n the President
immediately after his measure on Tuesday morning, and
have been profuse in their expressions of approval of his
conduct."]

[Footnote 35: Lady Normanby wrote later:--

"I told you yesterday the President had no faith in him
(Palmerston). The Treaty signed with Buenos Ayres, the Greek
business, and the reception of Kossuth had long destroyed his
confidence in Palmerston, and I believe he hates him and sees
through his present adulations...."]

_Queen Victoria to Lord John Russell._

OSBORNE, _13th December 1851._

The Queen sends the enclosed despatch from Lord Normanby to Lord John
Russell, from which it appears that the French Government _pretend to
have received_ the entire approval of the late _coup d'etat_ by the
British Government, as conveyed by Lord Palmerston to Count Walewski.
The Queen cannot believe in the truth of the assertion, as such
an approval given by Lord Palmerston would have been in complete
_contradiction_ to the line of strict neutrality and passiveness which
the Queen had expressed her desire to see followed with regard to the
late convulsion at Paris, and which was approved by the Cabinet, as
stated in Lord John Russell's letter of the 6th inst. Does Lord
John know anything about the alleged approval, which, if true, would
_again_ expose the honesty and dignity of the Queen's Government in
the eyes of the world?[36]

[Footnote 36: On the 15th, Lord Normanby wrote to Lord
Palmerston that he must now assume M. Walewski's report to be
correct, and observed that if the Foreign Secretary held one
language in Downing Street and prescribed another course
to the British Ambassador, the latter must be awkwardly
circumstanced. Lord Palmerston (in a letter not shown to
the Queen or the Cabinet) replied that he had said nothing
inconsistent with his instructions to Lord Normanby, that the
President's action was for the French nation to judge of,
but that in his view that action made for the maintenance of
social order in France.]

_Queen Victoria to the King of the Belgians._

OSBORNE, _13th December 1851._

MY BELOVED UNCLE,--These lines are to express my _very warmest_ wishes
for _many, many happy_ returns of your dear birthday, and for _every_
earthly blessing you _can_ desire. How I wish you could spend it
_here_, or we with you! I venture to send you some trifles which
will recall t