aving once given her sanction to a measure, that it
be not arbitrarily altered or modified by the Minister. Such an act she
must consider as failing in sincerity towards the Crown, and justly to
be visited by the exercise of her constitutional right of dismissing
that Minister. She expects to be kept informed of what passes between
him and the Foreign Ministers before important decisions are taken,
based upon that intercourse; to receive the foreign despatches in good
time; and to have the drafts for her approval sent to her in sufficient
time to make herself acquainted with their contents before they must be
sent off.'

No responsible adviser of the Crown during the reign had received such
emphatic censure, and in August 1850 people were talking as if
Palmerston was bound to resign. He certainly would have done so if he
had merely consulted his own feelings; but he declared that to resign
just then would be to play into the hands of the political adversaries
whom he had just defeated, and to throw over his supporters at the
moment when they had fought a successful battle on his behalf. Lord
Palmerston, therefore, accepted the Queen's instructions with unwonted
meekness. He assured her Majesty that he would not fail to attend to the
directions which the memorandum contained, and for a while harmony was
restored. In the autumn of 1851 Louis Kossuth arrived in England, and
met with an enthusiastic reception, of the kind which was afterwards
accorded in London to another popular hero, in the person of Garibaldi.
Lord Palmerston received Kossuth at the Foreign Office, and, contrary to
the wishes of the Queen and Prime Minister, deputations were admitted,
and addresses were presented, thanking Palmerston for his services in
the cause of humanity, whilst in the same breath allusions to the
Emperors of Austria and Russia as 'odious and detestable assassins' were
made. Almost before the annoyance created by this fresh act of
indiscretion had subsided, Lord Palmerston was guilty of a still more
serious offence.

[Sidenote: THE _COUP D'ETAT_]

Louis Napoleon had been elected President of the French Republic by five
and a half million votes. He was thought to be ambitious rather than
able, and he had pledged himself to sustain the existing Constitution.
He worked for his own hand, however, and accordingly conciliated first
the clergy, then the peasants, and finally the army, by fair promises,
popular acts, and a bold policy.