Preparations for the Coronation — Long Wellesley committed by the Chancellor for Contempt — Alderman Thompson and his Constituents — Prince Leopold goes to Belgium — Royal Tombs and Remains — The Lieutenancy of the Tower — The Cholera — The Belgian Fortresses — Secret Negotiations of Canning with the Whigs — Transactions before the Close of the Liverpool Administration — Duke of Wellington and Peel — The Dutch invade Belgium — Defeat of the Belgian Army — The French enter Belgium — Lord Grey's Composure — Audience at Windsor — Danger of Reform — Ellen Tree — The French in Belgium — Goodwood — The Duke of Richmond — The Reform Bill in Difficulties — Duke of Wellington calls on Lord Grey — The King declines to be kissed by the Bishops — Talleyrand's Conversation — State of Europe and France — Coronation Squabbles — The King divides the old Great Seal between Brougham and Lyndhurst — Relations of the Duchess of Kent to George IV. and William IV. — The Coronation — Irritation of the King — The Cholera — A Dinner at St. James's — State of the Reform Bill — Sir Augustus d'Este — Madame Junot — State of France — Poland.

15 Jul 1831. A Committee of Council sat yesterday at the Office about the coronation; present, the Cabinet, Dukes of Gloucester and Sussex, Archbishop and Bishop of London; much discussion and nothing done. Brougham raised every sort of objection about the services and the dispensing with them, and would have it the King could not dispense with them; finally, the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General were sent for to the House of Lords and desired to reconsider the Proclamation.

20 Jul 1831. I have been laid up with the gout these last few days, unable to move, but without violent pain. The Committee of Council met again on Friday last, when the Proclamation was settled. A Court of Claims is to sit, but to be prohibited from receiving any claims except those relating to the ceremonies in the Abbey. The Lords went to St. James's and held the Council, at which the King made a little speech, to the effect that he would be crowned to satisfy the tender consciences of those who thought it necessary, but that he thought that it was his duty (as this country, in common with every other, was labouring under distress) to make it as economical as possible. A difficulty arose about the publication of the Proclamation, usually done by heralds with certain ceremonies. The first proclamation is not the one to be acted on; the second does not announce the coronation, but refers to the first. I asked Brougham what was to be done. He said both must be read. Lord Grey suggested neither, which was done.

20 Jul 1831. The other day Long Wellesley carried off his daughter, a ward in Chancery, from her guardians, and secreted her. The matter was brought before the Chancellor, who sent for Wellesley. He came, and refused to give her up; so Brougham committed him to the Fleet Prison. The matter was brought the next day before the House of Commons, and referred to their Committee of Privileges; and in the meantime Brougham has been making a great splutter about his authority and his Court both on the judicial bench and from the Woolsack. The lawyers in the House of Commons were divided as to Wellesley's right of privilege in such a case.¹

Note 1. Both the Chancellor and Mr. Wellesley wrote to the Speaker, and their letters were read to the House before the Committee of Privileges was appointed. Meanwhile Mr. Wellesley remained at his house in Dover Street in charge of two officers of the Court of Chancery. There is, I believe, no doubt that the committal was good, and that Mr. Wellesley's privilege as a member of Parliament did not protect him, a contempt of the Court having been committed. A similar point has recently been raised in the Court of Queen's Bench upon the committal of Mr. Whalley.

20 Jul 1831. Prince Leopold started on Saturday, having put his pension into trustees' hands (by the advice of Lambton), to keep up Claremont and pay his debts and pensions, and then hand over the residue to the Exchequer, the odds being that none of it ever gets there, and that he is back here before the debts are paid. It seems that, desirous as he had been to go, when the time drew near he got alarmed, and wanted to back out, but they brought him (though with difficulty) to the point. He has proposed to the Princess Louise, King Louis Philippe's daughter.

20 Jul 1831. Halford has been with me this morning gossiping (which he likes); he gave me an account of his discovery of the head of Charles I. in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, to which he was directed by Wood's account in the 'Athenæ Oxonienses.' He says that they also found the coffin of Henry VIII., but that the air had penetrated and the body had been reduced to a skeleton. By his side was Jane Seymour's coffin untouched, and he has no doubt her body is perfect. The late King intended to have it opened, and he says he will propose it to this King. By degrees we may visit the remains of the whole line of Tudor and Plantagenet too, and see if those famous old creatures were like their effigies. He says Charles's head was exactly as Vandyke had painted him.

