So well did that subtle politician comprehend the future turn events must take, that on hearing, at two o'clock in the morning, that his Royal Highness the Duc d'Orléans had consented to assume the crown, he exclaimed, "And I am now ambassador at St. James's!" It must have been what the Londoners call "good fun" to have lived in the days of the Empire, when all manner of rapid elevations occurred on every hand. The _commis_ of yesterday, the special envoy to-day; a week ago a corporal, and now gazetted an officer, with the cross of the Legion--on the _grande route_, to become a general. A General, why not a Marshal of France--ay, or a King?
We have seen something of this kind in Belgium within a few years back--on a small scale, it is true. What strange ingredients did the Revolution throw up to the surface! what a mass of noisy, turbulent, self-opinionated incapables, who, because they had led a rabble at the Porte de Flandre, thought they could conduct the march of an army! And the statesmen!--good lack! the miserable penny-a-liners of the "Indépendant" and the "Lion Beige," that admirable symbol of the land, who carries his tail between his legs. The really able, and, I believe, honest men, were soon overwhelmed by the influence of the priest party--the vultures who watched the fight from afar, and at last descended to take all the spoils of the victory.
Wandeweyer and Nothomb are both men of ability, the latter a kind of Brummagen Thiers, with the same taste for intrigue, the same subtle subserviency to the head of the state, and, in his heart, the same cordial antipathy to England. But why dwell on these people? they will scarce occupy a foot-note in the old "Almanach."
The diplomatic history of our day, if it ever be written, will present no very striking displays of high-reaching intellect or devoted patriotism; the men who were even greatest before the world were really smallest behind "the fact." We deemed that Lord Aberdeen and Lord Palmerston, and Messrs. Guizot and Thiers, and a few more, were either hurrying us on to war or maintaining an admirable peace. But the whole thing resolves itself into the work of one man and one mind; neither very conspicuous, but so intently occupied, so devotedly persevering, that persistance has actually elevated itself to genius; and falling happily upon times when mediocrity is sublime, he has contrived to make his influence felt in every state of Europe. I speak not of Louis Philippe, but of his son-in-law, King Leopold.