On Friday morning before noon up to our door came Mr. Russell's carriage. He had closed with Robert's proposition at once, and we made room for him without much difficulty, and were very glad to see him. I didn't go in to dinner, and he and Robert went to the Storys in the evening--so that it wasn't too much for me--and then I really like him--he is refined and amiable, and acute and liberal (as an Englishman can be), full of 'traditions' or prejudices, to use the right word. To my surprise he _knew_ scarcely anything; and, as I modestly observed to Robert, 'didn't understand the Italian question half as well as I understand it.' Of course there was a quantity of gossip in the anti-Napoleon sense; how the Emperor told the King of the peace over the soup, twirling his moustache; and how the King swore like a trooper at the Emperor in consequence; and how the Emperor took it all very well--didn't mind at all and how, and how--things which are manifestly impossible and which Robert tells me I ought not to repeat, in order not to multiply such vain tales. There is Metternich the younger (ambassador in Paris), a personal friend of Odo Russell's, in whose bosom Louis Napoleon seems to pour the confidences of his heart about that '_coquin de Cavour_ who led him into the Italian war,' &c., &c., but it simply proves to you and me how an Austrian can lie, which we could guess before. My _facts_ are these: First, Ferdinando IV.[69] has an ambassador in Rome, who has been received officially by the Pope (!!) ('The coolest thing that ever was'), and is paid out of the private purse of the Royal Highness. There is another ambassador at Naples, and another at Vienna--on the same terms; so let no one talk of 'Déchéance.' Then let me tell you what Mr. Russell said to me. 'Napoleon,' said he, 'has been too _fin_ for the English Government. He made us acknowledge the Tuscan vote. Now he has strictly forbidden Piedmont to accept, and Piedmont must therefore refuse. The consequences of which will be that there must be another vote in Tuscany, by which Prince Napoleon will be elected; and we, having acknowledged the first vote, must acknowledge the second.' Of course I protested; disbelieved in the forbidding, and believed in the accepting. He 'hoped it might be so'--in the civil way with which people put away preposterous opinions--and left us on Saturday night at ten, just too late to hear of the 'fait accompli.' Out of all _that_, I rescue my fact that _Napoleon made the English Government acknowledge the Tuscan vote_. Don't let Kate put any of this into American papers, because Mr. Russell was our guest, observe, and spoke trustingly to us. He had just arrived from England, and went on to Rome without further delay.