The Express.
London, England, 1848-04-13 00:00:00

THE SECRET PORTFOLIOS OF LOUIS

PHILIPPE.

THE SPANISH MARRIAGES.

The following
iis the substance of one of the docu-
ments, published n the Revue Retrospective, found in two
portfolios left by Louis Philippe at the 'Tuileries :
From Louis Philippe to the Queen of the Belgians :
" Neuilly, September 14, 1846,
" My dearest Louise,—The queen has just received a letter,
or rather a reply from Queen Victoria, to the one you
know she had written to her, and that reply greatly
grieves me. I am inclined to believe that our good
little queen was as sorry to write such a letter as I
was to read it. But she now only wee *lags through
the spectacles of Lord Palmerston, and those spectacles
distort and disfigure them too often. This is quite natural.
The great difference between the spectacles of the ex-
cellent Aberdeen and those of Lord Palmerton proceeds
from the difference of their dispositions. Lord Aberdeen
wished to be well with his friend' ; Lord Palmerston, I fear,
wishes to quarrel with them. This is, my dear Louise, what
caused my alarm respecting the maintenance of our cordial
undemanding, when Lord Palmerston resumed the direction
of the Foreign-offloe. Oar good Queen Victoria sought to
dispel those alarms, and assured me that there would only
be a change of men. But my old experience induced me to
apprehend that, through the influence of the disposition of
Lord Palmerston, much more perhaps than his intentions,
the political system of England would undergo a modifica-
tion, gradually or sudden, and unfortunately the affairs of
Spain have afforded en opportunity."
The letter then proceeds to state the often-repeated desire
of Queen Christina for the marriage of her two daughters
with the Dukes d'Aumale and ldontpensier, together with
the refusal of the King of the French to comply, on the
ground that the husband of the Queen of Spaiu ought to be
chosen among the prince descendants of Philip V., in the
male line, which would exclude the then reigning family of
Franc.; and that when there was "good chance" that the
infanta should not become queen, then that a marriage be-
tween her and the Duke de Montpensier might be concluded
" The prince descendents of Philip V. then marriageable,"
the letter goes on to say, " were the three sons of Don
Carlos, two eons of Don F rancisco de Paula, two Princes of
Naples, and a Prince of Lucca. Lord Aberdeen at once
declared that Count d'Aquila, brother of the King of Naples
and of Queen Christina. would be the choice that presented
least embarrassment. That prince having shortly afterwards
married the Princess of Brazils, Dona Januarie, the pre-
ference of Queen Christina among those princes devolved
on her younger brother, Count Trapani, and it is that (and
not any personal preference on my part) which produced
what has been called his ' candidature; of which so deplore
ble a use has been since made. The marriage of the Infanta,
who was only ten years old, was not then talked of, and one
party was endeavouring to force me to consent to the mar-
riage of the Duke d'Aumale and the other to prevent it. It
was amidst that struggle the project was started, no matter
by whom, no matter how, to marry the Queen of Spain to
Prince Leopold of Saxe-Ceburg, nephew to the King of the
Belgians, cousin• German of Queen Victoria and of Prince
Albert, brother to the King of Portugal, of the Duchess de
Nemours, and of Prince Augustus, my son-in-law.
" It was an unfortunate circumstance that such a candi-
date should have been proposed. It placed all parties in a
false position, and me particularly, in consequence of the op.
position which I thought it my duty to make to it, and I see
according to the terms of the letter of Queen Victoria to what
extent parties wore mistaken, and how unjust they were in
their appreciation of the motives which suggested this orpo-
stion. Thou motives sprung as much from the sincere friend.
ship which I bear the Princes of Coburg (rind of which I believe
I have given them more than one proof in the part which I
took to facilitate the new acquisitions of their house) as in
the same political considerations which induced me to refuse
to propose my own children. I was convinced, and I am
still more than ever of that opinion, that if Prince Leopold
had been the successful candidate, it would have brought
misfortune on the head of this young prince, and likewise on
that of the queen herself (had she married him), by produc-
ing the overthrow of their throne, and by plunging Spain
into an anarchy from which it is always so difficult to pre-
serve her. _

