LONDON, August 3, 1848
... I do not care for my country or my husband's success a bit more than is good for me, and I often wonder at and almost blame myself for not being more disturbed about them.
I know that he does his best, and that is all I care very deeply or very permanently about; though there may now and then be a more than commonly anxious day. If I thought him stupid, or mean, or ignorant, or thoughtless, or indifferent in his trade, I should not be satisfied with his doing his best even; but as I luckily think him the contrary of all these things, I am both satisfied and calm, and his own calm mind helps me to be so. Sometimes I think I care much more about politics at a distance than when I am mixed up in them. The fact is that I care very much for the questions themselves, but grow wearied to death of all the details and personalities belonging to them, and consequently of the conversation of lady politicians, made up as it is of these details and personalities. And the more interested I am in the thing itself, the more angry I am with the nonsense they talk about it, and had rather listen to the most humdrum domestic twaddle. Mind, I mean the regular hardened lady politicians who talk of nothing else, of whom I could name several, but will not.
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PEMBROKE LODGE, November 24, 1848
We have just had a visit from Louis Philippe. He spoke much of France--said that his wishes were with Louis Bonaparte rather than with Cavaignac for the presidency.
John expressed some fear of war if Louis Bonaparte should be elected; the King said he need have none, that France had neither means nor inclination for war. His account of the dismissal of Guizot's Ministry was that he said to Guizot "What's to be done?"--that Guizot gave him three answers: "Je ne peux pas donner la Réforme. Je ne peux pas laisser dissoudre la garde nationale. Je ne peux pas laisser tirer les troupes sur la garde nationale." Upon this he had said to Guizot that he must change his Ministry: "Cela l'a peut-être un peu blessé--ma foi, je n'en sais rien. Il a dit que non, que j'étais le maitre."
When he heard that the National Guard said, if the troops fired on the mob, they would fire on the troops, he knew that "la chose était finie," and when he went out himself among the National Guard, to see what the effect of his presence would be, La Moricière called out to him, "Sire, si vous allez parmi ces gens-là je ne réponds pas de votre vie. Ils vont tirer sur vous." He answered whatever might come of it he would "parler à ces braves gens"; but they surrounded him, grinning and calling out "La Réforme, nous voulons la Réforme," pointing their bayonets at him and even over his horse's neck.
Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby
WOBURN ABBEY, December 10, 1848
The great question of the French Presidency is decided, whether for good or for evil to other countries none can foresee, but certainly to the disgrace of their own. For here is a man, known only by a foolish attempt to disturb France, to whom no party gives credit for either great or good qualities, raised to the highest dignity in the new Republic, one of the advantages of which was to be that men should rise by their own merits alone. The common language of Frenchmen, or at least of French Royalists on the subject, is that they consider his election as a step to the restoration of Monarchy--but it is a shabby way of making the step, or it may prove a false one. You know we have had Louis Philippe and his family as near neighbours at the Star and Garter for some weeks, and we have seen him several times, to thank us for our inquiries after the poor Queen and Princes while they were so ill. Only think how strange to see this great King, this busy plotter for the glory of his own family and the degradation of England, taking refuge in that very England, and sitting in the house of one of those very Ministers whom he had been so proud of outwitting, giving the history of "ma chute." This he did with great bitterness; representing the whole French nation as a mass of place-hunters, without patriotism and without gratitude, and with no tenderness to Guizot. There is nothing noble and touching in his manner or conversation, or I am sure he would have inspired me with more pity in his fallen state, in spite of many faults as a King.34
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В начале 1849 года лорд Джон страдал от последствий переутомления, и, подобно большинству уставших государственных деятелей, он стал подумывать о получении пэрства. 11 июля в Пембрук-Лодже родился их третий сын, Фрэнсис Альберт Ролло Расселл. Парламентские каникулы выдались более спокойными, чем все те, что они знали с момента вступления в должность, и у них появилось время заняться другими делами, хотя разногласия с Пальмерстоном в Министерстве иностранных дел тем временем приближались к кульминации.
