Robarts said he had no doubt that if Peel had been in office he would have shown himself equal to cope with the difficulty which Rice had proved himself so incompetent to meet. The raising of the siege of Bilbao will have given Palmerston a lift, but between our foreign and our financial affairs the Ministers will not have an easy session of the next. [1] Mr. Spring Rice was Chancellor of the Exchequer in Lord Melbourne's second Administration until 1839, when he was raised to the peerage under the title of Lord Monteagle of Brandon. Dover, January 12th, 1837 {p.377} Having resolved, after many struggles, to go to Paris, here I am on my way, and on arriving find that it blows a hurricane, and there is little or no chance of being able to cross to-morrow; for all I know I may be kept here for the next three days. January 13th, 1837 {p.377} I might have gone very well this morning, but was persuaded not to start by the mate of the Government packet, and, like a fool, I listened to him. It was a fine calm morning. Paris, January 17th, 1837 {p.377} Arrived here last night at five, having left Dover at a quarter to one the day before; three hours to Boulogne, twenty-two to Paris. I made a very prosperous journey; went to the Embassy in the evening, and found a heap of people--Molé, Montalivet, Lyndhurst, Madame de Lieven, Madame de Dino, Talleyrand, &c. Paris, January 19th, 1837 {p.378} [Page Head: PRINCESS LIEVEN IN PARIS.] On Tuesday went about visiting; found nobody but Madame Alfred de Noailles and Raikes; was to have gone to the Chamber, but the ticket did not arrive in time; dined at the Embassy. Wednesday, in the morning, to the gallery of the Louvre; dined with Talleyrand; to Madame de Lieven's and Madame Graham's. Talleyrand as well as ever, except weaker on his legs; asked me to dine there whenever I was not engaged. In the morning called at the Tuileries, and left a note for the Duke of Orleans's aide-de-camp, asking to be presented to his Royal Highness; and at night my mother went to Court, and begged leave to bring me there to present me to the Royal family. Lyndhurst sets off to London this morning, and I had only an opportunity of exchanging a few words with him. He told me he had never passed such an agreeable time as the last four months; not a moment of _ennui_; had become acquainted with a host of remarkable people of all sorts, political characters of all parties, and the _littérateurs_, such as Victor Hugo, Balzac, &c., the latter of whom, he says, is a very agreeable man. He told me that 'Le Père Goriot' is a true story, and that since its publication he had become acquainted with some more circumstances which would have made it still more striking. He has been leading here 'une vie de garçon,' and making himself rather ridiculous in some respects. He said to me, 'I suppose the Government will get on; I'm sure I shall not go on in the House of Lords this year as