CORRESPONDENCE WITH MRS. WILLYAMS 185

very anxious that an old shoe should be thrown at the royal pair on their departure, and the Lord Chamberlain showed me in confidence the weapon with which he had furnished himself. He took out of his pocket a beautiful white satin slipper which had been given him for the occasion by the Duchess of Brabant. Alas! when the hour arrived his courage failed him. This is a genuine anecdote which you will not find in the "Illustrated London News.""

In 1863 Poland revolted, encouraged by the results of the Crimean war, which had enfeebled Russia, by the French campaign for the liberation of Italy, and by the supposed sympathy of England with oppressed nationalities. Louis Napoleon knew that his own throne was undermined, and was looking for safety in some fresh successful adventure. England had refused to join him in the recognition of Southern independence in America. Poland was another opportunity. The two extracts which follow deserve particular attention. Disraeli had known the French Emperor in London and did not trust him.

October 17, 1863.-'The troubles and designs of the French Emperor are aggravated and disturbed by the death of Billault, his only Parliamentary orator and a first-rate one. With, for the first time, a real Opposition to encounter, and formed of the old trained speakers of Louis Philippe's reign, in addition to the young democracy of oratory which the last revolution has itself produced, the inconveniences, perhaps the injuries, of this untimely decease are incalculable. It may even force by way of distraction the Emperor into war. Our own Ministry have managed their affairs very badly, according to their friends. The Polish question is a diplomatic Frankenstein, created out of cadaverous remnants by the mystic blundering of Lord Russell. At present the

peace of the world has been preserved not by statesmen, but by capitalists. For the last three months it has been a struggle between the secret societies and the Emperor's millionaires. Rothschild hitherto has won, but the death of Billault may be as fatal to him as the poignard of a Polish patriot, for I believe in that part of the world they are called "patriots," though in Naples only "brigands."'

November 5, 1863.-The great Imperial sphinx is at this moment speaking. I shall not know the mysterious utterances until to-morrow, and shall judge of his conduct as much by his silence as by his words. The world is very alarmed and very restless. Although England appears to have backed out of this possible war there are fears that the French ruler has outwitted us, and that by an alliance with Austria and the aid of the Italian armies he may cure the partition of Poland by a partition of Prussia; Austria in that case to regain Silesia, which Frederick the Great won a century ago from Maria Theresa, France to have the Rhine, and Galicia and Posen to be restored to Poland. If this happens it will give altogether a new form and colour to European politics. The Queen is much alarmed for the future throne of her daughter; but as the war will be waged for the relief of Poland, of which England has unwisely approved, and to which in theory she is pledged, we shall really be checkmated and scarcely could find an excuse to interfere even if the nation wished."

Disraeli's arms and motto have been a subject of some speculation. The motto, Forti nihil difficile,' has been supposed to have been originated by himself, as an expression of his personal experience. The vanity, if vanity there was in the assumption of such a bearing, was the vanity of ancestry, not the vanity of a self-made man. When he told

the electors at Aylesbury that his descent was as pure as that of the Cavendishes, he was not alluding to Abraham, but to his Castilian progenitors. While leading the aristocracy of England he claimed a place among them in right of blood. Mrs. Willyams descended from a similar stock. She desired to quarter her coat with the bearings of the Mendez da Costas, and Disraeli undertook to manage it for her. He had to use the help of 'ambassadors and Ministers of State.' He laid under contribution the private cabinet of the Queen of Spain, and gave himself infinite trouble that the poor old lady might have the panels of her carriage painted to her satisfaction. Among the many letters on the subject there is one which explains the arms of Beaconsfield.

July 23, 1859.-'The Spanish families never had supporters, crests, or mottoes. The tower of Castile, which I use as a crest, and which was taken from one of the quarters of my shield, was adopted by a Lara in the sixteenth century in Italy, where crests were the custom-at least in the north of Italy-copied from the German heraldry. This also applies to my motto. None of the southern races, I believe, have supporters or crests. This is Teutonic. With regard to the coronet, in old days, especially in the south, all coronets were the same, and the distinction of classes from the ducal strawberry leaf to the baron's balls is of compara tively modern introduction.'

When the harlequin's wand of Pitt converted Warren, the club waiter, into an earl, the Heralds' College traced his descent for him to the Norman Fitzwarren. Robert Burns was content to take his patent of nobility from a more immediate source. Disraeli doubtless had a right to use the bearings of the Laras if he cared about such things. But a Spanish pedigree at best was a shadowy sort of business, and one could rather wish that he had let it alone.

CHAPTER XIII

Fall of the Whigs in 1867-Disraeli as Chancellor of the Exchequer Reform Bill why undertaken-Necessities real or fancied of a Party Leader-Alternatives-Split in the Cabinet-Disraeli carries his point-Niagara to be shot--Retirement of Lord Derby--Disraeli Prime Minister-Various judgments of his character-The House of Commons responsible for his elevation-Increasing popularity with all classes.

SOMETHING else too as well as the Castilian pedigree Disraeli might have done better to leave to others. In 1865 he had uttered his memorable warning in the House of Commons against playing tricks with the Constitution. Other countries might emerge out of a revolution and 'begin again.' England could not begin again. Lord John Russell's Reform Bill was thrown out. The Whig Ministry fell in 1867, and Lord Derby came a third time to the helm with Disraeli for his Chancellor of the Exchequer. They at least, it might have been thought, would have let alone a subject on which the latter had pronounced so recently so emphatic an opinion. But they were still a Ministry on sufferance, and how to turn a minority into a majority was still an unsolved problem. The spectre of Reform was unexorcised. Both parties had evoked it at intervals, when they wished ultimately to pose before the world as the people's friends. Yet no experienced statesman, Whig or Tory, unless from unworthy jealousy, would have opened his lips to recommend

a change from which he could not honestly expect improvement. Even the working classes themselves, who were to be admitted to the suffrage, were not actively demanding it. No good had come to them from the great Bill of 1832. 'I don't care who is in or who is out,' said a rough artisan to me. 'I could never see that any of them cared for us.' They had been told that they were living in a world where everyone was to look out for himself, that their interests would never be attended to till they had representatives who would force attention to them. But their general sense was that the ills which they complained of were out of reach of Parliament, and they were looking for a remedy in combination among themselves which would take the place of the old Guilds. The ancient organisation of labour had been destroyed in the name of Liberty. Their employers had piled up fortunes. They had been left 'free,' as it was called, with their families to multiply as they would, and to gather their living under the hoofs of the horses of a civilisation which had become an aggregate of self-seeking units. To this they had been brought by a Parliamentary government, which, as far as they were concerned, was no government at all; and they were incredulous of any benefit that was to arrive to them from improvements in a machine so harren. Thus they were looking rather with amused indifference than active concern while the parties in the House of Commons were fencing for the honour of being their champion.

And yet Reform was in the air. The educated mind of England had been filled to saturation with the new Liberal philosophy. In the old days a 'freeman' was a master of his craft, and not till he had learnt to do, and do well, some work which was useful to society did he enter upon his