The Greville Memoirs, Part 2 (of 3), Volume 3 (of 3): A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852Greville, Charles
History
The Greville Memoirs, Part 2 (of 3), Volume 3 (of 3): A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852
Greville, Charles
Great Britain -- History -- Victoria, 1837-1901
_March 12th._--Yesterday Lady Granville and Lady Georgiana Fullerton
went to Claremont to see the Royal Family. The Queen was gone to town,
but they were received by the King, who talked to them for an hour and
gave them a narrative of his adventures, which they related to me last
night. It was very carious, that is, curious as an exhibition of his
character. He described his flight, and all his subsequent adventures,
his travels, his disguises, his privations, the dangers he incurred, the
kindness and assistance he met with, all very minutely. They said it was
very interesting, and even very amusing; admirably well told. He was
occasionally pathetic and occasionally droll; his story was told with a
mixture of the serious and the comic--sometimes laughing and at others
almost crying--that was very strange. It struck them that he was very
undignified, even vulgar, and above all that he seemed to be animated
with no feeling towards his country, but to view the whole history
through the medium of _self_. He said of the French, 'Ils ont choisi
leur sort; je dois supporter le mien.' He gave a very different account
of what passed from that of Guizot. He said he was in personal danger
when he was on horseback reviewing the National Guard on Thursday
morning; that they pressed round him, shouting for reform. He cried out,
'Mais vous l'avez, la rÈforme; laissez-moi passer donc;' and that he was
obliged to spur his horse through the mob, and got back to the Tuileries
with difficulty. He said he had _posÈ la question_ of resistance to
Guizot, who had refused to entertain it, said that he could not give
orders to fire on the National Guards. Their two statements are quite
irreconcileable, and thus occur historical perplexities and the errors
and untruths which crowd all history. I have always said that it is
nothing but a series of conventional facts. There is no _absolute_
truth in history; mankind arrives at probable results and conclusions in
the best way it can, and by collecting and comparing evidence it settles
down its ideas and its belief to a certain chain and course of events
which it accepts as certain, and deals with as if it were, because it
must settle somewhere and on something, and because a tolerable _prim‚
facie_ and probable case is presented. But when one sees how the actors
in and spectators of the same events differ in narrating and describing
them; how continually complete contradictions are discovered to facts
the most generally believed; there is no preserving the mind from a
state of scepticism, nor is it possible to read or hear anything with
entire satisfaction and faith. It appears that the Royal Family have no
money, the King having invested his whole fortune in France, and beggary
is actually staring them in the face. The King evinced no bitterness
except in speaking of the English newspapers, especially the 'Times;'
and he attributed much of his unpopularity, and what he considers the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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