CHAPTER XXIII.
THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON III. AND THE EMPRESS EUGÉNIE—FIRE AT WINDSOR— THE BIRTH OF PRINCE LEOPOLD.
At the close of 1852 Mr. Disraeli announced his Budget in one famous speech, to which Mr. Gladstone replied in another, the first of those memorable speeches—at once a fine oration and a convincing argument— so often heard since then. The Derby Ministry, already tottering to its fall on the ground of its opposition to Free-trade principles, was defeated, and the same night Lord Derby resigned office, and Lord Aberdeen, who was able to unite the Whigs and the followers of the late Sir Robert Peel, took his place.
On the 2nd of December, the anniversary of the coup d'état, the
Empire was declared in France, and Louis Napoleon entered Paris as
Emperor on the following day.
On the 22nd of January, 1853, the Emperor of the French made public his approaching marriage to the beautiful Eugénie de Montigo, Comtesse de Théba.
A serious fire broke out at Windsor Castle on the night of the 19th of March, the very day that the Court had come down for Easter. It was the result of an accident from the over-heating of a flue, which might have been doubly disastrous.
The scene of the fire was the upper stories of the Prince of Wales's Tower, above the Gothic dining-room, which is in the same suite with the Crimson, Green, and White drawing-rooms, in the last of which the Queen and Prince Albert were sitting, at ten o'clock in the evening, when the smell of smoke and burning aroused an alarm.
Besides the suite of drawing-rooms, with their costly furniture, the plate-rooms were beneath the Gothic dining-room; and on the other side—beyond a room known as the Octagon-room—was the Jewelled Armoury. The fire had taken such hold that the utmost exertions were needed to keep it under, and prevent it from spreading, and it remained for hours doubtful whether the rest of the Castle would escape. Prince Albert, the gentlemen of the household, and the servants, with seven hundred Guards brought from the barracks and stationed in the avenues to prevent further disorder, strove to supplement the work of the fire-engines. The Gothic dining-room was stripped of its furniture, including the gold vase or bath for wine, valued at ten thousand pounds. The Crimson drawing-room and the Octagon-room were dismantled. The plate-rooms were considered fireproof, but the Jewelled Armoury was emptied of its treasures, among them the famous peacock of Tippoo Sahib.
More than five hours passed before the danger was over. The Queen, in writing to reassure the King of the Belgians, said, "Though I was not alarmed, it was a serious affair, and an acquaintance with what a fire is, and with its necessary accompaniments, does not pass from one's mind without leaving a deep impression. For some time it was very obstinate, and no one could tell whether it would spread or not. Thank God, no lives were lost."
Less than three weeks after the fire, the Queen's fourth son, and eighth child, was born at Buckingham Palace on the 7th of April. Within a fortnight her Majesty was sufficiently recovered to write to the King of the Belgians, and here the wound which had been felt so keenly bled afresh. "My first letter is this time, as last time, addressed to you. Last time it was because dearest Louise—to whom the first announcement had heretofore always been addressed, was with me, alas! Now," she goes on to remind him affectionately, "Stockmar will have told you that Leopold is to be the name of our fourth young gentleman. It is a mark of love and affection which I hope you will not disapprove. It is a name which is the dearest to me after Albert, one which recalls the almost only happy days of my sad childhood. To hear "Prince Leopold" [Footnote: When Prince Leopold's title was merged into that of Duke of Albany, our readers may remember that some reluctance was expressed at the change, and that there was an attempt to preserve the earlier name, by arranging that his Royal Highness should be styled "Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany."] again will make me think of all those days. His other names will be George, Duncan, Albert, and the sponsors will be the King of Hanover, Ernest Hohenlohe (the Queen's brother-in-law), the Princess of Prussia, and Mary of Cambridge. George is after the King of Hanover, and Duncan is a compliment to dear Scotland."
