Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. Part 13

The Journal goes on:--

_July 20th_.--The Duc d'Aumale's ball to the Prince of Wales; beautiful night.

_21st_.--To Ongar, to see my uncle, Edward Reeve.

_24th_.--Went to Aix by Rotterdam, with W. Wallace; met the James Watneys at Aix. Back by Ostend, August 3rd.

_August 9th_.--Joined Christine and Hopie at Perth, and proceeded to Skibo.

Marochetti and Seaforth there. Shot with Marochetti. On the 25th left Skibo. Thence to Brahan. On the 31st, pic-nic to the Falls of Rogie, with Lord Blandford playing on the bugle.

_September 1st_.--To Raith. 7th, to Arniston. 10th, to Ancrum, Kirklands.

16th, to see Harriet Martineau at Ambleside. 18th.--Home.

_September 22nd_.--Torry Hill. 23rd, excursion to Margate races, with Lord Kingsdown. Shooting at Torry Hill.

Mr. Richardson died at Kirklands on October 4th. Attended the funeral at Ancrum on the 10th. Mr. Liddell read the English service at the grave. To Brougham on my way back.

_October 13th_.--Left London on a visit to the Marochettis at Vaux.

_23rd_.--Visit to the Guizots at Val Richer. 27th, to Caen. 28th, to Angers. 30th, to Saumur.

_November 1st_.--Amboise. 2nd, Loches. 4th, Paris.

_7th_.--Home.

_8th_.--Dinner at Lord Granville's.

_23rd_.--Munro of Novar died very suddenly. He was buried at Kensal Green on December 1st.

_To Mr. Dempster_

_C. O., November 24th_. You may conceive with how much surprise and concern I received this morning a telegram from the factor at Novar, to announce the sudden death last night of my old and much-valued friend, the Laird of Novar, for whom, in spite of his singularities, I had a most sincere regard. I have telegraphed to Butler Johnstone, in Dumfriess.h.i.+re, and to his son at Rokeby, and urged them to go down immediately; but it has occurred to me that perhaps you would take the train and go over yourself, as there is no one there to give any directions, and the factor is a new man. I have also telegraphed to Raith at Cannes.... Let me know if you hear any particulars. I wonder whether he left a will; very probably none.

_C. O., November 28th_.--We felt so much alike in our regard for Novar, that I was confident that we should feel exactly alike in this most sudden and terrible catastrophe. I could well have spared many a better man, and, in spite of his peculiarities, there are few persons for whom I could feel a more sincere and painful regret. For more than twenty years I have shared with Novar many of the pleasantest hours of life; and although we were in many respects very dissimilar, there are few persons for whom I felt a greater sympathy. I have no doubt you decided rightly as to not going to Novar. My telegram, fortunately, reached Butler Johnstone and his son, both of whom were in the country, and they speedily got down to Novar. I am told they have decided to inter our poor friend in London--a decision I should not have taken myself, but which I bow to, as it is their wish.

Mrs. Butler Johnstone was so much agitated by this event--for she was pa.s.sionately attached to her brother--and so entirely solitary--for there was no one with her but young Theobald Butler--that my wife thought it her duty to go down to Brighton with her on Sat.u.r.day, to endeavour to calm and comfort her until Harry can come back to his mother, which I hope will be to-morrow....

I have heard from Ferguson, who little expected to survive his cousin and inherit Novar.

_C. O., December 1st_.--I am just returned from the funeral of our poor friend at Kensal Green. It was as quiet as possible.... There is no will at all; but every paper and letter of Novar's is carefully preserved, and accurately docketed, so that the whole state of his affairs and accounts may be seen in a moment. The personal property is enormous; he cannot have had much less than 24,000 a year. Ferguson's share of the entailed estates is about 5,000 gross rental; everything else goes to the B. J.'s.

