_February 27th._--Bucher told me this evening that since yesterday the Chief has been “exceptionally irritable,” and treated Roland Boelsing and, again to-day, Alvensleben (who has now taken Bohlen’s place and does all sorts of subordinate work for him) with the greatest harshness. His irritation is no doubt due to the circumstance that Camphausen did not wish to draw up the Taxation Bill for which the Chief was most anxious, and that the latter had no power to enforce his views upon his colleague. _February 29th._--Read and noted the principal points of three documents received on the 26th. A report from Stockholm states that King Charles is still very weak, and that his doctors have ordered him “six weeks’ retirement for the purpose of undergoing special treatment as a measure of precaution against the increasing induration of the internal organs.” The Russian General Lewascheff, who was recently in Paris, is understood to have said to certain Galician Poles that a scheme was under consideration at St. Petersburg for reviving the Wielopolski system, and granting Poland a larger measure of independence. Orloff, on being questioned upon the subject, said it was a misunderstanding on the part of the Poles. On the 26th instant Abeken prepared for the Chief an abstract of a report from Pera dated the 14th of February. It states that “Russia favours the aspirations of the Bulgarians, and General Ignatieff has actively promoted them. The Greeks, whose influence in the Balkan Peninsula will be seriously diminished thereby, are greatly embittered against Russia. Herr von Radowitz himself considers it ‘an extraordinary change that Russia should have for the first time sacrificed the Greek element to the Slavic.’ Russia had previously relied chiefly upon the Greek element, and the Greek Orthodox Church in Turkey had received its death blow from the new measure, the Patriarch of Constantinople being deprived of almost all his former influence.” Subsequently read another St. Petersburg report of the 22nd instant, which says: “Thiers has informed Prince Orloff that Casimir Perier would submit to the National Assembly a proposal, the object of which would be to confirm the Republican form of Government, and he, the President, would support the motion, and stand or fall with Perier. Orloff believes that the Bonapartists have a better prospect of success than any of the other parties. Fleury has been to see him and repeated to him almost literally the statements contained in the memorandum of the Grand Duchess Marie on the Bonapartist cause. He had asked at the same time whether Russia could do nothing to induce M. Thiers to have a plebiscite. On his replying that he had instruction to maintain the best relations with France and to avoid all interference in party politics, the general remarked in a tone of pique that they were less scrupulous in that respect in Berlin than at St. Petersburg.” (Hardly in Berlin, I fancy, but rather at Arnim’s.)