In the Royal Academy this year one of the pre-Raphaelites, who had been at first treated with vehement opposition and ridicule, came so unmistakably to the front as to stagger his former critics, and render his future success certain. Even the previous year Millais's "Huguenot" had made a deep impression, and his "Order of Release" this year carried everything before it. In the same Academy exhibition were Sir Edwin Landseer's highly poetic "Night" and "Morning."
On the Court's return from Osborne to London, the Queen and Prince Albert were present with their guests, the King and Queen of Hanover, and the Duke and Duchess of Coburg, on the 21st of June, in the camp at Chobham, when a sham-fight and a series of military manoeuvres over broken ground were carried out with great spirit and exactness, to the admiration of a hundred thousand spectators. Her Majesty, as in the early years of her reign, wore a half-military riding-habit, and was mounted on a splendid black horse, on which she rode down the lines before witnessing the mock battle from an adjoining height.
Four days afterwards Prince Albert returned to the camp to serve for a couple of days with his brigade, the Guards. The Prince experienced something of the hardships of bivouacing in stormy weather, and suffered in consequence. He came back labouring under a bad cold, to be present at the baptism of his infant son on the 28th. All the sponsors were there in person. The Lord Chamberlain conducted the baby-prince to the font; the Archbishop of Canterbury performed the sacred rite. The usual State banquet and evening party followed. But illness, not very deadly, yet sufficiently prostrating, was hovering over the royal pair and their guests. The Prince of Wales was already sick of measles. Prince Albert, pre-disposed by the cold he had caught, got the infection from his son, had a sharp attack of the same disease, and we are told "at the climax of the illness showed great nervous excitement," symptomatic of a susceptible, highly-strung, rather fragile temperament.
Though the country was unaware of the extent of the Prince's illness, we can remember the public speculation it excited, and the contradictory assertions that the Queen would claim her wife's prerogative of watching by her husband's sick-bed, and that she would be forbidden to do so, for State reasons, her health or sickness, not to say the danger to her life, being of the utmost importance to the body politic. It is easy to see that if such a question had arisen, it would have been peculiarly trying to one who had been brought up to regard her duty to the country as a primary obligation, while at the same time every act of her life showed how precious and binding were her conjugal relations. But the matter settled itself. After the Princess Royal and Princess Alice had also been attacked by the epidemic, the Queen was seized with it, happily in the mildest form, which was of short duration. But the mischief did not confine itself to the English royal family. The juvenile malady of measles became for a time the scourge of princes, a little to the diversion of the world, since no great harm was anticipated, or came to pass, while the ailment invaded a succession of Courts. The guests at Prince Leopold's baptism carried the seeds of the disease to Hanover, in the person of the little Hanoverian cousin, King George's son, who had been a visitor in the English royal nurseries; to Brussels, in the case of the Duke and Duchess of Coburg, who unconsciously handed on the unwelcome gift to King Leopold's sons, the Due de Brabant and the Comte de Flandres, the former on the eve of his marriage, before the illness was taken across Germany to Coburg.
By the 6th of August, the birthday of Prince Alfred, the Queen and the Prince were sufficiently recovered to pay a second visit with their children to Chobham, when a fresh series of manoeuvres were performed prior to the breaking up of the camp.
A great cluster of royal visitors had arrived in England, making the season brilliant. It was, perhaps, significant that these visitors included three Russian archduchesses, in spite of the fact that a war with Russia was in the air, being only held back by the strenuous efforts of statesmen, against the wishes of the people. Other visitors were the Crown Prince and Princess of Wurtemberg, near akin to Russia, and the Prince of Prussia—the later came from Ostend, on an invitation to witness a sight well calculated to recommend itself to his martial proclivities—a review, on the grandest scale, of the fleet at Spithead, on the 11th of August. The weather was fine, and the spectacle, perfect of its kind, was seen by all the royal company, by what was in effect "the House of Commons with the Speaker at its head," and by multitudes in more than a hundred steamers, besides, the crowds viewing the scene from the shores of the Isle of Wight and Hampshire. On the 21st of August, a French sailor whose name has become a household word in England, died far away amidst the horrors of the north seas, in a gallant effort to rescue Sir John Franklin and his crew. Among the brave men who sailed on this perilous quest, none earned greater honour and love than young Bellot.
