Yesterday a standing Council at the levee to swear in Lord Hereford and Vesey Fitzgerald, and to declare Lord Bathurst President of the Council and the Duke of Northumberland Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. Previously the King received the address of the dissenting ministers, and then that of the Quakers, presented by William Allen; they were very prim and respectable persons; their hats were taken off by each other in the room before the Throne Room, and they did not bow, though they seemed half inclined to do so; they made a very loyal address, but without 'Majesty,' and said 'O King.' There was a question after his answer what they should do. I thought it was whether they should kiss hands, for the King said something to Peel, who went and asked them, and I heard the King say, 'Oh, just as they like; they needn't if they don't like; it's all one.'
But the great event of the day was the reception of the King of France's two decrees, and the address of his Ministers, who produced them; nothing could surpass the universal astonishment and consternation. Falck told me he was reading the newspaper at his breakfast regularly through, and when he came to this the teacup almost dropped from his hands, and he rubbed his eyes to see whether he read correctly. Such was the secresy with which this measure was conceived and acted on, that Pozzo, who is quicker and has better intelligence than anybody, had not a notion of it, as Matuscewitz told me. Aberdeen learnt it through the 'Times,' and had not a line from Stuart. That, however, is nothing extraordinary. I suspect somebody had it, for Raikes wrote me a note the day before, to ask me if there was not _something bad_ from France. Matuscewitz told me that Russia would not afford Charles X. the smallest support in his new crusade against the Constitution of France, and this he pronounced openly _à qui voulait l'entendre_. I suspect the Duke will be desperately annoyed. The only Minister I had a word with about it was Lord Bathurst, whose Tory blood bubbled a little quicker at such a despotic act, and while owning the folly of the deed he could not help adding that 'he should have repressed the press when he dissolved the Chambers, then he might have done it.'