terms of exaggerated censure when she was writing of the Duke, the Duke, on his side, did not measure his language when he was writing of Madame de Lieven; and, if we think Madame de Lieven's abuse undignified and in bad taste, we fear that we must add that the Duke's language was not quite worthy of him.

She

Provocation, indeed, the Duke had. It may be difficult to show that he was right in supposing that the Lievens had been "parties to all party intrigues against" his Administration. Madame de Lieven herself said that "to know everything and to meddle in nothing" were her two chief duties. But, if she managed to know most things, no one can read her correspondence without perceiving that she meddled in a great many. A personal friend of George IV., in constant intercourse with him, she certainly did her best to influence him against his Prime Minister. probably did more. It is well known that, in the closing months of the reign, the Duke of Cumberland used his utmost influence with the King to induce him to dispense with the Duke of Wellington's services. The Duke of Cumberland was the least reputable of the many sons of George III. There were stories current about him in 1829 and 1830 which might have made any woman shrink from his society; yet there is no doubt that at this time Madame de Lieven was in daily communication with him. It may be an exaggeration to say-as Lord Ellenborough says that "Madame de Lieven [was] endeavoring to form a Government with the Duke of Cumberland, the Ultra Tories, the Canningites, and

Her quarrel with the Duke was only temporary. Partly, perhaps, because the settlement of the Greek question removed the chief cause of difference; and partly, we suspect, in consequence of hints from Russia (see p. 275), she managed to re-establish her old friendly relations with the Prime Minister. The Duke had the good sense to meet her advances. "He went to see my children in the country during my absence.

some "Whigs;" but there can be little doubt that she was acting in a manner unusual in a lady in her position, and which accounts for and explains the Duke's resentment."

It probably cost Madame de Lieven only a slight pang to separate from the Duke. But the years in which she drifted from him were destined to witness the rupture of her relations with another statesman, who held a much warmer corner of her heart. The cause and even the date of her estrangement from Prince Metternich are, so far as we are aware, unknown. M. Daudet thinks that it had commenced in 1823, and that "elle [la rupture] leur fut sans doute imposée par l'impossibilité de se voir et de vaincre les obstacles qui les séparaient." The rupture was, at any rate, complete in 1827, when the Prince contracted a second marriage with another lady. But we doubt whether M. Daudet is right in thinking that absence alone could have caused the breach. Through long years of separation Madame de Lieven maintained unbroken her friendship for Lord Grey; and, fond as she was of the Prime Minister of England, she had never felt for him the passionate admiration with which Prince Metternich had inspired her. We suspect, though we cannot prove, that her rupture with the Prince, like her quarrel with the Duke, was due to political causes. In the years which succeeded the Congress of Verona the policy of Russia and Austria, both in Western and Eastern Europe, widely diverged, and Madame de Lieven was always ready to censure the course which Prince Metternich was pursuing. The

This called for a little politeness on my part, so I wrote to him. He came to see me yesterday, and we ended by saying quite tender things to each other" (p. 225). The reconciliation was so marked that Lord Grey told her that he must "congratulate the Duke on having so thoroughly subjugated" her. (Letters to Lord Grey, vol. 1. p. 211.)

old Metternich, with whom she had fallen so violently in love at Aix-laChapelle, had been replaced in her imagination by a new Metternich," with whom she had no sympathy. She lived to regard her former lover as the greatest rascal on the face of the earth ("le plus grand coquin du monde"), and to record her pleasure on hearing the Duke of Wellington say that he had never shared the opinion of his being a great statesman.

It was at about the time at which she first met Prince Metternich that she commenced the remarkable correspondence with Lord Grey which Mr. Guy L'Estrange has given us.' During the first years the letters which passed between them were infrequent, and they only gradually assumed the appearance of extreme affection which they ultimately wore. Politics at one moment indeed seemed likely to separate her from Lord Grey, as they had already estranged her from Prince Metternich and the Duke of Wellington. She actually told him, in 1827, that she should consider "as personal anything [he might] say having a tendency to embarrass the fulfilment of the Treaty [of London]."

Lord Grey had the good sense to reply:

You threaten me, and it is to me a severe threat, that, if I take the part which I feel it is my duty to take on the affairs of Greece, you will consider it a personal offence. This, of course, precludes all discussion. I must submit to the penalty, if I should be so unfortunate as to incur it; but, in my turn, I must add not a threat, but the expression of a resolution, equally sin

• Lord Grey, in writing to her in 1827, said, "Even the Nouveau Metternich has disappeared from the scene;" and he is evidently employing an epithet which Madame de Lleven had previously used. (Correspondence, vol. 1. p. 68.)

7 The published correspondence with Lord Grev begins in September, 1824; and Mr. L'Estrange says that the earliest of Lord Grey's letters to her which has been preserved is dated October,

cere and equally firm, that, if our friendship is broken off on this ground, it never can be renewed.

