolish some of the frontier defences of the Low Countries, the Powers had not been actuated by any desire to propitiate the new régime. But once the partition of the Kingdom of the Netherlands had been accomplished, it was recognized that the Belgians alone could not keep in repair and efficiently defend the twenty-three barrier fortresses. Ill-equipped and insufficiently garrisoned they would not have contributed to the protection of Belgium, but would have offered a constant temptation to the French to lay hands upon them. If France, however, chose to imagine that in this matter the policy of the Powers was dictated by a desire to please her, it was unnecessary to inform her that she was labouring under a delusion. It was probably the knowledge that the fiction contained in the paragraph of the King’s Speech, referring to the fortresses, could not be maintained for long, which had induced the French government to attempt to negotiate a separate agreement with Belgium.[176]

Both Palmerston and Stockmar appear to have been convinced that Talleyrand had prompted his government to protest against the fortress convention.[177] But their suspicions with regard to him seem to have been unfounded. In pursuance of his instructions, in his conversations with Grey and Palmerston, he was bound to employ those arguments most calculated to induce them to make some concessions to the wishes of his Court, but his despatches show that he disapproved strongly of the attitude he was directed to adopt. On December 15, in forwarding a copy of the fortress treaty, the contents of which he knew would be exceedingly displeasing to his government, he told Sébastiani plainly that La Tour-Maubourg’s mission to Brussels was largely responsible for the determination of the four Powers to select the fortresses for destruction, without regard to the wishes of France. That affair, moreover, in his opinion, had been managed in a very clumsy fashion. When the government decided to try to arrange a separate understanding with Belgium, it should have conducted its negotiations in the strictest secrecy.[178]

Sébastiani, for the reason which has already been explained, was precluded from objecting openly to the exclusion of France from the fortress convention, and was compelled to confine his protests to remonstrances against the selection of Philippeville and Marienburg for demolition. Talleyrand was instructed to contend that the fortifications of these two places, having been erected before 1815, could not be held to fall within the category of works constructed at the expense of the Powers. Furthermore, he was to urge that it was incompatible with the complete independence of Belgium, which France was anxious to see established, that the Powers should specify which fortresses King Leopold was to dismantle.[179] Talleyrand, however, reported that Lord Palmerston was quite unshaken by these arguments. The British minister gave him clearly to understand that La Tour-Maubourg’s proceedings at Brussels had impressed him most unfavourably. At the same time, pointing out that Philippeville and Marienburg were the fortresses in closest proximity to the frontier of France, he hinted that the French government must have some secret reason for objecting to their demolition. “Nevertheless,” reported Talleyrand, “I still believe that he is well disposed towards us. He is, however, in a difficult position as regards the Commons. . . . We must bring pressure to bear upon the Belgians.”[180] Sébastiani’s fears that the policy of the Powers aimed at the re-establishment of the Holy Alliance, were, he assured him, in language no less emphatic than that used by Granville in Paris, entirely without foundation. Far too much importance, he urged, was attached to the fortress convention. The King’s government, in his opinion, would be well advised to accept it, and to declare publicly that its provisions were in harmony with the protocol of April 17. Russia was no longer occupied with the rebellion of the Poles, and the Northern Courts were evincing a strong disposition to draw together closely. Under these conditions, he regarded it as essential that France should maintain friendly relations with England. “It was a matter of far more real importance than the question of the fortresses.”[181] But his endeavours to soothe the irritation of his government met with no success. He was instructed to announce in London that France, seeing that satisfaction was denied her in the affair of the fortress convention, would refuse to ratify the treaty of separation of November 15, 1831. Furthermore, Casimir Périer, who, on account of Sébastiani’s state of health, had taken charge of the portfolio of Foreign Affairs, declared that, “in view of the general uncertainty respecting the course of events in Belgium and Holland, the signature of the proposed convention of disarmament must be postponed.”[182]

The French agents in the meanwhile had not been idle at Brussels. On December 12 General Tiburce Sébastiani, the brother of the minister, arrived. “Ostensibly,” reported Adair, “he has come to visit this town and Antwerp, but his real purpose is to prevent the accession of the Belgian government to the fortress convention.” This officer certainly brought a letter for Belliard containing instructions which justified the British minister’s conclusions, but his mission appears also to have been connected with some unfounded rumour, which had reached the French government, that the Orangists were about to put into execution their designs against Leopold’s throne.[183] That monarch now found himself once more, as he himself described it, “between the hammer and the anvil.”[184] Louis Philippe[185] wrote indignantly complaining that the agreement of September 8, entered into with La Tour-Maubourg, had not been complied with. In vain Leopold produced the instructions, with which Goblet and Van de Weyer, who had negotiated the convention, had been furnished, and protested that the Belgian plenipotentiaries had been forced to sign, under the threat that the Powers would refuse to ratify the treaty of separation, should they persist in opposing their wishes with respect to the fortresses. General Belliard, at the same time, intimated that, were the Dutch again to attack Belgium, no assistance from France could be expected. To Adair, who, on the other hand, begged him to stand firm, Leopold had expressed his determination to disregard the French objections and to adhere to the convention. But at the threat that, were his Kingdom again to be overrun, France would leave him to his fate, his resolution broke down and Goblet was directed to announce in London that the Belgian ratification of the fortress agreement would be withheld.[186] Stockmar, writing from London, impressed upon King Leopold that his refusal to ratify the convention of December 14 would be eagerly seized upon by the absolute Powers as an excuse for withholding their adhesion to the treaty of separation. Already the news that differences had arisen between France and England, upon the subject of the fortresses, had enabled Metternich to reply to Mr. Forbes, the British chargé d’affaires, who had been instructed to urge him to transmit to London the necessary authority for an exchange of ratifications, that France was holding back and that it was important that all the Powers should act together in the matter. Prince Metternich was torn between his fears that the continued state of uncertainty as to the affairs of the Low Countries might lead to a war, and his desire to propitiate Russia. Nicholas was believed to have counselled the King of the Netherlands to agree to the treaty, but to be resolved, none the less, to withhold his own ratification until that sovereign’s reluctance to accept the conditions of separation should have been overcome.[187] M. Casimir Périer, in the meanwhile, however, was beginning to realize that Palmerston was determined not to yield to the outcry about the fortresses, and that were France, on that account, to decline to ratify the treaty of separation not only would the labours of the London conference for the past year be rendered nugatory, but the good relations which had been established with England would be seriously impaired. Moreover, should the negotiations break down, Lord Grey might be compelled to resign, and he had good reason to apprehend, that a change of government in England would be followed quickly by his own downfall. An important group of deputies in the Chamber gave him their votes, only because they believed that his alliance with the Whigs ensured the maintenance of peace. But this reason for their support of him would disappear on the day on which the Tories should return to office.[188] Under these circumstances Talleyrand was directed to obtain from the representatives of the four Powers “some declaration calculated to reassure the King’s government as to the spirit in which the fortress convention had been drawn up.” This result was achieved by means of a document in which it was affirmed that the arrangements respecting the fortresses were consistent with the independence, neutrality and sovereignty of Belgium, and that that country stood upon an equal footing as regards the five guaranteeing Powers. Casmir Périer declared himself well pleased to receive this empty satisfaction and, forthwith, announced his intention of adhering to the treaty of separation.[189] On January 31, accordingly, the two western Powers exchanged ratifications with Belgium and, at the same time, it was resolved to keep open the protocol, in the hope that the Northern Courts would before long confirm the signatures of their plenipotentiaries.[190]

Scarcely had this difficulty been settled when grave complications arose in another direction. The promises of the Pope, that reforms would be introduced into the administration of local affairs in Romagna, had not been carried out. The intention manifested by the Roman government to disregard its pledges was followed by a recrudescence of unrest in the Legations. M. Casimir Périer, accordingly, proposed that, were foreign intervention to be required to maintain the authority of His Holiness, a French corps should occupy Ancona. But Metternich demurred, and, as an alternative, suggested that a French naval force should be sent to the Adriatic to act in combination with the Austrian squadron. On February 1, however, the news arrived that the Austrians had entered Bologna, whereupon M. Casimir Périer at once ordered a French regiment to be embarked at Toulon for Ancona. Were that town to be occupied by the Austrians before the French expedition could arrive, the troops, Lord Granville was informed in confidence, would be landed at Civita Vecchia. The action of the French government would, M. Casimir Périer declared to the British ambassador, hasten the departure of the Austrians and induce Prince Metternich to press the Court of Rome to adopt those reforms by which alone permanent tranquillity could be established in the Legations.[191]

The more detailed information as to the course of events in Romagna, transmitted by Sainte-Aulaire and the British consul at Rome, suggested the existence of a secret understanding between His Holiness and the Cabinet of Vienna. At Forli the Pontifical troops were reported to have shot down in cold blood peaceful and unarmed inhabitants, and their behaviour created the impression that they were anxious to produce disorder, in order to furnish Cardinal Albani, the Legate, with a pretext for invoking the aid of Austria.[192] Suspicions on this score were heightened by the fact that, although Marshal Radetzky only received the application for assistance on January 23, his orders, in which he styled himself commander-in-chief of the army of Italy, were dated on the 19th, four days before the arrival of the cardinal’s demand for intervention.[193] Upon learning of these proceedings the Comte de Sainte-Aulaire at once notified to Cardinal Bernetti, the State Secretary, that the entry of an Imperial army into the Papal States would be followed by the immediate occupation of Ancona by a French force. Bernetti appears reluctantly to have acquiesced, but, after the expedition had sailed from Toulon, acting, without doubt, at the dictation of the Austrian ambassador, he formally protested against the disembarkation of any French troops within the dominions of the Pope.[194] When the news first reached Vienna that the French had taken steps to occupy Ancona, Metternich, concealing his annoyance, was at pains to impress upon the public that this measure was the result of a previous understanding with Austria.[195] On the other hand, at St. Petersburg the intelligence that the French had intervened in Italy was held to have rendered war inevitable, and Nicholas forthwith declared his intention of giving armed assistance to Austria.[196] From London Talleyrand reported that Palmerston spoke very guardedly when he sought to ascertain the views of the British government upon the matter. In his own opinion, and this aspect of the case he on more than one occasion brought to the notice of M. Casimir Périer, it was much to be regretted that the demonstrations in Italy had taken place before Austria should have ratified the Belgian treaty. The accounts, moreover, of the lawless proceedings of the French commander at Ancona, which soon began to arrive, created a very general alarm. Not only had the troops forced their way into the citadel, but a proclamation was issued by Captain Gallois, drawn up in terms so hostile to Austria, as to amount practically to a declaration of war. That individual, however, who was either a member of, or in league with, the French secret societies, the agents of which were striving to stir up a revolution in Italy, was promptly disavowed and the fact of his recall to France was communicated to foreign governments. Nevertheless, wrote Talleyrand, the affair has created a most painful impression. “The territory of an independent sovereign has been violated at a time of profound peace and the tricolour has been hoisted over a fortress which does not belong to France.”[197] In a conversation which he had had with William IV. at a levée, His Majesty spoke to him most strongly about the impropriety of these proceedings which, ministers also informed him, had greatly increased their difficulties in both Houses. They could have added with perfect truth that their relations with their sovereign had suffered considerably owing to this affair.[198]

The Austrian policy of deliberately encouraging misgovernment in the Italian States and of placing every obstacle in the way of reforms was hateful to Lord Palmerston. Apart from other considerations he was convinced that a continuance of this state of affairs must, sooner or later, drive France to intervene in such a manner as to render a war inevitable with Austria.[199] Already, on February 20, before he had received the news of the arrival of the French expedition at Ancona, he had directed Mr. Seymour, the British minister at Florence, to proceed to Rome “to represent the anxiety of His Majesty’s government to see those causes, which have produced so much difficulty, effectually removed.” He was to urge that no measures would appear “to afford so good a hope of success as a complete adoption of those reforms which were pointed out in the memorandum of May 21, 1831.” Lastly, he was to impress upon Cardinal Bernetti that, “if the reports be true that the ranks of the papal troops, which recently entered the Legations, have been replenished by emptying the prisons of criminals and by calling down the lawless bands from the mountains, the Roman government cannot divest itself of a deep responsibility for the melancholy events which marked the entry into Cesena and Forli. The innocent blood which was wantonly shed in the streets of those towns might well be accepted as a full atonement for the political offences of the people of Romagna.”[200] When the story became known of the manner in which the French entry into Ancona had been carried out, Palmerston readily agreed to do all in his power to soothe the irritation of Austria and to assist to remove the bad impression created by Captain Gallois’ lawlessness. Seymour was further instructed to inform Cardinal Bernetti that the British government was fully satisfied that the French occupation of Ancona was but a temporary measure, which the condition of the Legations had occasioned. He was to reiterate the necessity for the immediate introduction of the promised reforms and “to draw the serious attention of the Roman government to the fact, that the course which it was pursuing with respect to the Legations, had already had the effect of turning the eyes of the population of those provinces towards Austria. . . . The system of administration established in Lombardy and Venetia, although not free from defects, was looked upon with envy by the subjects of the Pope.[201] At Vienna Sir Frederick Lamb was directed to assure Prince Metternich that the occupation of Ancona would cease as soon as His Holiness should have carried out his engagements.[202]

Metternich, reported Lamb, received the news of the French proceedings at Ancona very calmly. He expressed himself as confident that Gallois’ actions would be disavowed by his government. “The Emperor,” he declared, “would be justified in falling upon the French at Ancona, but he was too great a sovereign to receive an insult from the captain of a frigate or the colonel of a regiment.” It was to England that Austria looked for support at this crisis. She ruled the seas and it rested with her to decide whether, or not, France should hold the command of the Mediterranean. About a week after this conversation had taken place Metternich informed Lamb that he was perfectly satisfied with the explanations which Marshal Maison had been instructed to give, and that no demand would be made to the French government for the evacuation of Ancona, so long as the Austrians continued to occupy the Legations.[203]

This condition of affairs was allowed to prevail for some years. Both Powers retained their troops in the Papal States, and the embarrassing necessity under which the French government was placed of making the occupation of Ancona depend upon the presence of an Austrian garrison at Bologna constituted Metternich’s revenge for M. Périer’s intervention in Italy.

The attention of the corps diplomatique had not been concentrated exclusively upon the complications to which the French proceedings at Ancona might give rise. Early in the month of February it was known that Count Orloff had been despatched by the Tsar on a special mission to the Hague. It was in deference to the wishes of Nicholas that the Courts of Vienna and of Berlin had decided to withhold their ratification of the treaty of separation of November 15, 1831, and the keenest curiosity prevailed as to the instructions with which the Tsar’s emissary had been furnished. In respect to the condition of affairs in the Low Countries Russia was in a somewhat peculiar situation as regards England. During the Napoleonic war Russia had borrowed at Amsterdam a sum of 25,000,000 florins. At the peace the King of the Netherlands and the King of Great Britain agreed respectively to bear one-half of the charge of this debt. But it was provided that, should at any time the King of the Netherlands be deprived of his sovereignty over the Belgian provinces, this charge should cease. The contingency referred to in the treaty had come about, under circumstances never contemplated by the statesmen by whom it had been drawn up. They had hoped to give Russia a direct interest in preserving the union, but it was now the British government which desired to see it abolished and the Tsar who wished it to be maintained. Without doubt, according to the letter of the treaty, England was no longer bound to pay a share of the Russian-Dutch loan. Judged by the spirit of it, however, she could not honestly escape from the charge which she had undertaken to bear. This last construction of the agreement was adopted by Palmerston, who admitted the British liability in a new convention, by the terms of which the Tsar guaranteed that, should the stipulations made for the independence and neutrality of Belgium be endangered by the course of events, he would contract no other engagements without a previous agreement with his Britannic Majesty. Palmerston had thus earned the gratitude of the Tsar and had, in addition, made it difficult for him to intervene actively on behalf of the King of Holland.[204] Ministers were debarred, however from referring to this inner history of the affair in Parliament, where their policy in the matter of the Russian loan was severely attacked both by the Tory Opposition and by the Radicals, who deprecated the notion of voting pecuniary assistance to the autocratic government of Russia.

