THE NEW FRENCH MINISTER TO ENGLAND. A COUSIN TO THE DUKE OF LEINSTER.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 86, 19 December 1874, Page 10

THE NEW FRENCH MINISTER TO ENGLAND. A COUSIN TO THE DUKE OF LEINSTER.

hThe Count de Jarnae, who has just been appointed French Minister to the Court of St. James, formerly occupied the same post under the Government of Louis Philippe. He belongs to an ancient and distinguished family, and is regarded as one of the most enlightened statesmen and writers of the day. He was intrusted, under the monarchy, with matters of the gravest importance, in managing which he displayed ability of the highest order. The Count de Jarnae is the son of the Marquis de Rohanchabot, by Lady Grace Geraldine Fitzgerald, his wife, and is consequently first cousin of the present Duke of Leinster. After completing his education, aud before attaining his majority, he was sent, in 1838, to Ireland, where he resided several years in Thomastown Castle, county Tipperary, the seat of the Llaudaff family. While here, and while visiting England, he became acquainted with the most eminent statesmen of Great Britain, including the late Duke of Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, and Lord Aberdeen, with whom he maintained the most familiar intercourse. In 1843 he was appointed First Secretary to the French Legation in London, and was subsequently placed at its head. The Count enjoyed in a special manner the confidence of Louis Philippe and his Minister, M. Guizot, and he seems to have been also in an especial manner acceptable to the English Government. In 1845, Lord Aberdeen's Ministry fell from power, and there had been on several occasions during its continuance very serious questions of dispute between the two Governments. At this time the King wrote to his representative in London as follows : —

"Mi Deab Philippe, — I thank you very much for both your letters and the information they afforded me. I beg of you to be my interpreter to your uncle, the Duke of Leinster, and tell him how sensible I am of the expressions of his letter, which you have transmitted me. But I have to charge you with another message, which, however, I have charged M. Guizot, but which I desire to repeat in every possible way, since it comes not alone from my heart, but aho from my moral convictions. It is to tell Sir Robert' Peel aud Lord Aberdeen how much I am afflicted by their resignation of the Ministry, and also the more so since I -was flattering myself with the hope of seeing their Cabinet long in harmony with mine in the support aud pei"petuation of that entente cordiale which has boon so well cemented through the personal relations and affections it has afforded me to establish, and I hare, and I ought to have, confidence that these sentiments will be preserved, whatever may be the fluctuations of the future. They will ever be a powerful means of repairing such evil accidents as we may not have the good fortune to foresee. Be good enough to tell Lord Aberdeen that I shall ever retain for him the sentiment which I professed at ;the Chateau d'Eau, and that I shall always be glad to testify that nothing can efface them. Reckon always, my dear Phillippe, on those that I entertain for yourself. "Louis Philippe."

Three years later the citizen-King was a refugee in England, and it has recently transpired that he was in such needy circumstances that Sir Robert Peel wrote to the Count de Jarnae enclosing £1000 for the benefit of the fallen monarch. Of course the letter containing the money was couched in the most delicate terms, and the request made that the Count apply it in such a manner that Louis Philippe should never know from whom it came, even if he su-pected that v Do Jarnae was disbursing funds beyond Iris means ; but Sir Robert did not suppose that such a question could arise. The new Minister to England has adhered to the fortunes' of the Orleans family, and MacMahon has mow placed him in perhaps the most responsible and honorable places in his gift. — ' New York Herald.'