_March 26th._--I dined yesterday with Palmerston to meet Guizot and Madame de Lieven! Strange dinner, when I think of the sentiments towards each other of the two Ministers, and of all that Guizot said to me when I was at Paris last year! However, it did all very well. I thought Palmerston and Guizot would have shaken each other's arms off, and nothing could exceed the cordiality or apparent ease with which they conversed. There was not the slightest symptom of embarrassment; and though Guizot's manner is always stiff, pedantic, and without the least approach to _abandon_, he seemed to me to exhibit less of these defects than usual. There were the Granvilles, Clanricardes, and Harry Vane; Temple, Holland, and Beauvale came in the evening. I am glad Palmerston asked him to dinner, especially after what passed in reference to _the exiles_, and the impertinent remonstrances from Paris. _March 31st._--Nothing new these last few days; Ireland getting more and more serious, and a strong opinion gaining ground that there will be an outbreak and fighting, and that this will be on the whole a good thing, inasmuch as nothing will tame the Irish agitators but a severe drubbing. Last night I met M. Delessert[41] at dinner; he talked of the recent events in France and the state of the country; hopeless about the latter, and gave a character of his countrymen which he said he was ashamed to give, but it was the truth. He said they were not to be governed, for they had no sense of religion or of morality, or any probity among them; he said he had been faithful to the Government to the last, and it did not become him now to speak against Guizot and his policy, but that his unpopularity was immense, and he had committed the great fault of staying in power in spite of it and for so many years, when the French could not bear anything that lasted long; he was always aware of the fatal mistake Guizot had made about the Spanish marriages, and the consequences of the rupture of the English alliance; and he said Duch‚tel was of the same mind as himself, and had communicated to him the conversation I had had with him when I was in Paris, and all I had said on the subject. I was not aware before that I was _prÍchant un converti_ so entirely, though I suspected it. Delane told me yesterday that Leopold saw their correspondent the other day, and asked him if England would give him a subsidy to assist in repelling the French and Belgian republicans who threaten his territory; and Van de Weyer told him they were in a great dilemma, as the French Government were letting loose these ruffians upon them, affording them all sorts of assistance underhand; and if the Belgian Government repelled them, it was very likely the mob and clubs at Paris would compel the Provisional Government to support them and swallow up Belgium. Everybody now thinks there must be a war somewhere, out of such immense confusion and excitement.