_December 26th._--I receive daily letters from the Duke of Bedford, to whom all sorts of people write upon the subject of the late affair. He is exceedingly anxious to make out that Lord John and his friends acted well and wisely, but he evidently labours all the time under a consciousness that their case is not defensible, and that in public opinion they cut a very poor figure. He endeavours to comfort himself with the approbation which is expressed by many who may be sincere, but who may also only say to him what they think it would be agreeable to him to hear. Meanwhile the news of the return of Peel has been received abroad with transports of joy, and here the funds and all securities have risen with extraordinary rapidity. My letters have been read at Paris by Guizot and Madame de Lieven with the greatest avidity, and by the former taken to the King, under a promise that he would say nothing about them in his own correspondence with Windsor.[117] [Sidenote: THE FRENCH VIEW OF LORD PALMERSTON.] The other day Mr. Woodfall, grandson of the original publisher of 'Junius' Letters,' came to me to ask me if I would edit a new edition of 'Junius.' He said he had nothing new to furnish, and the only scrap that never has been published is one which never could be, a copy of very indecent verses upon the Duke of Grafton and Nancy Parsons in Junius' handwriting, and sent to Woodfall. He told me that his father never had an idea who Junius was, but never would believe that Francis was the man. [Footnote 117: [I was myself in Paris during this crisis in the British Government, and I received from Mr. Greville day by day the narrative of the singular vicissitudes occurring in London, related by him in almost the same words in which he recorded them in his journal. This information was of great value at the time, because the future relations of France and England were supposed to be affected (and were in fact affected) by the possible transfer of the Foreign Office from the hands of Lord Aberdeen to those of Lord Palmerston. This event, therefore, excited the liveliest interest in Paris, and was even of a nature to shake the stability of M. Guizot's administration and to encourage the opposition, of M. Thiers. I therefore communicated the information I received to M. Guizot and Lord Cowley (the first Lord Cowley, who was afterwards succeeded in the Embassy by his son). Some of the letters were also shown to the King, who was pleased to say that they were 'du Saint-Simon tout pur.' To complete the picture of the effect produced abroad by the anticipated return of Lord Palmerston to the Foreign Office, I shall here venture to insert a few extracts from the letters addressed by me to Mr. Greville in answer to his communications. 24 Rue de la Paix, Paris: December 20th, 1845.