transaction, as "a political intrigue which exceeds in immorality and vulgarity everything brought out in modern times on the theatre of politics; a part which would have shut out any one who had attempted to play it in the circle of private life from all respectable society."
Our Queen was deeply incensed; her whole soul revolted from the wickedness of the scheme, and she had the added bitterness of feeling that Louis Philippe had been guilty of personal deception towards herself. It was he who introduced the subject when she visited him at Eu, and gave her assurances upon it, unsought by her, and lightly broken by him. His way of announcing the project to her did not mend matters. He was ashamed to broach the subject in a formal manner, and he got his wife to tell the Queen as a detail of family news in a private and friendly letter, speaking of it as if it were of no political importance, but simply an event that would add to the domestic happiness ("le seul vrai dans ce monde," the poor Queen Marie Amélie was made to say) of the French Royal Family. Our Queen's reply was exceeding dignified, severe, short, and self-restrained. It left no doubt as to her sentiments; and nothing is more indicative of Louis Philippe's bad conscience in the matter than the fact, which he himself admits, that he sat up till four in the morning on three following nights composing a reply in which he endeavored in vain to justify himself.[1]
It is of course quite open to doubt whether the English Foreign Office had been justified in regarding
- ↑ The poor excuse put forward by Louis Philippe was that the English Foreign Secretary, then Lord Palmerston, was manoeuvring to bring about a marriage between a Coburg Prince and the Queen of Spain. There was no foundation for this charge; but Louis Philippe seems to have had a terror of Lord Palmerston which deprived him of all self-control, and capacity for judging of evidence.