" I will now speak to you of the marriage of Montpensier
with the Infanta. There was not the slightest reference to
it, either when Queen Victoria came to En, in 1843, or when
I was at Windsor in 1844. It was only in the year 1845 that
Lord Aberdeen spoke to Ouisot and me with regard tc it for
the first time. Our reply was the same. I told Lord Aber-
deen that I much wished that Montpensier should marry the
Infanta Louisa Ferdinand', but I ne more desired that he
should wed Queen Louisa than Queen Isabella, and that he
might even be assured that my son should not espouse the
Infanta until the queen was married. Lord Aberdeen
added, and when she shall have borne a child.' 'Be it so,'
I replied. 'Be it so,' replied Lord Aberdeen. 'We
are of the same opinion with you, that' the
best which can be done is that the queen should
select her husband from amongst the descendants of Philip
V." The letter then complains that " however anxious Lord
Aberdeen might be that his agents should act as honourably
as he had done, their proceedings did not answer either his
or our expectations. They had recourse to all expedients to
malign Count Trapani. Those mini:rums, directed by the
journals of the progressist party, who unfortunately have
ever enjoyed the favour of the British agents in Spain,
succeeded, in covering poor Trapani with real unpopularity.
" All these maximums brought about that step to whieh
Queen Christina allowed herself to be persuaded. A secret
agent was despatched by her, bearing a letter from herself to
the Duke of Coburg, for the purpose of demanding the hand
of his cousin, Prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg, for the queen.
her daughter. The openness of Lord Aberdeen's character
induced him to give us immediate cognisance of this step,
which had been concealed from us at Madrid, adding, at the
same time, that neither Queen Victoria nor Prince Albert,
nor her Majesty's government, would give any support or
encouragement to the demand of Queen Christina.
" Such was the state of things when Lord Aberdeen
quitted the British Cabinet and was succeeded by Lord Pal-
merston. A very short time after his installation in the
Foreign-office, Lord Palmerston made a communication to
the Comte de Jarnac of the fresh instructions that he had
despatched to Mr. Bulwer relative to the affairs of Spain.
In these instructions Lord Palmerston confined to three the
number of princes whose pretensions to the hand of the
Queen of Spain, Isabella, England admitted ; that is to say
—Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, Don Francisco d'Assis,
Duke of Cadiz, Don Enrico, Duke of Seville.
"The Comte de Jarnac was stupified upon seeing the name
of the Prince of Coburg placed upon this list, and placed
at the very top. He told Lord Palmerston that it was quite
at variance with the assurances constantly given by Lord
Aberdeen, and he required that this candidate should be
struck out of the list. Lord Palmerston replied that it was
utterly impossible in every way, since the instructions had
been already sent; that, moreover, the measure having
been adopted in the cabinet, he was unable to make any
change in it alone, and that he was not disposed to propose
any to the cabinet.
" The rest of his instructions were not of a nature to be at
all more satisfactory to us; their entire tendency went
towards assuring the progressist party of the support of
England.
" Such instructions as these necessarily excited the most
serious alarm in the palace of Madrid as soon as they were
known. The consequence was, that all those who had been
led to make the proposal to the Duke of Coburg, Queen
Christina at their head, completely turned round, fearing
the renewal of the progressist insurrection that had been
but recently terminated in Griffiths, and had led to the ex-
pulsion of Don Enrico, and came over to us with the de-
mand for the immediate and simultaneous marriag of the
queen with Don Francisco d'Asais and of the Ines
hints with
Montpensier. This simultaneity was not only the sin*
quo non of Queen Christina for the reception of Don Fran-
cisco, whom she bad desired until then, but the desist
of the ministry and of all Spaniards.
" As soon as this change was known, the English agents,
more than a month after the instructions of Lord Palmer-
ston, which admitted as a candidate Prince Leopold of Coburg,
made every effort to support the pretensions of Don Enrico.
Nothing could be more untimely, since it was only too noto-
rious that Don Enrico was the chief, or rather the agent of
all the different revolutionary parties ; and Lord Palmer.ston at once rendered those pretensions impossible by recom-
mending them in official documents.
" It was not I, consequently, who first commenced or gave
the example in deviating from our primary conventions. I
only yielded to the necessities of the deviation commenced
elsewhere, and quite contrary to my expectations.