Lord Lyons; A Record of British Diplomacy by Thomas Wodehouse Legh Newton

Author:Thomas Wodehouse Legh Newton [Newton, Thomas Wodehouse Legh]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical, Literary, General, Fiction
ISBN: 111531159X
Google: vUdwDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 25288702
Publisher: BiblioLife
Published: 2009-10-28T00:00:00+00:00

Thiers had not taken the trouble to substantiate his ridiculous complaint, and his action was an instance of the extreme gullibility of even the most intelligent French statesmen, where foreign countries are concerned, and so perturbed was the French Government at the idea of a Bonapartist restoration, that according to Captain Hotham, British Consul at Calais, two gunboats, the Cuvier and Faon, were at that time actually employed in patrolling the coast between St. Malo and Dunkirk with a view to preventing a possible landing of the Emperor Napoleon. A little later, the Duc de Broglie, French Ambassador in London, made a tactless remonstrance to Lord Granville with regard to the presence of the Emperor and Empress at Buckingham Palace, on the occasion of a National Thanksgiving held to celebrate the recovery of the Prince of Wales from a dangerous illness.

* * * * *

Lord Granville to Lord Lyons.

Foreign Office, March 1, 1872.

The Duc de Broglie told me to-day that he had been rather surprised when he heard of the Emperor and Empress having been at Buckingham Palace on so public an occasion as that of last Tuesday, that I had not mentioned it to him on Monday afternoon, when we had had a long conversation. It would have enabled him to write to M. de Rémusat,3 and thus have prevented any of the effect which a sudden announcement in the papers might create in France.

I told him that I had not been consulted and did not know the fact of the invitation when I saw him, and that if I had, I should probably have mentioned it to him, although not a subject about which I should have written.

I should have explained to him that it was an act of courtesy of the Queen to those with whom she had been on friendly relations, and that it was analogous to many acts of courtesy shown by the Queen to the Orleanist Princes.

He laid stress on the publicity of the occasion, and on the few opportunities which he, as Ambassador, had of seeing the Queen, of which he made no complaint; but it made any attentions to the Emperor on public occasions more marked. He was afraid that the announcement would produce considerable effect, not upon statesmen, but upon the press in France.

I repeated that the admission of the Emperor and Empress had no political significance, but had been in pursuance with the long-established habit of the Queen to show personal courtesy to Foreign Princes with whom she had been formerly on friendly relations.

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