Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 Part 3

Paris at this period, it is evident, was scarcely in a less excitable state than London:--

HON. COLONEL STANHOPE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.

Hotel Meurice, June 11, 1820.

MY DEAR LORD BUCKINGHAM,

Paris is in a strange state,--more resembling a town in a state of siege than the most gadding capital; but, as far as the exterior appearance can be the guide, I cannot see why the Government should have a.s.sembled nearly 25,000 troops round Paris, the riots having been confined to the students of the _ecoles_ and the _gardes de corps_, the people, _proprement dit_, taking no part and showing no interest. The violence of the Chambers is sufficiently seen in the papers, and their whole time is occupied in hearing different members relate their own adventures on the preceding day. The ultra-Ultras have returned to their foolish language, which ruined them in '14 and '15, about having a general tax to reimburse them for their lost property. They might as well think of dividing France. The other party, of course, keep pace. Two days ago, some French ladies on the Boulevards were obliged, by a body of men looking like _le bourgeoisie_, to get out of their carriages and cry "_Vive l'egalite_." One of the worst circ.u.mstances is the distinction which has been made between _Le Roi et la Charte_, which last year was the watchword of the Royalists, and is now divided into the _mots de ralliement_ of the two parties; and when the one cries _A bas la Charte_, others have been found rash enough to answer _A bas les Bourbons_. The Royalists are universally anxious for the double electoral colleges; their opponents will not give up the direct election; and the amendment which was carried the other day is a sort of _mezzo termine_, as the 170 new members are to be elected by the double colleges, and the _remplacants_ by the old law. There was a considerable riot on Friday night, in which Oudinot was rode over, and several people badly wounded; one only killed. The troops have shown the greatest steadiness, and evince rather an anxiety than an unwillingness to act. The Jacobins are, I am told, as much depressed by this as the Ultras are elated.

Madame de Flahaut is here, acting the French Lady J----; and to you I need say no more.

I am in a great fright about the Queen. What could make the Government employ Lord H----, who seems to have committed himself and employers most lamentably? She will, I fear, have a tremendous party of many well-disposed, good, moral men, as well as of all those who hate the King and the Government. If you have leisure, I should be very grateful for a word or two on this.

Ever affectionately yours,

J. W. STANHOPE.

The negotiation between the King's Ministers and the Queen's legal advisers was not rendered fruitless by any fault of the former.

Wilberforce acknowledges that "The concessions made by the King's servants, as Mr. Brougham afterwards declared in the House of Commons, were various and great. The name and rights of a Queen were granted to her Majesty without reserve--any recognition of which had formerly been carefully avoided. A Royal yacht, a frigate, &c., were offered. It was agreed that her name and rank should be notified at the Court either of Rome or Milan, the capitals of the countries in which she had expressed her intention to reside; and that an address should be presented to the Queen, no less than another to the King, to thank her Majesty for having acceded to the wish of the House of Commons."[23]

[23] "Life," vol. v. p. 56.

Wilberforce was very earnest, sending his son with a letter to the King, in which he entreated him to restore the Queen's name to the Liturgy,[24] and venturing to prophesy something very like a civil war should this concession be refused. On this point, however, his Majesty was intractable, and the negotiator met with anything but cordial co-operation from his own party, of whom he says: "Opposition seem all disposed to take up the Queen's cause on party principles. Alas!"[25]

Subsequently he implies where he met with obstacles; "Tierney, &c., ill-natured, yet Castlereagh gave way."

[24] The Queen perpetrated one of her characteristic jests when this question was being furiously debated: "The praying," she observed, "makes me very hungry, and when I am in the Liturgy I shall be famished."

[25] Ibid. p. 58.

In a discussion on the subject in the House of Commons, he thus refers to the princ.i.p.al speakers: "Burdett, violent and bitter, but very able; Tierney, mischievous; Denman, strong and straightforward; Brougham, able; Canning, clever, but not letting himself out."

A deputation, of which Wilberforce was the head, proceeded from the House of Commons to the Queen, dressed in full Court costume; but her Majesty's turbulent admirers did not appreciate their good intentions, and they were roughly greeted by the mob. The reception they met with from the Queen was not much more courteous. Her answer was a refusal.

"Her manner was extremely dignified," observes the princ.i.p.al negotiator, "but very stern and haughty." In a letter which he wrote at the time, he gives all the details of the question,[26] from which it is clear that the members of Government had agreed to resign their offices if the restoration of the Queen's name to the Liturgy was carried against them in the House of Commons; and that, seeing the improbability of obtaining this demand, the Queen would have accepted an equivalent proposed by the Government, had not some sinister influence been exercised which brought about her refusal. Mr.

Wilberforce shared the general fate of peace-makers in getting terribly abused; but he evidently had the authority of the Queen's most able counsellor for the steps he took. "She will accede to your address," he wrote on the 22nd of June, "I pledge myself."[27]

[26] Letter to Samuel Roberts, Esq., "Life," vol. v. p. 62.

[27] Letter to Samuel Roberts, Esq., "Life," vol. v. p. 65.

Cobbett published a letter addressed to Mr. Wilberforce, made up of declamation and invective, in the style that then took the public taste. This composition is described as "very clever, but very mischievous, and full of falsehoods." He was attacked so frequently, and with such violence, by the Queen's partisans, that it forced him to exclaim, "What a lesson it is to a man not to set his heart on low popularity, when, after forty years' disinterested public service, I am believed to be a perfect rascal!"[28]

[28] "Wilberforce's Life," vol. v. p. 68.

He complained bitterly of the conduct of the leaders of Opposition.