26 Jul 1831. At Oatlands on Saturday, and came back on Sunday night. Nobody there but my father, mother, Walpole, Sneyd, and Alava; very different from what I once remember it. There has been a great deal of talk about the Duke of Wellington giving Lord Munster the Lieutenancy of the Tower, the truth of which is as follows:—It is in the King's gift, and he sent to the Duke and desired him to name somebody. The Duke would have liked to name one of three—Fitzroy Somerset, Colin Campbell, or Hardinge. The latter would not have been agreeable to Government, and therefore it would have occasioned the King an embarrassment; the second was provided for, and Lord Hill advised the first to remain as he is (though I don't see why he could not have had both); so the Duke thought it would gratify the King if he was to name Munster. Munster wrote a very civil letter to the Duke, full of thanks and saying that he begged he would not think of him if he had anybody else to give it to, and that he would take upon himself to explain to the King his not accepting it. The Duke persisted, and so he had it. I must say he might have found some one out of the number of his old officers to give it to rather than Munster.

26 Jul 1831. The King of France's Speech arrived yesterday, but nothing was said in the House of Lords, because Lord Grey was at Windsor. It will make a stir—the general tone of it, and the demolition of the fortresses which cost us seven millions. Not one of the papers made a remark upon it; nothing will do for them but Reform.

26 Jul 1831. Fresh claims have been raised about cholera morbus. A man at Port Glasgow insists upon it, without much apparent reason, that it prevails there; so we have sent a medical man down, in order to quiet people's minds and to set the question at rest. Lord Grey, who is credulous, believes the Glasgow man's story, and spread the news in his own family, who immediately dispersed it over the rest of the town, and yesterday nobody could talk of anything else; not believing it very much, and not understanding it at all, for if they did they would not be so flippant. Lady Holland wrote to Lord Lansdowne to desire he would recommend her the best cholera doctor that he had heard of. I have just received a letter from Moore, saying he has ordered his publisher to send me a copy of 'Lord Edward Fitzgerald,' and that he only sends copies to the Duke of Leinster and me, but begs I will send him no opinion, for 'opinions fidget him'—'genus irritabile vatum.'

27 Jul 1831. Yesterday Aberdeen asked Lord Grey some questions in a very few words, accompanied as usual with a sneer, which is very unbecoming, and of course gave Lord Grey the advantage of repelling it with scorn. The Duke spoke, and pretty well, but laid some stress more on Portugal than upon Belgium, which is what I cannot understand, but Alava told me that when he came to town yesterday he had said to him that, as an Englishman, he had never felt so deeply affected for the honour of his country as in this transaction. I met him after the debate, and he said he thought he had done some good by what he said. The question of the Belgian fortresses is not without great difficulty, and the strong part of it for Government is that their demolition was agreed to by all the Powers interested (except Holland), and without the presence of the French Plenipotentiary at the meeting when it was decided. I am inclined to think that the manner in which it was blurted out in the King of France's Speech, as a clap-trap for him, will have made the principal difficulty, though the policy may be very questionable.

28 Jul 1831. On Tuesday night they got through Schedule A, but in a very bungling manner, and the events of the night, its enemies say, damaged the Bill, not, however, that anything can hurt it in the House of Commons, though such things may tell in the House of Lords; but on the question of Saltash, which the Opposition did not consider as a very strong case, so little that they had not intended to divide on it, John Russell and the rest suddenly gave way, and without informing their friends moved that it ought to be in Schedule B. On a division all the Ministers voted with, the Opposition, so the borough was transferred to B. Their friends were furious, and not without reason, that they had not determined where it ought to be placed, and have transferred it themselves instead of leaving them in the dilemma they were in when the division arrived. A court and levee yesterday.

31 Jul 1831. It does not appear, however, as if anything could have been done, for Canning was bent upon being Prime Minister; and I asked Arbuthnot to what the Duke would have consented, and he said, 'Not to that,' that after the transaction with the Whigs he could not have felt sufficient confidence in Canning to agree to his being Prime Minister. (If he distrusted Canning he ought to have refused to act with him at all, not merely objected to his being Prime Minister, but the ground of his objection was shifted.) Originally the King could not bear Canning, and he was only persuaded by the Duke to take him into the Cabinet. Afterwards he was so offended at the influence he acquired there, and particularly with that which he had got over the mind of Lord Liverpool, that he one day sent for Arbuthnot and desired him to tell Lord Liverpool that he could not endure to see Canning make a puppet of him, and he would rather he was Prime Minister at once than have all the power without the name by governing him (Lord Liverpool) as he pleased, and that unless he could shake off this influence he was determined not to let him continue at the head of the Government, and, moreover, he must find some means of getting rid of Canning altogether. This Arbuthnot wrote to Lord Liverpool, who wrote an answer couched in terms of indignation, saying he by no means coveted his situation, that he was sure his colleagues would resent any indignity offered to him, and that the King had better take care what he was about, and not, by producing disunion in the Government, incur the risk of making the end of his reign as disastrous as the beginning of it had been prosperous.

