Tottenham Park.1—І
came here on Monday and found the Flahaults, Charles Bruces, Lady Ailesbury2,
Granville, Dunkellin, Henry Corry, and George Bruce. The place is much improved
by the alterations already made, and those in progress. Some days ago Lady
Holland wrote to me from Paris, that it was believed there that one of the
objects of King Leopold's visit to England was to advocate an arrangement by
which his son-in-law, the Archduke Maximilian, should be made Emperor of
Mexico, and that the new Empire should be guaranteed by England as well as
France and Austria. I treated this report as an idle canard, though
it was subsequently repeated in the French newspapers. To-day I was surprised,
on mentioning the report to Flahault, to hear from him that the Emperor would
be very willing to lend himself to any such arrangement, provided there were a
strong monarchical party in Mexico, and that His Majesty would not object even
to lend the aid of a French Army if it were necessary. It is now said that the
Archduke declines having anything to do with this project. John Russell's
despatch in answer to Mr. Seward's long rigmarole on the rights of neutrals is
published, and is a well-reasoned document, and will show the Americans that
they will not be allowed to play their tricks with impunity.
There is also a
curious correspondence published on the Papal Question between M. Thouvenel and
M. de Lavalette, wherein the Pope is conjured, ' whilst it is time, to act no
longer on the basis of exploded pretensions and untenable claims, but to
descend from the imaginary elevation on which he has placed himself, into the
lower world of facts and opinions, of things and realities, and to condescend
to look at his own position through the medium of a plain common sense.' To
this, M. de Lavalette replies, that to all suggestions of this nature, His
Holiness answers, 'Let us wait on events,' that on addressing himself to
Cardinal Antonelli, His Eminence has recourse to the non possumus. It is not,
he maintains, in the power of any Pope or College of Cardinals to assent to the
diminution of the States of the Church. They have taken an oath to maintain them
in their integrity. It is argued by some people, and not without good reason,
that if the Emperor intended to perpetrate the occupation of Rome, he would not
have suffered this correspondence to be published, because his position with
regard to that question was already bad enough, without aggravating it by
making it transparently manifest to the rest of the world that he was powerless
to obtain any concessions from the Pope. I suspect the Papal feeling in France
is so strong as to make the withdrawal of the French army from Rome dangerous
to the Emperor, and Cardinal Antonelli is quite conscious of the strength of
that party. As a proof of this strong feeling, I will cite a curious thing that
happened the other day at Paris. Edmond About, the famous author of several
anti-Papal pamphlets, brought out a drama at the Odéon a short time ago, called
'Gaetana.' The audience positively refused to allow the piece to be heard, and
at the very beginning made such an uproar, that the actors were unable to
proceed. This scene was repeated on every subsequent attempt to act it, and it
was ultimately withdrawn; and a large part of the audience proceeded to About's
house, where they gave him a charivari. In the provinces the same
thing occurred, and at Lyons the tumult was so serious that the military were
called out to quell it, and About with difficulty escaped from ill-treatment at
the hands of the mob.
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1 Tottenham Park.
Now called Savernake. It stands in Savernake Forest. I believe the present
owner has reverted to the former name.—Ed.
2 Lady Ailesbury.
Maria, second wife of the first Marquis of Ailesbury. Known in society as “Lady
A.”—Ed.
SOURCE: Alice Countess of Stratford, Leaves from the
Diary of Henry Greville: 1861-1872, pp. 13-5
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