The Count Alexis Orloff, whose journey to the Hague was the subject of so much speculation in the chanceries of Europe, was the natural son of a younger brother of Gregory Orloff, the lover of Catherine II. and a prominent actor in that palace revolution of 1762, which cost the Emperor Peter III. his throne, and very probably his life. After serving in the Napoleonic wars, the Count Alexis had gained the lasting gratitude of his imperial master by his resolute behaviour, which had contributed not a little to upset the designs of the Decembrists, as those military conspirators were termed, who, in 1825, had sought to prevent the accession of Nicholas. Ever afterwards, in consequence, Alexis Orloff was selected by the Tsar for the most delicate and secret missions. No notice of his departure was given to any member of the corps diplomatique at St. Petersburg. Count Nesselrode, after he had started, merely informed Lord Heytesbury that he had been sent to the Hague to extract a categorical statement from the King of the Netherlands as to whether he would accept the treaty of separation, and, in the event of his declaring that he would withhold his consent, to signify to him that he must not look to Russia for support.[205] This was in substance all that Mr. Chad, the British minister at Berlin, could discover about the objects of Orloff’s mission during the Count’s stay in the Prussian capital. But he noted that the general effect of his visit to Berlin had been to incline the Prussian government to espouse more warmly the cause of the King of the Netherlands, a result which, he pointed out, was inconsistent with the purpose which the Tsar’s emissary was alleged to have in view.[206] Fuller information, however, on that score was soon forthcoming from Vienna. On February 25, Sir Frederick Lamb was able to transmit to Lord Palmerston a copy of Orloff’s secret instructions. These contained a clause to the effect that the Emperor of Russia would not recognize the King of the Belgians, until he should have been acknowledged by the King of the Netherlands. Furthermore, the Count was directed to protest against any measures of coercion, which France and England might decide to adopt against Holland, and to declare that the Tsar would regard all concessions, obtained by such means, as null and void. Lastly, whilst in London, whither he was to proceed when he had completed his task at the Hague, Orloff was “to assist by all means in his power the endeavours which, for the past twelve months, Prince Lieven and Count Matuszewic[207] had been making to prevent a union of the British Cabinet with that of the Palais Royal.”[208]

During his stay at Berlin, Orloff tried to win over the Prussian government to the Tsar’s views upon the Belgian question. But his attempts were unsuccessful. Ancillon, the chief minister, was greatly alarmed at the disturbance of the European Concert to which he feared the Russian policy must lead. Were Austria, Prussia and Russia to make their ratification of the separation treaty depend upon the acceptation of its conditions by the King of the Netherlands, the Powers must necessarily fall into two opposing groups: France and Great Britain on the one side, and the three Northern Courts on the other. Rather than help to create so perilous a situation, Prussia would, with much regret be obliged to “aller en avant et de ratifier.” Ancillon seems to have succeeded in extracting from Orloff a promise that he would for the present, at least, refrain from communicating the secret clauses of his instructions to the King of the Netherlands, and to have directed the Prussian minister at St. Petersburg to endeavour to persuade Nicholas to cancel them. Metternich, reported Lamb, regarded the matter in the same light as Ancillon, and was resolved to assimilate his policy to that of the Court of Berlin. It was presumably for the purpose of thwarting the Russian plan that a copy of Orloff’s secret instructions was placed in the hands of the British ambassador.[209]

When France and England had ratified the treaty of separation, Palmerston at once instructed the British representatives at Vienna and at Berlin to urge the Austrian and Prussian Courts to follow the example of the western Powers. Metternich, wrote Lamb, eluded the question, and insisted upon the necessity of waiting to hear the result of Orloff’s mission.[210] At Berlin, Mr. Chad was enjoined to remind M. Ancillon that the action of the Prussian government in refusing to ratify was a violation of its promises.[211] In M. Casimir Périer’s opinion, the policy of the absolute Courts was dictated by the hope that a second rejection of the Reform Bill by the House of Lords might lead to a change of government in England.[212] In the meanwhile, Count Orloff had arrived at the Hague on February 20. At Berlin, he had intimated that under no circumstances would his stay in Holland be prolonged beyond ten days.[213] Nevertheless, the period which he had assigned for the duration of his visit was greatly exceeded. There was reason to believe, however, that communications had reached him from his Court which, if they did not absolutely annul, unquestionably modified his instructions and brought them more into harmony with the views of the constitutional Powers.[214] Without doubt, the repugnance evinced at Vienna and at Berlin to break with the London conference was largely responsible for the changed disposition of Nicholas. But the arrival at St. Petersburg, after Orloff had left, of the draft of a proposed new treaty of separation, in which the King of the Netherlands put forward the most absurd pretensions, would seem to have impressed the Tsar most unfavourably. He appears to have grown very suspicious that the Dutch Court, acting under the inspiration of the French legitimists, was striving to embroil the Great Powers in a war.[215]

Palmerston, under these circumstances, decided to exercise an increased pressure upon the wavering resolution of the Northern Courts. The sittings of the conference, he announced, would be suspended until the signatory Powers of the treaty of separation should have ratified that agreement. Furthermore, on March 16, Sir Charles Bagot, the British ambassador, was instructed to protest against Count Orloff’s continued stay at the Hague.[216] The threat that the London conference would be dissolved appears to have excited considerable alarm at Berlin.[217] Although the obstinacy of the King of the Netherlands was proof against all remonstrances, Palmerston’s action, which had the support of the French government, was probably successful in bringing Orloff’s mission to an end. In any case, on March 22, Verstolk, the Dutch Minister for Foreign Affairs, officially informed Nicholas’ envoy that the King could not accept the separation treaty of the twenty-four articles as it existed. No sooner had he made this statement than Count Orloff at once handed him the declaration which he had been instructed to deliver. The note in question was to the effect that, although His Imperial Majesty would not participate himself in any measures of coercion to force the King to accept the treaty, he should not oppose those steps which his allies might resolve to take in order to impose its conditions upon Holland. Directly they learnt that Orloff had delivered his declaration, the Austrian and Prussian ministers sent separate notes to M. Verstolk, notifying the adhesion of their respective Courts to the course pursued by the Russian Cabinet. Orloff, two days later, took leave of the King and started for London.[218]

The failure of Orloff’s mission deprived the Austrian and Prussian Cabinets of all reasonable excuse for withholding their assent to the treaty. Indeed, before the Russian agent had taken his departure from the Hague, Metternich informed Sir Frederick Lamb that the Austrian ratification would be forwarded to London without further delay. The presence of the French in Italy, and the fear that the course upon which the absolute Courts had embarked would tend to promote a close alliance between England and France were factors in the situation, which, in the opinion of the British ambassador, had greatly influenced Metternich’s decision.[219] Accordingly, on April 18, at the London Foreign Office the Austrian and Prussian plenipotentiaries exchanged ratifications of the treaty of November 15, 1831, with the representative of Belgium. The Prussian minister, Bülow, had been furnished with a discretionary power either to proceed with the matter or to await the Russian ratification, and he appears to have yielded to the pressure brought to bear upon him by Palmerston and Talleyrand.[220] Both the Prussian and Austrian ratifications were accompanied by reservations with respect to the rights of the Germanic Confederation in Connection with any cession or exchange of a portion of the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg.[221]

It was resolved, as on former occasions, to keep open the protocol in order that Russia might still be enabled to become a party to the treaty. Lieven and Matuszewic, the Russian plenipotentiaries, had authority to ratify, but with reservations respecting three articles of the treaty which concerned the navigation of the Scheldt, the construction of a road, and the share of the debt to be borne by Belgium. But, were a limited ratification of this description to be accepted, Russia would necessarily be placed in a different situation as regards Belgium to that occupied by the other contracting parties. This was a development to which Palmerston was altogether opposed. On the other hand, he was desirous above all things to avoid the necessity of excluding Russia from the treaty. The rift in the European Concert, which such a result would disclose, must encourage the King of the Netherlands to resist the decisions of the conference and might endanger the general peace. The representatives of the Powers, not excepting Orloff, Lieven and Matuszewic were, however, sincerely anxious to discover a way out of the difficulty. At Brussels it was contended with some reason that the limited ratification of Russia might be held to invalidate the treaty as a whole. But Stockmar, the counsellor of Leopold, pointed out that the existing governments in France and England considered that their acts of ratification bound them indissolubly to the treaty. The struggle over the Reform Bill had, however, entered upon its final stage, and it was doubtful whether Lord Grey and his colleagues would emerge from it successfully. Under these circumstances, urged Stockmar, it was well to remember that both Wellington and Aberdeen had declared that they should not consider the treaty of the twenty-four articles as binding, until it should have been ratified by all the signatory Powers. Were Grey to fall, and were a Tory Cabinet to be formed, Russia very probably might altogether refuse to ratify.[222]

On May 4 the deliberations of the conference at the Foreign Office were prolonged far into the night. Talleyrand’s powers of persuasion, Palmerston’s determined will and skill in argument were alike directed to the task of devising some solution of the problem, which all parties might accept with dignity. The desired result was at last attained by means of an explanation of the purpose of the Russian reservation, which was inserted into the protocol. According to this declaration, the Russian plenipotentiaries asserted that their Court had no other intention than to leave open the matters contained in the three articles in question for subsequent settlement by Holland and Belgium. Under these conditions, Van de Weyer agreed to accept the Russian ratification with the proviso, which was also to be embodied into the protocol, that his Court laid claim to the full benefit of the engagements contracted towards Belgium by the five Powers. That same night Orloff departed from England.[223] Nicholas had been very gratified by the flattering welcome which had been accorded to his favourite in London society.[224] His satisfaction on this point contributed, doubtless, to the happy termination of the negotiation. But the statesmanlike conduct of Van de Weyer was, at the time, little appreciated in political circles in Brussels, where he was censured for accepting the limited ratification of Russia.[225]

[CHAPTER IV]

THE COERCION OF HOLLAND

The Cabinets of Lord Grey and of M. Casimir Périer had always regarded the execution of the separation treaty as a measure which must necessarily follow its ratification by the five contracting Powers. But, during the spring and early summer of 1832, ministers, both in France and in England, were confronted by an internal situation of exceptional gravity. The Lords, on April 14, had passed the second reading of the third Reform Bill by a narrow majority. On May 7, however, three days after Russia had ratified the Belgian treaty, Lord Lyndhurst successfully carried against the government a motion postponing the clause which disfranchised the boroughs. The Cabinet, therefore, decided to advise the King “to advance to the honour of the peerage such a number of persons as might ensure the success of the Bill in all its essential principles.”[226]

In the early days of the struggle the King had been a keen advocate of parliamentary reform. But the violent opposition which the measure had excited had sensibly altered his feelings. Nor was it only with respect to the Bill that His Majesty was beginning to entertain misgivings. The conduct of foreign affairs had, for some time past, caused him grave anxiety. He perceived, he wrote to Lord Grey, a dangerous tendency on the part of the government to subscribe to all the democratic theories which found favour in Paris. He realized the importance of good relations with France, and he was prepared to admit that it might be due to the existence of such an understanding that war had been avoided in the Belgian question. But he mistrusted France and could not believe that she had abandoned her schemes of conquest and of territorial expansion. He held, therefore, that it was impolitic to “unite too closely with her in the prosecution of measures tending to give umbrage and alarm to other Powers.”[227]

In consequence of these criticisms Lord Grey signified his willingness to resign. But a second letter from the King and a conversation, in which His Majesty assured him that he still enjoyed his full confidence, induced him to remain in office. A fortnight later, however, when the King declined to follow the advice, contained in the Cabinet minute of May 8, to create a sufficient number of peers to enable the Bill to pass, the government resigned. But the excitement throughout the country and the attitude of the House of Commons compelled Lord Lyndhurst and the Duke of Wellington to abandon all hope of forming a ministry. In face of their inability to carry out the task with which he had entrusted them, the King had no alternative but to send for his late ministers and to give them the guarantees, which they made an indispensable condition to their acceptation of office. Lord Grey, however, was spared the necessity of resorting to the powers which the crown had placed at his disposal. In deference to the King’s wishes[228] Wellington and the chief opponents of the measure agreed to stay away from the House, and on June 4, in their absence, the Bill was passed into law.

France was less fortunate. Her domestic difficulties were only temporarily overcome after grave disorder and much bloodshed. The cholera, brought back by the Russian armies from Turkey, had spread westwards. The disease, which made its first appearance in England in the latter months of 1831, did terrible execution in Paris during the spring and summer of 1832. M. Casimir Périer, who had been in bad health for some time past, was its most illustrious victim. His death, on May 16, 1832, was the signal for a furious outburst of hostility on the part of the parliamentary opponents of his system. At the same time the avowed enemies of the Orleans monarchy, both Republican and Carlist, actively prepared to take advantage of the situation. The Society of the Friends of the People, in defiance of the police, held meetings at which armed insurrection was preached openly. “I was present at one of them,” wrote Heinrich Heine, “the smell reminded me of an old file of the Moniteur of 1793 grown dirty from too much reading.”[229]

The funeral, on June 5, of General Lamarque, the most prominent advocate in the Chamber of the union of Belgium with France, was chosen by the revolutionary leaders as a favourable occasion for striking their blow. But the authorities were upon the alert and both regular troops and national guards were quickly upon the scene of action. Nevertheless, it was not until artillery had been brought up that, on the following day, June 6, the great barricade at the Cloître Saint-Merri was stormed and that this formidable insurrection was finally suppressed. Nor was it only in the streets of Paris that the government had to deal with an armed rising. On June 4 the Duchesse de Berri, the mother of the Duc de Bordeaux, the lawful King of France in the eyes of the Carlists, raised the standard of rebellion in La Vendée. But her insurrection, which had been undertaken against the advice of the wiser of the Carlists and of the old Royalist leaders in the West, was, in a few days, stamped out completely. The defence of the Château de la Pénissière, where a handful of Carlist gentlemen made a brave stand against overwhelming odds, imparted, however, a tinge of heroism to this, the last and the least famous of the Royalist rebellions of La Vendée.

Following quickly upon the defeat of the republicans in Paris and of the Carlists in the West, came the news that the Duc de Reichstadt, the heretofore King of Rome, was dying of consumption at Vienna. But Metternich, in transmitting this information, desired that Louis Philippe’s attention should be especially directed “to his successor in the eyes of the Bonapartists.” The young Louis Bonaparte, he begged him to remember, was not under the safeguard of the Emperor of Austria, but, on the contrary, “was deeply involved in all the machinations of the revolutionary societies.”[230] Few people, however, shared Metternich’s forebodings, and the death of the Duc de Reichstadt, which took place on July 22, 1832, was generally considered, even by staunch Imperialists, to have disposed effectually of the chances of a Bonapartist restoration.[231] But neither the successful suppression of two rebellions, nor the decease of a dangerous pretender to the throne could make up for the loss of the President of the Council. The death of M. Casimir Périer had deprived the Cabinet of its strength and prestige. Louis Philippe, whilst doing full justice to the courage and abilities of his late minister, was perhaps not altogether sorry that his masterful personality no longer presided at the council table. The rôle of a constitutional monarch was never to his taste. He longed always to take a direct part in the management of public affairs, and rather liked his people to think that his was the hand which guided the ship of State. He was, therefore, in no great hurry to appoint a new President of the Council. He soon perceived, however, that a prolongation of this state of affairs would be prejudicial to the best interests of the monarchy both at home and abroad.

For the past two months the London conference had been engaged upon fruitless efforts to induce the King of the Netherlands to agree to the separation treaty. Moreover, His Majesty’s obstinacy was not the only difficulty with which the representatives of the Powers had to deal. The Belgians clamoured loudly for the execution of the treaty, and declared that, so long as the Dutch retained possession of Antwerp, they must decline to discuss any modification of its conditions.[232] Oblivious of their disasters of the year before, they even began to talk of ejecting the Dutch by force, and, as though to prove the seriousness of their intentions, proceeded to enrol Polish officers in their army, and to make other warlike preparations.[233]

Although determined that the main conditions of the treaty must be left untouched, the members of the conference were anxious that the minor points in dispute should form the subject of amicable discussions between the Dutch and Belgian representatives. It was on this principle that all their proposals had been made. But neither at the Hague nor at Brussels was any disposition evinced to listen to reasonable suggestions for a compromise.

At last, on July 10, the plenipotentiaries decided to forward their final proposals to the Hague and to announce, at the same time, that, if they were not accepted, no further modifications of the original treaty would be submitted. Little hope, however, was entertained that the King’s obduracy would be overcome without a resort to force. But before proceeding to adopt more active measures the British government decided to dispatch Lord Durham upon a special mission to St. Petersburg. Ill-health had recently compelled Lord Heytesbury to relinquish his post, and his successor had not as yet been appointed. The King of the Netherlands, it was believed, still trusted that the Tsar would intervene on his behalf, should France and England begin hostilities against him. Lord Durham was therefore charged to endeavour to persuade the Emperor Nicholas “to give immediate instructions to the Russian plenipotentiaries at the conference to co-operate cordially and effectually in whatever measures might appear best calculated to effect an early execution of the treaty.” He was to state most positively that France and England, under any circumstances, were resolved to fulfil the engagements which they had contracted towards Belgium. Lastly, he was to explain the views of His Majesty’s government upon Italian, German and Polish affairs.[234]

Seeing that it was the object of the British government to conciliate the Tsar, in order to induce him to take part in measures which could not be otherwise than extremely distasteful to him, it is strange that this particular minister should have been selected for the mission. As one of the most advanced politicians in the Cabinet Lord Durham would hardly seem to have been the person best qualified to propitiate the Emperor Nicholas. But at the time his suitability was perhaps only a secondary consideration. On the question of the creation of peers to enable the Reform Bill to pass, he had seriously differed from Lord Grey, his own father-in-law, and it may have been the wish to avoid a complete rupture between them that prompted his despatch to St. Petersburg. The Emperor, however, whatever may have been the real nature of his feelings with respect to Durham’s appointment, evinced not the slightest resentment. On the contrary, he appeared to be at pains to pay him the greatest honours and, during the whole period of his six weeks’ stay in the Russian capital, the ambassador was the object of his most flattering attentions. Durham, who was highly gratified by the warmth of the Imperial reception and by the marked deference with which he was treated, was, for his part, no less anxious to create a favourable impression. When removed from the turmoil of party politics he rarely failed to display those statesmanlike qualities which he unquestionably possessed. Yet in spite of all his efforts, on this occasion, his embassy, in so far as its immediate objects were concerned, proved a complete failure. Under no circumstances would the Tsar agree to join in any hostile action against Holland. But, whilst the autocrat assured him that such was his irrevocable determination, he told him that he was equally resolved not to oppose those measures which other Powers might see fit to adopt, in order to obtain the execution of the separation treaty.[235] This categorical statement of Nicholas’ intention not to interpose, should coercion be applied to Holland, was the one satisfactory piece of news which Lord Durham was enabled to transmit. In all his conversations the Tsar manifested his extreme dislike of Louis Philippe and expressed his determination to render military assistance to Austria and Prussia, should France attempt to interfere in German affairs.[236] Lord Durham was not long in discovering that no good purpose would be served by adverting to Poland. The greatest indignation prevailed throughout Russia at the conduct of the Poles, and he quite agreed with Lord Heytesbury that the Tsar dared not disregard the national resentment which their insurrection had provoked. Only force, he saw clearly, would induce him to admit that other Powers had a right to interfere with his treatment of his Polish subjects, and England most certainly had no intention of making the question a case for war. He conceived, therefore, that he might depart from the letter of his instructions and confine his observations upon the subject to a mere informal expression to Count Nesselrode of the interest felt by the British government in the general welfare of Poland.[237]