31 Jul 1831. Not very long after Canning got into favour, and in this way:—Harriet Wilson at the time of her connexion with Lord Ponsonby got hold of some of Lady Conyingham's letters to him, and she wrote to Ponsonby, threatening, unless he gave her a large sum, to come to England and publish everything she could. This produced dismay among all the parties, and they wanted to get Ponsonby away and to silence the woman. In this dilemma Knighton advised the King to have recourse to Canning, who saw CANNING AND THE LIVERPOOL ADMINISTRATION.the opening to favour, jumped at it, and instantly offered to provide for Ponsonby and do anything which could relieve the King from trouble. Ponsonby was sent to Buenos Ayres forthwith, and the letters were bought up. From this time Canning grew in favour, which he took every means to improve, and shortly gained complete ascendancy over the King.

31 Jul 1831. He talked a great deal of Peel, of the difficulty of going on with him, of his coldness, incommunicativeness; that at the time of the opening the Liverpool Railroad he had invited the Duke, Aberdeen, and some more to meet at Drayton to consider of strengthening themselves; that they had left the place just as they had gone to it, nothing settled and nothing elicited from Peel; that on the late occasion of the wine duties they had gone to Peel and asked him whether they should fight out and divide on it; that he had referred them to Goulburn, who had decided in the affirmative, on which he had agreed to their friends being mustered, but that he took offence at something that was said in debate, and marched off sans mot dire; that somebody was sent after him to represent the bad effect of his departure, and entreat him to return, but he was gone to bed. This is by no means the first time Arbuthnot has spoken to me about Peel in this strain and with such feelings. How are the Duke and he to make a Government again, especially after what Lyndhurst said of the Duke? Necessity may bring them together, but though common interest and common danger may unite them, there the seeds of disunion always must be. I have scribbled down all I can recollect of a very loose conversation, and perhaps something else may occur to me by-and-by.

31 Jul 1831. In the meantime to return to the events of the present day. Althorp raised a terrible storm on Friday by proposing that the House should sit on Saturday. They spent six hours debating the question, which might have been occupied LONG WELLESLEY AND BROUGHAM.in the business; so that, though they did not sit yesterday, they gained nothing and made bad blood. Yesterday morning Murray made a conciliatory speech, which Burdett complimented, and all went on harmoniously. John Russell is ill, nearly done up with fatigue and exertion and the bad atmosphere he breathes for several hours every night.

31 Jul 1831. Long Wellesley has given up his daughter and has been discharged from arrest. I met the Solicitor-General yesterday, who told me this, and said that Brougham had been in the midst of his blustering terribly nervous about it. This was clear, for both he and Wellesley were waiting for the report of the Committee of the House of Commons, though Brougham affected to hold it cheap, and talked very big of what he should do and should have done had it been unfavourable to his authority. The fact is that Long Wellesley was contumacious, but after a short confinement he knocked under and yielded to the Chancellor on all points, and was released from durance.

31 Jul 1831. We had a meeting on the Coronation business yesterday morning, and took into consideration the estimates. That from the Chamberlain's Office was £70,000 and upwards, which was referred to a sub-committee to dissect and report upon.

05 Aug 1831. Yesterday morning arrived the news of Casimir Périer's (age 53) resignation in consequence of the division in the Chamber of Deputies on the election of President. He had very unnecessarily committed himself by declaring he would resign if Lafitte was elected, and though the other candidate (M. Girod de l'Ain) was chosen, as it was, only by a majority of five, he considered this tantamount to a defeat, and accordingly went out of office.² It was supposed, but not quite certain, that Molé would be First Minister, but without much chance of being able to keep that post.

Note 2. M. Casimir Périer (age 53) did not retire from office on this occasion, though he had momentarily resigned it. He remained in power till his death which took place from cholera in the following year.

05 Aug 1831. At night.—Lord Grey was attacked by Aberdeen to-night on his foreign policy, and particularly about Portugal, and he is said to have made a splendid speech. Sir Henry Seton arrived from Liverpool to announce what is going on, and he is bent on fighting at present. Abercromby, who is come likewise, reports that he has 50,000 or 60,000 men.

