I.—=Source.=—_The Life of Lord Palmerston_, by the Hon. Evelyn
Ashley, vol. i., p. 289. (London: 1876.)
A. _Lord Palmerston to Lord Normanby_ (_British Ambassador in Paris_).
_December 3, 1851._
MY DEAR NORMANBY,—Even we here, who cannot be supposed to
know as much as people at Paris did about what was going on among the
Bourbonists, cannot be surprised that Louis Napoleon struck the blow at
the time which he chose for it; for it is now well known here that the
Duchess of Orleans was preparing to be called to Paris this week with
her younger son to commence a new period of Orleans dynasty. Of course
the President got an inkling of what was passing, and if it is true, as
stated in our newspapers, that Changarnier was arrested at four o’clock
in the morning in council with Thiers and others, there seems good
reason to believe, what is also asserted, that the Burgraves[3] had a
stroke prepared which was to be struck against the President that very
day, and that, consequently, he acted on the principle that a good
thrust is often the best parry.... As to respect for law and the
Constitution which you say in your dispatch of yesterday is habitual
to Englishmen, that respect belongs to just and equitable laws
framed under a Constitution founded upon reason, and consecrated
by its antiquity and by the memory of the long years of happiness
which the nation has enjoyed under it, but it is scarcely a proper
application of those feelings to require them to be directed to the
day-before-yesterday tomfoolery which the scatter-brained heads of
Marrast and Tocqueville invented for the torment and perplexity of the
French nation....
I find I have written on two sheets by mistake; the blank leaf is an
appropriate emblem of the present state of the French Constitution....
[3] A nickname for the majority in the Assembly, comprising Thiers,
Tocqueville, and others.