Before the end of July, it was known in London that the King of the Netherlands was determined to reject the proposals which the conference had declared must be the last which could be submitted to him. Nevertheless Palmerston, encouraged seemingly by the language of Van Zuylen, the Dutch plenipotentiary, decided to make a further attempt to avert the necessity of an appeal to force.[238] Accordingly, he drew up a fresh scheme for the settlement of the points in dispute, and showed it confidentially to the Dutch representative. Van Zuylen professed to be on the whole well satisfied with Palmerston’s proposals, and held out distinct hopes that they might serve as the basis of a definite agreement between Holland and Belgium. But, before any progress could be made in the matter, it was necessary to induce the Belgians to abandon their declared intention of refusing to negotiate, until the Dutch should have evacuated the citadel of Antwerp. In order to try to persuade the Belgian government to adopt a less uncompromising attitude, Baron Stockmar, early in August, proceeded to Brussels as the semi-official representative of the conference. King Leopold’s confidential adviser saw clearly that the Belgians must appear in a very unfavourable light should the negotiations break down, owing to their obstinate refusal to recede from the position they had taken up. He had never approved of the policy of the Meulinäer Cabinet, and had always deprecated the warlike preparations upon which that minister had ostentatiously embarked. As he constantly pointed out to the King, the chances of success in a single-handed contest with Holland were necessarily very doubtful. Moreover, under any circumstances, the Great Powers were pledged to intervene to put an end to the struggle, and, in such a case, Belgium, if the aggressor, would certainly be dealt with very harshly. One measure, however, which Stockmar had constantly advocated, was now an accomplished fact. In the month of May, the Princess Louise, a daughter of the King of the French, had been affianced to Leopold, and the marriage had been duly celebrated on August 9, at the Château de Compiègne. But the newly married king showed as little disposition to adopt the counsels of his father-in-law[239] as he had those of the sagacious Stockmar. Indeed, the language of many leading Belgians at this period suggested that they were encouraged to defy the Powers, from the security which they considered was assured to them by the family ties uniting their sovereign to the reigning House in France.[240] Leopold, without doubt, had no share in so dangerous an illusion, but his ministers had pledged themselves to the Chambers to insist upon the surrender of Antwerp as a preliminary to any fresh negotiations, and he seems to have thought that it would be too unpopular a step to dismiss them on that account. Stockmar returned to London on August 18. His visit to Brussels had failed in its object, but he still continued to press his views upon King Leopold. A prolongation of the status quo constituted, he argued, no disadvantage to Belgium. Although it was the case that the Dutch held the citadel of Antwerp, which, by the terms of the treaty, should have passed out of their possession, their retention of it was counterbalanced by the Belgian occupation of parts of Limburg and Luxemburg, which, under the conditions of separation, had been assigned to Holland. Moreover, even the absolute Powers were prepared to admit that a continued refusal on the part of the Court of the Hague to evacuate Antwerp, would justify the Belgians in declining to pay their share of the public debt, jointly contracted by the two countries before their separation. Before long, the force of this reasoning began to be appreciated at Brussels, where both Adair and La Tour-Maubourg, the British and French ministers, were using their best endeavours to persuade the King to conform to the wishes of their respective governments. In diplomatic circles the conviction was gaining ground that the King of the Netherlands was merely trifling with the Powers, and that he had still no intention of bringing the negotiations to a conclusion.[241] Should these suspicions prove correct, Leopold probably realized that it must be to his advantage to display a readiness to meet the wishes of the conference, at a time when the members of it would necessarily be heartily disgusted at the dilatory and evasive attitude adopted by the Cabinet of the Hague.

Under the influence of these various considerations his resolution rose to the required point.[242] The Meulinäer government was dismissed, General Goblet was appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs, and powers were transmitted to Van de Weyer to enter into negotiations with the Dutch plenipotentiary upon the basis of the new proposals, Le thème de Lord Palmerston, as they were called by the diplomatists.

Accordingly, on September 20, M. Van de Weyer officially informed the conference that he was authorized to discuss with the Dutch plenipotentiaries the points in dispute between the two countries. But in a note dated the same day, Van Zuylen, ignoring completely the thème de Lord Palmerston, claimed the execution of the treaty on the terms set forth in the Dutch counter proposal of June 30. The conference, thereupon, called upon him definitely to state whether he was empowered to negotiate with Belgium in accordance with the proposals submitted by the British plenipotentiary. To this demand he returned an answer which was unanimously held to be highly unsatisfactory, and, on October 1, in consequence, the representatives of the five Powers met to consider the steps which should now be taken to bring matters to a conclusion. As had been foreseen, it was clear at once that the prospects of arriving at an agreement were hopeless. According to the absolute Powers, coercion must be confined to a declaration authorizing the Belgians to withhold payment of their share of the Dutch-Belgian debt, until the citadel of Antwerp should be handed over to them. France and England, on the other hand, deriding the notion that pressure of this kind would suffice to overcome the obstinacy of the King of the Netherlands, called for the application of sterner measures. To this demand the plenipotentiaries of the northern Powers opposed the irrevocable resolution of their respective Courts not to participate in any hostile acts against Holland. In face of this irreconcilable divergence of opinion, the conference broke up, the representatives of France and England announcing the intention of their governments to take steps to ensure the prompt execution of the terms of the separation treaty.[243]

But, although the concert of the Powers had thus ceased to exist, there was still no distinct understanding between France and England, as to the measures by which the Dutch were to be compelled to evacuate Antwerp. Louis Philippe’s continued inability to reconstruct his Cabinet necessarily increased the reluctance of the British government to agree definitely to combined action with France. When, towards the end of June, the King had become convinced of the necessity of strengthening the ministry his thoughts, in the first place, had turned towards M. Dupin. His oratorical powers, the considerable following which he commanded in the Chamber, and the support which he had given to M. Casimir Périer, furnished excellent reasons for his inclusion in a government which was to carry on the policy of the late President of the Council. But insurmountable difficulties had arisen. It is not clear whether M. Dupin’s objections to joining the Cabinet should be ascribed to conscientious doubts about the future policy of the government, or merely to disappointed ambition, because the King was not prepared to confer upon him the Presidency of the Council. According to one account, he is said to have pointed to his hobnailed boots and to have asked insolently whether they were to debar him from transacting business with “Milord Granville.” But, whatever may have been the true cause of his misunderstanding with his royal master, their discussion unquestionably grew very heated and culminated in the King seizing him by the collar and ejecting him from the room.[244] A strong sense of personal dignity, however, was never a characteristic of Louis Philippe, and, notwithstanding this scene, he soon reopened negotiations with M. Dupin. But this second attempt to arrange matters was attended with no better success than the first. Baffled in this direction, Louis Philippe was compelled to make overtures to the Doctrinaires. Under the Restoration this designation had been applied to a small but distinguished group of politicians, of whom the best known were Royer-Collard, Guizot, Broglie and Barante. All were strong advocates of limited monarchy and, generally speaking, fervent admirers of the British constitution. Their system of government was based upon the theory that, in the modern France which the Revolution had created, no régime could endure which did not depend for support upon the middle classes. The political principles which found favour with the bourgeoisie, constituting as they did a juste milieu between the reactionary sentiments of the old aristocracy and the revolutionary tendencies of the labouring classes, were precisely those to which, in the opinion of the Doctrinaires, all future governments would have to conform. Accordingly, they had accepted the Monarchy of July and both Broglie and Guizot had sat in Louis Philippe’s first Cabinet. But, holding that insurrection must be put down with a firm hand, they had always supported Casimir Périer.

Louis Philippe had no great liking for the Doctrinaires. As strict constitutionalists they were necessarily opposed to the direct interference of the sovereign with the business of the State. Moreover, they were unquestionably unpopular in the country. On this occasion, however, when compelled by circumstances to seek their assistance, he hoped to overcome this last objection by nominating a popular soldier, in the person of Marshal Soult, to the presidency of the council. All through his reign Louis Philippe was inclined to place a military man at the head of the government. Not only were appointments of this kind invariably well received, but he soon discovered that soldiers, brought up in the school of Bonaparte, were seldom troubled with constitutional scruples about the exact position of the sovereign in a limited monarchy. But, at the same time, he was careful to assure Lord Granville that the Marshal’s duties, as President of the Council, would be purely nominal. “Under any circumstances,” said Louis Philippe, “his appointment need excite no apprehensions abroad, his love of peace is notorious, indeed, his description of himself as l’apôtre de la paix has almost passed into a byword.”[245] The Duc de Broglie, the son-in-law of Madame de Stael, into whose hands the King proposed to confide the portfolio of Foreign Affairs, was a cultivated man but of reserved and somewhat displeasing manners. He enjoyed, however, a high reputation for honourable dealing and integrity of purpose and was, moreover, on terms of friendship with Lord Lansdowne and other prominent members of the Whig party. His selection, therefore, might be expected to meet with the cordial approval of the British government.

The Duc de Broglie, however, was not prepared to accept unconditionally the task which the King proposed he should undertake. After one of his first interviews with Louis Philippe he met Lord Granville at Talleyrand’s house in the Rue Saint-Florentin and explained the situation to him. The French public, he told the ambassador, were weary of the interminable negotiations about Belgium, and it was only by a military exploit, such as the capture of the citadel of Antwerp, that the Cabinet would be able to obtain the support of the Chamber. It was useless to attempt to disguise the grave character of the situation. Were the government to be overthrown by a parliamentary majority, the King would be forced to depend upon the Left, and be rendered powerless to control the violence of extreme members of the party. The Duke went on to assure him that he was not ignorant of the suspicion with which the entry of a French army into Belgium would be regarded. There was no pledge, no guarantee, however, which he would not be prepared to give that, eight days after the capture of the citadel, every French soldier should be withdrawn from Belgium.[246] This conversation had been regarded by Lord Granville as quite unofficial, but, on the following day, October 5, Sébastiani informed him that “the King purposed to defer concluding his ministerial arrangements until the British ambassador should be enabled to state the opinion of his government, respecting the conditions under which alone the Duc de Broglie would undertake the direction of foreign affairs.”[247] It is evident, however, that other counsels must have prevailed seeing that, on the morning of October 11, the Moniteur contained the names of the members of the new Cabinet. The despatches of Mareuil, the chargé d’affaires in London, respecting the intentions of the British government, were, it may be presumed, considered so satisfactory as to render further assurances unnecessary. The ministry presided over by Marshal Soult, assisted by four such men as Broglie, Guizot, Humann, and Thiers, could almost aspire to the name of “a government of all the talents.”

The British government was in a difficult situation. The elections were impending, and a Reformed Parliament, bent upon retrenchment and the settlement of domestic questions, was little likely to regard with favour any policy which might conceivably lead to serious complications with foreign Powers. The very indifferent display of the Belgians, in their short campaign of the year before, had deprived them of all popular sympathy. In commercial circles, especially, the idea of embarking upon hostilities against England’s old allies, the Dutch, was strongly deprecated.[248] Although the unreasonable attitude of the King of the Netherlands, during the past twelve months, had alienated from him the support of The Times[249] and of many persons who derived their opinions from its columns, there was unquestionably something to be said upon his behalf. He had adhered to the protocols of January 20 and January 27, 1831, which the plenipotentiaries had declared must form the basis of any separation treaty. Nevertheless, in order to conciliate the Belgians, they had gone back upon their decision, and both the convention of the eighteen articles and the separation treaty of November 14, 1831, had been framed upon different conditions.

The Tories had always supported the Dutch, and during the stormy months which had preceded the passing of the Reform Bill, had delivered some damaging attacks upon the foreign policy of the government. It was certain that they would vehemently denounce any combined action with France in the Dutch-Belgian question. Nor would it be politic to disregard their attacks and merely to treat them as the venomous outburst of party animosity. Notwithstanding that the republicans had been crushed in the streets of Paris and that the Carlist rebellion in La Vendée had been stamped out, the situation in France undoubtedly presented many disquieting symptoms. The hiding place of the Duchesse de Berri was still undiscovered, and her presence in the west prevented the complete restoration of tranquillity. The great difficulty which Louis Philippe was experiencing in forming a government of moderate men afforded food for yet more serious reflection. The possibility could not be ignored that, in the near future, he might be compelled to select his ministers from the Left—from the party, the leading members of which proclaimed unceasingly that the treaties of 1815 must be abrogated and that Belgium must be united to France.

King William IV., moreover, was strongly opposed to hostile action against Holland. The “Jack Tar animosity”[250] which he always entertained for the French blazed up afresh at the notion of England and France engaging upon joint operations in the Low Countries. The King’s dislike to the policy of his ministers was encouraged by the Howes and the Fitzclarences,[251] who used their best endeavours to persuade him to refuse his consent to all measures of coercion. In view of the little sympathy which the cause of Belgium evoked in the country, and of the many difficulties by which they were beset, Lords Grey and Palmerston might not improbably have felt disposed to adopt some middle course, more in harmony with the views of the Court and of the absolute Powers. But a refusal on their part to resort to force, in order to obtain the execution of the treaty, would not have restrained the French from beginning hostilities. “I should deceive your Lordship,”wrote Granville on October 19, “were I to hold out any expectation that the British government, by withholding its concurrence, could prevent a French army from entering Belgium.”[252] It was to be apprehended, however, that a refusal of the English Cabinet to join with France in the application of coercion to Holland might lead to the resignation of the Duc de Broglie. In that case it was more than probable that the direction of French policy, at a most important moment, might pass from the hands of a statesman of moderate views into those of some politician of advanced opinions, in whom it would be impossible to feel the same confidence. This was a consideration which, without doubt, carried the greatest weight with the English ministers and exercised a deciding influence over their resolutions.

It was soon apparent that the withdrawal of their plenipotentiaries from the conference would be the extent of the support which the Northern Courts purposed to give to the King of the Netherlands. The neutral attitude, which the Tsar had promised Lord Durham he should adopt, rendered it certain that Austria would not move a man to the assistance of Holland. Metternich was much concerned at the recrudescence of a demand for more Liberal institutions in Germany, a state of affairs which had called forth from the Diet fresh decrees of a repressive character. The prevailing unrest, however, made it the more desirable that the Dutch-Belgian question, with all the possibilities of danger attaching to it, should be promptly settled. Furthermore, the burden of military establishments was already grievously straining the Imperial exchequer.[253] But, although Metternich had no thought of opposing the action of the constitutional Powers in the Low Countries, he chafed bitterly at the undignified attitude which his Court was compelled to adopt. At one time he would impute the whole blame for the situation which had arisen to the plenipotentiaries at the conference who, by manifesting too plainly their dread of war, had allowed Palmerston to see that he might, without danger, conduct matters as he chose.[254] At other times the Cabinet of Berlin was the object of his fretful complaints. Had Prussia on the first outbreak of the insurrection at Brussels marched an army into the Low Countries, the revolution would have been stamped out, and all the subsequent trouble would have been avoided. France, in that case, he professed to believe, might have threatened, but would never have dared to intervene.[255]

The break-up of the conference and the intention avowed by the two constitutional Powers of expelling the Dutch from Antwerp, although not unexpected, caused considerable perturbation at Berlin. Ancillon, the chief minister, declared that Prussia would agree to the weekly deduction of a million florins from Belgium’s share of the debt due to Holland, for so long a period as the Dutch should retain possession of the citadel of Antwerp. Nor would his Court be prepared seriously to oppose a blockade of the Scheldt by the two maritime Powers. The entry of a French army into the Low Countries, however, was a different matter, and one which would compel Prussia to take steps to safeguard her interests. But, neither the angry language of M. Ancillon at Berlin nor the veiled threats indulged in by Baron Werther in Paris, excited any real apprehension. Nevertheless, as both the French and English governments were sincerely desirous of conciliating the absolute Powers, it was resolved to propose that, pending the settlement of the Dutch-Belgian question, Prussia should occupy Venlo and that part of Limburg which the treaty had assigned to Holland.[256]

It was not until October 22 that the convention, to regulate the conditions under which France and England were to apply coercion to Holland, was signed in London. The French government chafed impatiently at this delay, for which King William’s reluctance to agree to the measures advocated by his ministers was chiefly responsible. Notwithstanding Talleyrand’s[257] explanations of the delicate situation in which Lord Grey was placed, the Duc de Broglie, on October 21, informed Lord Granville that his government could wait no longer. The very existence of the Cabinet, he assured him, was at stake. Unless he were to be in a position to announce to the Chambers, which were about to reassemble, that definite steps were to be taken in order to expel the Dutch from Antwerp, he and his colleagues would assuredly be driven from office. If no news were received from London within the next twenty-four hours, the Cabinet, he had no doubt, would resolve to march an army against Antwerp, in the event of the King of the Netherlands refusing to comply with a summons to evacuate the citadel. This resolution would, however, be at once transmitted to London, and would be kept entirely secret until the British government should have had time to reply to it. But, to the great joy of Louis Philippe and his ministers, the arrival, on October 29, of the convention signed in London relieved them from the necessity of deciding upon their course of action, without having previously obtained the concurrence of the English government.[258]