09 Aug 1831. On Saturday morning we were saluted with intelligence that on the French King's hearing of the Dutch invasion he ordered Marshal Gérard, with 50,000 men, to march into Belgium; and great was the alarm here: the funds fell and everybody was prepared for immediate war. In the afternoon I called upon Lord Grey at East Sheen (in my way to Monk's Grove, where I was going) to say something to him about the coronation, and found him with a more cheerful countenance than I expected. He did not appear alarmed at what the French had done, and very well satisfied with the manner of their doing it, marching only in virtue of their guarantee and proclaiming their own neutrality and the Belgian independence, and the King had previously received the Belgian Minister. I told him I thought Leopold's folly had been the cause of it, and that his speeches about Luxembourg had given the Dutch King a pretext. He said, not at all, and that the King of Holland would have done this under any circumstances, which I took leave to doubt, though I did not think it necessary to say so.⁴

Note 4. Lord Grey's composure was mainly due to the entire confidence he felt in the honour of the Duc de Broglie, then French Minister of Foreign Affairs, who had given positive assurances to the British Cabinet that the intervention of France would be confined to the immediate object in view. This confidence was equally honourable to both statesmen, and these assurances were faithfully fulfilled.

09 Aug 1831. On Sunday, overtaken by the most dreadful storm I ever saw—flashes of lightning, crashes of thunder, and the rain descending like a waterspout—I rode to Windsor, to settle with the Queen what sort of crown she would have to be crowned in. I was ushered into the King's presence, who was sitting at a red table in the sitting-room of George IV., looking over the flower garden. A picture of Adolphus Fitzclarence was behind him (a full-length), and one of the parson, Rev. Augustus Fitzclarence, in a Greek dress, opposite. He sent for the Queen, who came with the Landgravine and one of the King's daughters, Lady Augusta Erskine, the widow of Lord Cassilis's son. She looked at the drawings, meant apparently to be civil to me in her ungracious way, and said she would have none of our crowns, that she did not like to wear a hired crown, and asked me if I thought it was right that she should. I said, 'Madam, I can only say that the late King wore one at his coronation.' However she said, 'I do not like it, and I have got jewels enough, so I will have them made up myself.' The King said to me, 'Very well; then you will have to pay for the setting.' 'Oh, no,' she said; 'I shall pay for it all myself.' The King looked well, but seemed infirm. I talked to Taylor afterwards, who said he had very little doubt this storm in Belgium would blow over, and agreed that Leopold's folly had been in great measure the cause of it. There have been discussions in both Houses, which have in some measure quieted people's apprehensions. To-day that ass Lord Londonderry (who has never yet had his windows mended from the time they were broken by the mob at the Reform illumination) brings on a motion about Belgium.

09 Aug 1831. Nothing new these last two days. Londonderry's motion produced an angry debate, but no division. Brougham is said to have been very good. The Government wanted to divide, but the Opposition know that it is not their interest to provoke a trial of strength. The Ministers, if beaten, would not go out, and they are anxious to see what their opponents' strength is. At Court yesterday, when Van de Weyer, the new Belgian Minister, made his appearance. I said to Esterhazy, 'You will blow this business over, sha'n't you?' He said, 'Yes, I think we shall this time.'

09 Aug 1831. Nothing remarkable in the House of Commons but Lord John Russell's (age 38) declaration that 'this Bill would not be final if it was not found to work as well as the people desired,' which is sufficiently impudent considering that hitherto they have always pretended that it was to be final, and that it was made so comprehensive only that it might be so; this has been one of their grand arguments, and now we are never to sit down and rest, but go on changing till we get a good fit, and that for a country which will have been made so fidgety that it won't stand still to be measured. Hardinge, whom I found at dinner at the Athenæum yesterday, told me he was convinced that a revolution in this country was inevitable; and such is the opinion of others who support this Bill, not because they think concession will avert it, but will let it come more gradually and with less violence. I have always been convinced that the country was in no danger of revolutiorobberies n, and still believe that if one does come it will be from the passing of this Bill, which will introduce the principle of change and whet the appetites of those who never will be satisfied with any existing order of things; or if it follows on the rejection of this Bill, which I doubt, it will be owing to the concentration of all the forces that are opposed to our present institutions, and the divisions, jealousies, rivalships, and consequent weakness of all those who ought to defend them. God only knows how it will all end. There has been but one man for many years past able to arrest this torrent, and that was Canning; and him the Tories—idiots that they were, and never discovering that he was their best friend—hunted to death with their besotted and ignorant hostility.

09 Aug 1831. I went to the play last night at a very shabby little house called the City Theatre—a long way beyond the Post Office—to see Ellen Tree act in a translation of 'Une Faute,' one of the best pieces of acting I ever saw. This girl will turn out very good if she remains on the stage. She has never been brought forward at Covent Garden, and I heard last night the reason why. Charles Kemble took a great fancy for her (she is excessively pretty), and made her splendid offers of putting her into the best parts, and advancing her in all ways, if she would be propitious to his flame, but which she indignantly refused; so he revenged himself (to his own detriment) by keeping her back and promoting inferior actresses instead. If ever she acquires fame, which is very probable, for she has as much nature, and feeling, and passion as I ever saw, this will be a curious anecdote. [She married Charles Kean, lost her good looks, and became a tiresome, second-rate actress.]

