ver, were
not aware of this yesterday morning, though prepared for much, and thus
I can't help a certain scepticism. There is an impression in French
quarters, that the delay arises from a fear of a '_coup_' on the part of
Austria, if she didn't see France hereabouts. But Gorgon means to try to
get away before the crisis, which isn't in his tastes at all. De Noue
has gone--went yesterday.

I heard yesterday of Sir John Bowring telling somebody that _the time_
had resolved itself now into an affair of _days_. Still, there are
people I suppose who hold fast their opinions of the antique form, like
Mr. Massy Dawson, for instance, who called on me yesterday with
moustaches and a bride, but otherwise unchanged. He still maintains that
Napoleon will perish in defence of the Papacy, and that (from first to
last) he has been thwarted in Italy. 'I know that Sir John Bowring,
Diomed Pantaleone, Mrs. Browning' (bowing graciously to me in that
complimentary frame of body which befits disputants with female
creatures), 'and other persons better informed than I am, think
differently. And, in fact, if I looked only _at facts_ and at the
worldly circumstances of the case, I should agree with you all. But
reading the "Apocalypse" as I do, I find myself before a fixed
conclusion!' Imagine this, dearest Isa mine, his bride sitting in a
delicate dove-coloured silk on the sofa, as tame as any dove, and not
venturing to coo even. I suppose she thought it quite satisfactory. What
a woman with a brain could be made to suffer under certain casualties!
He quoted simply St. John and Mr. Kinglake! Mr. Kinglake plainly running
a little with St. John. 'Wasn't he (Kinglake) a member of Parliament,
and a lawyer?' And if his allegation wasn't true, and if Napoleon did
not propose to Francis Joseph to swap Lombardy for the Rhine provinces,
why was there no contradiction on the part of the French Emperor?

Now do mark the necessity of Napoleon's saying, 'I didn't really pick
Mr. Jones's pocket of his best foulard last Monday--no, though it hung
out a tempting end. Pray don't let the volunteers think so ill of me.'

That would have been '_like_' our Emperor--wouldn't it?

By the way, I had yesterday a crowd of people, and all at once, so that
I was in a flutter of weakness, and didn't get over it quickly. Mrs.
Bruen brought Miss Sewell (Amy Herbert) and Lady Juliana Knox, whom
Annunziata takes in as a homoeopathic dose, 'E molto curioso questo
cognome