В августе лорд и леди Джон основали школу в Питершеме, за которой она неустанно следила до конца своих дней. Их позабавило замечание некоего пожилого джентльмена из местных жителей, который заявил, что появление школы в Питершеме «разобьет аристократический характер деревни» — образование и аристократия в его глазах явно выступали противоположными силами.
Поначалу занятия проходили в комнате в селении; нынешнее здание было построено лишь в 1852 году.
31 августа леди Джон записала в своем дневнике:
Our little school, which had long been planned, was opened in a room in the village the day before Baby's birthday, July 10th, and goes on well. We celebrated John's birthday last Saturday by giving the school-children a tea under the cedar, and a dance on the lawn afterwards, and very merry they were.
В августе и сентябре премьер-министр провел несколько недель в Балморале и написал следующее в свой последний день там:
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Lord John Russell to Lady John Russell
BALMORAL, September 6, 1849
I leave this place to-morrow.... No hostess could be more charming or more easy than the Queen has been--or more kind and agreeable than the Prince, and I shall leave this place with increased attachment to them.
Королева побывала в Ирландии в августе, и лорд Дафферин написал интересное описание ее визита в письме леди Джон.
Lord Dufferin to Lady John Russell
September 10, 1849
As the newspaper reporters have already described all, nay more than was to be seen on the occasion of the Queen's visit to Ireland, I need not trouble you with any of my own experiences during those auspicious days--suffice it to say that the people were frantic with loyalty and enthusiasm. Indeed, I never witnessed so touching a sight as when the Queen from her quarter-deck took leave of the Irish people. It was a sweet, calm, silent evening, and the sun just setting behind the Wicklow mountains bathed all things in golden floods of light. Upon the beach were crowded in thousands the screaming bother-headed people, full of love and devotion for her, her children, and her house, surging to and fro like some horrid sea and asking her to come back quick to them, and bidding her God-speed.... It was a beautiful historical picture, and one which one thought of for a long time after Queen and ships and people had vanished away. I suspect that she too must have thought of it that night as she sat upon the deck and sailed away into the darkness--and perhaps she wondered as she looked back upon the land, which ever has been and still is, the dwelling of so much wrong and misery, whether it should be written in history hereafter, that in her reign, and under her auspices, Ireland first became prosperous and her people contented. Directly after the Queen's departure, I started on a little tour round the West coast, where I saw such sights as could be seen nowhere else. The scenery is beautiful and wild.... But after one has been travelling for a little while in the far West one soon loses all thought of the scenery, or the climate, or anything else, in astonishment at the condition of the people. I do most firmly believe that in no other country under the sun are there to be found men so wretched in every respect.... All along the West coast, from North to South, there has been allowed to accumulate on land utterly unable to support them a dense population, the only functions of whose lives have been to produce rent and children. Generation after generation have grown up in ignorance and misery, while those who lived upon the product of their labours have laughed and rioted through life as though they had not known that from them alone could light and civilization descend upon these poor wretches. I had often heard, as every one has, of the evils of absenteeism, but till I came and saw its effects I had no notion how great a crime it is.... They [the absentee landowners] thought only of themselves and their own enjoyments, they left their people to grow up and multiply like brute beasts, they stifled in them by their tyranny all hope and independence and desire of advancement, they made them cowards and liars, and have now left them to die off from the face of the earth. Neither can any one living at a distance have any notion of the utter absence of all public spirit among the upper classes.... Legislation can do nothing when there is nothing for it to act upon. Parliament to Ireland is what a galvanic battery is to a dead body, and it is in vain to make laws when there is no machinery to work them. A people must be worked up to a certain point in their dispositions and understandings before they can be affected by highly civilized legislation.... It is only individual exertions, and the personal superintendence of wise and good men, that can ever drill the Irish people into a legislatable state.... One or two things, however, seem to me pretty certain--
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1. That under proper management the Irish peasant can be made anything of.
