762

LIFE Of COBDEN. [omar

1860. the Treaty. The scene reminded me of our own old doing?
Zr 56. in the House of Commons twenty years ago. The protec
tionists were very savage. Being recognized in the strangers
tribune, I became the object of attack and defence, It Was
really the old thing over again. As I was leaving the house
in a shower of rain, one of the members who avowed himself
a protectionist, offered me his umbrella, and he remarked,
“If we had been still under the constitutional régime, your
Treaty would never have passed. Not twenty-five member?
of the Chamber would have been for it.’ >’ *
Of one or two of the most important of Cobden’s conversations,
 it is worth while to transcribe the reports from his
own journal. On March 25 he met Count Persigny, who
was then on one of his frequent visits from Albert Gate 0
Paris.
“ He expressed himself,” says Cobden, “in strong terms
to me upon the subject of the present system of government
 in France; says the Emperor has no independent
responsible ministers; that he governs, himself, in the
minutest details of administration; that he has been
gradually more and more assnming to himself all the powers
of the State; that for two years after the formation of the
Imperial government there were men in his Cabinet, such 88
Drouyn de P'Huys, St. Arnaud, and himself (Persigny), who
exercised an independent judgment on his projects, and
that he was then willing to yield to the advice and arg
ments of his council, but that latterly he had been accustomed
 to act upon his own impulse, or only to consult one
of his Ministers ; that his Cabinet frequently found decrees
in the Moniteur of which they bad never heard, and that
this habit of secret and personal management opened the
door to all kinds of intrigues, and gave the opportunity for
anworthy individuals, male and female, to exercise an irre-%
 To Willimmn Hargreaves. May 2, 1860.