"I have had an idea, monsieur le vicomte, which I submit to your judgment. Would you think it amiss that, in the form of a conversation with Prince Esterhazy[162], I should give him to understand that, if Austria required to withdraw a part of her troops, we could replace them in Piedmont? A few rumours spread as to an intended muster of our troops in Dauphiné would give me a favourable pretext. I proposed to the former ministry to garrison Savoy at the time of the revolt in June 1821[163]. He rejected that measure and I think that, in so doing, he made a capital mistake. I persist in thinking that the presence of some French troops in Italy would produce a great effect on public opinion and that the King's Government would derive much glory from it." [Sidenote: Our bold diplomacy.] Proofs superabound of the noble character of our diplomacy during the Restoration. What does this matter to parties? Have I not read this very morning, in a newspaper of the Left, that the Alliance forced us to act as its policeman and to make war on Spain, when the _Congrès de Vérone_ is there, when diplomatic documents show in an irrefutable manner that all Europe, with the exception of Russia, objected to the war; that not only did it object to it, but that England openly opposed it; and that Austria secretly thwarted us by most ignoble measures? This will not prevent them from lying afresh to-morrow; they will not even take the trouble to examine the question, to read that of which they speak "knowingly" without having read it! Every lie repeated becomes a truth: one cannot have too great a contempt for human opinions. Lord John Russell[164], on the 25th of April, introduced a motion in the House of Commons on the state of the national representation in Parliament: Mr. Canning opposed it. The latter, in his turn, introduced a Bill to repeal a portion of the Act depriving Catholic peers of their right of sitting and voting in the House. I was present at these sittings on the woolsack[165], where the Speaker had made me sit. Mr. Canning was present, in 1822, at the sitting of the House of Lords which rejected his Bill; he was hurt at a phrase of the old Chancellor's[166]: the latter, speaking of the author of the Bill, exclaimed scornfully: "They say he is leaving for India: ah, let him go, this fine gentleman, let him go, and a good journey to him!" Mr. Canning said to me as we went out: "I'll catch him yet." Lord Holland spoke very well, without, however, recalling Mr. Fox. He used to spin round, so that he often presented his back to the House and addressed his remarks to the walls. The peers cried, "Hear, hear!" No one was offended by this eccentricity.