On the 22nd of August, a marriage of some interest to the Queen was celebrated at Brussels. King Leopold's eldest son, the Due de Brabant, was married in St. Gudule's to the Archduchess Marie Henriette of Austria. The bridegroom was only eighteen years of age, the bride as young; but it was considered desirable that the heir-apparent should marry, and Queen Louise's place had remained vacant while her daughter, Princess Charlotte, was still unfit to preside over the Court in her mother's room.
On the 29th of August, Sir Charles Napier, the dauntless, eccentric conqueror of Scinde, follows his old commander to the grave. Though more than ten year's younger, Sir Charles's last public appearance was at the Duke's funeral. He was the grandson of Lord Napier, and the son of the beautiful Lady Sarah Lennox.
A great art and industrial exhibition at Dublin—the first of the numerous progeny of the Great Exhibition of two years before—was held this year. Naturally, the Queen and the Prince were much interested in its fortunes, and had promised to be present at the opening, but were prevented by the outbreak of measles in June. It was possible, however, to visit the Irish Exhibition before its close, and this her Majesty and Prince Albert did on their way to Balmoral. Proceeding by train to Holyhead, where they were detained a day and a night by a violent storm, the travellers sailed on the 29th of August for Kingstown, which was reached next morning. On landing they were received by the Lord-Lieutenant, Lord St. Germains and Lady St. Germains, the Archbishop of Dublin, the Duke of Leinster, &c., &c., together with an immense number of people, lining the dock walls and hailing her Majesty's arrival with vociferous cheers, as on her last visit to Ireland. Enthusiasm, equal to what had been shown before, was displayed on the railway route and the drive through the thronged streets to the Viceregal Lodge. Not long after her arrival, the Queen, as energetic as ever, was seen walking in the Phoenix Park, and in the evening she took a drive in the outskirts of the city. At night Dublin was illuminated. The next day the Queen and the Prince, with their two elder sons, paid a State visit to the exhibition, full to overflowing with eager gazers. The royal party were conducted to a dais, where the Queen, seated on the throne prepared for her, received the address of the commissioners thanking her for the support she had lent to the undertaking by her presence, and by her contributions to the articles exhibited.
The Queen replied, expressing her satisfaction that the worthy enterprise had been carried out in a spirit of energy and self- reliance, "with no pecuniary aid but that derived from the patriotic munificence of one of her subjects." That subject, Mr. Dargan, who had erected the exhibition building at his own expense, was present, and kissed hands amidst the cheers of the assembly. The Queen and the Prince afterwards made the circuit of the whole place, specially commending the Irish manufactures of lace, poplin, and pottery.
In, the afternoon her Majesty and Prince Albert, to the high gratification of the citizens of Dublin, drove out through pouring rain to Mount Annville, the house of Mr. Dargan, saw its beautiful grounds, and conversed with the host and hostess. His manner struck the Queen as "touchingly modest and simple," and she wrote in her journal, "I would have made him a baronet, but he was anxious it should not be done."
Every morning during their week's stay the royal pair returned unweariedly to the exhibition, and by their interest in its productions, stimulated the interest of others. The old engagements—a review, visits to the castle, and the national schools—occupied what time was left.
On Saturday, the 3rd of September, a beautiful day succeeding miserable weather, the Queen drove slowly through the Dublin streets, "unlined with soldiers," feeling quite sorry that it was the last day after what she called "such a pleasant, gay, and interesting tune in Ireland." Loyal multitudes waited at the station and at Kingstown, cheering the travellers. Lord and. Lady St. Germains went on board the yacht, and dined with hen Majesty and Prince Albert.
