_Nuremberg, August 4, 1840._--Yesterday evening I reached Bayreuth at a late hour, and started again early this morning.
A mere walk through the streets of Nüremberg will show any observer the peculiarities of the town. Octagonal balconies in the form of projecting towers in the middle or at the corners of the houses, with gables, almost all overhanging the street, are most characteristic. The number of niches with statues of saints would make one think that the country was Catholic; yet the town is entirely Protestant; but the vandalism of the Reformation was as rabid here as elsewhere, and the good taste of the inhabitants has preserved from a sense of artistic value what they no longer appreciate for religious reasons.
Yesterday evening at the last posting station before Bayreuth I met some travellers whom I did not know but who seemed to be important people. The husband came up to my carriage and asked me if I had heard the news. I replied that I had not. He then told me that he belonged to Geneva, and that he was taking his invalid wife to Marienbad; that on leaving Geneva he had seen one of his friends from Paris, who told him of the news that a convention had been signed at London between Austria, Prussia, Russia, and England against the Pasha of Egypt, and that the French King was furious in consequence; that M. Thiers had immediately ordered the sudden mobilisation of two hundred thousand men to march to the northern frontier, and of ten thousand sailors.[115] As I no longer see the newspapers, I am very doubtful what to think of such news, and do not know what to make of these apparent contradictions.
[115] The complications of the Eastern question nearly plunged France into war about this time. Syria had revolted, and the English, who objected to the power of the Egyptian Viceroy, Mehemet Ali, joined Prussia, Austria, and Russia, excluding France, whom Lord Palmerston knew to be unduly favourable to Egypt, and secretly signed the treaty at London on July 15, 1840, restoring Syria to the Sultan.
I was told that on September 1 a fifteen days' camp would take place here; twenty thousand troops, the whole Bavarian Court, and other princes will make it a brilliant affair.