"Although there are no very important dispatches to entrust to your faithful Hyacinthe, I wish nevertheless to send him back, according to your own desire, noble viscount, and to that which he has expressed to me, on behalf of Madame de Chateaubriand, to see him return to you soon. I will make use of this to send you a few words of a more confidential character on the profound impression made upon us here, as in London, by the terrible death of the Marquess of Londonderry, and also, by the same occasion, on a matter to which you seem to attach a very exaggerated and very exclusive interest. The Council of the King has taken advantage of it and has fixed for these days, immediately after the closing, which took place this morning, the discussion of the principal directions to be settled, the instructions to be given, and also the persons to be selected: the first question is to know if these will be one or several. You have somewhere, I seem to think, expressed astonishment that we could think of------, not to put you before him, you know very well that he cannot be on the same line for us. If, after the most mature examination, we did not think it possible to avail ourselves of the good-will which you have very frankly shown us in this respect, it would doubtless require, in order to decide us, grave motives which I would communicate to you with the same frankness: the postponement is rather favourable to your desire, in this sense, that it would be most inconvenient, both for you and for us, that you should leave London within the next few weeks and before the ministerial decision which continues to occupy all the Cabinets. This strikes everybody so much that some friends said to me the other day: "'If M. de Chateaubriand had come at once to Paris, it would have been rather annoying for him to be obliged to leave again for London.' "We therefore expect to make this important nomination on the return from Edinburgh. The Chevalier Stuart[218] said yesterday that surely the Duke of Wellington would go to the Congress; it is important that we should know this at the earliest possible moment. M. Hyde de Neuville arrived yesterday in good health. I was delighted to see him. I renew to you, noble viscount, all my inviolable sentiments. "MONTMORENCY." This new letter from M. de Montmorency, mingled with some ironical phrases, fully confirmed my impression that he did not want me at the Congress.