On the following morning, the Victoria and Albert crossed to
Holyhead.
A glad event at Balmoral that year was the laying of the foundation- stone of the new house. The rite was done with all the usual ceremonies, Mr. Anderson, then the minister of Crathie, praying for a blessing on the work.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE EASTERN QUESTION—APPROACHING WAR—GROSS INJUSTICE TO PRINCE ALBERT—DEATH OF MARIA DA GLORIA.
The return of the Court to England was hastened by what had disturbed the peace of the stay in the North. The beginning of a great war was imminent. The Eastern Question, long a source of trouble, was becoming utterly unmanageable. Russia and Turkey were about to take up arms. Indeed, Russia had already crossed the Danube and occupied the Principalities.
Turkey, in a fever-heat, declared war against Russia, crossed the Danube, and fought with desperate valour and some success at Oltenitza and Kalafat; but matters were brought to a crisis by the nearly utter destruction of the Turkish fleet at Sinope, one of the Turkish ports on the shores of the Black Sea. The French and English Governments uttered a practical protest by informing the Czar, that if his fleet in the south made any further movement against the Turks, the English and French fleets already in the Dardanelles would immediately enter the Black Sea and take active steps in defence of their ally.
In the meantime there had been some commotion in the English Cabinet. Lord Palmerston suddenly resigned, and as quickly resumed office. The ostensible cause of difference between him and his colleagues was the new Reform Bill; but the real motive is believed to have been the Government's tactics with regard to the threatened war. These changed all at once, the change coinciding with the return of Lord Palmerston to office, and suiting the fighting mood of the people. He was once more the favourite of the hour, and in the popular pride and confidence in him, a great injustice was done to another. Startled and angered by Lord Palmerston's withdrawal from the Government, the old clamour about Court prejudice and intrigue, and German objections to Liberal statesmen, broke out afresh, and raged more hotly than ever. Prince Albert was openly mentioned as the hostile influence "behind the throne," and in the Cabinet of which he was a member, against the man who was prepared to assert the dignity of England in spite of all opposition; the man who had uniformly sided with the weak, and spoken the truth of tyrants, let them be in ever so high places; the man at the same time who had approved of the coup d'état. The most unfounded charges of unfaithfulness to English interests, and personal interference for the purpose of gaining his own ends, and working into the hands of foreign Governments, were brought against the Queen's husband. His birth as a German, and his connection with the King of the Belgians and the Orleans family, were loudly dwelt upon. It was treated as an offence on his part that he should attend the Cabinet counsels of which he was a member, and be in the confidence of the Queen, who was his loving wife. He was attacked alike by Liberals and Protectionists; assailed, with hardly an assumption of disguise, both in public and private, and in many of the principal newspapers. The man who little more than two years before, at the time of the Great Exhibition, had been hailed as a general benefactor, and praised as the worthiest of patriots, was now almost the best-abused man in England, pursued with false accusations and reproaches equally false.
"One word more about the credulity of the public," wrote Prince Albert to Baron Stockmar; "you will scarcely credit that my being committed to the Tower was believed all over the country; nay, even 'that the Queen had been arrested!' People surrounded the Tower in thousands to see us brought to it."
All this ingratitude and stupidity must have been galling to its object, in spite of his forbearance, and, if possible, still more exquisitely painful to the Queen, who had felt a natural and just pride, not merely in her husband's fine qualities, but in her people's appreciation of them. The Prince wrote in the same letter, "Victoria has taken the whole affair greatly to heart, and was exceedingly indignant at the attacks." And the Queen wrote with proud tender pain to Lord Aberdeen, "In attacking the Prince, who is one and the same with the Queen herself, the throne is assailed; and she must say she little expected that any portion of her subjects would thus requite the unceasing labours of the Prince."
This unscrupulous accusation was grave enough to demand a refutation in Parliament, which Lord Aberdeen and Lord John Russell were ready to give as soon as the House should meet.