I am very much pleased with the spirit in which B. J. takes all this--a great desire to do whatever is right to those who may have any claim on Novar, and no brag or ostentation. He and Harry immediately determined, as money is no object to them, they would allow nothing to be sold, but would keep together the gallery of pictures and everything else Novar collected.

The quant.i.ties of things are incalculable.... I thought these details would interest you. For my part, I feel that I have lost one of the persons in the world with whom I had spent the most pleasant hours, and for whom I had an extreme regard.

The Journal mentions:--

Shooting at Haslemere and Farnborough to the end of the year.

_January 2nd_, 1865.--Went to Strawberry Hill. A large party in the house; Clarendon, Duc d'Aumale, Lady Hislop, Perrys, &c. On the 5th to Torry Hill.

12th, to Ampthill. 13th, down to Woburn with Lord Wensleydale and Froude.

14th, to the Grove.

When at Torry Hill I got a note from Charles Greville asking me to come up to see him. I did so on the 10th. It was then he asked me to take charge of his journals. Some further conversation took place between us. On the 17th I was with him till half-past seven, and in the same night he died.

[Footnote: See _post_, p. 230.]

_From M. Guizot_

Paris, 1 fevrier.

My dear sir,--Je regrette Charles Greville. C'etait l'un des spectateurs politiques les plus clairvoyants, les plus fins et les plus equitables que j'aie rencontres en ma vie; et un ami fidele sans se donner tout entier a personne. Vous devez regretter beaucoup son amitie et sa societe. Ses memoires seront bien curieux. Je suis charme qu'il vous les ait legues.

Personne ne saura mieux choisir ce qu'il en faut publier, et le moment opportun pour les publier. Quand vous prendrez une resolution a cet egard, je vous prie de m'en avertir; vous en desirerez, ce me semble, une edition francaise....

The Journal here gives a remarkable contribution to the history of the French Revolution of 1830, the substance of which Reeve afterwards published in the 'Edinburgh Review,' in an article on 'Circourt' (October 1881).

_March 14th_.--The Club elected the Duc d'Aumale and Tennyson.

_19th_.--Mrs. Gollop [Mrs. Reeve's mother] died. I joined Christine at Strode, and attended the funeral at Lillington.

_April 5th_.--M. de Circourt has been staying with us for three weeks; inexhaustible in memory, anecdote, and conversation. I first knew him at Geneva in 1830, where he took refuge after the storm of the Revolution, and where he soon afterwards married Anastasia de Kl.u.s.tine.

I asked him the other day what he knew of the 'Ordonnances' of July. He was at that time, with Bois-le-Comte and Vieil-Castel, one of the chief employes of Prince Polignac, in the Office of Foreign Affairs; and from his wonderful memory and facility, Polignac used often to send him to Charles X., to relate the substance of the despatches from foreign Courts. But, although he was thus versed in foreign affairs, he knew very little of what was pa.s.sing in the interior of France, though from the violence of the conflict between the Court and the Chamber he foreboded a catastrophe.

Polignac told him nothing of the Ordinances, nor had he told the Princess, his wife; for Circourt dined with them on the day they were signed--it was Sunday, July 25th, 1830. The minister was _distrait_. The Princess got C.

aside to the piano after dinner, and said to him: 'Il se pa.s.se quelque chose;--do you know what it is?' Neither of them knew. C. thinks, however, that Bois-le-Comte was in Polignac's confidence.

In consequence of the absence of Marshal Bourmont on the Algerian expedition, Polignac was minister of war _ad interim_ [as well as minister of foreign affairs]; but he had not made the smallest military preparations, or even inquiries, as to the possibility of putting down a popular tumult. On that Sunday, for the first time, he sent for the officers in command of the troops. A dispute arose between them, which Polignac had to settle. It then turned out that in the whole of the first military division, which included not only Paris, but Orleans and Rouen and all the intermediate places, there were not 12,000 men. In Paris itself about 3,400 at that moment, including the _gendarmerie_.

The reason of this was a political and military combination which the Government had formed, but which I never before heard mentioned by anyone.

