On December 2, 1851, when his term of
office was expiring, Napoleon suddenly overthrew the Assembly, which had
refused a month or two previously to revise the Constitution in order to
make the President eligible for re-election, and next morning all Europe
was startled with tidings of the _Coup d'Etat_. Both the English Court
and Cabinet felt that absolute neutrality must be observed during the
tumult which followed in Paris, and instructions to that effect were
accordingly transmitted to Lord Normanby. But when that diplomatist made
known this official communication, he was met with the retort that Lord
Palmerston, in a conversation with the French Ambassador in London, had
already declared that the _Coup d'Etat_ was an act of self-defence, and
in fact was the best thing under the circumstances for France. Lord
Palmerston, in a subsequent despatch to Lord Normanby, which was not
submitted either to the Queen or the Prime Minister, reiterated his
opinion.

[Sidenote: 'THERE WAS A PALMERSTON!']

Under these circumstances, Lord John Russell had no alternative except
to dismiss Lord Palmerston. He did so, as he explained when Parliament
met in February, on the ground that the Foreign Secretary had
practically put himself, for the moment, in the place of the Crown. He
had given the moral approbation of England to the acts of the President
of the Republic of France, though he knew, when he was doing so, that he
was acting in direct opposition to the wishes of the sovereign and the
policy of the Government. Lord John stated in the House of Commons that
he took upon himself the sole and entire responsibility of advising her
Majesty to require the resignation of Lord Palmerston. He added that,
though the Foreign Secretary had neglected what was due to the Crown and
his colleagues, he felt sure that he had not intended any personal
disrespect. Greville declared that, in all his experience of scenes in
Parliament, he could recall no such triumph as Lord Russell achieved on
this occasion, nor had he ever witnessed a discomfiture more complete
than that of Palmerston. Lord Dalling, another eye-witness of the
episode, has described, from the point of view of a sympathiser with
Palmerston, the manner in which he seemed completely taken by surprise
by the 'tremendous assault' which Lord John, by a damaging appeal to
facts, made against him. In his view, Russell's speech was one of the
most powerful to which he had ever listened, an