This firm language had a good effect, and, though Lord Grey and she frequently differed in opinion during the succeeding years, their differences led to no interruption either of their friendship or of the correspondence to which the student of history in the reign of George IV. is so much indebted. Madame de Lieven seems instinctively to have realized that Lord Grey was the Duke of Wellington's only possible successor. "Take office, my dear Lord," so she wrote to him in October, 1828. "Take office, my dear Lord," she repeated a few days afterwards; "but then you will not. And the last is the plain truth; for, if you only wished it, you could become Premier." "The evening papers of last night already named you as Privy Seal. This offends me, for I will hear of no half measures for you. As I have already told you, the place you have to take is the first place. I see in you the only man capable of governing England." These expressions were not perhaps very discreet when they came from the pen of an Ambassador's wife. But they were the not unnatural tribute of a clever woman to the prominent statesman who was her most intimate friend. They prepare us, at any rate, for the genuine joy with which she received the news that Lord Grey had been instructed to form a Ministry."

You can imagine how delighted I am, my dear Lord. Honor paid to you is as dear to me as if it were paid to myself, and you have the most sincere

1823. She, herself, however-in arranging the Correspondence in 1834-told Lord Grey that "it begins in the year 1819." (Correspondence, vol. ill. p. 32, note.)

Lord Grey's first act, on returning from the King, was apparently to send her a short note informing her that he had been commissioned to form a new Administration.

good wishes of my affectionate friendship. . . . Good night, my dear Lord; sleep well; husband your health and strength, and all will go well.

But, amidst her personal pleasure at the accession of her most intimate friend to the first place in the Ministry, she did not allow herself to neglect the interests of her own country. She at once asked Lord Grey to leave Lord Heytesbury at St. Petersburg (a request intelligible enough to anyone who has had the advantage of seeing Lord Heytesbury's unpublished Diary, and who is consequently aware of the high opinion which he had formed of the Emperor Nicholas), and to entrust the Foreign Office to Lord Palmerston, whom a year before she had described as "an adherent," and who she now told her brother was "perfect in every way."

At this moment Madame de Lieven must have thought that she had secured all that it was possible for her to obtain. After more than seventeen years of life in England she had lived to see her "most affectionate" friend Prime Minister, and a man of her own preference, who thirteen years before had been her partner in the first waltz she had danced in London, Foreign Secretary. But even the most fascinating of women cannot control the conduct of statesmen; and Madame de Lieven, in the next few years, found herself almost as hopelessly opposed to the foreign policy of Lord Grey's Cabinet as she had been some years before at variance with the foreign policy of the Duke of Wellington.

It must be admitted that Russia was peculiarly unfortunate in the period which is covered by the Administrations of the Duke of Wellington and Lord Grey. In the time of the Duke she was pursuing a policy in the East

Lord Grey had intended to give the Foreign Office to Lord Lansdowne. (See p. 410 and compare an equally curious letter on p. 275.)

with which English Liberals were sympathizing, and a Tory Cabinet was in office. In the time of Lord Grey she was pursuing a policy towards Holland, she was forced into a policy towards Poland, which every English Liberal disliked, and she had to reckon with a Liberal Ministry in England.

The separation of Belgium from Holland, in which Lord Palmerston played so great a share, was naturally distasteful to the Emperor Nicholas. On the one hand, it was the first considerable modification of the arrangements which had been made in 1815; and, on the other, it was prejudicial to the interests of the King of Holland, whose eldest son was brother-in-law to the Emperor. It was not, therefore, altogether surprising that Russia should have hesitated to ratify the treaty of November, 1831, under which the separation was finally effected. There were, indeed, rumors that the Russian Ambassador and his wife were themselves opposed to the ratification of the treaty, and were encouraging the King of Holland to resist its acceptance. Lord Grey alluded to this rumor, in writing to Madame de Lieven, on December 15, 1831, and drew from her a reply which is too long to quote here, but which showed that the accusation had severely tried her temper. It so happened that another circumstance at the moment was sorely straining Madame de Lieven's patience. The insurrection of the Poles, which had been perhaps another consequence of the unrest which had almost universally followed "the glorious days of July," was practically suppressed, and Prince Czartoryski, who had been the head of the Revolutionary Government, had escaped to this country. He called on Lord Grey, and Lord Grey invited him to dinner to meet Lord Palmerston. The incident threw the Lievens into a fury. The

husband called on Lord Palmerston and lodged a formal remonstrance. The wife wrote an indignant letter to Lord Grey, complaining of his receiving "a State criminal, convicted of high treason against his Sovereign-a Sovereign who is the friend and the ally of England." Lord Grey, after saying "that to anyone else my answer would have been short: that it neither became a Foreign Minister to offer, nor me to receive such a communication," proceeded to explain and justify his conduct. But the lady did not immediately recover her temper. In the angry correspondence which ensued, Madame de Lieven became for the first time for many years "dear," instead of "dearest" Princess, and Lord Grey became only most "sincerely" instead of most "affectionately" hers. After a few days' reflection, indeed, both parties to the quarrel resumed their old relations of intimate friendship. But the wound, we suspect, continued to rankle. In no part of the period covered by the long correspondence with Lord Grey are the letters on either side so short, so infrequent, and SO full of reproaches, as in the months which immediately succeeded the quarrel. Before it she said: "People would have to be very clever ever to know whether I am Whig or Tory. I only display one color-that is yours, I am Grey." After her quarrel she wrote to her brother, "I shall continue to cultivate Lord Grey, though he bores me not a little."

