, I thought). As for Marie Antoinette,
she was not a striking character in any senses she was horribly frivolous;
and, I suppose, we must say she was, what shall I call it--a very
considerable flirt?

_J. M._--The only case with real foundation seems to be that of the _beau
Fersen_, the Swedish secretary. He too came to as tragic an end as the
Queen.

_Tuesday, Dec. 22._--Mr. G. still somewhat indisposed--but reading away all
day long. Full of Marbot. Delighted with the story of the battle of
Castiglione: how when Napoleon held a council of war, and they all said
they were hemmed in, and that their only chance was to back out, Augereau
roughly cried that they might all do what they liked, but he would attack
the enemy cost what it might. "Exactly like a place in the _Iliad_; when
Agamemnon and the rest sit sorrowful in the assembly arguing that it was
useless to withstand the sovereign will of Zeus, and that they had better
flee into their ships, Diomed bursts out that whatever others think, in
any event he and Sthenelus, his squire, will hold firm, and never desist
from the onslaught until they have laid waste the walls of Troy."(290) A
large dose of Diomed in Mr. G. himself.

Talk about the dangerous isolation in which the monarchy will find itself
in England if the hereditary principle goes down in the House of Lords;
"it will stand bare, naked, with no shelter or shield, only endured as the
better of two evils." "I once asked," he said, "who besides myself in the
party cares for the hereditary principle? The answer was, That perhaps ----
cared for it!!"--naming a member of the party supposed to be rather sapient
than sage.

News in the paper that the Comte de Paris in his discouragement was about
to renounce his claims, and break up his party. Somehow this brought us
round to Tocqueville, of whom Mr. G. spoke as the nearest French approach
to Burke.

_J. M._--But pale and without passion. Who was it that said of him that he
was an aristocrat who accepted his defeat? That is, he knew democracy to
be the conqueror, but he doubted how far it would be an improvement, he
saw its perils, etc.

_Mr. G._--I have not much faith in these estimates, whether in favour of
progress or against it. I don't believe in comparisons of age with age.
How can a man strike a balance between one government and another? How can
he place himself in such an attitude, and with such comprehensive sureness
of vision, as to say that the th