Memoirs of the Duchesse de Dino (Afterwards Duchesse de Talleyrand et de Sagan), 1831-1835. Dorothée Dino

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СКАЧАТЬ of course, feel it my duty to do what you ask. But once it is over I shall at once return to my den to resume the torpor which is alone appropriate to my present condition.

      "In any case, no harm will be done by leaving things for a week or two in the hands of M. de Bacourt, who, I am sure, is justifying more and more, by his energy and sagacity, all the good that I have said to you of him. Adieu!"

      Valençay, November 12, 1833.– People are beginning to be anxious about the situation in Spain. The Northern provinces are all for Don Carlos. Madrid, Barcelona, Cadiz, and almost all the South are for the Queen, on condition that the revolution takes its course. This is what is chiefly agitating the French Government.

      The anticipation of the attitude of the Chambers is making the Ministry rather nervous. It will present itself just as it is, but not without fear, for there is a certain difficulty in facing a Chamber which must wish to court popularity if it hopes to be re-elected. The huge expenditure of Marshal Soult, the very slight reduction (in some cases none at all) in other Departments, are difficulties which may become serious embarrassments.

      Paris, December 9, 1833.– Our return to London is settled. When I arrived here yesterday I found M. de Montrond on the steps, M. Raullin on the stairs, and Pozzo in the cabinet. I am to dine with him to-morrow. He has a careworn look, and fulminates against Lord Palmerston, who is said to be out of favour everywhere. M. de Talleyrand does not think that the Duc de Broglie lets himself be carried away by Lord Granville as much as his Lordship would like, and he has expressed himself in clear terms about this.

      M. de Talleyrand does not believe in the possibility of war except between England and Russia, and will make every effort in his power to prevent it. He seems to me on the best possible terms with Pozzo, and to stand extremely well with the King and Madame Adélaïde, who are beginning to distrust Palmerston and Lord Granville and to consider that Broglie is wanting in insight; and, moreover, that he treats them without sufficient consideration and respect. He is certainly behaving with great lack of frankness and confidence towards M. de Talleyrand, but one's financial position must be revealed to those who are to invest one's money.

      Lady Jersey has been to the Tuileries; the Duc d'Orléans has been in all things her humble servant. At the palace, indeed, where they are rather badly off for society, everyone was charmed by the arrival of the fair aristocrat from the other side of the Channel, which has been quite an event.

      The Faubourg Saint-Germain is more irreconcilable than ever. Napoleon had places which he could bestow, estates which he might restore: he could threaten confiscations. There is nothing of that sort nowadays; and so they all sulk with an easy insolence which is quite indescribable. The fact is that if one is not compelled to go there the Court is too mixed to be attractive. I am sorry about it for the sake of the Queen, whom I both love and honour.

      It seems that Baron de Werther is much annoyed with Palmerston and the Duc de Broglie. Certainly there is a great deal of ill-humour in the air, but M. de Talleyrand still says that it will not find its outlet in shot and shell.

      Paris, December 11, 1833.– Yesterday I dined, along with M. de Talleyrand, at the Thiers'. There was no one but himself, his wife, his father and mother-in-law; Mignet, who talked platitudes about Spain, and Bertin de Veaux, who talked of nothing but the bull-fights he saw at Saint Sebastian.

      Madame Thiers, who is only sixteen, looks nineteen. She has a fine colour, pretty hair, a good shape, large eyes which have as yet nothing to express, a disagreeable mouth, an unpleasing smile, and a too prominent forehead. She says nothing herself, hardly answers when she is spoken to, and she seemed thoroughly bored with us all. She has no presence, and no idea of how to behave in society, but no doubt she may acquire all this. Perhaps she will take only too much trouble for other people than her little husband, who is very much in love and very jealous – ashamed of it too, I gather, from what he told me. The looks his young wife bestows on him are very cold; she is not shy, but inclined to be sulky, and not at all inclined to make herself pleasant.

      I used to think Madame Dosne had the remains of beauty, but I thought on this occasion that she never could have been good looking. She has an unpleasing laugh, which is ironical without being gay. Her conversation is witty and animated, but her dress was pink and girlish, and affectedly simple to a degree which quite astonished me.

      Paris, December 15, 1833.– Yesterday I dined with the King. M. de Talleyrand was dining with the Prince Royal. During dinner the King spoke of nothing but traditions and memories of the past and ancient castles. I was quite at home. First we exhausted the topic of Touraine: he promised stained glass and portraits of Louis XI. and Louis XII. for Amboise. He will buy back the remains of Montrichard, and will prevent the ruin of the Château de Langeais. If he does all this my dinner will not have been in vain! He then told me about the restorations he is having done at Fontainbleau, and ended by explaining to me his great plan for Versailles, which is really great and worthy of a great-grandson of Louis XIV. But will it come to pass? The conversation then turned on the new work which he has had done at the Tuileries themselves. He gave orders for the whole palace to be lit up, and after dinner he took me all through it.

      Everything is really fine, very fine; and if the staircase, which is rich and elegant, were only a little broader, it would be quite perfect. This promenade took us from the Pavillon de Flore to the Pavillon de Marsan. Here the King asked me if I would like to pay a visit to his son, and I said, of course, that I would follow the King anywhere. We found the Duc d'Orléans playing whist with M. de Talleyrand, whose friends the Prince had invited to meet him.

      The Prince's apartments are too beautifully furnished for a man's; that is the only criticism one can make, for they are full of lovely things found in the Royal garde-meuble, where all the fine pieces of the time of Louis XIV. were placed at the Revolution, and it did not occur to anyone at the time of the Restoration to take them out. The Duc d'Orléans has put a great many of them in his rooms. It is curious how often I have been at the Tuileries without ever suspecting the presence of the interesting things collected there. Thus, on this occasion in the King's room, among other things with which I was unfamiliar, I saw a portrait of Louis XIV. as a baby represented as a sleeping Cupid, and another of Anne of Austria as Minerva. I also saw some allegorical wood-carving of the time of Catherine de Medici, who built the Tuileries.

      The King is an admirable guide to his palaces. I wondered during all our conversation how a man could know the traditions of his family so well and be so proud of them, and yet – . However!

      I leave the day after to-morrow for London.

      CHAPTER IV

      1834

      London, January 27, 1834.– Sir Henry Halford has just been telling me that the late King George IV., whose senior physician he was, asked him two days before his death to say on his word of honour whether the case was desperate. Sir Henry, with a significantly grave face, answered that his Majesty's condition was very serious; whereupon the King thanked him with a movement of his head, desired the Sacrament and communicated very devoutly, inviting Sir Henry to communicate along with him. Lady Conyngham was in the adjoining room. So no human interest was absent from the deathbed of the Royal charlatan while he partook of the Sacrament for the last time.

      London, February 7, 1834.– Yesterday I was at Lady Holland's, who finished some story or other which she was telling me by saying, "I didn't get this from Lady Keith (Mme. de Flahaut), for she hasn't written to me for more than two months." Then she added, "Did you know that she hated the present Ministry in France?" "Of course," I answered; "it was you who told M. de Talleyrand all the nasty things she was saying here about the French Cabinet at the time when it was formed." "True," replied Lady Holland, "all the same, the Cabinet must be preserved. Lord Granville has written to Lord Holland to say that we must not believe everything Lady Keith says about the precariousness of the Duc de Broglie's СКАЧАТЬ