I have had two other conversations with Esterhazy at different times. He went to Brighton and saw the King, whom he thought much _baissé_, but I do not know whether it is a proof of it that he could not prevail upon his Majesty to enter upon foreign politics with him. He repeated to me what he had said before of the necessity of a strict and cordial union between Austria and England, and the disposition of the former not to contest our supremacy and influence in the Peninsula, but he harps upon the _mode_ of doing this, which I don't quite understand. I gathered from him, and have heard from other quarters, that Metternich's influence is much diminished, and that the Austrian Cabinet is no longer ruled by him as heretofore, and that there is not the same union: but there would appear to be a very complete union in the Austrian Imperial Family, who cling together from a sense of their common interest, and in great measure from the respect and attachment which they all feel for the memory of the late Emperor. Esterhazy said it was remarkable, considering the condition of the Imperial House--the Emperor[9] in a state bordering on idiocy, not likely to live above four or five years at the outside, and his uncles all men of talent and energy; the next heir, the brother of the Emperor,[10] is a man of competent sense, but the late Emperor's brothers he describes to be all superior men. [9] [The Emperor Ferdinand, here described, filled the throne until 1848, when he abdicated in the great convulsion of that year; he spent the rest of his life in retirement at Prague, but he survived this prediction nearly forty years.] [10] [The Archduke Franz Joseph, father of the present Emperor. But this Archduke never filled the throne.] [Page Head: THE DUKE OF REICHSTADT.]