Since I came back from Newmarket there has not been much to write about. A calm has succeeded the storm. Last night Schedules A and B were galloped through the Committee, and they finished the business. On Thursday next the Bill will probably be read a third time. In the House of Lords some dozen Tories and Waverers have continued to keep up a little skirmish, and a good deal of violent language has been bandied about, in which the Whigs, being the winners, have shown the best temper. In society the excitement has ceased, but the bitterness remains. The Tories are, however, so utterly defeated, and the victory of their opponents is so complete, that the latter can afford to be moderate and decorous in their tone and manner; and the former are exceedingly sulky, cockering up each other with much self-gratulation and praise, but aware that in the opinion of the mass of mankind they are covered with odium, ridicule, and disgrace. Peel and the Duke are ostensibly great friends, and the ridiculous farce is still kept up of each admiring what he would not do himself, but what the other did. June 1st, 1832 {p.305} [Page Head: FAVOURITES OF LOUIS XVIII.] Met the Duke of Wellington at dinner yesterday, and afterwards had a long talk with him, not on politics. I never see and converse with him without reproaching myself for the sort of hostility I feel and express towards his political conduct, for there are a simplicity, a gaiety, and natural urbanity and good-humour in him, which are remarkably captivating in so great a man. We talked of Dumont's book and Louis XVIII.'s 'Memoirs.' I said I thought the 'Memoirs' were not genuine. He said he was sure they were, that they bore the strongest internal evidence of being so, particularly in their accuracy as to dates, that he was the best chronologist in the world, and that he knew the day of the week of every event of importance. He once asked the Duke when he was born, and when he told him the day of the month and year, he at once said it was on a Tuesday; that he (the Duke) had remembered that throughout the book the day of the week was always mentioned, and many of the anecdotes he had himself heard the King tell. He then talked of him, and I was surprised to hear him say that Charles X. was a cleverer man, as far as knowledge of the world went, though Louis XVIII. was much better informed--a most curious remark, considering the history and end of each. [Nothing could be more mistaken and untrue than this opinion.] That Louis XVIII. was always governed, and a favourite indispensable to him. At the Congress of Vienna the Duke was deputed to speak to M. de Blacas, his then favourite, and tell him that his unpopularity was so great in France that it was desirable he should not return there. Blacas replied, 'You don't know the King; he must have a favourite, and he had better have me than another. I shall go; he will have another, and you should take pains to put a _gentleman_