e two years which intervened between Edward Stanley's second and third
visits to France saw the Empire regained and lost by Napoleon, and the
French Crown lost and regained by Louis XVIII.

In spite of the rose-coloured description of the comforts and pleasures
of his journey with which the correspondence of 1814 closes, neither the
Rector nor his brother found it possible to travel on the Continent in
1815, which Lady Maria had foretold would be "a much more favourable
time."

Such hopes must soon have been dashed by the proceedings of the Congress
of Vienna, which, as was said, "danse mais n'avance pas," and gloomy
forebodings are shewn in two letters from Lord Sheffield to his
son-in-law, which were received at Alderley in the autumn of 1814 and
the spring of 1815.

The first gives Lord Sheffield's view of the situation, and the second
describes Napoleon's own remarks upon it to Lord Sheffield's nephew, Mr.
Frederick Douglas.

_Lord Sheffield to Sir John Stanley_.

SHEFFIELD PLACE, _October 30, 1814_.

It is time I should provoke some symptom of your existence. I have no
letters from Frederick North,[94] but I can acquaint you that we had
himself here, which is still better, and that he has been infinitely
entertaining, after three or four months' tour on the Continent, from
whence he arrived about three weeks ago, and where he proposes to return
next week, to pass the winter at Nice with the Glenbervies and Lady
Charlotte Lindsay, who are gone there, and, I might add, with many other
English families. I begin to think I shall have more acquaintances on
the Continent than in England; the migration there is beyond
calculation.

The present is an anxious period. Perhaps there isn't in the History of
the world a more complete instance of political imbecility than was
exhibited in the late Peace at Paris, especially in the Allies not
availing themselves of the very extraordinary opportunity of securing
the tranquillity of Europe for a long time.

I conceive that the most selfish ambition will not have been more
hurtful than liberality run mad. And as I am not without apprehension of
that fanaticism, which for some time has interfered even with
Parliament, and to which there has been too much concession, I incline
to the opinion that enthusiasm, as fanaticism, is generally more hurtful
to society than scepticism. The fanatic measures are evidently
systematic and combined.

Everybody now looks eagerly towards