Polignac had for some time been intriguing to detach Belgium from the King of Holland's dominions--chiefly from a fanatical desire to release a Catholic population from their Protestant connexion, but in part, also, from a notion that a military demonstration on the side of Belgium would be popular in France, and would disarm the Opposition. So that the movement which took place at Brussels shortly after the Revolution of July, and was attributed to the example of that democratic explosion, had, in fact, been prepared by Polignac himself. This is strange enough; but what is still more strange is that the very means taken to promote this lawless object proved to be the ruin of Charles X. and his minister.

With a view to the occupation of Belgium, or at least of a demonstration on the frontier, they had a.s.sembled two large camps at Luneville and St.-Omer; and in these camps the bulk of the available forces of the kingdom were collected, especially as Bourmont had with him a considerable and well-appointed army in Africa. So that at the very moment when troops were most needed in Paris, one portion of the King's army was beyond the seas, and another out of reach on the Belgian frontier.

Bourmont was perfectly aware that some such scheme as that of the Ordinances was hatching, and the King had given him special orders to terminate the campaign in Algeria, to carry off the treasure from the Kasbah, and bring the troops back to France, as soon as possible. About a month before the Revolution, a ciphered despatch came from Bourmont --which, I think, Circourt said he was told to transcribe--in which the marshal earnestly entreated the King to take no important step till his return; adding that he hoped in a few weeks to terminate the African expedition, and to prove to the King what he was capable of in his Majesty's service. He had calculated that by the month of September he could bring the greater part of the army hack to Paris, and that the success they had recently had in Africa had attached the troops to himself, as their commander, so that he would be in a condition to crush all resistance; and had this plan been pursued, it is by no means impossible that the _coup d'etat_ might have succeeded, as we have seen on some subsequent occasions.

But Bourmont's despatch in cipher had exactly the opposite effect from that contemplated by the marshal. It produced in the mind of Polignac a violent jealousy of his military colleague, and the determination to act in Bourmont's absence, so as to have all the credit to himself, and remain at the head of the King's Government. On the day the Ordinances were signed, Polignac said to Circourt: 'From this day the King begins to reign, which he has not done before.' These were the motives which precipitated the blow, and caused it to overwhelm its authors with ruin and confusion.

_April 8th_.--I was elected a corresponding member of the Academie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, in France.

_14th_.--Went to Paris, and on the 22nd took my seat at the Inst.i.tute.

_From Lord Clarendon_

_The Grove, April 23rd_.--Fould is not reasonable about Mexico; for he well knows that it is we who had to complain of France, and not France of us, in the original convention, and that ever since we got out of it, so far from thwarting French designs, we have done what was in our power to support them; our Government can't help to float a bad loan, but I am sure we have done the French no harm at Was.h.i.+ngton. It will be good policy on the part of Maximilian to encourage Confederate soldiers, provided they don't come and squat in too great numbers. I understand that the French army is not to be withdrawn until it is no longer wanted by Maximilian, but that will not be till the day of judgement--if then.

The journey to Algeria is an inscrutable business. McMahon, I am told, has insisted strongly upon it, and says that the Imperial presence is indispensable to _relever_ the tone of the colony; but that is hardly reason enough for such a _grosse affaire_ as absenting himself from Paris for six weeks; but if he wishes to create alarm and make people feel how much he and social order are bound up together, and that they want him more than he them, then the expedition has a motive, and may have a great success.

Palmerston had the gout all last week, and was unable to attend the Cabinet yesterday, but he is expected in town tomorrow, so I hope it is a slight attack. The uneasiness on one side and excitement on the other, whenever he is ailing, are curious to observe; for it is pretty generally understood that until he dies there will be no real shuffle of cards. Last autumn the Tories talked tall about the majority that the general election was to give them, but of late they have come down very much, and the best informed among them now say that things will remain pretty much as they are.

The Journal continues:--