Conduct to Austria and Italy--Debate on Foreign Affairs--State of France--Irish Troubles--Charles Buller's Schemes for Ireland--Close of the Session--Death of Lord George Bentinck--Lord George Bentinck's Political Career--At the Jockey Club. _Stud House: May 22nd and 25th, 1848._--In these times a hiatus of ten days leaves an immense arrear of events and circumstances of different sorts. The principal one last week was the strange scene in the French Chamber and the conspiracy against its independence which was so completely frustrated. It is never worth while to describe scenes which are better and more circumstantially narrated in the newspapers. The spirit of order was completely victorious, but the conduct of those who have got the upper hand is still very unaccountable.[48] People go on wondering that Lamartine should be so irresolute, and that he should endure Ledru Rollin as a colleague. Madame de Lieven supplied me with the solution of this question which I dare say is the true one. She told me that Roberts the painter (who brought her away from Paris) came to her the other day and told her that the Revolution found Lamartine as well as Ledru Rollin ruined men, and that they formed a compact to feather their nests, which both have accomplished. While they have been ostensibly (and perhaps really) the heads of different sections of the Government and the promoters of different principles, they have always been connected by a secret understanding and a common interest, and therefore they cannot break with each other, and accordingly whenever the moderate party appear to have the upper hand and cry out to Lamartine to come forward and crush his colleague, Lamartine, on the contrary, shuffles, temporises and compromises, and so he and Ledru Rollin go on together. The consequence of all this is that there is no Government in France, and all the material interests of the country keep getting worse and worse, and ruin stares everybody in the face. [Footnote 48: [On May 15 another insurrection occurred in Paris. The mob forced its way into the Chamber of Deputies, and declared the Government, of which Lamartine was the head, to be dissolved. But the National Guard turned out with spirit, and, with the aid of the troops of the line, quelled the sedition and reinstated Lamartine. The passage that follows is certainly incorrect. Lamartine did not act with Ledru Rollin, and undoubtedly did not feather his nest, for he fell from power as poor a man as he was when he assumed it.]] [Sidenote: DEBATE ON THE RUPTURE WITH SPAIN.]