During this trying winter, the Queen heard of the melancholy death of her sister queen and girlish acquaintance, who had become a kinswoman by marriage—Maria da Gloria. The two queens were the same in age— thirty-four—and each had become the mother of eight children, but there the similarity ceased. At the birth of her last child—dead born—the Queen of Portugal ended a life neither long nor happy, though she had been fortunate in her second husband. Queen Maria da Gloria lacked Queen Victoria's reasonableness and fairness. The Queen of Portugal started on a wrong course, and continued with it, notwithstanding the better judgment of her husband. She supported the Cabrals—the members of a noble Portuguese family, who held high offices under her government—in ruling unconstitutionally and corruptly. She consented to her people's being deprived of the liberty of the press, and burdened with taxes, till, though her private life was irreproachable, she forfeited their regard. In 1846 civil war broke out, and the Cabrals were compelled to resign; the Count of Soldanha and his party took the place of the former ministers. But the insurrection spread until it was feared the Queen and her husband would be driven out of the country. Suddenly the tide turned; the better portion of the army declared for the Queen, her cause was upheld by the English Government, and peace and the royal authority were restored. But in spite of a pledge that the Cabrals should be excluded from the Government, the elder brother again became Premier, with the old abuse of power. A second revolution was accomplished by Soldanha, to whose control Maria da Gloria had to yield, much against the grain. She was succeeded by her eldest son, Don Pedro, still a minor, with the King-Consort his father for regent, an arrangement which proved satisfactory to the distracted kingdom.
A different event was the premature death of perhaps the most beautiful, and the most fortunate, in the eyes of the world, of the Queen's fair bridesmaids. Lady Sarah Villiers, who had become a princess by her marriage with the son of one of the richest, most aristocratic subjects in Europe, Prince Nicholas Esterhazy—of diamond notoriety, died at Torquay in her thirty-second year.
When Parliament met in January, 1854, the Prince was triumphantly vindicated by the leaders on both sides, but it was not till his death that his character was done full justice to. In the meantime the cloud had broken, and the royal couple rejoiced unaffectedly. The Queen wrote to Baron Stockmar that there was "an immense concourse" of people assembled, and they were very friendly when she went to the House of Lords. The anniversary of the marriage was hailed with fresh gratitude and gladness, and with words written to Germany that fall pathetically on our ears to-day. "This blessed day is full of joyful, tender emotions," are her Majesty's words. "Fourteen happy and blessed years have passed, and I confidently trust many more will, and find us in old age as we are now, happy and devotedly united. Trials we must have; but what are they if we are together?"
It was on this occasion that there was a family masque, of which Baroness Bunsen, who was present, has given a full description. She tells how, between five and six o'clock in the evening, the company followed the Queen and the Prince to a room where a red curtain was let down. They all sat in darkness till the curtain was drawn aside, "and the Princess Alice, who had been dressed to represent 'spring,' recited some verses taken from Thomson's "Seasons," enumerating the flowers which the spring scatters around, and she did it very well, spoke in a distinct and pleasing manner, with excellent modulation, and a tone of voice like that of the Queen. Then the curtain was drawn up, and the whole scene changed, and the Princess Royal represented 'summer,' with Prince Arthur lying upon some sheaves, as if tired with the heat of the harvest work; the Princess Royal also recited verses. Then again there was a change, and Prince Alfred, with a crown of vine-leaves and a panther's skin, represented 'autumn,' and recited also verses and looked very well. Then there was a change to a winter landscape, and the Prince of Wales represented 'winter,' with a white beard and a cloak with icicles or snow-flakes (or what looked like such), and the Princess Louise, warmly clothed, who seemed watching the fire; and the Prince also recited well a passage altered from Thomson…. Then another change was made, and all the seasons were grouped together, and far behind, on high, appeared the Princess Helena, with a long veil hanging on each side down to her feet, and a long cross in her hand, pronouncing