By the terms of the convention of October 22, 1832, the King of the Netherlands was to be summoned to enter into an engagement by November 2 to withdraw his troops, before the 12th of the same month, from the territory which the separation treaty had adjudged to Belgium. Should he refuse to comply, France and England agreed to lay an embargo upon the Dutch shipping within their respective harbours, to order their cruisers to seize all Dutch vessels at sea, and to blockade the coast of Holland with their combined fleets. If, by November 15, the required evacuation should not yet have taken place, a French army would enter Belgium. But its operations were to be limited strictly to the capture of the citadel of Antwerp and the forts dependent upon it, and, when this result should have been attained, it was to withdraw immediately. At the same time, a note was to be addressed to the government at Brussels calling for the evacuation of Venlo and those places still occupied by Belgium, which, under the provisions of the separation treaty, had been assigned to Holland.[259] This demand, however, would be of a purely formal character, and was to be made upon the understanding that it need only be complied with, should the King of the Netherlands agree to the concessions required of him.[260]

Immediately upon receipt of the convention in Paris, the French fleet at Cherbourg was ordered to unite with the British squadron at Spithead. This junction was duly effected, and, on November 4, the King of the Netherlands having declined to comply with the demand which had been presented to him, the combined fleets set sail for the mouth of the Scheldt, whilst, two days later, both governments laid an embargo upon the Dutch shipping within their ports. The Duc de Broglie, in the meanwhile, had instructed La Tour-Maubourg, the French minister at Brussels, to negotiate a convention for the entry of a French army into Belgium. The French government had always insisted that the operations, for the reduction of the citadel of Antwerp, must be carried out exclusively by its own troops. The Belgian army was to be entirely separated from them, and was to do no more than hold itself in readiness to repel an invasion, should the Dutch make an incursion across their frontiers. King Leopold reluctantly assented to these conditions, which necessarily deprived his people of an excellent opportunity of wiping out their humiliations of the year before. It came, therefore, as a disagreeable surprise when, on the occasion of the exchange of the ratifications of the convention, La Tour-Maubourg handed in a statement reserving to the French government the right of demanding payment for the expenses of the expedition. This claim, it was afterwards explained, would not be enforced immediately, but would be allowed to stand over until some future occasion. In Palmerston’s opinion, however, the fact that payment was to be deferred made the demand no less objectionable. Were it to be admitted, Belgium must necessarily be placed in a position of dangerous dependence upon France. His vigorous protests achieved the desired result. After some discussion the French government agreed to abandon its claim for the repayment of its expenses.[261] In all other respects matters proceeded with perfect smoothness. In accordance with the terms of the convention, on November 16th, a French force of 60,000 men, under the command of Marshal Gérard, crossed the Belgian frontier and laid siege to the citadel of Antwerp, the Duc d’Orléans and the Duc de Nemours, the two eldest sons of Louis Philippe, accompanying the headquarters staff of the army of operations.

In London the application of coercion of so vigorous a nature was far from evoking the universal applause which it called forth in Paris. Among the general public the entry of Marshal Gérard’s army into Belgium was regarded with suspicion, and a meeting of London merchants was held, and a petition was forwarded to the King, praying that hostile measures might not be taken against the Dutch. The Tories openly declared that they placed all their hopes in General Chassé, the commandant of the citadel of Antwerp. If only that gallant officer could contrive to repel the French, the Grey Cabinet, they conceived, might be forced to resign. Possibly there were sanguine members of the party who fancied that the prowess of a Dutch general might pave the way to the repeal of the Reform Act. In the meantime all their sympathies went out to a drunken sailor who, from the dock in the police-court, proclaimed the union of the British flag with the tricolour to be a national disgrace.[262]

The proposal that Prussia should occupy Venlo and parts of Limburg, and the limitations which the convention of October 22 set upon the scope of the French operations, somewhat reconciled the German Powers to the forcible ejection of the Dutch from Antwerp.[263] Nevertheless, after having in the first instance declared its readiness to take temporary possession of portions of the disputed territory, the Court of Berlin, at the instigation, it was suspected, of the Tsar, declined to entertain the suggestion. Inasmuch as the acquisition of the citadel of Antwerp by the Belgians depended upon the success of the French arms, they could not reasonably be expected to yield up, even to a third party, any territory which they actually occupied, before the operations under Marshal Gérard should have achieved their desired result. Accordingly, in the formal proposal of Talleyrand and Palmerston, which was submitted to Bülow on October 30, it was provided that the Prussian occupation of Venlo and parts of Limburg and Luxemburg should begin, only when the French expedition should have accomplished its object. Ancillon, however, declared that this suggestion was altogether inadmissible. Prussia, it was true, had signified her willingness to hold certain districts of the Low Countries. But she had only consented to take temporary possession of them for the security of her own interests during the French operations against Antwerp. To occupy any portion of Holland, after the withdrawal of Marshal Gérard’s army, would amount, in effect, to the application of military pressure to the King of the Netherlands to compel him to accept the conditions of the separation treaty. Such a proceeding would be wholly inconsistent with the policy which the Court of Berlin had invariably pursued, and to which it was resolved to adhere. Prussia, therefore, would content herself with the concentration of an army of observation upon the Meuse, for so long a period as the French might see fit to remain in Belgium.[264]

In the meantime the siege of the citadel of Antwerp had been proceeding steadily, although hardly with the rapidity which the British government, in its impatience to see the affair concluded, could have wished.[265] At last, after having sustained a very heavy bombardment and having done all that honour required, General Chassé, on December 22, agreed to surrender. But the two detached forts of Lillo and Liefkenshoek, which, owing to the opening of the dykes, could only have been reduced by a long blockade, were not included in the capitulation. The arrangements connected with the transference of the fortress to the Belgian military authorities were quickly carried out, and, on December 27, the French army began its homeward march.

The operations of Marshal Gérard had placed the Belgians in possession of the citadel of Antwerp, and had infused vitality into the Soult government, but they had not succeeded in overcoming the reluctance of the King of the Netherlands to adhere to the separation treaty. It remained to be seen whether the embargo which France and England continued to maintain, and the loss entailed by the non-payment of the Belgian share of the Netherlands debt, would suffice to break down his obstinacy. After this state of affairs had continued for some four months distinct symptoms began to manifest themselves in Dutch commercial circles of discontent at the prolongation of the crisis. About this same time also the Russian and Prussian Cabinets became imbued with the notion that the conclusion of the Dutch-Belgian affair might lead to a separation between France and England. Their intimate union had grown up in the course of the negotiations, the final settlement of the question, it was hoped, might cause them to drift asunder. The agents of the northern Courts at the Hague were, accordingly, instructed to urge the King to terminate definitely his troublesome quarrel with Belgium and the maritime Powers.[266]

This combination of internal and external pressure was more than the Dutch Cabinet could withstand. On May 21, 1833 a convention was signed in London by the plenipotentiaries of Holland, on the one side, and those of Great Britain and France, on the other, stipulating that, so long as the relations between Holland and Belgium should not be settled by a definite treaty, His Netherlands Majesty would never begin hostilities against Belgium, and would leave the navigation of the Scheldt entirely free. France and England in return engaged to remove the embargo, immediately upon the ratification of this convention.[267]

The convention of May 21, 1833, was, in effect, an agreement for the maintenance of the status quo. It constituted, however, a condition of affairs very favourable to the Belgians. The retention of the districts of Limburg and Luxemburg, which, according to the twenty-four articles, should have formed part of Holland, compensated them amply for the small inconveniences imposed upon them by the refusal of the Court of the Hague to acknowledge their independence and the sovereignty of their King. Five years later, in 1838, this fact was brought home to them when, the King of the Netherlands having announced his intention of adhering to the separation treaty, the Powers insisted upon the surrender to him of those territories. By that time, however, Leopold had obtained the recognition of all the great European Courts with the exception of that of Russia, whilst, relieved from the fear of aggression on the part of the Dutch, his kingdom had already begun to thrive and to prosper greatly.

It was the firm and skilful hand of Palmerston which had guided the conference through a sea of dangers to the creation of a free and independent Belgium. But if the chief credit for the successful termination of these protracted negotiations should be given to the English statesman, second honours, without doubt, should be assigned to Talleyrand. The veteran diplomatist was no friend to Belgium, but he was a consistent supporter of the British alliance. The exceptional position, which his age and his reputation permitted him to assume, enabled him on many occasions to uphold successfully the English policy against his own sovereign and his government. In 1814, at the Congress of Vienna, friendship with England had been the object of his untiring efforts. But, if he looked upon a close understanding with that Power as highly advantageous to the restored Bourbons, he regarded it as a matter of vital necessity to the Monarchy of July. An intimate union with England, he was convinced, was Louis Philippe’s best security against the malevolent hostility of the Northern Courts.

The Belgian conference had shown that, in the person of Lord Palmerston, a worthy successor to Canning had entered the arena of European politics. As was the case with that statesman, Palmerston soon came to be regarded with the bitterest dislike in the Courts and Cabinets of the absolute Powers. Metternich hoped devoutly that the Tories might soon be back in office, and, not without good reason, expressed a pious wish that never again might a conference take place in London.[268] The real weakness of the absolute Courts had transpired all too clearly in the course of the negotiations.

[CHAPTER V]

MEHEMET ALI

Scarcely had the withdrawal of the French troops from Belgium been effected, than grave news was received from the east. At Konieh, in Asia Minor, on December 21, 1832, Ibrahim Pasha, the son of Mehemet Ali, the rebellious viceroy of Egypt, was reported to have inflicted so signal a defeat upon the Turkish army, as to place it beyond the Sultan’s power to resist his advance to the shores of the Bosphorus. The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, with all the fearful complications which it would entail, appeared to be upon the point of taking place.

The Sultan, Mahmud II., had always been keenly alive to the necessity of remedying the decrepit condition of his Empire. But only a Peter the Great could have eradicated effectually the many evils from which Turkey was suffering, and Mahmud was merely an Oriental despot. All through his reign, however, he set himself resolutely to destroy the almost independent power which some of his Pashas had begun to assume over the provinces which they governed. He imposed the European dress upon his ministers and officials, he introduced the French system of drill into his army, and he exterminated the janissaries, when they rebelled against his innovations. Even at a time of profound peace reforms of this superficial character could have effected little real improvement. Under the actual conditions under which they were carried out they proved a cause of anarchy and a further source of weakness to the State.

In 1821 the Sublime Porte was called upon to deal at the same time with the rebellion of Ali, the celebrated “Lion of Janina,” and with the more serious national rising of the Greeks. After the struggle in the Morea had been carried on for three years, with ruthless barbarity on both sides, the Sultan was reluctantly compelled to invoke the aid of his too powerful vassal, the Pasha of Egypt. The intervention of the well-equipped fleet of Mehemet Ali deprived the Greeks of the sea power, which had been the secret of their success. Nevertheless, Ibrahim’s invasion of the Morea in 1825, by compelling the Powers to interfere, gave Greece her independence. The romantic episodes of the struggle, the classic memories with which the theatre of war was associated, had gained for the insurgents the popular sympathies of the western nations. The philhellenism of the French and English people gradually drove Villèle[269] and Canning to concert measures for terminating the conflict with Nicholas, whose subjects were eager to strike a blow on behalf of their co-religionists.

Negotiations proceeded slowly, but, on July 6, 1827, Great Britain, France and Russia bound themselves by treaty to obtain the autonomy of the Morea. Moreover, in a secret article, it was provided that an armistice was to be proposed to both sides to be enforced by such means as might “suggest themselves to the prudence of the High Contracting Parties.” Three months later, on October 20, the allied fleets of the three Christian Powers, under the command of Codrington, the senior admiral, were face to face with the Mussulman armada in the Bay of Navarino. Immediate hostilities were probably not intended, but a dispute about the position of a fire-ship led to an exchange of shots. Before nightfall the “untoward event” had come to pass—the Turkish and Egyptian fleets had been destroyed completely.

Mahmud in his fury proclaimed a holy war, and declared null and void the convention of Akkerman, which he had recently concluded with Russia for the settlement of certain points, long in dispute between the two Powers. Canning was dead and Wellington was determined to abstain rigidly from anything in the nature of hostile action against Turkey. Nevertheless, under the conditions which had been created by Canning’s departure from the traditional policy of his party, he could do nothing to prevent Nicholas from appealing to the last argument of princes. On May 6, 1828, the Russians crossed the Pruth and the war began, which British and Austrian diplomacy had always striven to avert. The Turks, however, in a struggle with their hereditary foes displayed unexpected powers of resistance, and it was not until September 14, 1829, when Constantinople appeared to lie at the mercy of the invaders, that peace was concluded at Adrianople.

In accordance with his promises to the Powers, Nicholas had exacted no cession of territory in Europe. But Turkey had been compelled to grant a practical independence to the Danubian principalities, to pay a heavy war indemnity and to surrender to Russia Anapi and Poti on the eastern shore of the Black Sea. Moreover, the Sultan was forced to acknowledge the complete independence of Greece, which was placed under the guarantee of Great Britain, France and Russia. The loss of the Morea was a serious blow to the Porte. Not only was the Turkish navy deprived of its finest recruiting ground, but the countenance given by the Powers to the rising of the Greeks necessarily had a most disturbing effect upon all the Christian subjects of the Sultan.

Whilst the power of the Sultan was thus sensibly diminished, Mehemet Ali, who had taken no part in the Russian war, was preparing to avail himself of the embarrassed condition of the Empire for the prosecution of his own designs. This remarkable man was born at Cawala, a small seaport town in Roumelia, in 1769, the year which gave birth to Napoleon Bonaparte and to Wellington. His father was a yeoman farmer and he himself, in early life, was a small trader in tobacco. In 1798, however, Bonaparte’s descent upon Egypt gave him his opportunity. Young Ali sailed for the country in which he was so rapidly to acquire fame, in the rank of second-in-command to a regiment of Bashi-Bazouks. In the troublous times which followed, his military talents and his statesmanlike qualities soon brought him into prominence. In 1804, the sheikhs of Cairo elected him Pasha, and, two years later, a, firman of the Sultan confirmed their selection. The last obstacle to his complete ascendency over Egypt was removed, on March 1, 1811, by the terrible affair known as the massacre of the Mamelukes. The Beys and chiefs, to the number of 470, were invited to witness the ceremony of investing his second son with the command of the army destined for operations against the Wahabites. These men versed in all the wiles and stratagems of eastern politics complied, and walked blindly into the trap set for them by one who, they must have known, was their deadly enemy. On leaving the citadel of Cairo they were relentlessly shot down by a picked body of the Pasha’s Albanian troops, at a point where the road becomes a narrow winding pathway cut out of the rock. Alone Emin Bey, by blindfolding his horse and by forcing him through a gap and down a high, precipitous bank, succeeded in escaping from the scene of slaughter.[270]

During the next few years Mehemet Ali won a high reputation in the Moslem world by his wars against the Wahabites, and by his deliverance of the Holy Cities of Medina and Mecca from these enemies of the true faith. He had always entertained a great liking and admiration for Europeans, and his experience of French and English troops had impressed him with the superiority of western over eastern methods. As early as 1803 he had begun to build up a fleet, and with the assistance of Colonel Sèves, known in Egypt as Soliman Pasha, a former aide-de-camp of Marshal Ney, he hoped to obtain an army trained and disciplined on a European model. His efforts had been so far crowned with success, that, but for the intervention of the Powers, his son Ibrahim would, unquestionably, have crushed the Greek rebellion.

Mehemet Ali’s curious experiment in state socialism can be discussed more conveniently later on. Suffice it to say that, unsound as was his economic system, and destined as it was largely to contribute to his ultimate undoing, it, for a time, furnished him with ample funds for the prosecution of his ambitious schemes. By nature he appears to have been rather a kind-hearted than a cruel man. To some extent, without doubt, he was an oppressor of the people, yet at the same time he constantly protected them from the ill-treatment and exactions of his officials. But, although he was too large-minded to find any satisfaction in useless tyranny, when he conceived that reasons of state called for their application, he would resort unhesitatingly to the most ruthless measures.[271] In passing judgment on Mehemet Ali, however, it must always be remembered that he was an altogether illiterate man, who had only taught himself to read in middle life by dint of great perseverance. Nor should it be forgotten that Egypt, when he assumed the supreme control, was in a state of confusion and anarchy almost impossible to realize.

It was not loyalty which had prompted Mehemet Ali to assist the Porte to crush the Greek insurrection. In 1822 he had obtained the island of Crete from the Sultan, and the Morea and the pashalics of Syria and Damascus were to have been his rewards in 1825. The intervention of the Powers had deprived him of the Morea, which he had always regarded as one of the gates of Constantinople. After the Russo-Turkish war, however, he felt confident of his ability to take forcible possession of Syria, the eastern avenue of approach to the Imperial city. A quarrel with Abdullah Pasha of Acre furnished him with an excuse for setting his army and his fleet in motion. On November 1, 1831, a force of about 10,000 Egyptians, under Ibrahim, entered Syria and laid siege to the fortress of Saint-Jean d’Acre.