Their language to the Queen, especially that of Lord Grey, Mr. Tierney, and Sir Francis Burdett, was, "Oh! you may be sure you never can be prosecuted,"--thereby, as he acknowledges, "taking away what must doubtless have most powerfully enforced her consent. Then no sooner had she refused, and the prosecution goes forward, than they say, Government never should have admitted a compromise at all, but have prosecuted without hesitation."[29]

[29] Ibid. p. 69.

"She seems," writes Lord Dudley, "to have been advised by persons that are resolved to play the deepest possible game, and care little to what risk they expose her, provided they have a chance of turning out the Government, or perhaps of over-throwing the monarchy. I do not think that it is Brougham's doing."[30] "The people," confesses Cobbett, "as far as related to the question of guilt or innocence, did not care a straw."[31] Their leaders cared still less:

"Careless of fate, they took their way, Scarce caring who might win the day; Their booty was secure."

[30] "Letters," p. 255.

[31] "Life of George IV.," p. 425.

"If her innocence were proved," observes a popular historian, "they would gain a triumph over the King, force upon him a wife whom he could not endure, overturn his Ministers, and perhaps shake the monarchy; if her guilt, they would gain the best possible ground for declaiming on the corruption which prevailed in high places, and the monstrous nature of those inst.i.tutions which gave persons of such character the lead in society."[32]

[32] Alison's "Europe," vol. ii. p. 549.

The excitement increased as the arrangements for the Queen's trial became known. Lord John Russell published a letter addressed to Mr.

Wilberforce, on the subject, urging him again to attempt an arrangement; but he had had enough of interfering in such a business, and declined to take the post a.s.signed him, though the writer expressed his opinion that in his hands was perhaps the fate of the country. He was as anxious as ever to do good, but did not see how it could be done. His opinion of the Queen did not improve, in consequence of the "spirit" she continued to display, which he now felt inclined to describe in more appropriate language:--"I feel deeply the evil," he writes in his Diary, "that so bad a woman as I fear she is, should carry the victory by sheer impudence (if she is guilty), and a.s.sume the part of a person deeply injured."[33]

[33] "Life," vol. v. p. 77.

Other well-meaning persons were equally anxious for an interposition; indeed, the King was obliged to send a message to one who desired an audience, with this object in view, "that he never talked on political subjects with any but his Ministers."[34]

[34] Ibid. p. 78.

Another cotemporary Diarist goes to the root of the evil:--"Had some conversation with Tierney, who looked serious and down. He said everything was worse and worse out of doors, and he saw no remedy. I observed, the only remedy, the only possibility of things returning to their former state was a rebellion, and the troops standing by us, and quelling it with a high hand. He replied, that was the disease. I said, neither he nor I should live to see society where it had been and ought to be; to which he a.s.sented. I have no doubt he is sincere, yet he and his party are the real authors of the spirit we deplore."[35]

[35] Phipps's "Memoirs of R. P. Ward," vol. ii. p. 61.

"Alas!" writes Wilberforce in his Diary, "surely we never were in such a sc.r.a.pe. The bulk of the people, I grant, are run mad; but then it was a species of insanity on which we might have reckoned, because we know their prejudices against foreigners; their being easily led away by appeals to their generous feelings; and then the doses with which they are plied, are enough to intoxicate much stronger heads than most of theirs."[36]

[36] "Life," vol. v. p. 78.

"The middling as well as the higher orders," says another observer, "are pretty well acquainted with her present Majesty's conduct in foreign countries; but I am told that the common people are still in the dark, and disposed to espouse her cause; more, however, out of hatred to the King than out of regard for her."[37]

[37] Lord Dudley's "Letters," p 242.

Attempts were made to gain over the military, which were not entirely unsuccessful; one of the regiments of Foot Guards, quartered in the Mews Barracks, Charing Cross, exhibited such decided symptoms of having been tampered with, that the Duke of Wellington was sent for, and he at once ordered them off to Portsmouth. "The night before the last division marched," says a respectable authority, "a formidable mob a.s.sembled round the barracks at Charing Cross, calling the soldiers within to come out and join them."[38] They were only subsequently dispersed by a troop of the 2nd Life Guards.

[38] "Sidmouth's Life," by Pellew, vol. iii. p. 330. Alison's "Europe," vol. ii. p. 461.

Some of the more respectable leaders of Opposition, though, they supported the Queen, had no heart in the cause.

"Lord ----" (we learn from another authority), "whom I always look upon as a most honest man, said it was rather hard upon him to have to present her pet.i.tions, but he could not refuse, being so intimate with Brougham. But they were brought to him at a minute's notice, and he knew nothing about, consequently could not support them. In the present instance, he thought she was taken in, in pressing for trial within four-and-twenty hours. She thought we would not take her at her word, and might bully, as she had done before; that she was a bold, dangerous, impudent woman, as full of revenge as careless of crime, and that if we did not take care, might play the part of Catherine the Second, who, by means of the Guards, murdered her husband and usurped the throne."[39]

[39] Phipps's "Memoirs of Robert Plumer Ward," vol. ii. p. 56.

The n.o.bleman whose opinions have here been preserved was most probably Lord Dacre, who, in his place in the House of Lords, presented more than one pet.i.tion from the Queen. One also was presented by Lord Auckland. Another of the Queen's partisans in the other House appears to have entertained similar sentiments:--"Walked with Sir ---- ----. He said he had no doubt that the Queen was guilty, but would never vote for the Bill, as unconst.i.tutional; at the same time, ready to admit that Ministers had proved such a case as perfectly justified them in bringing it forward."[40]

[40] Phipps's "Memoirs of Robert Plumer Ward," vol. ii. p. 58.

A description of the sort of satellites that followed the Queen's movements when she went abroad, or surrounded her dwelling while she remained at home, is preserved in the postscript of a letter from Mr.