12 Aug 1831. Yesterday a Committee of Council met to settle the order of the coronation and submit the estimates, which we have brought under £30,000 instead of £240,000, which they were last time.

12 Aug 1831. The question now is whether our Ministry shall go along with France, or whether France shall be pulled up; and it is brought to this point by Leopold's having sent to the French to thank them for their aid, but to say that he can do without them, and to beg they will retire, which they have refused to do. It was known yesterday that they are at Mons, and strongly suspected they will not so easily be got out of it; but the French Government will not venture to quarrel with us if we take a peremptory tone. It is not, however, clear that the French Government can control the French army; and I have heard it said that if they had not ordered the troops to march, the troops would have marched without orders. L. is all for curbing France; so a very short time must bring matters to a crisis, and it will be seen if the Government has authority to check the war party there. In the meantime the French have taken the Portuguese ships without any intention of giving them back; and this our Ministers know, and do not remonstrate. J. asked L. if it was true, and he said, 'Oh, yes,' for that having been compelled to force the Tagus, they were placed in a state of war, and the ships became lawful prizes. If it was not for Reform I doubt that this Government could stand a moment, but that will bring them up. In the country it is too clear that there are no symptoms of a reaction, and if a state of indifference can be produced it is all that can be hoped and more than should be expected. I do not think the Government by any means responsible for the embroiled state of Europe, but they certainly appear to have no fixed plan or enlightened view of foreign policy, and if they have not been to blame hitherto (which in acting with all the Allies, and endeavouring to keep things quiet, they have not been), they are evidently in great danger of floundering now.

20 Aug 1831. Here I have been a week to-day for the races, and here I should not be now—for everybody else is gone—if it were not for the gout, which has laid me fast by the foot, owing to a blow. While on these racing expeditions I never know anything of politics, and, though I just read the newspapers, have no anecdotes to record of Reform or foreign affairs. I never come here without fresh admiration of the beauty and delightfulness of the place, combining everything that is enjoyable in life—large and comfortable house, spacious and beautiful park, extensive views, dry soil, sea air, woods, and rides over downs, and all the facilities of occupation and amusement. The Duke, who has so strangely become a Cabinet Minister in a Whig Government, and who is a very good sort of man and my excellent friend, appears here to advantage, exercising a magnificent hospitality, and as a sportsman, a farmer, a magistrate, and good, simple, unaffected country gentleman, with great personal influence. This is what he is fit for, to be,

With safer pride content, The wisest justice on the banks of Trent,

and not to assist in settling Europe and making new constitutions.

20 Aug 1831. I find on arriving in town that there is nothing new, but the Bill, which drags its slow length along, is in a bad way; not that it will not pass the Commons, but now everybody attacks it, and the press is all against what remains of it. Lord Chandos's motion and the defeat of Government by so large a majority have given them a great blow. Still they go doggedly on, and are determined to cram it down anyhow, quite indifferent how it is to work and quite ignorant. As to foreign affairs, the Ministers trust to blunder through them, hoping, like Sir Abel Handy in the play, that the fire 'will go out of itself.' Sefton has just been here, who talks blusteringly of the Peers that are to be made, no matter at what cost of character to the House of Lords, anything rather than be beaten; but I am not sure that he knows anything. In such matters as these he is (however sharp) no better than a fool—no knowledge, no information, no reflection or combination; prejudices, partialities, and sneers are what his political wisdom consists of; but he is Lord Grey's âme damnée.

28 Aug 1831. Stoke. My gout is still hanging on me. Very strange disorder, affecting different people so differently; with me very little pain, much swelling, heat, and inconvenience, more like bruised muscles and tendons and inflamed joints; it disables me, but never prevents my sleeping at night. Henry de Ros called on me yesterday; nothing new, and he knows everything from L., who sits there picking up politics and gossip, to make money by the one and derive amusement from the other. L. is odd enough, and very malin with what he knows. He is against Reform, but not against the Government; for the Duke of Wellington and not for the Opposition—in short, just as interest, fancy, caprice, and particular partialities sway him. It was he who told me the fact of the French having carried away the Portuguese ships, and he said that I might tell the Duke that he might make what use he pleased of it; but soon after, wishing if it did come out that it should fall harmless, he bethought him of the following expedient:—Seeing that Valletort (who is a good-natured blockhead) is always spluttering in the House of Commons, he thought in his hands it would do no harm, so he told him the fact with some flattering observations about his activity and energy in the House, which Valley swallowed and with many thanks proceeded to put questions to Palmerston, which sure enough were so confused and unintelligible that nobody understood him, and the matter fell very flat. I don't see that Government is saved by this ruse, if the case against them is a good one; but it is curious as indicative of the artifice of the person, and of his odd sort of political disposition. As I don't write history I omit to note such facts as are recorded in the newspapers, and merely mention the odd things I pick up, which are not generally known, and which may hereafter throw some light on those which are.