Happily, however, in May, 1832, one cause of difference was removed by the conditional ratification of the Belgian treaty by Russia, and the correspondence between Lord Grey and Madame de Lieven was resumed almost at its former length and on its previous terms of affectionate intimacy. At this point, however, the lady's letters to her brother were almost entirely discontinued, and we lose the advantage which they up to that time supply of a run

ning commentary on her correspondence with Lord Grey. The loss is the more serious because the relations between this country and Russia again became strained. Both in the West and in the East of Europe the policy which Russia was adopting was opposed to the views of the British Foreign Office. In the West, Russia disapproved the active interference of France and England, which placed Leopold of Saxe-Coburg in security on the throne of Belgium. In the East, the intervention of Russia arrested the progress of Mehemet Ali towards Constantinople, and led to the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi. Thenceforward Lord Palmerston was inspired by a jealous suspicion of all that Russia had done and was doing, and gradually drifted into the policy of hostility which was ultimately consummated in the Crime

an war.

To Madame de Lieven Lord Palmerston's policy came as a cruel surprise. He was the Minister of her own selection, who owed his position at the Foreign Office, as she thought, to her own recommendation. In 1830 she had considered him "perfect in every way;" in 1832 she described him as "a poor small-minded creature, wounded in his vanity, who wants a great warlike demonstration behind which he hopes to conceal his blunders." In 1833 she confessed to hating him, and she had fresh cause for her hatred. For Lord Palmerston had selected Sir Stratford Canning as Lord Heytesbury's successor at St. Petersburg, and had insisted on his appointment, though Madame de Lieven had assured him that he was not a persona grata to the Emperor Nicholas. Madame de Lieven appealed to Lord Grey. But the Prime Minister, whom she described about this time "as such a thorough old woman that it is scarcely worth while mentioning him," declined to interfere. In the negotiations which attended this unfor

tunate appointment Madame de Lieven undoubtedly showed less tact than temper. But her interference, which irritated Lord Palmerston, in no way condones that Minister's conduct. There is, happily, hardly another instance in history in which an Ambassador has been appointed to a foreign Court against the known wishes of its sovereign; and diplomacy would become impossible if the course which Lord Palmerston pursued in this matter was ordinarily followed.

The appointment was the more unfortunate because it led to a breach in our diplomatic relations with Russia. The Emperor refused to receive Sir Stratford, and the British Ministry did not venture to send him to St. Petersburg. The Embassy remained vacant, and in the following year the De Lievens were recalled from London. Possibly Count Nesselrode may have thought that their influence at the Court of St. James's was no longer useful. There are some grounds for presuming that, even during the Duke of Wellington's Administration, he had thought Madame de Lieven too ready to break from the men, on whom she was mainly dependent for the information which she was instrumental in procuring. After Lord Grey's accession to office he must have been disappointed to find that the Prime Minister, who was so near her heart, and the Foreign Secretary, of her own choosing, were drifting into a policy of pronounced antagonism to Russia. He may, therefore, have thought it prudent to terminate, at any rate for a time, her husband's mission. She, indeed, herself attributed her recall to Lord Palmerston. A few months after her arrival in Russia she wrote to Lord Aberdeen, in one of the unpublished letters which have been opened to us by the courtesy of Lord Stanmore:

Il m'est prouvé depuis mon arrivé en

Russie que c'est à Lord Palmerston que je dois d'avoir quitté, pour toujours peut-être, cette Angleterre que j'aime tant. M. de Talleyrand me disait un jour, "Il dépendra toujours d'un Ministre des Affaires Etrangères, quelque médiocre qu'il soit, de chasser un ambassadeur," et voilà ce qu'il a voulu, et ce qui est arrivé.

The Emperor Nicholas did his best to gild the pill which the De Lievens had to swallow. The husband was placed in charge of the Czarevitch; the wife was made Lady-in-Waiting to the Empress. But the splendor of the Russian Court could not reconcile Madame de Lieven to the tedium of Russian society or the severity of a Russian climate. Her health broke down; the death of two of her sons increased her disinclination to remain in St. Petersburg; and in the summer of 1835 she filed to Berlin, to Baden-Baden, and to Paris.

It is not perhaps necessary to examine too closely the reasons which induced her to leave Russia. Her own health necessitated her doing so; and the rumors which were whispered

about her flight, and to which M. Daudet refers, need not be repeated in these pages. It seems certain, however, that the Emperor, for some reason, resented her going. She herself said that he would never forgive her; and, in her later correspondence, there is none of the enthusiasm for Russia and the Emperor that breathes through her earlier letters. The Emperor, indeed, displayed his annoyance at her absence in a maner which was hardly worthy of him. He refused her husband leave to go and see her. persuaded M. de Lieven to show his disapproval of her residence in Paris, and even to threaten to deprive her of the means of living out of Russia. Incredible as it may seem, he did not permit her husband to announce to her the death of a third son, which she

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