The Duc de Nemours is the least prepossessing of the princes; his deafness, too, assists the impression of his coldness and austerity: while the too-studied courtesy of the Prince de Joinville towards Englishmen is the reverse of an amicable demonstration.
I could not help feeling surprised at the freedom with which his Majesty canvassed our leading political characters; for his intimate acquaintance with them all, I was well prepared. One remark he made worth remembering,--"The Duke of Wellington should always be your Minister of Foreign Affairs, no matter what the changes of party. It is not that his great opportunities of knowing the Continent, assisted by his unquestionable ability, alone distinguish him, but that his name and the weight of his opinion on any disputed question exert a greater influence than any other man's over the various sovereignties of Europe. After the Emperor himself, he was the greatest actor in the grand drama of the early part of the century; he made himself conspicuous in every council, even less by the accuracy of his views than by their unerring, unswerving rectitude. The desperate struggle in which he had taken part had left no traces of ungenerous feeling or animosity behind, and the pride of conquest had never disturbed the equanimity of the negotiator."
What other statesman in England had dared to ratify the Belgian revolution, and, by his simple acknowledgment, place the fact beyond appeal? It is with statesmen as with soldiers; the men who have been conversant with great events maintain the prestige of their ascendancy over all who "never smelt powder;" and Metternich wields much of his great influence on such a tenure.
_Apropos_ of Metternich; the King told a trait of him which I have not heard before. In one of those many stormy interviews which took place between him and the Emperor, Napoleon, irritated at the tone of freedom assumed by the Austrian envoy, endeavoured by an artifice to recall him to what he deemed a recollection of their relative stations, and then, as it were, inadvertently let fall his hat for the Prince to take it up; instead of which Metternich moved back and bowed, leaving the Emperor to lift it from the ground himself.