To the commissioner of the Porte sent to remonstrate with him for thus invading a neighbouring pashalic, without the permission of the Sultan, Mehemet Ali loudly protested the loyalty of his intentions. The presumptuous Abdullah, he swore, had “insulted his beard whitened in the service of his sovereign,” and, in the interests of the Porte, he now proposed to chastise his arrogance. These assurances were, however, estimated at their true value, and neither the Sultan nor his ministers had had any doubts that the Pasha was now launched upon a career of conquest.[272] The destruction of his powerful vassal had, for many years past, been an object very near to Mahmud’s heart. To accomplish this purpose, he was prepared to strain to their uttermost the exhausted resources of the empire. His favourite, Hosrew, the Seraskier,[273] was the sworn enemy of Mehemet Ali, and both the Grand Vizier and the Capudan Pasha[274] were the creatures of this minister.[275] On the other hand, however, the Ulemas and the Mullahs argued in favour of an arrangement with the rebellious viceroy, even at the price of large concessions. The three guaranteeing Powers had settled upon the boundaries of the new Kingdom of Greece, and Sir Stratford Canning was about to arrive at Constantinople to arrange the final conditions of separation with the Porte. But, were peace to be maintained with the Pasha of Egypt, contended the true Mussulman party, a united front could be turned to Europe, and the concessions demanded, in respect of Greece, might be scornfully rejected.[276]

Notwithstanding his wrath, this consideration appears to have carried some weight with the Sultan. But his hesitation was not of long duration. Hussein Pasha, a former janissary, and Mahmud’s chief instrument in the destruction of his comrades, was appointed to the command of the troops in Syria. No pains were spared to render the army of operations as efficient and as numerous as possible, and, early in May, both Mehemet Ali and Ibrahim were declared outlaws. Meanwhile, the siege of Acre had been proceeding, but the defence was stubborn, and it was not until May 27, 1832, that Ibrahim carried the fortress by storm. The victorious general now set his face northwards. On June 15, Damascus opened its gates, and, on July 9, he defeated the advanced Turkish troops at Homs. A week later, he entered Aleppo, and, on July 29, routed Hussein Pasha himself, who had taken up a strong position near Alexandretta. This victory left him free to pass the Taurus mountains and to enter Asia Minor.

It was to the politic attitude which he had observed towards the people of the country through which he had passed, rather than to any superiority of his Arab troops over the Turks, that the success of Ibrahim’s invasion should be ascribed. In those wild and mountainous districts any resistance on the part of the inhabitants must have greatly impeded the advance of an army. Ibrahim, however, maintained the strictest discipline, and paid promptly for all the requirements of his troops. The people, contrasting his behaviour with the treatment they had been accustomed to experience at the hands of the Turks, were strongly impressed in favour of the Egyptians.[277] The Emir Beshir, the powerful chief of the Lebanon, threw in his lot with the invaders. The warlike Druses and the Maronites tendered Ibrahim their services. Christians were won over by promises of equal rights, and Moslems by the prospect of escaping from Ottoman oppression. Ibrahim’s troops were equipped in European fashion, but there was nothing about their uniform which could offend the most rigid Mussulman. He himself was dressed in the same simple manner as his soldiers, and he affected always to be a strict observer of Turkish customs. Although in private, in the company of the Christian officers of his staff, he would often indulge freely in French wine, in public he was never seen to drink anything stronger than water.[278]

Ibrahim’s rapid succession of victories and his continued advance filled the Sultan with consternation. Having resolved to throw all the resources of the Empire into the struggle with Mehemet Ali he could not afford to quarrel with the Christian Powers. Stratford Canning, accordingly, experienced little difficulty in bringing the Porte to agree to the conditions under which it was proposed that Greece should be separated from Turkey. Soon after his arrival, however, on May 17, in the course of a confidential talk, Mustafa-Effendi, the Sultan’s private secretary, let fall certain expressions indicative of a desire on the part of his master to enter into a close and intimate connection with England.[279] On August 7, 1832, on the occasion of Sir Stratford’s audience for the purpose of taking leave, the Sultan “honoured him with the gift of his portrait suspended by a gold chain and set in brilliants,” a mark of His Highness’ consideration which, the ambassador reported, “was without precedent.”[280] Direct proposals for the conclusion of an alliance between England and Turkey were immediately afterwards made to him both by the Reis-Effendi[281] and by the Sultan himself.[282] Furthermore, M. Maurojeni, the Turkish chargé d’affaires at Vienna, was sent to London to sound the British government upon the subject, and, on October 18, Namic Pasha, a major-general of the Imperial Guard, set out for England with a letter from His Highness to King William IV. praying for naval assistance on the coast of Syria.[283]

Had the decision rested with Palmerston alone it is possible that aid of some kind might have been furnished to the Porte. But the majority of the members of the Cabinet were strongly averse to embarking upon any fresh adventure, while the Belgian question was still unsettled. Moreover, since the conclusion of the great war, the naval establishments had been cut down to so low a point that it would have been highly inconvenient to reinforce the Mediterranean squadron. The British chargé d’affaires at Constantinople was, therefore, instructed to inform the Porte that “naval assistance was a matter of greater difficulty than at first sight it would appear to be.” Nevertheless, the request was regarded as a striking proof of the Sultan’s confidence in British friendship, and His Majesty’s government would at once convey to Mehemet Ali “an expression of regret that he should so far have forgotten what was due to his Sovereign.”[284] This was all the comfort which Mandeville was able to give to the distracted Turkish ministers, at the moment when the news reached Constantinople that the Grand Vizier had been completely defeated at Konieh, that he himself was a prisoner in Ibrahim’s hands and that, in the words of the Reis-Effendi, “the Turkish army existed no longer.”[285]

A few days before the arrival of the news of the disaster at Konieh, the Russian general, Muravieff, suddenly appeared at Constantinople. On December 23 both he and Boutenieff, the Russian ambassador, had a conference with the Reis-Effendi and the Seraskier, and, on the 27th, the general was received in private audience by the Sultan, to whom he presented a letter from the Tsar. No mystery was made of the fact that Muravieff had been charged to proceed to Cairo, to warn Mehemet Ali that, should he persist in refusing to make his submission to the Sultan, he would bring down upon himself the wrath of the Emperor Nicholas. But both Mandeville and Varennes, the French chargé d’affaires, were soon satisfied, notwithstanding the secrecy with which the Russian proceedings were surrounded, that an offer of military assistance had been tendered to the Porte. Their information was correct.[286] Boutenieff had offered to place a squadron of the Black Sea fleet at the Sultan’s disposal, but his Highness, with profuse expressions of gratitude, had declined the proffered assistance. Rather than accept help from Russia, he was prepared to humble his pride and to send Halil Pasha to attempt to arrange a settlement with his rebellious vassal. On January 5, 1833, this decision was conveyed to Boutenieff, whereupon Muravieff at once set out upon his mission to Mehemet Ali, the Sultan’s envoy, Halil Pasha, having already started upon his way to Alexandria.

There had, for a long time past, been a disposition in England to regard French relations with Egypt with suspicion. Ever since Bonaparte’s descent upon the country, Egypt was believed to have a sentimental attraction for the French. Now that by their acquisition of Algiers, they had gained a footing upon the African shore of the Mediterranean, this feeling of distrust had increased. It was remembered that Polignac had seriously entertained the notion of subsidizing Mehemet Ali and of employing a corps of Egyptian troops in the Algerian expedition. During the course of Ibrahim’s campaign in Syria, both Stratford Canning and Mandeville had looked with sour disapproval upon Varennes’ efforts to persuade the Porte to allow France to mediate between the Sultan and the Pasha.[287] But both the French and English governments were agreed as to the necessity of preserving the Ottoman Empire and were resolved to prevent, if possible, the Porte from falling completely under the influence of Russia. The Duc de Broglie, when he learnt that offers of assistance had been made to the Sultan by Boutenieff, at once suggested the joint mediation of France and England in the Turco-Egyptian dispute, and was greatly disappointed to find that his proposal met with no response in London. Palmerston, for the present, was content to direct Lord Ponsonby to proceed from Naples to Constantinople, as ambassador to the Porte, and to despatch Colonel Campbell to Egypt, in the capacity of British agent and consul-general, with instructions to communicate “freely and confidentially” with the French and Austrian representatives at Alexandria.[288]

It was one of the ironies of the situation that, at this time, when Russia was suspected of intending to put into execution long-matured schemes against the integrity of the Ottoman Empire, her traditional policy towards Turkey had in fact been completely reversed. As far back as the year 1802 the minister, Kotchuby, taking as his text Montesquieu’s doctrine that no Power can have a better neighbour than a weak State, had drawn up a memorandum to prove that the preservation, not the destruction, of Turkey should be the object of Russian policy. More recently, in 1829, when the terms of the peace of Adrianople were under consideration, the members of the eastern committee had endorsed Kotchuby’s views, and the Tsar Nicholas had reluctantly adopted their conclusions.[289] Muravieff’s instructions had been drawn strictly in this spirit. Mehemet Ali, Nesselrode laid down, must not be allowed to reach Constantinople and to overthrow the existing régime. Such a development would be opposed to the Imperial policy, which aimed at maintaining Turkey in her present “stationary condition.” Should the Pasha succeed in establishing himself at Constantinople, Russia would be placed “in contact with a strong and victorious Power instead of a weak and defeated neighbour.”[290]

Meanwhile, Ibrahim who was still at Konieh was believed to be on the point of moving forward to Brusa.[291] Both to Colonel Duhamel, Muravieff’s aide-de-camp, and to a messenger despatched to him by M. de Varennes, he returned the same answer. He was a soldier and must obey his orders, his father alone could decide upon his movements. He should be sorry to displease the Emperor Nicholas, but he must abide by his instructions.[292] Ibrahim’s uncompromising attitude overcame the Sultan’s hesitation. Boutenieff was informed that the promised naval assistance would be thankfully accepted and that, in addition, His Highness craved for the despatch of 30,000 Russian troops for the defence of his capital. The Sultan knew well that to invoke the military protection of the Tsar must lower him in the eyes of his subjects and of every true Mussulman. But, upon the whole, he regarded it as less dangerous than to allow Ibrahim to advance to the shores of the Bosphorus. It was in vain, therefore, that Varennes and Mandeville exerted themselves to induce the Porte to withdraw the demand for Russian help.[293] “A drowning man,” said the Reis-Effendi, “will clutch at a serpent.”[294]

Early in February Muravieff was back at Constantinople. The terms which Halil Pasha had been empowered to offer had not been accepted, but Mehemet Ali had promised Muravieff that, for the present, the Egyptian army should not advance beyond Kiutayeh.[295] Upon the news that no immediate forward movement on the part of Ibrahim was to be apprehended, both the French and British ministers again endeavoured to persuade the Porte to ask that the despatch of the Russian succour might be delayed. According to the Reis-Effendi such a request was actually made to Boutenieff, who replied that he had no ship at his disposal to send to Sevastopol, although a Russian brig of war was at the time at anchor in front of the embassy.[296] On the other hand, accounts of these proceedings, derived from Russian sources, state that the question of postponing the departure of the fleet was never seriously raised.[297] Be that as it may, on February 20, 1833, the Russian squadron, consisting of four sail of the line, three large frigates, a corvette and a brig, entered the Bosphorus and anchored at Buyukdere.

Three days earlier, on February 17, Admiral Roussin, the newly appointed French ambassador to the Sublime Porte, arrived at Constantinople. Upon the appearance of the Russian fleet he at once instructed his dragoman to warn the Porte that, unless the admiral in command were requested to depart within twenty-four hours, he should consider his mission at an end. At the same time he tried to induce the British minister to make a similar representation. Mandeville, however, could only reply that he had no authority “to hold language of so high and energetic a character.” Roussin appears to have seen very soon that he had acted with undue precipitation, and that his own withdrawal would not hasten by an hour the departure of the Russian ships. But his next step was scarcely more judicious. On the 21st, he affixed his signature to a document guaranteeing that Mehemet Ali would make peace with the Sultan, upon the terms proposed by Halil Pasha and which had already been rejected. In return the Sublime Porte was to undertake to refuse “foreign succour” of any kind in the future.[298]

It was hoped to satisfy Mehemet Ali by conferring upon him the government of the districts of Acre, Naplous, Jerusalem and Tripoli. He, however, was resolved to extend his rule over the whole of Syria, and to acquire, in addition, the pashalic of Adana and the seaports of Selefkeh and Alaia. Adana possessed an especial value in his eyes, by reason of its forests from which he proposed to obtain the timber necessary for the building of his ships. He understood the difficulties of the Sultan’s position and he was well informed about the rivalries of the Powers.[299] He perceived clearly that he was never likely again to have so favourable an opportunity for pressing his demands upon the Porte. On March 23, accordingly, Reshid Bey arrived at Constantinople bringing a letter in which Mehemet Ali rejected scornfully Admiral Roussin’s proposals. He would rather, he declared, meet with an honourable death than submit to be deprived of territories which were his by right of conquest. At the same time, Ibrahim was directed to march on Constantinople if, within five days of Reshid’s arrival, the Sultan should not have agreed to the required concessions.[300]

Terrible consternation prevailed in the Seraglio, and great was the perplexity at the French and British embassies. Roussin counselled a complete surrender to Mehemet Ali, and Mandeville had no alternative to propose. It was decided, finally, that a Turkish plenipotentiary should proceed, accompanied by M. de Varennes, to Ibrahim’s headquarters at Kiutayeh with authority to offer the pashalics of Damascus and Aleppo.[301] Ibrahim, however, would not entertain the idea of a compromise, and Varennes could only report the failure of his mission and advise the cession of Adana. In opposition to the recommendations of Mandeville, but with the approbation of Admiral Roussin, the Sultan consented to yield up to his vassal this valuable district.[302] The preliminaries of this agreement, known as the Convention of Kiutayeh were signed on April 8, 1833, and Ibrahim forthwith began his preparations for retiring into Syria.

In the meantime, however, on April 6, a second division of the Russian fleet had arrived in the Bosphorus and 5000 troops had been disembarked on the Asiatic shore opposite to the British embassy at Therapia. The Tsar Nicholas was greatly incensed at Admiral Roussin’s attempts to induce the Porte to ask for the withdrawal of his squadron. Pozzo di Borgo was, in consequence, charged to protest vigorously in Paris against the admiral’s conduct, and the complaints of the Russian ambassador were warmly supported by his colleagues of Austria and Prussia. Broglie, although he might allow Lord Granville to perceive that he was not altogether convinced of the wisdom of Roussin’s actions, invariably met the representations of the agents of the Northern Courts with the reply that the admiral’s conduct was fully approved of by his government.[303] At Constantinople Boutenieff declared emphatically that nothing short of the complete evacuation of Asia Minor by the Egyptians would induce his Imperial master to recall either his fleet or his troops to Sevastopol.[304]

When the list of the pashalics to which Mehemet Ali had been appointed was officially made public, it was seen that no mention had been made of the province of Adana. Upon hearing of this breach of the Convention of Kiutayeh, Ibrahim promptly arrested the homeward march of his army.[305] A few days later, however, on April 22, a third division of the Russian fleet and a second detachment of troops entered the Bosphorus. These reinforcements, which should have added to the Sultan’s powers of resistance, became, in effect, the determining cause of his decision finally to give way about Adana. Ever since the entry of Ibrahim into Asia Minor, the people of Constantinople had been deprived of their usual sources of supply. The necessity of provisioning the Russian fleet and corps d’armée had greatly aggravated the difficulties of the situation. Confronted by the prospect of a famine and a rising of the populace, Mahmud elected to humble his pride and to obtain the withdrawal of the Egyptians at the price of the surrender of Adana.[306] Yet he could not bring himself openly to nominate his rebellious vassal to the governorship of this important province. Ibrahim was, in consequence, officially appointed collector of the crown revenues of the district. Mehemet Ali, provided he could exercise an effective dominion over Adana, was content, in this instance, to waive his claim to be styled its Pasha. In point of fact he was delighted that matters had been so satisfactorily arranged. Under Campbell’s threat that, should he persist in claiming Adana, the coast of Egypt would be blockaded by the British fleet, he had actually announced his intention of withdrawing his demand, when the news arrived that the Sultan had invested his son with the administration of the territory in dispute.[307] Relations of amity were thus once more officially established between the Sublime Porte and the Pasha.

On May 1 Lord Ponsonby, the newly appointed British ambassador, arrived at Constantinople, preceding by three days Count Orloff, the generalissimo of the Russian military and naval forces in the Black Sea and the Bosphorus, and Ambassador-Extraordinary to the Sublime Porte. His appointment was due to the Tsar’s desire to be represented at Constantinople by some one who could be depended upon resolutely to oppose Admiral Roussin. Boutenieff appears to have been considered as somewhat deficient both in energy and strength of character. Orloff had been furnished with very wide powers, but he was charged to regard the task of convincing the Sultan and his ministers that their safety entirely depended upon the degree of support which, in the future, the Tsar might be disposed to afford them, as the primary object of his mission. He must be admitted to have carried out his instructions most faithfully. From the day of his arrival Russian influence was supreme at the Porte and in the Divan. Roussin’s request that French war ships should be allowed to pass through the Dardanelles was peremptorily refused. Ponsonby saw clearly that, for the time being, he must submit to be overshadowed completely by the Russian ambassador. For the present he could only gaze moodily from his windows at the Russian encampment in the valley of Unkiar-Skelessi and endeavour to restrain his French colleague from affording Orloff any excuse for delaying the departure of his troops. At last, on July 9 and 10, the Egyptian withdrawal behind the Taurus mountains having been completely carried out, the Tsar’s soldiers were embarked and his ships sailed out of the Bosphorus.[308]

For some weeks prior to the departure of the Russian expedition, it had been reported that an offensive and defensive treaty was on the point of being concluded between the Tsar and the Sultan.[309] The truth of this rumour was confirmed after Orloff had quitted Constantinople. It would appear that it was the Sultan himself who first suggested an alliance, at an audience accorded to Orloff shortly after his arrival, and that Ahmed Pasha acted as the intermediary between the palace and the Russian embassy in the very secret negotiations which followed. The diplomatic instrument, known as the Treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi, concluded between the Porte and Russia on July 8, 1833, for a duration of eight years, consisted of six public and one secret article. The public articles merely proclaimed the existence of peace and friendship between the two Empires and provided for their mutual succour in case of need. The whole importance of the treaty lay in the secret clause in which it was stipulated that, inasmuch as Russia had no intention of exercising her right to ask for military assistance, the Porte, in return, would, “upon demand and in accordance with the principle of reciprocity,”[310] close the Dardanelles to the warships of all nations.