28 Aug 1831. The Belgian business is subsiding into quiet again. The Dutch have gained some credit, and the Prince of Orange has (what was of importance to him) removed the load of odium under which he had been labouring in Holland, and acquired great popularity. Leopold has cut a ridiculous figure enough; not exhibiting any want of personal courage, but after all the flourishes at the time of his accession finding himself at the head of a nation of blustering cowards who would do nothing but run away. The arrival of the French army soon put an end to hostilities, and now the greater part of it has been recalled; but Leopold has desired that 10,000 men may be left for his protection, whether against the Dutch or against the Belgians does not appear. This excites considerable jealousies here, for as yet it is not known why he asked for such aid, nor on what terms it is to be granted.

28 Aug 1831. L. told me an odd thing connected with these troops. Easthope received a commission from a secretary of Soult to sell largely in our funds, coupled with an assurance that the troops would not retire. I don't know the fate of the commission.

28 Aug 1831. There are various reports of dissensions in the Cabinet, which are not true. The Duke of Wellington was sent for by Lord Grey the other day, to give his opinion about the demolition of the Belgian fortresses; so the ex-Prime Minister went to visit his successor in the apartment which was so lately his own. No man would mind such a thing less than the Duke; he is sensitive, but has no nonsense about him. He is very well and, however disgusted with the state of everything at home and abroad (which after all is greatly imputable to himself), in high spirits.

28 Aug 1831. The King did a droll thing the other day. The ceremonial of the coronation was taken down to him for approval. The homage is first done by the spiritual Peers, with the Archbishop at their head. The first of each class (the Archbishop for the spiritual) says the words, and then they all kiss his cheek in succession. He said he would not be kissed by the bishops, and ordered that part to be struck out. As I expected, the prelates would not stand it; the Archbishop remonstrated, the King knocked under, and so he must undergo the salute of the spiritual as well as of the temporal Lords.

30 Aug 1831. He afterwards talked of Madame de Staël and Monti. They met at Madame de Marescalchi's villa near Bologna, and were profuse of compliments and admiration for each other. Each brought a copy of their respective works beautifully bound to present to the other. After a day passed in an interchange of literary flatteries, and the most ardent expressions of delight, they separated, but each forgot to carry away the present of the other, and the books remain in Madame de Marescalchi's library to this day.

31 Aug 1831. Dined at Osterley yesterday; Lady Sandwich, Esterhazy and the Bathursts, Brooke Greville and George Villiers. Esterhazy told me he had no doubt that there would be a war, that General Baudron was arrived from Brussels, and Leopold had sent word by him that the French troops were absolutely necessary to his safety, to protect him from the turbulence of his own subjects. He considered that the Polish business was over, at which he greatly rejoiced. He said that nobody was prepared for war, and the great object was to gain time, but a few weeks must now bring matters to a crisis; the only difficulty appears to be what to go to war about, and who the belligerents should be, for at the eleventh hour, and with the probability of a general war, it is a toss-up whether we and the French are to be the closest allies or the deadliest enemies. He told me that Casimir Périer (age 53) would probably be unable to keep his ground, that the modified law about the House of Peers did not give satisfaction. If he is beaten on this he goes out, and if he does, with him will probably vanish all hopes of peace. It is pretty evident that France is rapidly advancing to a republic. Her institutions have long been republican, and, though very compatible with a despotic empire, incompatible with a constitutional and limited monarchy. This Buonaparte knew.

31 Aug 1831. Another Coronation Committee yesterday, and, I am happy to say, the last, for this business is the greatest of all bores. There is a furious squabble between the Grand Chamberlain and the Earl Marshal (who is absent and has squabbled by deputy) about the box of the former in Westminster Abbey. At the last coronation King George IV. gave Lord Gwydir his box in addition to his own, and now Lord Cholmondeley claims a similar box.⁶ This is resisted. The present King disposes of his own box (and will probably fill it with every sort of canaille); the Lords won't interfere, and the Grand Chamberlain protests, and says he has been shamefully used, and there the matter stands. The Grand Chamberlain is in the wrong.

Note 6. Lord Gwydir and Lord Cholmondeley filled the office of Lord High Chamberlain for alternative lives as the representatives of the joint claimants of the office.

