She disparages the famous ambassadress; he sets
her right. Let her read the "Correspondence," by his friend Mr.
Guy Le Strange, and she will see how large a part the Princess
played in keeping England quiet during the war of 1828-29. She did
not convert her austere admirer, Lord Grey, to approval of the
Russian designs, nor overcome the uneasiness with which the Duke of
Wellington regarded her intrigues; but the Foreign Minister, Lord
Aberdeen, was apparently a fool in her hands; and, whoever had the
merit, the neutrality of England continued. That was, he repeats
more than once, a most critical time for Russia; it was an object
almost of life and death to the Czar to keep England dawdling in a
state of actual though not avowed neutrality. It is, he argued, a
matter of fact, that precisely this result was attained, and "I
shall be slow to believe that Madame de Lieven did not deserve a
great share of the glory (as you would think it) of making England
act weakly under such circumstances; more especially since we know
that the Duke did not like the great lady, and may be supposed to
have distinctly traced his painful embarrassment to her power.
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