Duc de Poix, and went to Hope's
ball; his house is a sumptuous palace in miniature, all furnished
and decorated with inconceivable luxury and _recherche_; one room
hung with cachemires. Last night to a small ball at Court. Supper
in the gallery de Diane--round tables, all the ladies supping
first; the whole thing as beautiful and magnificent as possible,
and making all our fetes look pitiful and mean after it.

Our King's speech was here before seven o'clock yesterday
evening, about twenty-nine hours after it was delivered; a
rapidity of transmission almost incredible. Lord Granville had
predicted to me in the morning that they would be very angry here
at no mention being made of France, and so it was. I heard the
same thing from other quarters, and he told me that he had found
himself not deceived in his expectations, and that the King had
himself complained. The French Government had taken such pains
latterly to conciliate ours, by their speeches in the Chambers,
and by applying for votes of money to enable them to employ more
custom-house officers for the express purpose of preventing the
transmission of arms and stores to the Spanish Pretender; in
short, giving us every proof of goodwill; that Lord Granville was
desirous of having some expressions of corresponding goodwill and
civility inserted in the speech, and said as much to Lord
Palmerston; but he refused, and replied that as they could not
speak of France with praise, it was better not to mention her at
all. I have been riding with Lord Granville the last two days,
when he talked a good deal about France and French affairs. His
own position here is wonderfully agreeable, because all the
business of the two countries is transacted by him here, and
Sebastiani's is little more than a nominal embassy. This has long
been the case, having begun in Canning's time; then the great
intimacy which subsisted between the Duc de Broglie and Lord
Granville confirmed it during his Ministry, and the principal
cause of Talleyrand's hatred to Palmerston was the refusal of the
latter to alter the practice when he was in England, and his
mortification at finding the part he played in London to be
secondary to that of the British Ambassador in Paris.

[Page Head: THE DUKE OF ORLEANS.]

The Duc de Broglie seems to have been the most high-minded and
independent of all the Ministers who have been in place, and the
only one who kicked against the personal supremacy of the King in