Yesterday I saw the Baron Mounier, who is come over here, on a sort of mission, to talk about possible arrangements, from Guizot. He still pertinaciously urges our doing or saying something demonstrative of a disposition to be reconciled with France, and that, in the ultimate settlement of the Eastern Question, we wish to show her some deference. He wants (Syria being gone) that we should make out that it is from consideration for France that Egypt is left to the Pasha. I told him the only difficulty appeared to be that, as we had already announced we had no intention to strip him of Egypt, and had signified long ago that we had advised the Sultan to restore him to that Government, I did not see how we could now make any such declaration available, and that it would go for nothing. But he said he thought by a not difficult employment of diplomatic phraseology much might be done; and he suggested that there must be some definite settlement of the whole question, including stipulations and guarantees for the Syrian population (of the mountains, I presume), and to this France might be invited to accede. In short, nothing will satisfy her but having a finger in the pie upon any terms. What Guizot now wants is to renew the English alliance. So he said when he went away; but it may well be doubted whether the French are not too sulky with us and too deeply mortified not to make this an unpopular attempt just now. Mounier is the son of Mounier the Constitutionalist, entirely in Guizot's confidence, a talkative man not seemingly brilliant, but he is well versed in affairs, an active member of the Chamber of Peers, and considered indispensable there as a _redacteur_ and transactor of Parliamentary business. December 13th, 1840 {p.357} For the last week at Norman Court, during which little or nothing has happened; but I heard one or two things before I left town. Guizot had made a direct application to Palmerston for his permission to attribute the leaving of Egypt to Mehemet Ali, to the influence of France, and to a desire to gratify her. This Palmerston (through Lord Granville) refused; but Guizot had not waited for the answer, and in his speech he said so, and it was not without its use. But while everything was on the point of being settled, Metternich (who is always in hot or cold fits of courage or cowardice) sends over a proposal that Egypt shall only be granted to Mehemet Ali for his own and his son's lives, and not hereditary. For what possible reason this absurd proposition was made, unless to create embarrassment and rekindle animosities, nobody can conceive; though probably the real solution is that Metternich is in his dotage, has no policy in his brain, and acts from foolish impulses. I have heard no more of it; and though Palmerston would not be at all averse to the proposal as a matter of inclination, I do not suspect him of the folly of listening to it, and, if he did, his colleagues would not. December 29th, 1840 {p.357}