It appears that, when it became necessary to inform the Turkish ministers of the projected treaty, they one and all evinced the greatest repugnance to the idea of an alliance with their hereditary enemies. But, at the news that the British fleet was approaching the Dardanelles, they withdrew their objections. They had besought the British government for naval assistance in the struggle with Mehemet Ali, and their request had been refused. The arrival, on June 25, in the Bay of Tenedos of Sir Pulteney Malcolm’s squadron, which, a few months earlier, could have intercepted the communications with Egypt and changed the course of the campaign, now only served to revive painful recollections of Admiral Duckworth’s proceedings in 1807.[311]

The question of access to the sea, which bathes the coasts of the richest provinces of the Empire, must necessarily be a matter of the highest importance to Russia. The principle of regarding the Black Sea as a mare clausum found a place in the treaty concluded between the Porte and Russia, on December 23, 1798. It was again inserted into the treaty of September 23, 1805, but with this important addition—that to the Russian fleet was granted a right of passage to the Mediterranean through the straits. These conditions, however, had been terminated by the outbreak of hostilities in 1806, and in the subsequent treaty of peace, signed at Bucharest on May 10, 1812, no mention was made of the special privilege which Russia had obtained seven years before. Again in the treaty of peace concluded between Great Britain and Turkey, on January 5, 1809, England undertook to observe “the ancient rule of the Ottoman Empire,” which declared the straits of Constantinople closed to the warships of the Powers. But this arrangement, which had ever since been regarded as a law of nations, was suddenly terminated by the act, signed at the palace of Unkiar-Skelessi, restoring Russia to the favoured position which she had enjoyed for a brief space of time in 1805. No specific mention, it was true, had been made of her right of passage to and from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. Nevertheless, although for obvious reasons both Russian and Turkish ministers might prefer to elude a direct statement on the subject, they unquestionably placed this interpretation upon Orloff’s treaty.[312] It was in this light also that it was looked upon by Lord Palmerston and the Duc de Broglie.

At the suggestion of Broglie,[313] as it would appear, the French and English governments resolved to instruct their representatives at Constantinople to advise the Porte not to ratify the treaty. But, should the Sultan confirm the signatures of his plenipotentiaries, they were to hand in a note, pointing out that by the treaty the relations of Turkey with Russia seemed to have been placed upon an entirely new footing. In the event of this changed situation leading to the armed interference of Russia in the internal affairs of Turkey, France and Great Britain were resolved to act as the circumstances might appear to require, “equally as if the treaty above mentioned were not in existence.”[314] Directly it had been reported that this note had been presented to the Porte, a copy of it was transmitted to the French and British ministers at St. Petersburg, for communication to the Imperial Cabinet. Nesselrode in reply contended that the treaty was purely defensive and aimed solely at the preservation of Turkey. It had, it was true, changed the relations of the two Empires towards each other. It had converted a state of hostility and suspicion into one of friendship and confidence. His Majesty the Emperor was determined, should circumstances demand it, faithfully to carry out the obligations which he had contracted, “as though the declaration contained in the French and British notes did not exist.”[315] In return Lord Palmerston reiterated the dissatisfaction with which the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi was regarded in England. This despatch was in due course communicated to Count Nesselrode by Mr. Bligh, the British chargé d’affaires, who, as he placed it in the hands of the Russian chancellor, added that his government “was resolved not to be drawn into a controversy upon a question in which it differed so widely from the Imperial Cabinet.”[316]

In the meantime, a meeting had taken place, in September, at Münchengrätz, between the Tsar of Russia, the Emperor of Austria and the Crown Prince of Prussia. The object of this interview had been officially ascribed solely to a desire upon the part of Nicholas to become better acquainted with the Emperor Francis.[317] This explanation, which was received with contemptuous derision by Palmerston,[318] and which Bligh “could scarcely read with becoming gravity,” deceived nobody. In point of fact weighty political matters were the subject of the deliberations of these potentates and their confidential advisers. The formation of a league of the three Northern Courts to resist the doctrine of non-intervention had, ever since the Revolution of July, been the favourite scheme of Nicholas and Metternich. Frederick William III., however, was doubtful of the wisdom of openly resuscitating the Holy Alliance. He was strongly impressed with the dangers of a policy, which must necessarily draw a sharp dividing line between the absolute and the constitutional Powers. For this reason neither the King of Prussia nor his chief minister travelled to the little town on the Bohemian frontier to assist at the deliberations. But, after the two Emperors had set out on their return to their respective capitals, Nesselrode journeyed to Berlin and succeeded in inducing the King of Prussia to become a party to the convention to which Nicholas and Francis had given their adherence. By this treaty, signed at Berlin, on October 15, 1833, the right of every independent sovereign to call to his aid another sovereign was proclaimed. Should one of the three Courts see fit to render material assistance to any sovereign, and should such action be opposed by another Power, the three Courts would consider any interference of this kind in the light of an act of hostility directed against them all.

In consequence of the objections of the King of Prussia, the plan of transmitting this convention to the French government was abandoned. But the principle, which it involved, formed the subject of separate despatches, couched in more or less threatening language, which the agents of the three Northern Courts in Paris duly communicated to the Duc de Broglie. The Duke, however, declared emphatically that, whatever her attitude might be as regards more distant States, France would assuredly resist by force of arms any intervention in Switzerland, Belgium or Piedmont. Moreover, he caused a circular to be sent to all French representatives at foreign Courts clearly defining the line of action which would be adopted in cases of intervention. The boldness of his language came as a disagreeable surprise to Metternich. The Northern Courts, when they made their communications to the French government, had not intended to provoke a defiant rejoinder of this kind.

At their meeting at Münchengrätz, however, the two Emperors had not been concerned exclusively with the question of intervention, and with their policy towards France. On September 18, 1833, Nesselrode and Metternich signed a convention, pledging Russia and Austria to combine for the preservation of the Ottoman empire. The contracting parties specifically undertook to oppose any extension of the authority of Mehemet Ali over the European provinces of Turkey. Lastly, should the existing régime at Constantinople be overturned, Russia and Austria agreed to act in concert on every point relating to the establishment of a new order of affairs.[319]

Unfortunately, Nicholas saw fit to insist that absolute secrecy should be observed with regard to this convention, which might, with so much advantage, have been communicated to the western Powers. He probably feared that Russia’s changed policy towards Turkey would be ascribed to alarm, engendered by Admiral Roussin’s hostile attitude at Constantinople. Sincerely desirous as he was to conciliate the English government, he would not consent to admit, so long as France and Great Britain were intimately united, that Russia had renounced her old ambition of establishing her power upon the Bosphorus. But, although his pride would not allow him frankly to explain his eastern policy to the British government, he was at pains to convince Mr. Bligh of the purity of his intentions. He was a “chevalier anglais,” he reminded him at the conclusion of a long talk about the Treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi, and, pointing to his star of the Garter, twice repeated the words “Honi soit qui mal y pense.”[320] But assurances of this kind carried no weight with the English government. Russia was universally believed to be moving steadily towards Constantinople. The chief organs of the press accused her daily of secretly preparing to conquer or to absorb the Ottoman empire. The most extreme Radicals in the reformed Parliament, and Tory gentlemen, the hunting friends of Matuszewic,[321] at Melton, were alike convinced of the duplicity and of the aggressive character of Russian policy.

It was necessarily a matter of the deepest interest to both Palmerston and Broglie to ascertain the spirit in which Metternich would regard the Treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi. The despatches from Vienna, however, speedily dispelled the hope that the dominant position which Russia had acquired at Constantinople would meet with the disapproval of Austria. Metternich’s lips were sealed on the subject of the Austro-Russian convention respecting Turkey, and he could, in consequence, only declare emphatically that he felt no distrust of Russia, and was satisfied that she harboured no hostile designs against Turkey. If England, he reminded Lamb,[322] had not refused the Sultan the assistance for which he had asked, he would not have been driven to look to Russia as his sole protector against Mehemet Ali. Neither Palmerston nor Broglie believed that these expressions of confidence in the honest intentions of Russia represented Metternich’s real convictions. Both attributed his attitude to his intense fear of revolution, which made him wilfully blind to the schemes which Russia was maturing so craftily. But, so long as he should continue in this frame of mind, they were agreed that it would be “imprudent for Great Britain and France to found upon the treaty any measures of decided hostility.”[323] For the present, therefore, they were content to exercise the greatest vigilance, and to be prepared for fresh developments. Every endeavour, however, was to be made to open the eyes of the Sultan to the real nature of his position, and to induce him to withdraw from the fatal alliance into which he had been inveigled. At the same time it was greatly to be desired that Russia should be afforded no excuse for intervening under the stipulations of Orloff’s treaty. A fresh quarrel between the Porte and Mehemet Ali was the only circumstance which could possibly justify such action on her part. The whole influence of Great Britain and France must, accordingly, be exerted to prevent the Pasha from committing any renewed act of aggression.[324]

[CHAPTER VI]

TWO QUEENS AND TWO PRETENDERS

The growing power of Mehemet Ali, and the increasing decrepitude of the Ottoman Empire were not the only subjects which, in the year 1833, engaged the serious attention of the European Cabinets. A civil war was in progress in Portugal, and Spain was threatened with the same calamity. Dom Pedro, the Emperor of Brazil, had, on the death of his father, abdicated the crown of Portugal in favour of his seven year old daughter, Donna Maria de Gloria. At the same time he had appointed his brother, Dom Miguel, to the Regency, on the understanding that he would agree to observe the Charter, and to marry his niece, the young Queen. Dom Miguel gave the required assurances, but upon his arrival at Lisbon, early in the year 1828, he proceeded to abrogate the constitution, and shortly afterwards to usurp the throne. His unlawful assumption of the crown was followed by harsh and reactionary measures against Liberals and Freemasons, which culminated in the establishment of a veritable reign of terror. It was in consequence of this state of affairs, that, in July, 1831, a French fleet had, with the full approval of the British government, been dispatched to the Tagus to exact reparation for outrages committed on French subjects.[325]

Meanwhile, a successful revolution in Brazil had compelled Dom Pedro to seek refuge in England, where he arrived with his daughter at the very moment when Admiral Roussin’s squadron was before Lisbon. The fallen Emperor threw himself heart and soul into the task of reconquering his daughter’s kingdom. Lord Grey’s Cabinet regarded his warlike preparations with tacit approval, whilst the French government openly encouraged him, and allowed his followers to assemble at Belle-Isle. The constitutional fleet, commanded by Sartorius, a British naval officer, set sail from that port on February 10, 1832, and, by the following month of July, Dom Pedro was master of Oporto. But, though he constantly succeeded in defeating the Miguelite forces sent to re-take the city, his cause made little or no progress in other parts of the country.

Whilst these events were taking place in Portugal the health of the King of Spain had been visibly declining. Under ordinary circumstances it would have been a matter for congratulation, rather than for regret, that any country should be relieved from the rule of such a man as Ferdinand VII. In this particular instance, however, it was too probable that a fiercely disputed succession would be the legacy which he would bequeath to his unfortunate subjects. His third wife, Maria Amalia of Saxony, had died on May 17, 1829, and he, thereupon, announced his intention of re-marrying. His choice fell upon an intelligent and attractive woman in the person of his niece, Maria Christina of Naples. His first three marriages had been childless, but his fourth wife, Christina, presented him with a daughter on October 10, 1830. By the ancient law of Spain females could succeed to the throne, in the event of there being no direct male heirs. But in 1713, Philip V., in order to prevent the union of the Spanish and French crowns, had been forced to issue a Pragmatic Sanction, which gave the preference of succession always to the male line. This act, however, was repealed in 1789 by Charles IV., who restored the ancient law.

This return to the old order of succession was not, however, made public until May 19, 1830, when Christina succeeded in persuading Ferdinand to allow the decree of Charles IV. to be promulgated. Consequently, when some five months later her daughter was born, she was promptly proclaimed Princess of the Asturias, a title only conferred upon an heiress to the throne. A fierce struggle then began between Christina and Don Carlos, who had hitherto been looked upon as his brother’s successor. This prince was the champion of the ultra clerical—the so-called Apostolical party—whereas Christina, who, during her passage through France, had promised to use her influence on behalf of the Spanish political exiles, represented the hopes of the Liberals. Thus, in September, 1832, when Ferdinand was supposed to be at the point of death, the Apostolical minister, Calomarde, succeeded in procuring the abrogation of the law of 1789. But the King most unexpectedly recovered, and, under the influence of Christina, caused the decree of Charles IV. to be promulgated a second time. Calomarde, moreover, was disgraced and dismissed and a comparatively Liberal Cabinet was formed.

From the moment of Dom Pedro’s return to Europe, the French Cabinet had endeavoured to persuade the British government to join with France in expelling Dom Miguel from Portugal. Palmerston, however, had declined to interfere actively.[326] He was very unwilling that France should be afforded an opportunity of extending her influence in Portugal, and he, moreover, suspected Louis Philippe of scheming to marry one of his sons to Donna Maria. But, provided it could be brought about without a French intervention, he was sincerely anxious that the usurper should be overthrown and that a Liberal régime should be set up at Lisbon. The dismissal of Calomarde appears to have suggested to him that the King of Spain might not be found unwilling to render assistance to the constitutional cause in Portugal. Under ordinary circumstances Ferdinand could scarcely have been expected to regard with a friendly eye the establishment of a limited monarchy in a country bordering upon Spain. But the birth of his daughter had introduced a new element into the situation. Dom Miguel derived his strength from the support of the Apostolical party, which in Spain looked upon Don Carlos as its champion. There were some grounds, therefore, for hoping that Ferdinand’s paternal anxiety to see his daughter Isabella’s succession to the throne assured might prove stronger than his natural aversion to the growth of Liberal institutions in a neighbouring State.

The task of inducing Ferdinand to intervene on behalf of Donna Maria was entrusted to Sir Stratford Canning, who was generally selected for the most difficult negotiations. Canning arrived in Madrid, upon his special mission, at the beginning of January, 1833. His first conferences with the Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs convinced him that he had little prospect of bringing his task to a successful conclusion. Compared to a man of the type of Calomarde, Cea Bermúdez, his successor, might seem to be a Liberal. In point of fact, however, although he was strongly opposed to Don Carlos and the clerical party, he was even more hostile to representative institutions in any shape. An enlightened despotism, in his opinion, constituted the best form of government for Spain. Accordingly, he made it very clear that the change of ministry had in no way modified the views of the Court as to the situation in Portugal. It would be, he declared, altogether inconsistent with honour and good faith for the King to participate in any measures directed against the sovereignty of Dom Miguel.[327]

Stratford Canning, notwithstanding that his task seemed almost hopeless, remained some four months in the Spanish capital. So long as Cea Bermúdez was in power it was plainly useless to expect that Ferdinand could be induced to enter into the views of the British government. Canning, accordingly, set himself to work to undermine the position of that minister. For a brief moment he seems to have been sanguine that, by means of “a difference of opinion in the Cabinet,”he might be able to effect his purpose. But his hopes were speedily dispelled. The three ministers opposed to Cea Bermúdez with whom he had established communication were suddenly dismissed by the King.[328] Nor was he more fortunate with Queen Christina, with whom he contrived “to open a direct and confidential intercourse.”[329] She appeared to agree with him that the triumph of Dom Miguel in Portugal could not fail to react disastrously upon the fortunes of her daughter, but she either could not, or would not influence the King to regard matters in the same light.

Sir Stratford’s difficulties had been aggravated by the news that Dom Pedro’s resources were exhausted, and that his position at Oporto was desperate. But a few weeks after Canning’s departure from Madrid the situation in Portugal assumed a very different complexion. Sartorius, the admiral of the constitutional fleet, had been replaced by Charles Napier, who from the first appears to have judged the political and strategical situation correctly. The mere possession of Oporto and victorious sallies against the Miguelite lines would never, he saw clearly, win the crown for Donna Maria. A bold move on Lisbon itself could alone give the victory to the constitutionalists. The capital, in his opinion, might be captured, provided he could obtain the command of the sea. Having succeeded in persuading Dom Pedro and his advisers to adopt his views, he sought out the Miguelite fleet, and, on July 5, 1833, despite the inferiority of his ships, completely destroyed it off Cape St. Vincent.[330] Three weeks later, Lisbon was occupied by Terceira, the constitutional general, in the name of Donna Maria.