a blessing on the Queen and Prince in the name of all the seasons. These verses were composed for the occasion. I understood them to say that St. Helena, remembering her own British extraction, came to utter a blessing on the rulers of her country; and I think it must have been so intended, because Helena the mother of Constantine, the first Christian emperor, was said to have discovered the remains of the cross on which our Saviour was crucified, and so when she is painted she always has a cross in her hand. But grandpapa understood that it was meant for Britannia blessing the royal pair. At any rate, the Princess Helena looked very charming. This was the close; but when the Queen ordered the curtain to be drawn back, we saw the whole royal family, and they were helped to jump down from their raised platforms; and then all came into the light and we saw them well; and the baby, Prince Leopold, was brought in by his nurse, and looked at us all with big eyes, and wanted to go to his papa, Prince Albert. At the dinner-table the Princesses Helena and Louise and Prince Arthur were allowed to come in and stand by their mamma, the Queen, as it a was festival day…. In the evening there was very fine music in St. George's Hall, and the Princess Royal and Princess Alice, and the Prince of Wales and Prince Alfred, were allowed to stop up and hear it, sitting to the right and left of the chairs where sat the Queen and Prince Albert and the Duchess of Kent." Some of the graceful figures in the pretty masque were given, with modifications, by the sculptor's art. Four are reproduced in the engravings in this book, that of the Princess Royal at page 146, that of Princess Alice at page 190, that of the Prince of Wales at page 153, and that of Prince Alfred at page 224, Volume First.
On the 7th of February Baron Brunnow, who had been Russian ambassador in England for fifteen years, quitted London. Notes were dispatched on the 27th from London and Paris to St. Petersburg, calling on Russia to evacuate the Principalities, a summons to which the Czar declined to reply. War was declared in a supplemental gazette, and on the 31st of March the declaration was read, according to ancient usage, from the steps of the Royal Exchange by the Sergeant-at-Arms of the City of London, to a great crowd that wound up the ceremony by giving three cheers for the Queen. Part of the troops had already embarked, their marching and embarkation being witnessed by multitudes with the utmost interest and enthusiasm. The chief sight was the departure of the Guards, the Grenadiers leaving by gaslight on the winter morning, the Fusiliers marching to Buckingham Palace, where at seven o'clock the Queen and the Prince, with their children, were ready to say good-bye. "They formed line, presented arms, and then cheered us very heartily, and went off cheering," the Queen wrote to the King of the Belgians…. "Many sorrowing friends were there, and one saw the shake of many a hand. My best wishes and prayers went with them all." It was a famous scene, which is remembered to this day. Another episode was that of the Duchess of Cambridge and her daughter, the Princess Mary, taking leave of the brigade with which the Duke of Cambridge, the only son and brother, left.
Her Majesty and the Prince started for Osborne in the course of the next fortnight, to visit the superb fleet which was to sail from Spithead under Sir Charles Napier. "It will be a solemn moment," the Queen wrote again to Lord Aberdeen; "many a heart will be very heavy, and many a prayer, including our own, will be offered up for its safety and glory." In spite of the bad weather, which marred the arrangements, the Queen sailed from Portsmouth in the Fairy, and passing the Victory, with its heroic associations, went through the squadron of twenty great vessels, amidst the booming of the guns, the manning of the yards, and the cheers of the sailors. The following day the little Fairy, with its royal occupants, played a yet more striking part. At the head of the outward-bound squadron, it sailed with the ships for several miles, then stopped for the fleet to pass by, the Queen standing waving her handkerchief to the flag-ship. Her Majesty was, as she said, "very enthusiastic" about her army and navy, and wished she had sons in both of them, though she foresaw how she would suffer when she heard of the losses of her brave men. If she had not sons in either service, her cousin, the Duke of Cambridge, was with the Guards for a time, and her young nephews, Prince Victor of Hohenlohe and Prince Ernest Leiningen, were with their ships. The Queen paid the same compliment of giving a farewell greeting to the second division of the fleet.
