pêche, DONT JE CROIS QUE NOUS POURRONS FAIRE FORTEMENT RÉPENTIR LORD PALMERSTON."

"J'écrirai cette nuit au Roi Léopold, et avec une estafette par le chemin de fer il recevra une lettre à Ostende avant de s'embarquer Lundi matin. Il est en excellente disposition, Et désire VIVEMENT La chute de LORD PALMERSTON, dont il craint encore que nous soyons dupes." [No fear of that.] "Je le mettrai au fait; et avec les excellentes dispositions de la Reine Victoria, JE CROIS QU'IL FERA BONNE BESOGNE, et l'état du Portugal facilitera la conviction déjà en bon train."

It is after making these and other remarks, that the King makes use of the words which we have already quoted from this letter:

"Tout ceci doit nous presser encore plus de faire parvenir à la Reine Christine le désaveu de la simultanéité."

It cannot be denied that the passages which we have quoted give some appearance of probability to the supposition that, in objecting to the step taken by M. Bresson, and in directing that he should be disavowed, Louis-Philippe was not actuated exclusively by the simple love of truth. But we will not dwell on this topic, and willingly attribute to him the full amount of praise and credit belonging to an "upright" motive; although we cannot omit the expression of our deep regret that he did not persevere to the end in resisting this scheme of deceit for, after all, and in spite of the directions so frequently given, and expressed by him in terms so precise and urgent, the disavowal was never sent, and, as all the world knows, the two marriages were eventually not only declared, but CELEBRATED, SIMULTANEOUSLY.

:

One thing, however, deserves to be distinctly noted; namely, that, in precise proportion to the credit due to the King for his resistance on this point, will be the weight of the censure which must fall upon his "able and upright minister." It is clear that the greater the anxiety, on the part of the King, to disavow M. Bresson, the greater must have been the efforts made by M. Guizot to prevent that disavowal from taking place, and to induce Louis-Philippe

eventually to consent to the simultaneous celebration of the two marriages. Our readers will, no doubt, have in their recollections the substance of what passed upon this point between Lord Normanby and M. Guizot on the 1st of September, when the double marriage was first announced. On that occasion, M. Guizot stated that the two marriages would not take place at the same time. About three weeks later, when Lord Normanby communicated to M. Guizot the protest of the British Government against the second marriage, His Lordship reminded the French minister that he had stated that the two marriages would not take place at the same time. And this M. Guizot first denied, and then attempted to explain by a pitiful quibble. At a later period, when the French Chambers were assembled, M. Guizot gave a different explanation of this transaction, by stating that, on the 1st of September, it was not intended that the two marriages should take place at the same time, and that, consequently, what he had stated to the British ambassador was the truth; but that that intention had been subsequently changed in consequence of very urgent despatches from M. Bresson; and that it was not until the 4th of September that instructions had been sent by the telegraph, announcing to M. Bresson the consent of France to the simultaneous celebration of the two marriages.

In the former part of this work, we made some observations showing that this statement was quite incorrect, at least so far as concerns the fable respecting M. Bresson's despatches; for, out of three cited by M. Guizot, two could not have been received till subsequently to the 4th of September, and the third was not to the purpose. It is possible, however, that the remainder of the statement may be true, and that the instructions in question really were transmitted to Madrid on September 4, though for other reasons than those assigned. But, if so, the only conclusion to be drawn from that circumstance is, that all M. Guizot's efforts. and perseverance were not sufficient completely to silence the King's scruples, and to obtain his definitive consent to the simultaneous celebration of the two marriages, until the 4th

of September. And this only shows how strong was the King's resistance to that scheme, and how strenuously M. Guizot must have laboured to overcome it.

If no part of M. Guizot's statement be true, we shall leave it to our readers to make their own inferences.

We must refer to the "Revue Rétrospective" for a full account of the arguments by which M. Guizot endeavoured, and, in the end, succeeded in first averting the disavowal of M. Bresson, and then, at length, obtaining the King's consent to the two marriages taking place at the same time. We will only quote a very few short extracts. On the 22nd of July, in his first reply to the King's letter of July 20, he endeavours to quiet the King's apprehensions by representing that M. Bresson had not, in truth, gone quite so far as his Majesty supposed

"Je ne crois pas qu'il soit allé aussi loin que le Roi le suppose."

