Lord Stanley
having failed, Lord Aberdeen was invited to form a new Cabinet, by the
Queen, with like results. Both these gentlemen having declined the task
of forming a new administration, Lord John Russell and his colleagues
resumed office, but the reconstructed ministry was soon to receive a
fatal blow through Lord Palmerston, the foreign Secretary.
On the 2d of December, 1851, Louis Napoleon, Prince President of the
French Republic, by a single act of lawless violence, abolished the
constitution, and made himself Dictator. The details of this monstrous
deed, and of the bloodshed that accompanied it, created a profound
sensation in England. The Queen was very anxious that no step should be
taken and no word said by her ministry which could be construed into an
approval by the English government of what had been done. Indeed the
Queen who knew the failing of her Foreign Secretary to act hastily in
important matters of State without the consent or advice of Queen or
Cabinet, questioned the Premier and was assured that nothing had been
done in recognition of the new government in Paris. Indeed the Cabinet
had passed a resolution to abstain from the expression of opinions in
approval or disapproval of the recent _coup d'etat_ in France.
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