tee, and they finished the
business. On Thursday next the Bill will probably be read a third
time. In the House of Lords some dozen Tories and Waverers have
continued to keep up a little skirmish, and a good deal of
violent language has been bandied about, in which the Whigs,
being the winners, have shown the best temper. In society the
excitement has ceased, but the bitterness remains. The Tories
are, however, so utterly defeated, and the victory of their
opponents is so complete, that the latter can afford to be
moderate and decorous in their tone and manner; and the former
are exceedingly sulky, cockering up each other with much
self-gratulation and praise, but aware that in the opinion of the
mass of mankind they are covered with odium, ridicule, and
disgrace. Peel and the Duke are ostensibly great friends, and the
ridiculous farce is still kept up of each admiring what he would
not do himself, but what the other did.

June 1st, 1832 {p.305}

[Page Head: FAVOURITES OF LOUIS XVIII.]

Met the Duke of Wellington at dinner yesterday, and afterwards had
a long talk with him, not on politics. I never see and converse
with him without reproaching myself for the sort of hostility I
feel and express towards his political conduct, for there are a
simplicity, a gaiety, and natural urbanity and good-humour in him,
which are remarkably captivating in so great a man. We talked of
Dumont's book and Louis XVIII.'s 'Memoirs.' I said I thought the
'Memoirs' were not genuine. He said he was sure they were, that
they bore the strongest internal evidence of being so, particularly
in their accuracy as to dates, that he was the best chronologist
in the world, and that he knew the day of the week of every event
of importance. He once asked the Duke when he was born, and when
he told him the day of the month and year, he at once said it was
on a Tuesday; that he (the Duke) had remembered that throughout
the book the day of the week was always mentioned, and many of the
anecdotes he had himself heard the King tell. He then talked of
him, and I was surprised to hear him say that Charles X. was a
cleverer man, as far as knowledge of the world went, though Louis
XVIII. was much better informed--a most curious remark,
considering the history and end of each. [Nothing could be more
mistaken and untrue than this opinion.] That Louis XVIII. was
always governed, and a favourite indispensable to him. At the
Congress of Vienna the Duke was dep