The capture of Lisbon compelled the Miguelites to raise the siege of Oporto. The civil war continued, nevertheless, in other parts of the country. No sooner, however, was Dom Pedro, the Regent, installed in the capital than the British government recognized the sovereignty of Queen Maria, and undertook to protect her from aggression on the part of the King of Spain.[331] But the fear that Ferdinand might send military assistance to Dom Miguel was speedily set at rest. On September 29, 1833, he died, and Christina, thereupon, assumed the government in the name of her daughter Isabella, who was at once acknowledged as Queen of Spain by France and Great Britain. The partisans of her uncle Don Carlos were, however, upon the alert. The Basque provinces rose in arms to the cry of “Long live Carlos V. Long live the Inquisition,” and Don Carlos was proclaimed King, on October 7, at Vittoria.[332]

Don Carlos himself was fortunately absent from Madrid at the time of his brother’s death. Some few months earlier he had been practically exiled from Spain and had joined Dom Miguel in Portugal. The presence of the Spanish Pretender at the headquarters of the Portuguese Usurper appears at last to have brought home to Christina and her minister, Cea Bermúdez, that the fortunes of Isabella must largely depend upon the success of the constitutional cause in Portugal. Mr. Villiers, the British minister newly accredited to the Court of Madrid, experienced, in consequence, none of those difficulties which had baffled Stratford Canning’s ingenuity, whilst Ferdinand was alive. The Queen Regent’s government consented, after some little hesitation, to propose to the contending parties in Portugal the joint mediation of Great Britain and Spain, and, when Dom Miguel declined to consider this offer, Cea Bermúdez announced that his refusal had released Spain from all engagements which she had contracted towards him.[333]

At the news that Ferdinand was dead and that serious disturbances had broken out, the French government proceeded to concentrate troops in proximity to the Spanish frontier. These military movements excited considerable alarm in London, where it was feared that they were a prelude to an active intervention. Palmerston, however, was soon satisfied that neither Louis Philippe nor the chief members of his government wished to despatch an army across the Pyrenees.[334] In the opinion of Duc de Broglie, the expulsion of Dom Miguel from Portugal was a necessary preliminary to any attempt to settle Spanish affairs. Both he and his colleagues, he declared, were prepared to respect England’s traditional dislike to any foreign intrusion in Portugal. But, under these circumstances, they had a right to expect, he contended, that great Britain should herself take the necessary measures for terminating a situation, which threatened to disturb the tranquillity of neighbouring States.[335]

Although very anxious to see peace restored, the British government wished to escape from the necessity of landing a military force in Portugal. It hoped to attain the desired result by concerting measures with Spain for the expulsion of both Pretenders. Seeing that Don Carlos was levying war from Portuguese territory against the government of the Queen Regent, the right of Spain to intervene was beyond question. In January, 1834, Cea Bermúdez had been succeeded by Martinez de la Rosa. The new minister entered readily into the plans of the British government and agreed to despatch an ambassador to London, provided with full powers to conclude a convention. Strict secrecy was observed about the negotiations, and it was only, on April 13, 1834, when all the details had been settled, that Palmerston showed Talleyrand a draft of the proposed treaty. Spain was to send an army against Dom Miguel, whilst England was to furnish Dom Pedro with naval assistance. It was not intended to invite France to be a party to this agreement; she would merely be asked to adhere to it.[336]

Talleyrand’s account of this transaction was sent to Admiral de Rigny, not to the Duc de Broglie. The refusal of the Chamber to ratify his proposals for settling a long-standing dispute with the United States, respecting the indemnity to be paid for the seizure of certain ships between the years 1806 and 1812, had driven the Duke to resign. The conditions of the projected treaty caused the greatest irritation in Paris. “The effect would be disastrous,” wrote Rigny, “were it to appear that France had entered into the agreement under the protection of England.”[337] Talleyrand was, accordingly, directed to insist that France should be made a party to the treaty. After a lengthy and, at times, a heated discussion, Palmerston gave way and, on April 22, 1834, the instrument, known as the Quadruple Treaty, was signed by the representatives of Great Britain, France, Spain and Portugal. An article had been inserted into it stipulating that, “should the co-operation of France be deemed necessary by the High Contracting Parties the King of the French would engage to do, in this respect, whatever might be settled by common consent between himself and his august allies.”

The immediate object of the alliance was rapidly achieved. The junction of a Spanish army under General Rodil with the constitutional forces, operating in Tras-os-Montes, was followed, on May 16, by a decisive victory over Dom Miguel at Asserceira. A week later both Pretenders capitulated at Evora Monte. Dom Miguel agreed to accept a small pension[338] and to retire to Italy, whilst Don Carlos, at his own request, was conveyed to England on board H.M.S. Donegal. But the elation of the allies at the rapid success which had crowned their operations was of brief duration. After a stay of little more than a week in London Don Carlos departed secretly, and, contriving to cross France undetected, reached Spain, where he appeared at the head of his followers in Biscay on July 9. This new development, both the French and British governments agreed, must be met by an extension of the scope of the Quadruple Treaty. Certain additional articles were, accordingly, formally annexed to it, on August 18, 1834. By the first of these, the King of the French undertook to hinder supplies and arms from reaching the Carlists from his southern provinces. By the second, His Britannic Majesty pledged himself to furnish Her Most Catholic Majesty with arms and ammunition and, in case of need, to supply naval succour; whilst by the third, the Regent of Portugal promised to render whatever military assistance it might be in his power to give.

In thus deciding to afford Queen Isabella material assistance, the French and English governments appear to have been strangely oblivious of their loudly proclaimed principle of “abstention from interference in the affairs of other States.” It was, doubtless, the inconsistency of their conduct in this respect which elicited from Talleyrand his cynical definition of the word non-intervention as “un mot métaphysique et politique qui signifie à peu près la même chose qu’ intervention.”[339] Both governments had, unquestionably, excellent reasons for desiring to put an end to a state of civil war and anarchy, which interfered with English trade, and had a disturbing effect upon the internal condition of France. In addition, there was the consideration, to which Palmerston attached much weight, that the Quadruple Treaty, by proclaiming the intimate union of the Liberal Powers, would counterbalance the league which the absolute Courts had, in the previous autumn, concluded at Münchengrätz.[340] Martinez de la Rosa, Christina’s chief minister, had been engaged in framing a constitutional Charter and the Estatuto Real,—the result of his labours—was about to be made public. Spain might, therefore, claim to be numbered among the Liberal Powers of Europe. But there would seem to have been another, and a more exclusively national reason, for the support which the English government decided to extend to the cause of constitutionalism in Spain. For the past century Spain had constantly followed the impulse of France and that state of affairs had, on many occasions, proved detrimental to British interests. “Foreign influence, however,” wrote Lord Palmerston some years later, “can best be exerted over the Court of a despotic monarch and becomes much weaker, if not entirely paralyzed, when it has to act upon the constitutional representatives of a free people. The British government, therefore, perceived that, by assisting the Spanish people to establish a constitutional form of government, they were assisting to secure the political independence of Spain, and they had no doubt that the maintenance of that independence would be conducive to important British interests.”[341]

One of the chief reasons, therefore, which led England to enter into the Quadruple Treaty was to destroy that influence which, for more than a century, France had been striving to establish over the Spanish government. Her statesmen had constantly laid it down as the first principle of their policy that her ascendency must be supreme at the Court at Madrid. It was essential, they argued, that France should have no fears of an attack from beyond the Pyrenees, should she be engaged in war with her powerful eastern neighbours. On that account the Salic Law, the Duc de Broglie explained to Lord Granville, was distinctly advantageous to France, inasmuch as it debarred females from succeeding to the Spanish throne. Now that it was abolished, he pointed out, the French government had to contemplate the possibility that an Austrian Archduke might some day aspire to the hand of the Queen of Spain.[342] Louis Philippe not only endorsed the views of his minister in this matter, but frankly confessed to the British ambassador that the triumph of absolutism, in the person of Don Carlos, would suit him infinitely better than the establishment of a Liberal monarchy at Madrid. In that case “he was greatly afraid that the Peninsula would become the resort of all the revolutionists and republicans in Europe.”[343]

These being Louis Philippe’s opinions, it seems strange that he should not have attempted to dissuade his ministers from committing him to the Quadruple Treaty. The adoption of such a course, however, would have been very dangerous. The “citizen King” might in his heart greatly prefer les capuchons to les bonnets rouges,[344] but he dared not publicly proclaim these sentiments. Moreover, had France abandoned the English alliance she would not have been received into the league of the absolute Courts. Louis Philippe, consequently, if he wished to avoid complete isolation, was compelled to appear to adopt the British policy. But his secret leanings being what they were and Palmerston’s object being what it was, it is not surprising that, from the moment of the conclusion of the Quadruple Treaty, symptoms of serious disagreement should have manifested themselves in the relations of the two governments.

Before the close of the year 1834 the Carlists were masters of the whole of Biscay and Navarre, with the exception of some of the larger towns. It was not alone the influence of the priests and the monks which induced the people of these provinces to espouse the cause of the Pretender so enthusiastically. They knew well that, were a representative form of government to be established throughout Spain, the Fueros,[345] those special rights and privileges to which they were devotedly attached, must either be abolished or greatly curtailed. A leader arose in Zumalacárregui, who quickly proved his superiority over the constitutional generals sent against him. Henceforward the struggle between the Carlists and the Christinos was carried on with a barbarity unknown in Europe for centuries. Neither side gave nor expected quarter. After every engagement wounded and unwounded prisoners were ruthlessly massacred. Such was the condition of affairs when a change of government took place in England.

Lord Grey had resigned, on July 9, 1834, on a question of Irish policy and had been succeeded as Prime Minister by Lord Melbourne. Signs were plentiful that the Whigs were losing their popularity in the country, and the King resolved to dismiss his ministers at the first opportunity. The death of Lord Spencer gave him the pretext for which he was seeking. Althorp’s removal to the Upper House, he told Melbourne, had left the government so weakly represented in the Commons that he should call upon his ministers to resign. Sir Robert Peel, accordingly, undertook to form a new government, and Wellington accepted the post of Secretary for Foreign Affairs. The Duke had never approved of his predecessor’s policy of intervening in the disputed succession to the Spanish throne. But, soon after he had taken up his duties at the Foreign Office, an opportunity arose of interposing in a manner more in accordance with his views. In the course of a conference with Mr. Villiers, Martinez de la Rosa had suggested that the French and British governments should propose to both parties some arrangement for the exchange of prisoners and, generally, for mitigating the horrors of the war. The opening of communications with Don Carlos on these lines might with advantage be made to serve a double purpose. The commissioners, selected to proceed to the headquarters of the Pretender, might be instructed to impress upon him the hopelessness of his position, and to explain to him that he could obtain no assistance from the absolute Courts. An authoritative statement to that effect would, in the opinion of Martinez de la Rosa, be more useful than “six victories by her Majesty’s troops.” It would furnish Don Carlos with the excuse, for which he was believed to be seeking, for abandoning the struggle.[346]

Lord Eliot was, accordingly, dispatched to Spain. Ostensibly, his mission had no other object than the negotiation of some agreement for terminating the inhuman methods of warfare, which both parties had adopted. In reality, however, he carried with him secret instructions based upon the suggestions of Martinez de la Rosa. Whilst in Paris he was to communicate these to the Duc de Broglie, who was once more at the head of the Foreign Office, in order that the French commissioner might be furnished with identical instructions.[347] Hitherto, there had been no great cause for complaint as to the manner in which France performed the duties imposed upon her by the additional articles of the Quadruple Treaty. It was, therefore, with the utmost confidence that the request would be promptly complied with, that Wellington had decided to invite the French government to appoint some person to repair with Eliot to the seat of war. But Lord Cowley, who, upon the change of government, had succeeded Lord Granville as British ambassador in Paris, speedily ascertained that the Duke’s proposal was regarded with much disfavour. Nor was he long in doubt as to the quarter from which the opposition to it was inspired. Louis Philippe himself assured him, on April 2, that he dared not allow communications to be opened with Don Carlos, except in response to an official invitation from the government of the Queen Regent. But, although the Spanish ambassador shortly afterwards made the desired request, the King still hesitated to comply with it. He was greatly afraid, he told Lord Cowley, that Don Carlos would refuse to entertain the suggested proposals. Were the Pretender to take such a course, popular indignation would be aroused in France, and the government might be forced to march an army into Spain to enforce its demands.[348]

Eliot, in the meanwhile, had proceeded, unattended by a French colleague, to the headquarters of Don Carlos. He experienced little difficulty in inducing both contending parties to conclude a convention for the proper custody and exchange of prisoners of war. But no success attended his efforts to carry out the secret and more important part of his mission. Don Carlos resolutely declared that he never would abandon the struggle. Nor could Eliot flatter himself that any of his arguments had in the smallest degree shaken the Pretender’s determination to assert his right to the crown. Having exhausted all his powers of persuasion he set out on his return journey. As a result of his visit to the theatre of war he brought back to England the conviction that, without foreign assistance, the government of the Queen Regent would never contrive to pacify Alava, Biscay and Navarre.[349] Some weeks before he arrived in London Sir Robert Peel’s brief administration had come to an end. Melbourne had been recalled and Palmerston was once more at the Foreign Office.

Upon learning of the failure of Eliot’s mission, the government of the Queen Regent resolved to apply to France for military assistance against Don Carlos. Palmerston, who at this time regarded a French intervention as the worst of evils, lost no time in directing Villiers to protest. No more telling indictment of the whole policy of the Quadruple Treaty exists than the despatch which, on this occasion, Palmerston himself sent off to Madrid. The British minister was to represent that to appeal for foreign aid, before all the resources at the disposal of the Queen Regent had been exhausted, “would little redound to the honour of the Spanish government.” A settlement, he was to remind Queen Christina’s advisers, brought about by French or British bayonets, “could only be temporary and would never be acquiesced in as legitimate and final by the nation.”[350] It was very far, however, from Louis Philippe’s desire to despatch troops to Spain in support of the constitutional throne of Isabella. But, as Palmerston was also strongly opposed to direct French intervention, the King felt that he might with safety consult the British government about the propriety of acceding to the Spanish demand. Palmerston, as he had foreseen, had numerous objections to urge against the entry of a French army into Spain. The French ambassador at Madrid was, accordingly, instructed to inform Martinez de la Rosa that his appeal could not be complied with.[351] But, whilst making it perfectly clear that direct intervention was out of the question, M. de Rayneval was authorized to suggest that the foreign legion at Algiers might be transferred from the French to the Spanish service, and to promise that facilities for enlisting soldiers in France would be granted to the Spanish government.

The Cabinet of Madrid readily accepted this limited form of assistance. Help of the same description, but upon a more extended scale, was also furnished by Great Britain. The Foreign Enlistment Act was suspended and officers and men were encouraged to enter the service of the Queen of Spain. In England, where the war in the Peninsula was remembered with pride, volunteers were easily obtained. In France, for obvious reasons the appeals of the Spanish recruiting agents met with far less response. Nevertheless, before the autumn of 1835 some 4000 men, chiefly from Algiers, were transported to Spain, whilst rather more than double that number of British volunteers, under the command of De Lacy Evans, the Radical member for Westminster, were conveyed to the seat of war. Don Carlos, however, retaliated promptly. From his headquarters at Durango he issued a proclamation announcing that the Eliot Convention could not be permitted to apply to foreigners. Any person not of Spanish nationality, caught in arms against him, would be shot. The moment this decree was brought to the notice of the British government Colonel Wylde, the officer attached to the headquarters of the Queen’s armies, was directed to protest against it.[352] Wylde obtained access to Don Carlos and read out to him the declaration which Palmerston had drawn up. But the threats contained in it had no effect upon the Pretender, who replied that his proclamation was lawful, under the circumstances, and that his officers had the strictest orders to conform to it.[353] The only reprisal to which the British government could resort was to signify to its naval commanders that, in the event of Don Carlos applying for protection on board any of His Majesty’s ships, such protection was to be denied to him.[354]

The French government altogether declined to associate itself with Great Britain in protesting against the Decree of Durango. Lord Granville, who upon the return of the Whigs to office had resumed his post in Paris, found Louis Philippe and his chief ministers, with the exception of the Duc de Broglie, strongly opposed to any step of that kind. France, they argued, was differently circumstanced to Great Britain, inasmuch as she was not a party to the Eliot Convention. Moreover, were she to use threatening language to Don Carlos and were he to disregard her menaces, she would be driven to send troops across the frontier, and both the French and English governments had agreed that direct intervention was highly inexpedient for the moment. In vain Lord Granville protested that to remonstrate against the barbarity of the decree was a duty which the government owed to the men, who had been transferred from the French to the Spanish service. Neither that argument, nor the consideration that any appearance of lack of harmony between the French and British Cabinets must necessarily encourage the Pretender, had the smallest effect upon Louis Philippe or upon the majority of his ministers.[355]

Lord Palmerston’s indignation at Louis Philippe’s conduct was increased by the news which he was receiving from Lisbon. Dom Pedro had died on September 24, 1834, and the Cortes had, thereupon, declared the Queen to be of age, although she was not yet sixteen years of age. Shortly afterwards she had married Augustus of Leuchtenberg, the young duke whose candidature for the Belgian throne had so alarmed Louis Philippe in 1830. Their married life, however, was of brief duration. On March 25, 1835, Maria became a widow and the Cortes at once urged her to lose no time in contracting a second alliance. The young queen was quite ready to comply and soon, afterwards, informed her ministers, Marshal Saldanha and the Duke of Palmella, that she purposed marrying either the Duc de Nemours or the Prince de Joinville, both sons of Louis Philippe. Her selection of the French princes, wrote Lord Howard de Walden,[356] was to be ascribed to the influence of her aunt, the Marquise de Loulé, who was afterwards discovered to have been in the pay of Louis Philippe.[357] The British minister, however, succeeded in obtaining from Saldanha a promise in writing that he would resign, sooner than allow the French marriage to take place.[358] In Paris, meanwhile, Louis Philippe emphatically denied to the British ambassador that he had ever entertained the idea of bringing forward one of his sons as a candidate for the hand of the Queen of Portugal.[359] It seems certain, nevertheless, that some intrigue with that purpose in view had been in progress, and that it was not persevered with on account of the opposition of the British government. In the opinion of Lord Howard de Walden, it was to be attributed to the machinations of the French party at the Court of Lisbon that Queen Maria, about this time, displayed the greatest reluctance to sanction the despatch of a Portuguese division to the assistance of the Christinos.[360] But before long it was announced that she was betrothed to Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, a nephew of the King of the Belgians. The marriage was celebrated on April 9, 1836, and from that moment the influence of the French party at the Court diminished.

