triumphant.]

[Footnote 39: British Ambassador at Constantinople.]

[Footnote 40: Frederick James Lamb, younger brother of Lord
Melbourne, and his successor in the title (1782-1853). He
was at this time Ambassador at Vienna, having previously been
Ambassador at Lisbon.]

[Pageheading: PALMERSTON AND FRANCE]

[Pageheading: VIEWS OF LOUIS PHILIPPE]

_The King of the Belgians to Queen Victoria._

WIESBADEN, _2nd October 1840._

... There is an idea that Mehemet Ali suffers from what one calls _un
charbon_, a sort of dangerous ulcer which, with old people, is never
without some danger. If this is true, it only shows how little one can
say that the Pashalik of Aleppo is to decide who is to be the master
of the Ottoman Empire in Europe and Asia, the Sultan or Mehemet? It is
highly probable that if the old gentleman dies, his concern will go to
pieces; a division will be attempted by the children, but that in the
East hardly ever succeeds. There everything is personal, except the
sort of Caliphate which the Sultan possesses, and when the man is
gone, his empire _also goes_. Runjeet Singh[41] is a proof of this;
his formidable power will certainly go to the dogs, though the Sikhs
have a social link which does not exist in the Egyptian concern. If we
now were to set everything in Europe on a blaze, have a war which may
change totally all that now exists, and in the midst of it we should
hear that Mehemet is no more, and his whole _boutique_ broken up,
would it not be _really laughable_, if it was not _melancholy_? And
still the war _once raging_, it would no longer put a stop to it, but
go on for _other reasons_.

I cannot understand what has rendered Palmerston so _extremely hostile
to the King_ and Government of France. A _little civility_ would have
gone a great way with the French; if in your Speech on the 11th of
August some regret had been expressed, it would have greatly modified
the feelings of the French. But Palmerston _likes to put his foot on
their necks_! _Now, no statesman must triumph over an enemy that is
not quite dead_, because people forget a real loss, a real misfortune,
but they won't forget _an insult_. Napoleon made great mistakes that
way; he hated Prussia, insulted it on all occasions, but still _left
it alive_. The consequence was that in 1813 they rose to a man in
Prussia, even children and women took arms, not only because they had
been injured, but because they h