Lord Aberdeen was seriously annoyed, and at once informed M. de Sainte-Aulaire of what had passed, assuring him that he should administer a severe rebuke to Mr. Bulwer. Bulwer, he considered, had violated his instructions, both in undertaking to transmit the offer to Lisbon and in concealing Christina's proceedings from M. Bresson. In consequence of the strictures passed upon his conduct, Bulwer offered to resign. Aberdeen, however, in a friendly letter insisted upon his remaining at his post.[830] A few days later, on June 29, 1846, Sir Robert Peel announced that he and his colleagues had retired from office, and that Lord John Russell had undertaken to form a government. On June 25, on the very day on which their Corn Bill had been carried through the House of Lords, ministers had been defeated in the Commons by a Radical and Protectionist coalition. In the new administration the seals of the Foreign Office passed into the keeping of Lord Palmerston.
At the close of the year 1845, when Peel had resigned office on account of the dissensions in his Cabinet on the question of the Corn Laws, Lord John Russell had in vain attempted to form a government. His failure had been due to the objections urged by Lord Grey to Palmerston's return to the Foreign Office.[832] Peel had, in consequence, agreed to withdraw his resignation and to carry on the government. But it was soon clear that the Protectionists, if they could not prevent the passage of his Corn Bill, would certainly encompass his downfall at the first opportunity. Palmerston, under these circumstances, judged it advisable to take steps to remove the impression that his nomination as Foreign Secretary would create alarm in France and imperil "the cordial understanding." He, accordingly, decided to visit Paris with the object of dispelling this idea. His intimate knowledge of the French language and his considerable powers of conversation, combined with the personal charm of Lady Palmerston, soon achieved the desired result. In the previous month of December, the prospect that "_ce terrible Lord Palmerston_" would be once again at the Foreign Office had spread dismay in ministerial circles. But, in the following spring, when he returned to England, after a few weeks' stay in Paris, the amiable qualities and the friendly dispositions of "_ce cher Lord Palmerston_" were the chief topic of conversation in the political _salons_.[833]