Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER XV. Lord Bloomfield is offered the post of Ambassador at Vienna—We visit Windsor—Lord Bloomfield returns to Berlin to present his letters of recall—Attends the King's funeral, and arrives at Vienna—Is presented to the Emperor Francis Joseph—Vienna society—I arrive at Vienna—Account of Prince Metternich's flight in 1848—I visit Upper Austria—Letters from Lord Bloomfield—Death of the Prince Consort. Extracts of Letters from Lord Bloomfield, Berlin, October 26, 1860.— I have a startling communication to make to you. . . I wish you were with me to decide and settle what answer I must send to a most gracious proposal from Lord John Russell that my name should be submitted to the Queen for the post of Ambassador at Vienna. I will transcribe Lord John's letter :— ' The question of your coming home on leave of absence brings me to treat of another matter of considerable importance. ' The Queen has approved of my opening at Vienna and St. Petersburg the conversion of these two missions into embassies. But if this is doneI shall think it but due to your long and meritorious services to propose you to Her Majesty as her Ambassador at Vienna. You are fully entitled to that distinction, and it will be a fit climax to your diplomatic career. Of course I do not enter into the question of your private and domestic arrangements; I am only solicitous to show you that consideration which the Foreign Secretary is bound to show to one who has served so long, so well, and so honourably as yourself.' I know not when I have been so taken by surprise as by this news. It is certainly very flattering; and if I am to serve a while longer, it is perhaps as well I should do so in a capacity which will give me the highest rank in my profession. But I do not like the undertaking or the ...