Clarendon said he was delighted with the Emperor and liked him better and better every time he saw him. I met Walewski, who said he wanted to talk to me, when he expressed great anxiety to know the state of opinion in England, and talked of the chances of peace, and particularly wished to know if I thought Palmerston really and sincerely desired peace. I told him the exact truth as to opinion in England, and said I believed Palmerston was now sincere in wishing to make peace, but that it was in his nature to be _exigeant_, and he thought it necessary to be so now because it was of great moment to him to present to the country a peace with as many concessions as possible from Russia. I said it depended on France after all, and then I found that while they thought Bomarsund ought to be an indispensable condition, Nicolaieff ought not; and so we parted, and I promised to dine with him on Monday. [Sidenote: LORD COWLEY ON THE NEGOTIATIONS.] This morning after breakfast I had a long conversation with Cowley. He did not speak despondingly of the peace, but he dilated on the difficulty of coming to satisfactory terms, and such as Clarendon could consent to, which he attributes principally to the French, who, having gained all the glory they want for the satisfaction of their national vanity, have no longer any desire to go on with the war, and we are placed by them in a fix. 'If,' he said, 'our army was in Asia Minor he should not care, because then we might say to them, do just what you please, make peace if it suits you, we shall not resent it or have any quarrel with you, but we will carry on the war on our own account. As it is, if we insist on renewing the war, the French _cannot_, and would not abandon us, and leave us to be attacked by superior Russian armies; they would therefore very reluctantly go on with the war, but it would be well known that we were dragging them on with us, and the exasperation against us would be great and general, and, say what we might, a quarrel between France and England would infallibly ensue.' He said all the objections he had entertained against Paris being the place of conference had been more than realised, and that the thing to have done would have been to have it in some dull German town, where there would have been no amusements and occupations, and no intrigues, and where they would have applied themselves vigorously to their work in order to get it done as quickly as possible. I have not, however, as yet made out what intrigues there are, but there is of course a vast deal of _commérage_ going on.