When the address to the Throne in reply to the Queen's message announcing the declaration of war was presented, her Majesty and the Prince were accompanied to the House for the first time by the Prince of Wales, a boy of thirteen.
In the middle of the worry, the season was gay as if no life-blood was drained in strong currents from the country; and Varna, with its cholera swamps, where the troops had encamped on Turkish soil, was not present to all men's minds. The Queen set an example in keeping up the social circulation without which there would be a disastrous collapse of more than one department of trade. On May-day, Prince Arthur's birthday, there was a children's ball, attended by two hundred small guests, at Buckingham Palace. Sir Theodore Martin quotes her Majesty's merry note, inviting the Premier to come and see "a number of happy little people, including some of his grandchildren, enjoying themselves." Among the grandchildren of Lord Aberdeen were the young sons of Lord Haddo—sinking under a long wasting illness—George, sixth Earl of Aberdeen, who, when he came to man's estate, served as an ordinary seaman in a merchant ship, where his rank was unsuspected, and who perished by being washed overboard on a stormy night; and the Honourable James Gordon, who died from the bursting of his gun when he was keeping his terms at Cambridge.
The Queen honoured Count Walewski, the French ambassador, by her presence at one of the most brilliant of costume balls. A great Court ball was followed by a great Court concert, at which Lablache sang again in England after an interval of many years. Among the visitors to London in June were poor Maria da Gloria's sons, Coburgs on the father's side, young King Pedro of Portugal, and his brother, the Duke of Oporto, fine lads who were much liked wherever they went.
The Queen and the Prince spent her Majesty's birthday at Osborne, and commemorated it to their children by putting them in possession of the greatest treasure of their happy childhood—the Swiss cottage in the grounds, about a mile from the Castle, in which youthful princes and princesses played at being men and women, practised the humbler duties of life, and kept natural history collections and geological specimens, as their father and uncle had kept theirs in the museum at Coburg. Another great resource consisted of the plots of ground—among which the Princess Royal's was a fair-sized garden, ultimately nine in number, where the amateur gardeners studied gardening in the most practical manner, and had their tiny tool-house, with the small spades and rakes properly grouped and duly lettered, "Prince Alfred" or "Princess Louise," as the case might be. A third idea, borrowed like the first from Coburg, was the miniature fort, with its mimic defences, every brick of which was made and built, and the very cannon-balls founded, by the two sons destined to be soldiers—the Prince of Wales and Prince Arthur.
Before the end of the season cholera broke out in London. Among its victims was Lord Jocelyn, eldest son of Lord Roden, and husband of Lady Fanny Cowper. He had been on guard at the palace, and died after an illness of not more than two hours' duration in the drawing-room of his mother-in-law, Lady Palmerston.
The Queen came up to town to prorogue Parliament in person. Afterwards her Majesty and the Prince spent his birthday at Osborne, when one of the amusements, no doubt with a view to the entertainment of the children as well as of the grown-up people, was Albert Smith's "Ascent of Mont Blanc," which was then one of the comic sights of London.
Early in September Prince Albert, in compliment to the alliance between England and France, went, by the Emperor's invitation, to visit the French camp at St. Omer, and was absent four or five days. The Prince's letters were as constant and lover-like as ever.
On the 15th of September the Court arrived at Balmoral, and the same day the Queen received the news of the sailing of the English and French soldiers for the Crimea. An anxious but brief period of suspense followed. Six days later came the tidings of the successful landing, without opposition, in the neighbourhood of Eupatoria.
Lord Aberdeen came on a visit to Balmoral, and had just left when the glad tidings arrived of the victory of the Alma, followed immediately by a false report of the fall of Sebastopol.