But the proceedings of the French agents at Lisbon and Louis Philippe’s sympathy for the Spanish Carlists were secrets, as yet known only to certain ministers and diplomatists. It was otherwise with the increasing rivalry between the British envoy and the French ambassador accredited to the Court of the Queen Regent at Madrid. It was the subject of comment in the newspapers that France openly favoured the cause of one, whilst England no less ostentatiously gave her support to the other, of the two great political parties which Spanish constitutionalism had called into existence. Most of the leading men in the Cortes had been in exile, until the death of Ferdinand, on account of their participation in the revolutionary movement of 1820. Some, like Martinez de la Rosa, had sought refuge in France, whilst others, prominent among them being the financier Mendizabal, had repaired to England. Their political views had, in consequence, been greatly influenced by the statesmen with whom they had come into contact in the countries in which they had resided. Thus Martinez de la Rosa, whose literary abilities had brought him to the notice of M. Guizot, had adopted the theories of the Doctrinaires and in framing the Estatuto Real—the Spanish Constitution of 1834—he had taken the French Charter of 1814 for his model. His followers, the Moderados as they were called, consisted mainly of the nobility, military and civil officials, and, generally, of persons who, although opposed to Don Carlos, disliked democratic institutions. Their opponents, the Exaltados, or Progressistas, as they were more usually termed, were made up chiefly of members of the trading and commercial classes in the large towns. The extreme wing of this party advocated the restoration of the Constitution of 1812, which recognized the sovereignty of the people and provided for government by a single chamber. It was this code which, in 1820, Riego and his followers had imposed upon King Ferdinand. But, although only the more violent of the Progressistas may have desired that the very defective Constitution of 1812 should be re-established without amendments, the whole party derided the Estatuto Real as too timid an experiment in representative government.

A party, which aimed at imposing salutary checks upon the development of democracy and the leaders of which were in close personal relationship with some of his ministers, was naturally regarded with a friendly eye by Louis Philippe. From 1834 onwards the Moderados derived an artificial strength, which to some extent counterbalanced the numerical superiority of their opponents, by reason of the support given them by Louis Philippe and by Christina, the Queen Regent. It was no less logical that the Progressistas should develop rapidly into “the English party.” For reasons which have already been explained Palmerston desired that Spain should be free and independent. But, before Don Carlos could be crushed and the civil war terminated, the cause of the Queen must be made popular with the Spanish people. From Palmerston’s point of view, therefore, it was essential that political power should rest with the party which sought to place the government upon a broad and national basis. Objectionable in many respects as were the principles of the Progressistas, they were, in the opinion of the British government, unquestionably better adapted to the immediate requirements of the situation than the narrow and restricted views of the Moderados.

The strength of the democratic movement, which had begun at the death of Ferdinand, drove Martinez de la Rosa from office in June, 1835. But his successor, Count Toreno, was not more successful in his efforts to stem the rising tide of Liberalism, and, in the following month of September, Christina reluctantly consented to allow Mendizabal to form a Progressista Cabinet. Louis Philippe and his ministers were greatly annoyed and declared that Toreno’s fall was due to English intrigue.[361] Villiers, it was perfectly true, had taken part in the negotiations which had preceded the change of government. He had discussed the situation, not only with Toreno and Mendizabal, but with the Queen Regent herself. To Christina he explained that he had no authority to speak in the name of the British government. She, however, replied that she required no more than “the advice of an Englishman in whom she had entire confidence.” Villiers, therefore, told her plainly that, inasmuch as she had not the necessary force at her disposal for arresting by violent means the advance of democracy, she must submit to the formation of a more Liberal government. The Queen’s dread of Mendizabal appears to have been overcome temporarily by Villiers’ assurance that that statesman had no intention of restoring the Constitution of 1812.[362]

After the downfall of the Moderados, the French authorities no longer attempted to prevent supplies from reaching the Carlists. Upon the road from Bayonne to Irun, an uninterrupted stream of waggons was to be seen openly conveying stores and provisions of all kinds to the insurgents.[363] The Pretender, wrote Villiers, had received assurances from Louis Philippe that in the future he intended to remain absolutely neutral.[364] To all representations upon this subject, whether made by the British or the Spanish ambassador, the French ministers returned evasive replies. Although from time to time Lord Granville succeeded in extracting a promise that greater vigilance would be exercised upon the frontier, the lucrative trade, which the inhabitants of southern France were carrying on with the armies of the Pretender, was never interfered with seriously.

Mendizabal, in the meantime, was devoting himself assiduously to the task of prosecuting the war against Don Carlos. But his efforts to carry on the operations vigorously were hampered by the penury of the treasury, and by the impossibility of raising a loan abroad. It was under these circumstances that he made a proposal to Mr. Villiers which, when it was divulged to the Duc de Broglie, increased the ill-feeling which was rapidly growing up between the French and the English governments. Modern views about the advantages of unrestricted commercial intercourse had not as yet penetrated into Spain. The imposition of prohibitory duties upon almost all articles made abroad was still regarded as essential for the protection of Spanish trade. England necessarily suffered greatly from this system, which brought no revenue into the Spanish exchequer, and benefited only the smuggler. The question had often been the subject of discussion between the two governments, but Spain had hitherto always evaded her promises to reform her tariff. Mendizabal, however, now undertook that, provided England would guarantee the interest of a loan of a million and a half sterling, Spain would admit the chief articles of British manufacture upon a low scale of duty. Villiers was without authority to conclude any agreement of that kind. But, as Mendizabal assured him that any delay would be most inconvenient, he decided to draw up the necessary documents. The moment the treaty had been signed by Mendizabal and himself, he forwarded it to Palmerston, explaining the reasons which had led him to act without instructions. “The Queen,” he wrote in conclusion, “Mendizabal and his English private secretary, Southern,[365] and himself, were the only persons who had any knowledge of the transaction.”[366]

When the projected agreement and Villiers’ covering despatch reached Paris, whither they had been transmitted, as was the custom, under flying seal, Granville was so impressed with the necessity of keeping the matter secret, that he did not even allow the attachés of his embassy to know of the affair. Furthermore, his own observations upon the subject were conveyed to Lord Palmerston in a private letter. “It will not be liked here,” he warned his chief. “It is already thought that Mendizabal is entirely under English influence, and this admission of English manufactures at a reduced duty, even though purchased by the guarantee of a loan, will very much confirm the impression.”[367] But all these precautions were of no avail. Within a few days, Broglie received intelligence of the transaction both from the French ambassador at Madrid, and from some Spanish agent in Paris. It seems highly probable that the secret was disclosed by Christina herself. Perhaps she wished to ingratiate herself with Louis Philippe, whilst by exposing Mendizabal to his wrath, she may have hoped to facilitate the return to power of the Moderados.

M. de Rayneval having obtained his information “under the seal of the most profound secrecy,”Broglie could not make representations on the subject of the proposed treaty to the British government. Rayneval, however, was directed to protest against it at Madrid, and to warn Mendizabal that, if the affair were to be concluded, “the Quadruple Alliance would certainly undergo modifications of a nature which Spain would regret.”[368] But the British government, in the meanwhile, “whilst fully appreciating the motives which had prompted Villiers to sign the treaty without instructions,” had decided not to advise the King to ratify it. “His Majesty’s government,”wrote Palmerston, “does not consider that it would be consistent with the spirit of the alliance that two out of four should make separately, and without previous communication with the others, an engagement. . . . Great Britain would expose herself to the charge of having severed herself from her allies in order to grasp at an object conducive to her own particular interests.”[369] At the same time, however, he enclosed the project of a new commercial treaty, which Villiers was to invite Mendizabal to consider. England, according to its provisions, asked for no exclusive advantages, the only stipulation being that British goods should be placed upon a footing of equality with those of the most favoured nation. The Spanish minister, however, professed his inability to proceed with the matter. Great Britain’s guarantee to a loan was a condition, he declared, essential to the conclusion of any commercial treaty. The proposal to admit English cotton goods would be deeply resented by Spanish manufacturers, and he must, in consequence, be in a position to show that, by consenting to it, he had gained some great political advantage.[370] Without doubt, also, he was not insensible to Broglie’s threats. He foresaw that, although there was to be no concealment about Palmerston’s treaty, and notwithstanding that France was to be given full information about the negotiations, her objections to the “reciprocal equality,” and “mutual facilities,” for which England stipulated, would not on that account be diminished. Nor was he mistaken. When the matter was revived under the ministry of Comte Molé, that statesman summed up the French case with perfect frankness. Equality of opportunity for trading in Spain, he informed Lord Granville, would act solely for the benefit of England, seeing that the French merchants were possessed of less capital, and were less industrious and enterprising than their British rivals. Palmerston, as may be supposed, entered with zest upon the task of denouncing the selfishness of founding an objection to a reform of the Spanish tariff upon so unworthy a reason.[371]

Broglie’s instructions to Rayneval respecting the commercial treaty were among his last acts as Minister for Foreign Affairs. Parliamentary and other difficulties, in the creation of which Louis Philippe is supposed to have taken a part, brought about the resignation of the government. M. Thiers, thereupon, notwithstanding that he had been a member of Broglie’s Cabinet, undertook to form a new ministry. At the time of the Revolution of July, M. Thiers had been known merely as one of the editors of the National and as the author of a very popular and successful History of the French Revolution. Louis Philippe’s enthronement, in which he had been so prominently concerned, enabled him to abandon journalism and to embark upon the career of a politician. Only two years later, on October 11, 1832, he was appointed Minister of the Interior in Marshal Soult’s first government. In that capacity, by means of a bribe judiciously administered to the Jew Deutz, he succeeded in discovering the hiding-place of the Duchesse de Berri at Nantes—a mystery which, until he took the matter in hand, had baffled the ingenuity of the police. Having accomplished this object and having no desire to be remembered in history as “the Fouché of the Monarchy of July,” he promptly exchanged the portfolio of the Interior for that of Commerce and of Public Works.[372]

Ever since the conclusion of the Quadruple Treaty, Louis Philippe had been quietly endeavouring to improve his relations with the absolute Powers, in general, and with Austria, in particular. Early in the year 1835 he appears to have embarked, without the knowledge of his ministers or of Sainte-Aulaire, the French ambassador at Vienna, upon a confidential correspondence with Metternich.[373] Without doubt, his flattering advances to the Chancellor were made with the hope that a marriage might be arranged between his eldest son, the Duc d’Orléans, and an Austrian Archduchess. Neither Broglie nor Sainte-Aulaire shared the King’s illusions on that subject. Broglie was firmly convinced that there could be no intimacy between the Monarchy of July and the Northern Courts, and it was chiefly on that account that Louis Philippe had been so anxious to drive him from office. But, whilst Louis Philippe had frequently been annoyed by the independence and uncompromising honesty of the Doctrinaire Duke, he had always admired the resourcefulness and political adroitness of M. Thiers. For some time past M. Thiers had been desirous of obtaining the portfolio of Foreign Affairs, and he appears to have satisfied the King that, were it to be confided to him, he would promote the dynastic object which was constantly in His Majesty’s mind. He was, it was said, greatly attracted by the prospect of raising “the matrimonial blockade” which the Legitimists exultingly declared had been established round the Orleans throne.[374]

It has generally been supposed that Talleyrand was largely responsible for the overtures made to the Court of Vienna by Louis Philippe, and for the coolness which set in, about the same time, in the relations of France and England. This view of the case may be correct, but it is difficult to believe that the reasons, usually given to explain his changed attitude towards England, can be true. At the end of the year 1834 Talleyrand had retired from his embassy in London. His advanced age and his increasing infirmities were the reasons officially given for his resignation. It was notorious, however, that he had been frequently annoyed by Palmerston’s unceremonious behaviour towards him, and it has been suggested that the lack of deference with which he had been treated had caused him greatly to modify his opinions about the advantages of a close friendship with England.[375] It is, however, most improbable that Talleyrand, who, up to the time of his departure from London, unceasingly endeavoured to extend the scope of the alliance,[376] should have changed his views completely, because Palmerston may have kept him waiting in an ante-room or may have failed to treat him with that respect to which his age and his long diplomatic career entitled him. Nevertheless, it is not to be denied that, notwithstanding the marked attentions which had been paid him at Court and in London society, he had returned to France in a somewhat dissatisfied frame of mind. The recently published memoirs of the Duchesse de Dino show plainly that, in 1834, he no longer entertained his former admiration for England and English institutions. But it was to the new conditions created by the Reform Act that his altered dispositions should be ascribed. Although he had been in favour of that measure, in his heart he, doubtless, loathed the idea of government by the people. Like Lord Grey himself, once the Bill had become an accomplished fact, he was horrified at the ugly aspect of democracy. Believing, therefore, that Great Britain was advancing rapidly towards a revolution he would naturally counsel Louis Philippe to draw as close as circumstances would permit to conservative Austria.[377] Nor was there anything in this advice which should be regarded as unfriendly towards England. At Vienna in 1814, be it remembered, he had insisted upon the necessity of an alliance between France, Great Britain and Austria, as the only means of checking the insatiable ambition of Russia.

Meanwhile, the civil war in Spain continued and the prospects of the constitutional cause were gloomy. During the summer of 1835, however, the Carlists sustained a loss the magnitude of which was hardly appreciated at the time. Whilst superintending the operations against Bilbao Zumalacárregui sustained a wound and died a few days later. The original injury was of a trifling character and his death has generally been ascribed to the unskilful treatment of the doctors. But Colonel Wylde, as he was returning from his interview with the Pretender on the subject of the Decree of Durango, received some curious details about the last hours of the famous Carlist chief from an English surgeon who had dressed his wound. According to this person, a dose of laudanum, not a Christino bullet, was the cause of death. Furthermore, Wylde’s informant asserted that the doctors had under various pretexts refused to allow the body to be opened. This story, taken in connection with the detestation with which Zumalacárregui was regarded by the Apostolical section of his party, led Wylde to suspect that he might have been the victim of foul play.[378] Be that as it may, his death had an effect upon the cause of absolutism and bigotry which may be compared with that of Dundee at Killikrankie.

The Christinos, however, appeared incapable of taking advantage of the loss which their opponents had sustained. Even Mendizabal was unable to infuse the required energy into the counsels of the Queen’s generals. “Everything,” wrote Wylde on February 12, 1836, “seems to stagnate for want of money.” The British legion had suffered cruelly during the winter. Sickness had thinned its ranks, the pay of officers and men was in arrears, and the whole force was in a state of acute discontent.[379] Under these circumstances the British government decided to intervene more effectually. Hitherto, Lord John Hay’s squadron off the north coast of Spain had only been allowed to transport troops and stores, and to give indirect assistance to the Christinos. But the admiral was now ordered to take an active part in the operations of the Queen’s armies. At the same time, Lord Palmerston’s objections to the entry of a French army into Spain disappeared completely. He asked that the French cordon of observation should be advanced across the frontier and that the valley of Bastan should be occupied. The measure which he proposed “would not entail extensive military operations, but would enable General Cordoba to enclose the Carlists in a small space and to deprive them of all supplies.”[380] The British government, doubtless, hoped that M. Thiers, who had always professed to be in favour of armed intervention, would, now that he was President of the Council, be able to induce Louis Philippe to consent to it. But that illusion, if it was ever entertained, was soon dispelled. The course proposed by Palmerston was incompatible with that policy of conciliating the absolute Courts, upon which M. Thiers had embarked. He was, consequently, compelled to explain to Lord Granville that he had altogether changed his mind about the expediency of intervention, owing to the wide development of the Carlist insurrection, and to the revolutionary character which the government at Madrid had recently assumed. Louis Philippe expressed himself in more emphatic language. Never, he told the British ambassador, would he allow the French flag to be carried beyond the frontier.[381]

The unsatisfactory progress of the war necessarily had a damaging effect upon the position of Mendizabal’s Cabinet. Dissensions broke out among his followers, and Christina, who had only accepted him with reluctance, most unwisely decided to dismiss him. She had been prompted to take this disastrous step, Palmerston suspected, by her French advisers.[382] The dissolution of the Cortes, which the change of ministry entailed, was followed by a most suspicious inaction on the part of the Queen’s generals. The Carlists, on the other hand, displayed unwonted activity. Insurgent bands penetrated to within twenty miles of La Granja, where the Queen Regent was in residence. Ramon Cabrera, “the Tiger of the Maestrargo,” who, as a reprisal for the murder of his mother, refused to recognize the Eliot Convention, desolated Aragon, whilst de Lacy Evans, on July 11, 1836, suffered a reverse at Fuentarabia, on which occasion all the British prisoners were shot, in accordance with the Pretender’s decree.[383] Meanwhile, the Progressistas were carrying all before them at the elections, and their victories were followed by grave revolutionary outbreaks. But neither civil disorder nor military disasters could rouse M. Isturiz, the new President of the Council, or his colleagues to action. In the words of Mr. Villiers, “they appeared to consider that calmness in adversity constituted the whole duty of the responsible advisers of the crown.”[384]