03 Sep 1831. On Wednesday a Council was held. Very few of the Ministers stay for the Councils; small blame to them, as the Irish say, for we are kept about three times as long by this regular, punctual King as by the capricious, irregular Monarch who last ruled over us. This King is a queer fellow. Our Council was principally for a new Great Seal and to deface the old Seal. The Chancellor claims the old one as his perquisite. I had forgotten the hammer, so the King said, 'My Lord, the best thing I can do is to give you the Seal, and tell you to take it and do what you please with it.' The Chancellor said, 'Sir, I believe there is some doubt whether Lord Lyndhurst ought not to have half of it, as he was Chancellor at the time of your Majesty's accession.' 'Well,' said the King, 'then I will judge between you like Solomon; here (turning the Seal round and round), now do you cry heads or tails?' We all laughed, and the Chancellor said, 'Sir, I take the bottom part.' The King opened the two compartments of the Seal and said, 'Now, then, I employ you as ministers of taste. You will send for Bridge, my silversmith, and desire him to convert the two halves each into a salver, with my arms on one side and yours on the other, and Lord Lyndhurst's the same, and you will take one and give him the other, and both keep them as presents from me.' The Duchess of Kent will not attend the coronation, and there is a report that the King is unwilling to make all the Peers that are required; this is the current talk of the day.

05 Sep 1831. At Gorhambury [Map] since Saturday; the Harrowbys, Bathursts, Frankland Lewes's, Lady Jersey, Mahon, Lushington, Wortleys; rather agreeable and lively; all anti-Reformers, so no quarrelling about that, though Lord Harrowby is ready to squabble with anybody either way, but furiously against the Bill.

08 Sep 1831. Dined with the Duke of Wellington yesterday; thirty-one people, very handsome, and the Styrian Minstrels playing and singing all dinner time, a thing I never saw before. I sat next to Esterhazy and talked to him (a very little) about Belgian affairs. He said Talleyrand had given positive assurances that the French troops should be withdrawn whenever the Dutch retired, that the other Powers were aware of Périer's (age 53) difficulties, and were ready to concede much to keep him in power, but that if he had not sufficient influence to repress the violent war faction there was no use in endeavouring to support him. Our Government had behaved very well and had been very strong in their remonstrances.

08 Sep 1831. When the Regency Bill was framed the Duke desired the King's leave to wait upon the Duchess of Kent and show it to her, to which his Majesty assented, and accordingly he wrote to her to say he would call upon her the next day with the draft of the Bill. She was at Claremont, and sent word that she was out of town, but desired he would send it to her in the country. He said she ought to have sent Sir John Conroy to him, or have desired him to go to her at Claremont, which he would have done, but he wrote her word that he could not explain by letter so fully what he had to say as he could have done in a personal interview, but he would do so as well as he could. In the meantime, Lord Lyndhurst brought on the measure in the House of Lords, and she sent Conroy up to hear him. He returned to Claremont just after the Duchess had received the Duke's letter. Since that he has dined with her.

[I must say the King is punctual; the cannon are now firing to announce his arrival at the Abbey, and my clock is at the same moment striking eleven; at eleven it was announced that he would be there.]

08 Sep 1831. His Majesty, I hear, was in great ill-humour at the levee yesterday; contrary to his usual custom he sent for nobody, and gave no audiences, but at ten minutes after one flounced into the levee room; not one Minister was come but the Duke of Richmond. Talleyrand and Esterhazy alone of the Corps Diplomatique were in the next room. He attacked the officer of the Guards for not having his cap on his head, and sent for the officer on guard, who was not arrived, at which he expressed great ire. It is supposed that the peerages have put him out of temper. His Majesty did a very strange thing about them. Though their patents are not made out, and the new Peers are no more Peers than I am, he desired them to appear as such in Westminster Abbey and do homage. Colonel Berkeley asked me what he should do, and said what the King had desired of him. I told him he should do no such thing, and he said he would go to the Chancellor and ask him. I don't know how it ended. Howe told me yesterday morning in Westminster Abbey that Lord Cleveland (age 65) is to be a duke, though it is not yet acknowledged if it be so. There has been a battle about that; they say that he got his boroughs to be made a marquis, and got rid of them to be made a duke.⁸

Note 8. The Earl of Darlington (age 65) had been made Marquis of Cleveland in 1827, and was raised to the dukedom in January 1833.

