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CHAPTER VII.

YEARS OF REVOLUTION.

1846-1849.

Results of the Spanish marriages-The annexation of Cracow-Civil war in Portugal-Lord Palmerston's policy-Termination of the struggle The Swiss Sonderbund-Lord Palmerston's despatch -Settlement of the dispute-Constitutionalism in Italy - The Minto Mission-The fall of Louis Philippe The Spanish despatch-Lord Palmerston and the Provisional Government at Paris-Change in his Italian policy-His attitude towards the Sardinian Government-Suppression of the Revolution-Palmerston and Naples-His advice to Austria - The Hungarian refugees.

THOUGH the conclusion of the Spanish marriages was followed by no actual rupture between England and France, the relations between the two countries were cold to the last degree. It was particularly unfortunate that at this crisis England should have been represented at Paris by Lord Normanby, a very green ambassador, as Madame de Lieven said, who made matters worse by his social gaucheries, and who entered into unwise relations with Thiers, and other leaders of the Opposition. Nor did his chief receive with particularly good grace the advances of the French ambassador, St. Aulaire. "The

thing remained," Lord Palmerston said, "and as long as it did remain there was no civility and no procédé which would permanently alter the state of things between England and France." In the end the results of the estrangement were far more serious for France than for England. The Orleanist dynasty had lost its only friend in Europe, and it had been found out. The "matrimonial blockade" established by the autocratic Powers against the upstart family was only the more rigidly enforced on account of the new methods of courtship patented by M. Guizot; and when at last Palmerston's continued efforts on behalf of the oppressed of Europe drove the northern Powers to seek a common basis of action with the French Court, it was too late. An alliance between Austria, Russia, Prussia, and France against England was, if Count d'Haussonville is to be believed,* to have been concluded in March 1848. But in February the Orleanist dynasty succumbed before the combined effects of its previous isolation abroad, and the fatuity of the juste milieu policy at home; and Palmerston could have boasted, with a considerable amount of truth, that he had driven Louis Philippe from the Tuileries.

The dissolution of the entente cordiale, which was fatal to the junior member of the firm, by no means strengthened the position of the other partner. Between the Liberalism of the Russell Ministry and the tottering Conservatism of Metternich a modus vivendi was impossible, more especially as the English Foreign Secretary continued to pursue what the Austrian Chancellor termed the "Eolian policy inaugurated by

* Histoire de la politique extérieure du Gouvernement Français, toŋı. ii. p. 381. It is curious that there is no mention of this agreement in the Memoirs of Metternich.

Canning," by giving vigorous support to continental Liberalism. The Austrian Chancellor was not slow to retaliate. By the annexation of the free city of Cracow, the last remnant of independent Poland, to Austria, with the full consent of Prussia and Russia, he dealt a counterblow at Constitutionalism which was for the moment peculiarly effective, though it is inexpedient in the long run. for Governments whose chief strength is the vis inertia, to begin to tear up treaties. As Palmerston had pointed out in the House of Commons at the end of the previous session, if the Treaty of Vienna, under which the independence of Cracow had been guaranteed," was not good on the Vistula, it might be equally invalid on the Rhine and on the Po." The immediate effects of the annexation, however, were to point the moral that while the champions of personal government were apparently united and determined, Constitutionalism was under a cloud. England and France made formal protests against the breach of faith on the part of the northern Powers; but no regard was paid to them, since their separate action only pointed out more clearly than ever that there was no possibility of their coming together, and that the protests were really addressed, not to Vienna, but by way of apology for what could not be prevented, to the constituencies at home. A second attack on the annexation of Cracow was made in the Queen's Speech of January 1847, but Palmerston took little by it, as the three Powers made a very effective rejoinder by directing their ambassadors to stay away from the House of Lords.

Palmerston bore the reverse with great philosophy. "Even if France and England had been on good terms," he wrote to Lord Normanby, "they have no

means of action on the spot in question, and could only have prevented the thing by a threat of war, which, however, the three Powers would have known we should never utter for the sake of Cracow." The temporary check, indeed, seems only to have inspired him with new funds of confidence, and during the months that preceded the cataclysm of 1848, his diplomatic activity was phenomenal, even for "the accursed Palmerston," who haunted the pillows of German statesmen. His hand was everywhere, "getting the affairs of Europe into trim," as he called it; and, of course, he was particularly active in the Iberian peninsula, where he had a prescriptive right to interfere. Palmerston's Quadruple Treaty had placed Donna Maria on the throne of Portugal, and two years later she was provided with a Coburg husband by old Stockmar. The marriage was a happy one, but the young Prince was unpopular with the Portuguese, chiefly because they regarded him as a puppet in the hands of his factotum Dietz, whom, unwarned by the experiences of King Otho at Athens, he had brought with him to Lisbon. Opposition in Portugal took the form, not of votes of censure, but of street fighting, and Radicalism, getting the upper hand, forced upon the Court a democratic constitution. The natural result was that Donna Maria became confirmedly absolutist, and all influence passed into the hands of a clique known as the Camarilla, in which the obnoxious Dietz was suspected of playing a prominent part. Opportunity for action was found by the Court party in outbreaks which occurred in 1846, and Count Saldanha was the willing instrument of a coup d'état which closed the Cortes and established a state of siege in the capital. Constitutionalism found refuge, as on previous occasions, at Oporto, a leader in Count das

Antas, and once more Portugal became a prey to civil

war.

There was little dignity in the struggle, and the ridiculous would have been its most prominent feature, were it not for the fact that the "swell-mob riots"-to use Palmerston's apt definition-were rapidly ruining the country. Of course, the Court party, by essaying a counter-revolution, had put itself completely in the wrong; the cabal had no hold on the country, and could not even justify its existence by success. On the other hand, the Das Antas Junta was evidently animated by faction rather than patriotism; it did not hesitate to make common cause with the resuscitated Miguelite party, to threaten Donna Maria with the fate of Louis XVI., to vie with the Camarilla in the barbarity of its methods of war. It was evidently not desirable that the dynasty should be upset for the sake of a gang of adventurers. That was Palmerston's view, and he offered to negotiate between the two parties, but only on condition that Donna Maria would put her house in order. The well-meaning attempt failed completely. Palmerston's envoy, Colonel Wylde, could not get a hearing at Oporto, and it was evident that the insurgents, who believed themselves to be on the eve of victory, were not going to surrender to arguments. Equally clear was it that the Camarilla were looking to foreign intervention as the means for securing them selves in power. Their overtures were favourably received by the Spanish Government, which saw that the revival of Miguelism in one part of the Peninsula would be followed by that of Carlism in the other; and by France, where Guizot was anxious to recover his lost prestige by any action, however inconsiderate. Palmerston was the last person to allow the superior