By this time the list of candidates for the Queen’s hand had been considerably reduced. There remained but two within the _principle of the descendants of Philip V._, the Duke of Cadiz, and his brother, Don Enrique, Duke of Seville. To the last of these, Lord Palmerston, but simply as an outsider, gave the preference, as _the only Spanish Prince who is fit, by his personal qualities, to be the Queen’s husband_. Don Enrique, however, was a little too liberal and progressive in his principles to be accepted by the opposite party. Finally, after a long course of unseemly manœuvring and double-dealing, the marriage of Queen Isabella with Francis, Duke of Cadiz, was brought about, and at the same time, by a violation of good faith, such as blushing history has seldom had to record, the Duke de Montpensier’s marriage with the Infanta took place. An excellent commentary on the various phases of this wretched intrigue, and on the conduct of those concerned in it, will be found in the subjoined correspondence between Thiers and Panizzi. In answer to the charges brought by the latter against Guizot, Thiers replies with very summary treatment of the French Minister, both politically and personally. The sketch of Louis-Philippe’s character, in the first quoted of these letters, is admirably drawn. The policy, however, of the great monarch of the barricades, made up of audacity and cunning, was on the whole so skilfully conducted, though so little likely to be enduring, as to our mind to justify a more significant epithet than that of a mere umpire. What, however, stands out most conspicuously in this same letter is the sound, practical, and commonsense view taken by Thiers of the claim to actual and substantial importance of the _Spanish Marriages_; his justification of the British Cabinet’s policy of non-interference (and, with it, of Lord Aberdeen’s conduct) in a matter in no wise vital to England; and his far-sighted estimate of what might have been the consequences to Europe had more serious measures in opposition to the plot been adopted. It would have been an evil day that had seen the four greatest European powers ranged in two directly opposite, if not, indeed, openly hostile camps; whereof England and Prussia should have occupied the one, and France and Austria the other. The _Spanish Marriages_ was a comedy, and decidedly unworthy of exaltation, at least for the time being, to the rank of an European tragedy. [Illustration: F.P.G. Guizot] “Paris, le 12 Janvier, 1847. “Mon cher Panizzi, Je veux depuis longtemps vous écrire, mais je suis enfoncé dans mon travail d’impression qui ne m’en laisse pas le temps. Je quitte ce travail pour les discussions de la Chambre, et je vous donne les premiers moments de cette diversion. Il n’y a rien ici de nouveau, mais je n’en veux pas moins vous dire quelques mots de la situation. Auparavant, voici mon avis sur les pièces que j’ai lues.