But finding, by the King's second letter of July 24, that this reasoning did not produce the effect of tranquillising his Majesty, he wrote two more letters on the 25th, from the first of which the following is an extract :

"Mais je prie, en même temps, le Roi de réfléchir combien la situation est, en ce moment, délicate, tendue, critique. IL VA SE FAIRE, ÉVIDEMMENT, UN GRAND EFFORT POUR LE COBOURG. Notre parade contre ce coup, c'est Cadix et Montpensier. N'affai blissons pas trop cette parade au moment même où nous avons besoin de nous en servir."

And in his second letter of July 25, dated at six o'clock in the afternoon, he says,

"Comme j'avais tout à l'heure l'honneur de le dire au Roi, la situation va être, à Madrid, par suite des instructions de Palmerston à Bulwer, bien tendue et critique. Voilà le Cobourg avoué, accepté par l'Angleterre.

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Si, au contraire, Bresson allait aujourd'hui, avant le moment de la crise, sans être pressé par la nécessité, uniquement pour retirer des paroles qu'il a dites, sans qu'il en reste cependant aucune trace

textuelle ni bien précise, s'il allait, dis-je, déclarer à la Reine Christine qu'elle doit faire le mariage Cadix sans compter sur le mariage Montpensier, je craindrais infiniment que la Reine Christine ne se saisît de cet incident pour se rejeter dans le mariage Cobourg, et que la question ne fût promptement résolue contre nous."

This argument about the Coburg alliance having been rendered probable or imminent by Lord Palmerston's instruction to Mr. Bulwer of July 19, was the chief, if not the only one which the French Government were able to bring forward in defence of their conduct in violating the engagements of the Château d'Eu. There are a vast number of proofs to be found, in the "Revue Rétrospective" as well as elsewhere, that all the alarm expressed on this head was a mere pretence; and not the least remarkable among them is that which we are about to cite. It was only the day before M. Guizot wrote the two letters of July 25, extracts of which we have just quoted, that he transmitted to Louis-Philippe a copy of that very instruction of July 19 on which that alarm was said to be founded. And, in speaking of that instruction, he writes, on the 24th of July, as follows:

M. Guizot to Louis-Philippe.

EXTRACT.

"Val Richer, 24 Juillet, 1846, 7 heures du soir.

"La dépêche est écrite évidemment en vue du Parlement et de la publicité. Je suis frappé qu'il ait parlé à Jarnac de sa lettre particulière à Bulwer, sans la montrer. Pourquoi en parler? Je ne serais pas étonné, qu'au fond, IL NE SE SOUCIÂT PAS BEAUCOUP DU COBOURG."

How the writer of this last sentence could have had the assurance to address to the same person, in less than twentyfour hours afterwards, the words

"IL VA SE FAIRE ÉVIDEMMENT UN GRAND EFFORT POUR LE COBOURG

passes our comprehension. It is evident that it must have

required a strong motive to induce him to hazard such an experiment, and that he must have built a good deal upon the facility of arousing the King's fears on that point. But we will waste no more time in commenting upon such conduct.

ter.

We must say a few words, however, upon the attempt that has been made, since the death of M. Bresson, to throw upon him the whole blame of this transaction. The supposition that he acted entirely without authority from M. Guizot, is one which cannot be maintained after an attentive examination of the letters which passed between those two gentlemen on that subject, or of such of them as have been made public. In the first place, the mere fact that M. Bresson was not disavowed at once by M. Guizot, of his own accord, is an indication that the step taken by the Ambassador was not very displeasing to the MinisBut when we recollect the earnestness and perseverance with which the King insisted on a disavowal, and the determined resistance with which M. Guizot opposed it, and continued to do so until the plan was at length successfully carried into execution; above all, when we observe that, in order to divert the King from his purpose, M. Guizot did not scruple to write to his Majesty, on the 25th of July, precisely the reverse of that which he had given as his opinion, twenty-four hours previously, respecting the probability of a Coburg alliance (and which opinion he subsequently repeated more than once when the opposite opinion of July 25th had served its turn); when, we say, we impartially consider these circumstances, we think it must be admitted that it is not impossible that M. Guizot, having ventured to deceive his Sovereign on one point, may perhaps also have done so on another, by sending, without the King's knowledge, private directions to M. Bresson to take the step reported in his letter of July 12th.

Now let us see, by reference to the terms of that letter, whether it contains anything calculated to confirm this idea. M. Bresson says,—

D