2. That, generally speaking, the present class of proprietors must and will be swept from off the surface of the earth.
3. That in the extreme West the surface is overcrowded, but not at all so a few miles inland.
4. That reclaiming waste lands and bogs at present is to throw money away.
I begin to fear I have written a strange rigmarole, but still I will send it, for though Irish matters cannot interest you as they do me, yet still a letter is always a pleasant thing to receive, even only that one may have the satisfaction of looking at the Queen's head and breaking the seal.
Следующая запись в дневнике леди Джон датирована 9 октября 1849 года.
After tea John told me that he had informed the Cabinet of his plan for the extension of the suffrage--to be proposed next session. All looked grave. Sir Charles Wood and Lord Lansdowne expressed some alarm.... To grant an increase of weight to the people of this country when revolutions are taking place on all sides, when a timid Ministry would rather seek to diminish that which they already have, is to show a noble trust in them, of which I believe they will nobly prove themselves worthy.
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Решимость лорда Джона провести эту меру самостоятельно, а не оставлять ее в руках других, впоследствии стала причиной первого поражения правительства вигов.
Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby
LONDON, February 19, 1850
The weeks are galloping past so much faster even than usual that there is no keeping pace with them.
I neither read, write, teach, learn, nor do anything--unless indeed revising visiting books and writing invitations is to be called something. I want to be with my Mama, to be with my husband, to be with my children, to be with friends, and to be alone, all at the same time. I want to read everything, and to write to everybody, and to walk everywhere, in no time at all. And what is the result? Why, that I lose the very power not only of doing, but of thinking, to a degree that makes me seriously uneasy and unfits me to be a companion to anybody older or wiser than Wee-wee, or Baby, whose capacities exactly suit mine. All this sounds as if I led a life of bustle, which I do not--but it is too full, and there is an end of it. I dare say it is mistaken vanity to suppose that if it was emptier I should do anything worthier of record in the political, literary, or educational line--and at all events it would be hard to find a happier or, I trust, more thankful heart than mine, my troubles being in fact the result of many blessings.
Следующая сессия открылась греческим кризисом, который Гревилл охарактеризовал как «худшую переделку, в которую Пальмерстон когда-либо втягивал себя и своих коллег. Отвращение к этому здесь всеобщее среди тех, кто вообще задумывается о внешнеполитических делах: вне всякого сомнения, это вызвало сильнейшее чувство негодования против нашей страны по всей Европе, и сами министры осознают, какую позорную фигуру они из себя представляют, и стыдятся этого».
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Пальмерстон приказал установить блокаду Пирея, чтобы истребовать компенсацию с греческого правительства в пользу мистера Финлея (впоследствии историка Греции), чья земля была реквизирована греческим королем под сад, и в пользу Дона Пасико, мальтийского еврея (и следовательно, британского подданного), чей дом был разрушен афинской толпой. Греческое правительство было готово выплатить компенсацию в обоих случаях, но не в затребованном размере, который, как выяснилось в ходе расследования, действительно значительно превышал справедливую компенсацию. Действия Пальмерстона чуть не ввергли Европу в войну; Россия выразила протест, а Франция, предложившая посредничество, была доведена дипломатической путаницей до грани разрыва отношений. Оппозиция в Палате лордов приняла вотум недоверия, что побудило лорда Джона взять на себя защиту Пальмерстона в Палате общин. Этот вопрос обсуждался в ходе знаменитых четырехдневных дебатов. «Они содержали, — говорит мистер Герберт Пол, — лучшую из всех речей лорда Пальмерстона, первую великую речь Гладстона, последнюю речь сэра Роберта Пиля и самую обстоятельную из тех судебных речей, которые были произнесены последовательно у барьера, в Сенате и на скамье судей выдающимся деятелем, более известным как лорд главный судья Кокберн». Лорд Джон, который всегда мастерски произносил боевые речи, также говорил с огромной силой. Предложение мистера Робуэка о выражении доверия министерству было принято, однако этот успех во многом объяснялся тем, что коалиция между пилитами и протекционистами казалась невозможной. Если бы оно не было принято, виги подали бы в отставку, а поскольку ни одна из двух других партий не чувствовала себя достаточно сильной, чтобы сменить их, они не стали активно противиться вотуму доверия.
