a
dislike to rapid and violent changes.

[4] They are altered. The first translation of the Charter
which I read was incorrect.

[Page Head: POLIGNAC.]

In the meantime we hear nothing of the old King, who marches
slowly on with his family. It has been reported in London that
Polignac is here, and also that he is taken. Nobody knows the
truth. I have heard of his behaviour, however, which was worthy of
his former imbecility. He remained in the same presumptuous
confidence up to the last moment, telling those who implored him
to retract while it was still time that they did not know France,
that he did, that it was essentially Royalist, and all resistance
would be over in a day or two, till the whole ruin burst on him at
once, when he became like a man awakened from a dream, utterly
confounded with the magnitude of the calamity and as pusillanimous
and miserable as he had before been blind and confident. It must
be owned that their end has been worthy of the rest, for not one
of them has evinced good feeling, or magnanimity, or courage in
their fall, nor excited the least sympathy or commiseration. The
Duke of Fitzjames made a good speech in the Chamber of Peers, and
Chateaubriand a very fine one a few days before, full of eloquence
in support of the claim of the Duke of Bordeaux against that of
Louis Philippe I.

In the meantime our elections here are still going against
Government, and the signs of the times are all for reform and
retrenchment, and against slavery. It is astonishing the interest
the people generally take in the slavery question, which is the
work of the Methodists, and shows the enormous influence they
have in the country. The Duke (for I have not seen him) is said
to be very easy about the next Parliament, whereas, as far as one
can judge, it promises to be quite as unmanageable as the last,
and is besides very ill composed--full of boys and all sorts of
strange men.

August 20th, 1830 {p.029}

On Monday to Stoke; Alvanley, Fitzroy Somerset, Matuscewitz,
Stanislas Potocki, Glengall, and Mornay were there. Lady Sefton
(who had dined at the Castle a few days before) asked the King to
allow her to take Stanislas Potocki to see Virginia Water in a
carriage, which is not allowed, but which his Majesty agreed to.
Accordingly we started, and going through the private drives,
went up to the door of the tent opposite the fishing-house. They
thought it was the Queen coming, or at a