_February 26._
What extraordinary and marvellous events you give an account of! It
is like the five acts of a play, and has not taken up much more time.
Strange that a King who owed his crown to a revolution brought about
by royal blindness and obstinacy, should have lost it by exactly the
same means, and he a man who had gone through all the vicissitudes of
human existence, from the condition of a schoolmaster to the pomp of a
throne; and still further that his overthrow should have been assisted
by a minister deeply read in the records of history, and whose mind
was not merely stored with the chronology of historical facts, but had
extracted from their mass the reasons of events and the philosophy of
their causes.
I can give you but provisional instructions. Continue at your post.
Keep up unofficial and useful communication with the man who from
hour to hour (I say not even from day to day) may have the direction
of events, but commit us to no acknowledgment of any men, nor of any
things. Our principles of action are to acknowledge whatever rule may
be established with apparent prospect of permanency, but none other. We
desire friendship and extended commercial intercourse with France, and
peace between France and the rest of Europe. We will engage to prevent
the rest of Europe from meddling with France, which indeed we are quite
sure they have no intention of doing. The French rulers must engage
to prevent France from assailing any part of the rest of Europe. Upon
such a base our relations with France may be placed on a footing more
friendly than they have been or were likely to be with Louis Philippe
and Guizot.