На следующий день после своей речи Пиль упал с лошади на Конституционный холм и 2 июля скончался.
Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby
June 20, 1850
... Day of great political excitement. After dinner I took John to the House and have utterly regretted since that I did not go up to hear him--for he made what I am quite sure you and Ralph will agree with me and all whom I have yet spoken to, was a most perfect answer; and I should have dearly liked to hear the volleys of cheering which he so well deserved. Now we shall either go out with honour or stay in with triumph--welcome either.
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Lord Charles Russell35 to Lady John Russell
July 13, 1850
As you were not here to hear John move the monument [of Sir Robert Peel], I must tell you that he succeeded in the opinion of all. Dizzy has just, in passing my chair, said, "Well, Lord John did that to perfection. My friends were nervous, I was not; it was a difficult subject, but one peculiarly fitted for Lord John. He did as I was sure he would, and pleased all those who sit about me."
PEMBROKE LODGE, July 17, 1850
For the first time since the session began John spent a whole weekday here, and such a fine one that we enjoyed it thoroughly. Our roses are still in great beauty, but it is a drying blaze. In the evening we cried over "David Copperfield" till we were ashamed.
Lady John Russell to Lady Melgund
MINTO, October 5, 1850
This whole morning having been spent fox-hunting, and the afternoon doing something else, I do not exactly remember what, I am obliged to write to you at the forbidden time (after dinner), instead of making myself agreeable. What a quantity I have to say to you, and what a pity to say it all by letter, or, rather, to say a very small part of it by letter, instead of having you here, as I had hoped and looked forward to, enjoying daily gloomy talks with you, such as we always find ourselves indulging in when we are together.... Though I have scarcely walked a step about the place from obedience to doctors, I have driven daily with Mama--and such lovely drives! Oh! the place is in such beauty. I think its greatest beauty--the trees red, yellow, green, brown, of every shade, so that each one is seen separately, and the too great thickness on the rocks is less perceived. This was one of the brightest mornings, and you know what a hunt is on the rocks when the sun shines bright, and the rocks look whiter against a blue sky, and men and horses and hounds place themselves in the most picturesque positions, and horns and tally-hos echo all round, and everybody, except the fox, is in spirits. The gentlemen had no sport, but the ladies a great deal, and I saw more foxes than I had ever seen before....
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Our time here is slipping away fearfully fast--there are so many impossibilities to be done. I am hungry to see every brother and sister comfortably and alone, and hungry to be out all day seeing every old spot and old face in the place and village, and hungry to be always with Papa and Mama, and hungry to read all the books in the library--and none of these hungers can be satisfied. We are all much pleased with Mr. Chichester Fortescue. He is agreeable and gentlemanlike and good, and Lotty and Harriet got on very well with him, which is more than I am doing with my letter, for they are singing me out of all my little sense--"Wha's at the window" was distracting enough, but "Saw ye the robber" ten times worse.
В сентябре папская булла, разделявшая Англию на римско-католические епархии, повергла страну в состояние излишнего возбуждения. Этот год выдался крайне критическим для Церкви Англии. Исход дела Горхема, ознаменовавший неудачу духовенства Высокой церкви добиться своего внутри церкви, ускорил переход в католичество Маннинга, Джеймса Хоупа и других известных людей. Письмо лорда Джона епископу Даремскому, в котором он выразил свои твердые протестантские и эрастианские принципы, укрепило его популярность, однако его последствия оказались неудачными. Оно подстегнуло фанатичные тревожные крики, поднятые папской буллой, хотя его собственное письмо отличалось по тону от подобных протестов. Законодательство об эрастианских титулах, представленное правительством в ответ на общественные настроения, представляется одной из самых праздных мер, когда-либо тративших время Парламента впустую. Оно оставалось мертвой буквой с момента своего принятия, однако в то время ни один министр не имел шансов возглавить страну, если не был готов поддержать его.