_December 26th._--Lamartine's 'Histoire des Girondins' is the most successful book that has been published for many years. He is the Jenny Lind of literature; his book is on every table and in every mouth; it just suits the half-informed and the idle, whom it dazzles, amuses, and interests; but his apparent partiality shocks the humanity of the age; and the generality of readers are unable to comprehend his philosophical analysis, and psychological theories of Robespierre's character. One of his most striking anecdotes is the conversation he gives between Louis Philippe and Danton, in which, according to Lamartine, Danton predicts to the young Duc de Chartres that he will one day be King, and tells him when that happens to remember the prophecy of Danton. I last night asked the Duc de Broglie[28] if that anecdote is true. He said it was not true: the King indeed had had a conversation with Danton, when the latter said to him, 'Young man, what do you do here? Your place is with the army.' So much of it is true, but the rest--the essential part, the prediction--is all false. The Duke told me he had read the King's own account of the conversation in his own journal, where it is recorded as he described. He said the King had kept a copious journal from a very early period. He afterwards talked a great deal about him, of his great industry and activity, of the quantity he read and wrote, and that he read and commented upon all the documents submitted to him for his signature. I regret not having made more acquaintance than I have done here with the Duke de Broglie, and Jarnac gives me to understand that he had rather expected me to cultivate him more than I have, and was disposed to receive my advances. The chief reason for my not doing so was that I found the greatest difficulty in understanding what he says. [Footnote 28: [Victor, Duc de Broglie, was at this time French Ambassador in London.]] _January 1st, 1848._--The Hampden affair is still _boring_ on with prejudicial effects to everybody concerned in it. Dean Merewether, who is piqued and provoked at not having got the bishopric himself (which William IV. once promised him), wrote a foolish, frothy letter to Lord John Russell, who sent an equally foolish, because petulant, reply--only in two lines. The Bishop of Oxford has recanted, and he of Salisbury has apologised for their respective parts; the former in a very ridiculous letter, not calculated to do him any credit. Everybody will believe that he found his conduct unpalatable at Court, so took a pretext for shuffling out of it. [Sidenote: DEATH OF LORD HARROWBY.]