was to their enemies that he held out the hand. Queen Christina, the Cabinet, and all the moderate party saw themselves in danger of being delivered over to their inveterate and bitter foes, the revolutionary party of progress.' They would not support this idea, and at last declared plainly for the French alliance." The Cortes were convoked for the 4th of September; the two marriages, that of the queen and the Duke of Cadiz, and of the infanta and the Duc de Montpensier, were simultaneously announced.

Recapitulating the diverse phases of the negotiation, of the original harmony and the subsequent disagreement between France and England on the subject of Queen Isabella's marriage, M. Guizot wrote (September 10) to M. de Jarnac: "I have done what I announced to you on the 27th of February last. In presence of the candidature, sought at Madrid and accepted at London, of Prince Leopold of Coburg, for the hand of Queen Isabella, I gave orders to M. Bresson to use all his efforts to decide the queen's marriage with one of the sons of Don Francisco de Paula, preferably with the Duke of Cadiz now in Spain, and the marriage of the infanta with the Duc de Montpensier. The queen, her mother, and the Cabinet have just accepted this double union.

"These are the facts, my dear Jarnac; recall them to Lord Palmerston's mind, when you inform him of the decision which has just been made at Madrid, and of which he is perhaps already informed. As to the grounds of this decision, I have nothing to say. Of the two marriages to which it refers, one is a political question which the Queen of Spain and her government have a right to settle according to the constitution of the country; the other is a family affair which concerns only the queen-mother, her two daughters, and ourselves."

In presence of the intention thus openly proclaimed by Spain, Lord Palmerston made no further effort to prevent or even to

delay the marriage of the infanta with the Duc de Montpensier. The Spanish government gave way to no weakness in this regard. Like France, it had resumed all its liberty of action since England had refused to share in a concerted action. The mischievous agitations of the revolutionary press secretly fomented at Madrid by Sir Henry Bulwer, remained ineffectual; on the 11th of October, 1847, the two princely marriages. were celebrated one after the other in the church of Our Lady of Atocha at Madrid, in presence of a curious crowd who had gathered to salute the queen as she passed. The violence of the debates in Parliament and in the French Chambers was all that testified to the discontent caused, especially in England, by the result of a negotiation long pursued harmoniously with France, but ending finally in a check for the policy of England, in consequence of Lord Palmerston's determination to abandon upon this point the cordial agreement which had existed between the two countries. Diplomatic relations were, however, not interrupted. Ill-feeling remained strong in England; it lingered in the form of a vague and general impression, contributing in the ignorance of facts to diminish the popularity of King Louis Philippe and to pervert the judgment of the English public in respect to him. It did not bring about any of those fatal consequences that a dissension less serious and less a matter of public feeling was to occasion in 1870, when two great governments and two great countries rushed into war in the name of the claims to the Spanish throne of the Prince of Hohenzollern.

"I am sad and shocked," wrote M. Guizot, July 17, 1870, "shocked at the two governments and the two nations. In 1846, England attempted in the Spanish marriage to inflict a very different check upon us from that which the candidature of the Prince of Hohenzollern could now be. Lord Palmerston had officially placed the Prince of Coburg at the head of the

list of candidates agreeable to England. He was defeated; the marriage, contrary to his declared wish, took place. But to make war upon us for that never occurred to England, not even to Lord Palmerston himself. They were, however, much displeased, both people, queen, and ministers, but all was limited to a long and animated discussion of the two negotiations. To-day a candidature formally made by Spain offends us; we say so to Prussia, patron of the candidate; the candidate withdraws, with his patron's permission; Spain accepts his withdrawal. We do not stop at this, but require of the patron to forbid for the future, in any case, absolutely, the withdrawn candidate from being again proposed. Upon this astonishing demand, the patron suddenly, without hearing a word, breaks off diplomatic relations and enters upon war. And in both countries, multitudes applaud. Which of the two nations is most destitute of good judgment and of moral sense? Verily I am at a loss to say. It is a case when one agrees with Chancellor Oxenstiern.” *

"Go, my son," said the great minister of Gustavus Adolphus, sending his son to travel in foreign countries, "go and see with what small wisdom the world is governed."

CHAPTER VI.

EUROPEAN DISTURBANCES. - DOMESTIC PEACE.

T has been my wish to relate with considerable detail negoti

ations which at the time occupied the attention of all Europe, and very specially affected the relations of England with France and Spain. I now return to the important affairs at home which soon absorbed all thoughts and occupied all hearts. Hardly had the ministry of Sir Robert Peel fallen when famine broke out anew in Ireland with an unheard-of violence, demanding unheard-of efforts, to which England devoted herself courageously and generously. Once more the interior condition of Ireland necessitated the presentation of a law repressive of the multiplied disorders and criminal attempts which desolated the country. Upon a proposition of this nature had ensued the debate which was followed by the overthrow of the Tory ministry. Sir Robert Peel permitted himself the satisfaction of referring to this. "I should be unwilling," he said, "to let the first night of the debate on the proposal of her Majesty's government pass, without publicly declaring that it is my intention to give to that proposal a cordial support. I will quarrel with none of the details of the measure. I cannot resist the force of the appeal which the right honorable gentleman has made to the House, because it is precisely the same appeal which some two years since I myself made, and made in vain." Sir Robert Peel, in fact, supported the Whig ministry against his own former friends, now eager in the attack upon the government.

All the great questions with which he had

himself been obliged to deal—those that had been settled as well as those that had remained undecided-reappeared successively before the Houses: the income tax, the monetary system and the organization of the Bank of England, the state of the Colonies, the tax upon sugars, the distinction between sugars grown by free labor and those grown by slave labor, the number of hours' work in factories, etc. England was in one of those periods of transformation and of social crisis, when the old system, everywhere and necessarily antagonistic to the modern spirit, makes an obstinate, though almost hopeless defence, each day trying to ward off the morrow's peril or repair the disaster of yesterday, and keeping its intrepid but useless defenders forever in the various breaches which have been made.

The reputation and the talent of Lord George Bentinck and Mr. Disraeli increased daily in this incessant warfare, often violent and unjust, but never seriously endangering the exist ence of the ministry, much less the tranquillity of England, in the midst of the agitations of Europe. On the 24th of February, 1848, the monarchy of July had fallen before the impatient and inconsiderate attacks of an opposition which did not itself measure the abyss into which it was plunging the country. Following upon this fall, which was as surprising as a peal of thunder from a clear sky, all Europe saw her thrones shaken, and the revolutionary ferment reappear upon the surface of social organizations beneath which it had been secretly working. At many points, the disturbance was serious, and its effects durable. In England it was limited to a Chartist procession on Kennington Common and the presentation of a petition to the House of Commons. The parliamentary commission appointed to examine this petition discovered a multitude of false signatures, often repeated in the same handwritings, or reproduced as a foolish joke. The public mind, for the moment disquieted at the Chartist manifestation, soon turned it into ridicule, and