Page:Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria (IA lifeofhermajesty01fawc).pdf/175

 received Lord Granville with the greatest cordiality, spent three hours with him putting him in possession of the threads of his diplomacy, spoke of the Court without bitterness, and in strong terms of the Queen's "sagacity," and ended by offering to give any information or assistance that was in his power. He pursued the same line of conduct when in a few weeks Lord John Russell's Government fell and was succeeded by Lord Derby's; Lord Malmesbury becoming Foreign Secretary. Palmerston at once came to see him, and offered to coach him in Foreign Office policy. He gave the new Foreign Secretary a masterly sketch of the status quo in Europe, as well as general hints upon the principles by which English policy should be guided; the pith of these was, "Keep well with France." By this means, though ousted from office, Palmerston remained practically the director of the policy of the Foreign Office.

All the contemporary records agree upon the main outward and visible facts; but they are provokingly silent upon Palmerston's real motives. He was neither a hot-headed youth, acting on the impulse of the moment, neither was he "an old man in a hurry;" he was sixty-seven years old, about the prime of life for a statesman, and steeped to the lips in an absorbing interest in England's foreign politics. His whole tradition had been to oppose despotism and support civil and political liberty against despots all over Europe. Why did he go out of his way to establish, so far as he could, a cordial understanding with a despot who was also an upstart, and whose Government was founded on violence, and carried on by crushing every vestige of liberty in France? Some have thought an answer could be found in his hostility to the Orleans family; but this does Palmerston less than justice. It is true he hated Louis Philippe, and