_March 11th._--The Count wants an article in the _National Zeitung_ to be answered in this sense: “The Liberals in Parliament always identify themselves with the people. They maintain, like Louis XIV. with his _L’état c’est moi_, that ‘We are the People.’ There could hardly be a more absurd piece of boasting and exaggeration. As if the other representatives, the Conservatives in the country, and the great numbers who belong to no party, were not also part of the nation, and had no opinions and interests to which regard should be paid!” _Evening._--The Minister, referring to a statement in the _Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung_, remarked: “There is much ado about the decided attitude taken up by Beust against the Curia. According to the report published by Brass he has expressed himself very emphatically respecting its latest action, in a note which the Ambassador read to the Secretary of State. That must be refuted, weakened. Do it in a letter from Rome to the _Kölnische Zeitung_. Say: ‘We do not know if the analysis of the despatch in question (which has made the round of the papers, and which was first published by _The Times_) is correct,[2] but we have reason to doubt it.’ Trautmansdorf (the Austrian Ambassador to the Holy See) has read no note and has received no instructions to make any positive declaration, but is on the contrary acting in accordance with his own convictions--and it is known that he is very clerical and not at all disposed to radical measures. He has communicated to Cardinal Antonelli such parts of the information that reached him from Vienna as he thought proper, and he certainly made that communication in as considerate a form as possible. It cannot therefore have been very emphatic.” _Later._--Attention is to be directed, at first in a paper which has no connection with the Government, to the prolonged sojourn of Archduke Albrecht in Paris as a suspicious symptom. In connection with it rumours have been circulated in London of an understanding between France and Austria. Our papers should afterwards reproduce these hints. _March 12th._--In the afternoon Bucher gave me the chief’s instructions to order the Spanish newspaper, _Imparcial_. (This is of some importance, as it doubtless indicates that even then we had a hand in the question of electing the new King. On several occasions subsequently I secured the insertion in non-official German papers of translations which Bucher brought me of articles in that newspaper against the candidature of Montpensier.)