any reasons which could justify him in breaking his promise. She had arrived at this conclusion, she begged him to believe, "by the help of her own eyes," not, as he had suggested, by the aid of those of Lord Palmerston.[861] The protests of the Queen, however, were as ineffectual as the official remonstrances of Bulwer at Madrid and of Normanby in Paris. On October 10, 1846, the double marriage was duly solemnized at the palace, in the hall called "_de Embajadores_." The British minister was not present at the ceremony, which was witnessed by a great crowd of persons. "One _viva_ only was heard, and that not very loud, when the Infante Don Francisco descended from his carriage."[862] Louis Philippe and M. Guizot had attained their object, but they had sacrificed "the cordial understanding." In England, the authors of the Spanish marriages stood condemned by the Court, by the Cabinet, and by public opinion. There was no thought of an appeal to arms, but it was felt that in the future the relations of the two governments could no longer be carried on in the same spirit of close and friendly intimacy. Palmerston, founding his case upon the renunciation made at the Peace of Utrecht[863] by the Duc d'Orléans of that day, sought to induce the Powers to declare that any children, which might be born to the Duc de Montpensier and the Infanta, would be excluded from succeeding to the Spanish throne. Throughout Europe, however, there were ominous signs of a recrudescence of the revolutionary spirit, and Metternich, in consequence, had strong reasons for desiring to propitiate Louis Philippe and M. Guizot. He, therefore, refused to pronounce himself and simply adopted an attitude of neutrality, taking care to point out that the trouble could never have arisen, had the legitimist principle been upheld and had Don Carlos been enthroned. Russia and Prussia, which like Austria had never acknowledged the sovereignty of Isabella, followed the example of the Court of Vienna and declined to be drawn into the controversy.