scandal and alarm
at the time, and soon passed out of public recollection, had helped no
doubt to bring the Duke of Wellington and Peel to their decision. The
King and Queen had been invited to dine with the Lord Mayor and the
Corporation at the Guildhall on November 9, and had accepted the
invitation. The Duke of Wellington and the other ministers were to be
among the guests.

Shortly before the appointed day the Duke of Wellington got a letter
from the Lord Mayor-elect, telling him that he had received private
information about some mysterious organized attempt to be made against
the Duke himself on the occasion of his visit to the City, and urging
the Duke to have the streets well guarded with soldiers, in order to
prevent the success of any such lawless and atrocious enterprise. Now
the Duke was not a man to care much, personally, about an alarm of this
kind, but he thought it would be rather an unseemly spectacle if the
streets of the City had to be guarded by troops when the new sovereign
went to be the guest of the Lord Mayor at the Guildhall. The attempt,
to be sure, was said to be directed against the Duke himself and not
against the King; but still it would hardly do, it would scarcely have
a happy effect on public opinion at home and abroad, if the first visit
of the Sailor King, the popular William, to the City were to be made
the occasion of a murderous attack on the King's Prime Minister. It
might get into the public mind that what had happened in Paris was
likely to happen in London, and the effect on Europe might be most
damaging to the credit of the country. So the banquet was put off; the
sovereign and his Prime Minister did not visit the City. A vague panic
raged everywhere, {113} and the Funds went alarmingly down. The story
which had impressed the Lord Mayor-elect was in all likelihood only a
mere scare. But it had, no doubt, some effect in deciding the action
of the Ministry. At all events, the Duke of Wellington and his
colleagues determined to try what strength the reformers had behind
them. They tendered their resignation; the King was prevailed upon to
accept it, and it was announced to Parliament and the public that the
Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel were no longer in office.

{114}

CHAPTER LXX.

LE ROI D'YVETOT.

[Sidenote: 1830-37--Eccentricities of William the Fourth]

We may turn for a moment from the path of politics to mention a fact
that is worth menti