'We did,' answered Tocqueville. 'It was owing to the influence of Lord
Normanby over the President. It was a fine _succès de tribune_. It gave
your Government and ours an occasion to boast of their courage and of
their generosity, but a more dangerous experiment was never made. You
reckoned on the prudence and forbearance of Austria and Russia. Luckily,
Nicholas and Nesselrode are prudent men, and luckily the Turks sent to
St. Petersburg Fuad Effendi, an excellent diplomatist, a much better than
Lamoricière or Lord Bloomfield. He refused to see either of them,
disclaimed their advice or assistance, and addressed himself solely to
the justice and generosity of the Emperor. He admitted that Russia was
powerful enough to seize the refugees, but implored him not to set such
an example, and--he committed nothing to paper. He left nothing, and took
away nothing which could wound the pride of Nicholas; and thus he
succeeded.

'Two days after, came a long remonstrance from Lord Palmerston, which
Lord Bloomfield was desired to read to Nesselrode, and leave with him. A
man of the world, seeing that the thing was done, would have withheld an
irritating document. But Bloomfield went with it to Nesselrode.
Nesselrode would have nothing to say to it. "Mon Dieu!" he said, "we
have given up all our demands; why tease us by trying to prove that we
ought not to have made them?" Bloomfield said that his orders were
precise. "Lisez donc," cried Nesselrode, "mais il sera très-ennuyeux."
Before he had got half through Nesselrode interrupted him. "I have heard
all this," he said, "from Lamoricière, only in half the number of words.
Cannot you consider it as read?" Bloomfield, however, was inexorable.'

I recurred to a subject on which I had talked to both of them before--the
tumult of January 29, 1849.