This remark concerning economy is disgusting. Moreover, she wrote to Fieschi to assure him that she had remained faithful to him, which is untrue. Everybody seems to have been far more interested by these amorous details than by the actual crime. What a strange time it is! Fieschi's correspondence, in passing through the hands of M. Decazes, became the amusement of the House of Peers; but the truly astonishing fact is the notoriety which the whole story has given to Mlle. Nina, who was formerly resident in the Salpêtrière. It is asserted that monetary proposals have been made to her by men of high position; there is no doubt that one hears the strangest descriptions of her beauties and her imperfections, and it is a positive fact that she has only one eye.
If Fieschi is a lover, he is no less attracted by religion. When the almoner of the Chamber of Peers asked those under trial if they wished to hear Mass, Fieschi alone replied yes, and said that he was anxious to hear it as he was neither a heathen nor an atheist; that if he was not a theological expert he had nevertheless read Plutarch and Cicero and firmly believed in the immortality of the soul; as the soul was not divisible it could not be material, and that, in short, he believed in the spiritual nature of man. He asked the almoner to come and see him again and not to leave him after his sentence had been pronounced. In view of such inconsistencies, how is it possible to pass any absolute judgment on men?
I believe the following to be an accurate bulletin of the Ministerial crisis: Yesterday morning the King sent for Dupin, Sauzet, and Passy, and commissioned them to form a Ministry upon two conditions only: firstly, they were not to give a post to any one who had voted against the repressive laws; secondly, the Minister for Foreign Affairs must be a man who would reassure European opinion and be agreeable to himself. The three men replied that they understood the King's wishes, but that they could not bind themselves until they had consulted their friends; they then withdrew. At the Chamber they sent round a list, which was drawn up nearly as follows: Dupin to be Minister of Justice and President, Passy to be Minister of Finance, Flahaut of Foreign Affairs, Molitor of War, Montalivet of the Interior. I have since learned that Montalivet refused the post in spite of the King's wishes, and that the King refused to accept the nomination of Flahaut. The King wished to appoint Rumigny or Baudrand to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and would have declared for the latter, if there had not been a wish to retain him as a companion to the Prince Royal on his travels. The Prince is very pleased at the fall of the last Ministry: I believe he is wrong; the Flahaut party are delighted. The Ministerial party hope to secure the election of M. Guizot as President of the Chamber of Deputies; the Opposition will support M. Martin du Nord.