n and hostility
against him if he failed in a due performance, or infringed the
limits assigned to him. I told M. Guizot that nothing could be
more satisfactory than these communications, and he said that he
had already asked for an interview with Palmerston, in order to
impart the same to him. He then wanted to know if he might speak
to Lord John if he met him at Holland House or elsewhere; but I
advised him not, and told him that Palmerston was suspicious and
jealous, and would take umbrage at any of his colleagues holding
communications upon affairs which were his peculiar concern. He
acquiesced altogether, and it was agreed that I should call on
him to-morrow morning and hear what had passed between Palmerston
and him. I took the opportunity of telling him on that occasion
that the great evil, and that which rendered all negotiation and
arrangement so difficult, was the absence of all reciprocal
confidence, that we had none in his Minister (Thiers), and that
the national pride and vanity (of which we, like themselves, had
a share) were wounded by the ostentatious preparations for war,
and the menacing and blustering tone of the press. He
acknowledged these evils and their bad effects, and only shrugged
up his shoulders at what I said about Thiers, of whom he has no
good opinion himself, as is well known.

[16] [Count Walewski had been despatched to Alexandria with
a mission from M. Thiers, and one of the grievances of
Lord Palmerston against France was that this emissary
was supposed to have been sent either to encourage
Mehemet Ali in his resistance to the Allied Powers, or
to negotiate a separate arrangement between the Pasha
and the Sultan, under the auspices of France, so as to
cut the ground from under the other Powers. This M.
Thiers stoutly denied in his correspondence, and he
denied it to me with equal energy when I dined with him
at Auteuil on October 8.]

When I left him, I wrote a long letter to the Duke of Bedford,
detailing all that had passed, and as I cannot now doubt that
Lord John knows his brother communicates with me, and it was of
importance that he should be apprised immediately of what had
passed, I resolved to send him my letter to read, and desired him
to forward it to Woburn. He afterwards dined with me, and when he
came to dinner, he said he had read my letter, and that it was
very