The French Foreign-Office papers have appeared, and with them a
very curious and romancing account by M. Thiers of his mission to England during the late war. He tells the Government that his language produced "un certain coup de fouet " in the public mind, and that it even caused a change in the tone of the Times, which had used " milder language" (un meilleur langage) since he appeared. He told Lord Granville that it was every- where believed in France that the Queen was influenced by her family ties to the Royal family of Prussia, and the Cabinet in- fluenced by the Queen, to which Lord Granville replied, " I am profoundly devoted to my Sovereign ; but I am an English Minister, and the only thing to which I look is the wish of my country." Mr. Gladstone he found "grave, dons, et amical," taunted him with England's having now found it wiser to follow the course prescribed for her by the First Napoleon of not med- dling in Continental affairs, and remarked that Mr. Gladstone did not reply, but " preserved the silence of a man at once saddened and oppressed." And when M. Thiers returned, he was satisfied that though he had not persuaded England to give any help, he had very materially improved the situation. He was easily Bak. fled. Probably he did seriously think that the utterance of a few epigrammatic taunts by himself to English Ministers was a good in itself,—one to be set off against some part at least of the horrors and misfortunes of the war.
