Charles Francis Adams to his son
London, April 15, 1864
America is not much talked of here. Never so little since I first came. The immediate excitement is Garibaldi. Next the Danish conference. Lastly, the departure of Maximilian to be Emperor of Mexico. The first is much the most extraordinary demonstration. People say there never was such a turnout of the people as that which received him. Three miles of road packed, before reaching the city. He is evidently the hero of all the unprivileged classes of England and of Europe. It is sentiment, and not action. The peculiarity of the present age is the freedom of the mind, whilst the body remains passive. Revolutions are worked by the steady spread of convictions rather than the sudden impulse of physical force. The existence of the United States as a prosperous republic has been the example against which all reasoning contrary to the popular feeling has been steadily losing strength. It was the outbreak of the war that in an instant gave such revived hopes to all the privileged classes in Europe. For three years they have been making every possible use of the advantage. But it is now manifestly on the wane once more. Napoleon’s Mexican empire, as a bridle upon the movement of American republicanism, is the only practical result of the crisis. What that will amount to, the moment our troubles pass over and we settle down again into a nation, it is not very hard to foresee. An Austrian prince aided by French soldiers three thousand miles from any base, without an aristocracy and with a people little used to respect authority of any kind, in a country which has no sympathy with either Germans or French, has not a very brilliant prospect in the nineteenth century of founding a dynasty. In my opinion Garibaldi would have been a better selection.
This gentleman is the guest of the Duke of Sutherland at Stafford House. He is a young man with no particular political character, but the family, as you know, is identified with the liberal or Whig side. We all regretted that you were not with us on Wednesday when Stafford House, the only real palace in London, was thrown open to receive guests invited to meet the Italian hero. The only thing I was struck with about him was his great simplicity and quietness of manner. There was an air of dignity in it which had no factitious support in dress or in any outward demonstration what, ever. I know of no nobleman here whose deportment marks rank so strongly. Yet it is very doubtful to me whether he ever was bred to it in any way. Neither as a soldier has he had any but irregular commands, over volunteer forces. The splendor around him, and the many distinguished persons assembled to meet him seemed to produce not the smallest change in his manner. This is perhaps the most difficult of all things to do. It indicates a very sluggish temperament or a great command of nerves.
His lameness from his wound still troubles him, so, presently, he went to bed, escorted to his room by the Duchess of Sutherland, the Duke himself and the Dowager, his mother, the band playing in the centre of the hall on which the grand staircase opens, and many of the company looking down from the corridor above, as they descended. No royal personage would have been more honored. . . .