17 Sep 1831. The coronation went off well, and whereas nobody was satisfied before it everybody was after it. No events of consequence. The cholera has got to Berlin, and Warsaw is taken by the Russians, who appear to have behaved with moderation. Since the deposition of Skrznecki, and the reign of clubs and mobs and the perpetration of massacres at Warsaw, the public sympathy for the Poles has a good deal fallen off. The cholera, which is travelling south, is less violent than it was in the north. It is remarkable that the common people at Berlin are impressed with the same strange belief that possessed those of St. Petersburg that they have been poisoned, and Chad writes to-day that they believe there is no such disease, and that the deaths ascribed to that malady are produced by poison administered by the doctors, who are bribed for that purpose; that the rich finding the poor becoming too numerous to be conveniently governed have adopted this mode of thinning the population, which was employed with success by the English in India; that the foreign doctors are the delegates of a central committee, which is formed in London and directs the proceedings, and similar nonsense.

17 Sep 1831. The talk of the town has been about the King and a toast he gave at a great dinner at St. James's the other day. He had ninety guests—all his Ministers, all the great people, and all the foreign Ambassadors. After dinner he made a long, rambling speech in French, and ended by giving as 'a sentiment,' as he called it, 'The land we live in.' This was before the ladies left the room. After they were gone he made another speech in French, in the course of which he travelled over every variety of topic that suggested itself to his excursive mind, and ended with a very coarse toast and the words 'Honi soit qui mal y pense.' Sefton, who told it me said he never felt so ashamed; Lord Grey was ready to sink into the earth; everybody laughed of course, and Sefton, who sat next to Talleyrand, said to him, 'Eh bien, que pensez-vous de cela?' With his unmoved, immovable face he answered only, 'C'est bien remarquable.'

17 Sep 1831. In the meantime Reform, which has subsided into a calm for some time past, is approaching its termination in the House of Commons, and as it gets near the period of a fresh campaign, and a more arduous though a shorter one, agitation is a little reviving. The 'Times' and other violent newspapers are moving heaven and earth to stir up the country and intimidate the Peers, many of whom are frightened enough already. The general opinion at present is that the Peers created at the coronation will not be enough to carry the Bill (they are a set of horrid rubbish most of them), but that no more will be made at present; that the Opposition, if united, will be strong enough to throw out the Bill, but that they are so divided in opinion whether to oppose the Bill on the second reading or in Committee that this dissension will very likely enable it to pass. Up to this time there has been no meeting, and nothing has been agreed upon, but there would have been one convened by the Duke of Wellington but for Lady Mornington's death, and this week they will arrange their plan of operations. From what Sefton says (who knows and thinks only as Brougham and Grey direct him) I conclude that the Government are resolved the Bill shall pass, that if it is thrown out they will do what the Tories recommended, and make as many Peers as may be sufficient, for he said the other day he would rather it was thrown out on the second reading than pass by a small majority. With this resolution (which after having gone so far is not unwise) and the feeling out of doors, pass it must, and so sure are Government of it that they have begun to divide the counties, and have set up an office with clerks, maps, &c., in the Council Office, and there the Committee sit every day.

18 Sep 1831. Stoke. I came here yesterday with the Chancellor, Creevey, Luttrell, my father and mother, Esterhazy, Neumann. Brougham was tired, never spoke, and went to bed early. This morning I got a letter from the Lord President enclosing an order from the King for a copy of the proceedings in Council on the marriage of the Duke of Sussex and Lady Augusta Murray. The Chancellor told me that the young man Sir Augustus d'Este had behaved very ill, having filed a bill in Chancery, into which he had put all his father's love letters, written thirty years ago, to perpetuate evidence; that it was all done without the Duke of Sussex's consent, but that D'Este had got Lushington's opinion that the marriage was valid on the ground that the Marriage Act only applied to marriages contracted here, whereas this was contracted at Rome. He said Lushington was a great authority, but that he had no doubt he was wrong. The King is exceedingly annoyed at it.

19 Sep 1831. Came to town. Talleyrand, Madame de Dino, and Alava came to Stoke yesterday. Talleyrand had a circle, but the Chancellor talked too much, and they rather spoilt one another. He said one neat thing. They were talking of Madame d'Abrantès's 'Memoirs,' and of her mother, Madame Pernon. My father said, 'M. de Marbœuf était un peu l'amant de Madame Pernon, n'est-ce pas?' He said, 'Oui, mais je ne sais pas dans quelles proportions.'

20 Sep 1831. I afterwards saw George Villiers, who told me that he knew from a member of the Cabinet that there had been a division in it on the question of going out if the Reform Bill should be rejected, and that it had been carried by a majority that they should. He told me also a curious thing about Stanley's Arms Bill: that it had never been imparted to Lord Anglesey, nor to the Cabinet here, and that Lord Grey had been obliged to write an apology to Lord Anglesey, and to tell him he (Lord Grey) had himself seen the Bill for the first time in the newspapers. This he had from Lord C., who is a great friend of Lord Anglesey's, and who had seen Lord Grey's letter before he left Ireland; but the story appears to me quite incredible, and is probably untrue.