On Tuesday I breakfasted with Macaulay, very small party and nothing remarkable. Went in the afternoon to see Lord Beauvale.[81] He talked to me of Melbourne, and so did she. They are not at all pleased at Brougham's being his executor, which astonishes everybody. It would be mighty inconvenient to have Melbourne's papers overhauled by Brougham. Ellice has written to him to propose that they should all be delivered to Beauvale unseen by anybody. He left a letter for Beauvale. In this letter he gives certain pecuniary directions in favour of Lady Brandon and Mrs. Norton, and a solemn declaration that what he had instructed the Attorney-General to say on the trial as to her purity was true. He said that, as his indiscretion had exposed her to obloquy and suspicion, he was bound to renew this declaration. [Footnote 81: [The Hon. Frederic Lamb, raised to the peerage as Lord Beauvale for his diplomatic services, succeeded his brother William as Viscount Melbourne. He was married to Mdlle. de Maltzahn, daughter of the Prussian Minister at Vienna, but left no offspring, and with him both titles expired.]] [Sidenote: ELECTION OF LOUIS NAPOLEON.] _Bowood, December 20th._--The result of the French election for President has astonished the whole world.[82] Everybody thought Louis Napoleon would be elected, but nobody dreamt of such a majority. Great alarm was felt here at the probable consequences of Cavaignac's defeat and the success of his rival, and the French funds were to rise if Napoleon was beaten, and to fall if he won. The election has taken place: Napoleon wins by an immense majority, the funds rise, confidence recovers, and people begin to find out that the new President is a marvellous proper man. I really believe that the foolish affair of the tame eagle in 1840 was the principal cause of the contempt with which he was regarded here; added to this, he led an undistinguished life in this country, associating with no conspicuous people, and his miserable failure in the Chamber when he attempted to speak there, confirmed the unfavourable impression. But Van de Weyer, who is here, says that he has long known him and well, that he is greatly underrated here, and is really a man of considerable ability. He crossed the water with him when he went to take his seat after his election to the Assembly, and he then expressed the most undoubting confidence in his own success at the Presidential election, and said that he had every reason to believe, if he chose to put himself forward, he would be supported by an immense force, and that he might assume any position he pleased; but that he should do nothing of the kind, that he had a legal position beyond which he would not force himself, but that he was prepared to accept all the consequences to which it might lead. And now there is a pretty general opinion that he will be Emperor before long. The ex-Ministers and Legitimists, who were hot for his election, considering him merely as a