59 



of your review is the noblest kind of revenge.* This 

 man, whom I never personally knew, owes his advance- 

 ment to important events, and not to himself. Strange, 

 is it not, that in these latter days, in the evening of 

 his life, an importance has been given him which has 

 not arisen entirely from a love of justice? 



As you love everything that is characteristic, I will 

 return your kindness with another but very small one. 

 I. present you with a letter from Guizot, which he wrote 

 to me, not altogether without an object, when I was at 

 Konigsberg ; the underscoring is my own, as you would 

 guess if I did not tell you. I showed the letter to the 

 King ; it was written after the Belgian,! Billow, and 

 Guizot had been at Windsor, and the business promised 

 well, as it does now, when Thiers, all at once, shows 

 himself so complaisantly weak, and Palmerston so dog- 

 matically defiant. Do not, however, let the letter get 

 out of your hands. 



I thank you heartily for the news of the Grimms. 

 It is of great importance to me to follow exactly the 

 course of events. During the months that I was 

 living on the "historical hill/'j surrounded, in 

 turn, by elements the most contradictory, I pro- 

 ceeded independently in one course. The King had 

 given his orders about the Grimms to others, not to 

 me ; as, however, nothing had been done by the 

 time he returned from Konigsberg, I presented a 

 " Pro-memoria " to the King on the occurrences at 

 Konigsberg, as well as on the necessity of insisting 

 on his own will as the only means of propitiating the 



* Varnhagen had written a review on these Reminiscences. TR. 

 f Leopold, King of the Belgians. TR. 

 Sans Souci. TR. 