During this year's stay in the north, her Majesty met for the first time a remarkable Scotchman whom she afterwards honoured with her friendship. Both the Queen and Dr. Macleod describe the first sermon he preached before her, on Christian life. He adds, "In the evening, after daundering in a green field with a path through it which led to the high-road, and while sitting on a block of granite, full of quiet thoughts, mentally reposing in the midst of the beautiful scenery, I was roused from my reverie by some one asking me if I was the clergyman who had preached that day. I was soon in the presence of the Queen and Prince, when her Majesty came forward and said with a sweet, kind, and smiling face, 'We wish to thank you for your sermon.' She then asked me how my father was, what was the name of my parish, &c.; and so, after bowing and smiling, they both continued their quiet evening walk alone." [Footnote: Life of Dr. Norman Macleod.]
The Court returned from Balmoral by Edinburgh. At Hull, and again at Grimsby, the Queen and the Prince inspected the docks, of which he had laid the foundation stones.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE BATTLE OF INKERMANN—FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE—THE DEATH OF THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS.
In the beginning of November England heard with mingled triumph and pain of the repulsed attack on the English at Balaclava on the 25th of October, and of the charge of the Light Brigade.
The number of the English soldiers in the field fell lower and lower. The Queen wrote to King Leopold, "We have but one thought, and so has the nation, and that is—Sebastopol. Such a time of suspense, anxiety, and excitement, I never expected to see, much less to feel."
On the 13th of November telegrams arrived with the news of the battle of Inkermann, fought against terrible odds on the 5th.
The Queen wrote herself to Lord Raglan to tell of her "pride and joy" at receiving the intelligence of "the glorious, but alas! bloody victory of the 5th." She conferred upon him the baton of a Field- Marshal. Her Majesty also addressed a kind and sympathising letter to the widow of Sir George Cathcart.
The Queen wrote with high indignation to the King of the Belgians after the battle of Inkermann: "They (the enemy) behaved with the greatest barbarity; many of our poor officers who were only slightly wounded were brutally butchered on the ground. Several lived long enough to say this. When poor Sir G. Cathcart fell mortally wounded, his faithful and devoted military secretary (Colonel Charles Seymour) … sprang from his horse, and with one arm—he was wounded in the other—supported his dying chief, when three wretches came and bayoneted him. This is monstrous, and requisitions have been sent by the two commanders-in-chief to Menschikoff to remonstrate…."
The winter of 1854-55 was a sorrowful and care-laden time. Little or no progress was made in the war, while in the meanwhile the sufferings of the soldiers from a defective commissariat, a rigorous climate, and the recurring ravages of cholera, were frightful. The very winds and waves seemed to fight against the allies and to side with "Holy Russia." Never had the Black Sea been visited by such storms and wrecks.
From the palace to the cottage, women's fingers worked eagerly and unweariedly knitting comforters and muffatees to protect the throats and wrists of the shivering men. We have heard that the greatest lady in the land deigned thus to serve her soldiers. We have been told of a cravat worked in crochet by a queen's fingers which fell to the share of a gallant young officer in the trenches—the same brave lad who had carried, unscathed, the colours of his regiment to the heights of the Alma.
The hospitals were in as disorganised a state as the commissariat, and Mr. Sydney Herbert, well-nigh in despair, had the bright inspiration of sending to the seat of war Florence Nightingale, the daughter and co-heiress of a Derbyshire squire, with a staff of nurses.
Such reformation of abuses was wrought by a capable devoted woman, such order brought out of disorder, such comfort and consolation carried to wounded and dying men, that the experiment became a triumphant success. Many were the stories told of the soldiers' boundless reverence for the woman who had left country and friends and all the good things that wealth and rank can command to relieve her fellow-creatures; how one of them was seen to kiss her shadow on the wall of his ward as she passed; how the convalescents engaged in strange and wonderful manufactures of gifts to offer to her.
A second large instalment of nurses was sent out after the first, the latter led by Mary Stanley, daughter of the Bishop of Norwich, and sister of the Dean of Westminster, who had already been a sister to the poor in her father's diocese.
The Queen wrote again to Lord Raglan, "The sad privations of the army, the bad weather, and the constant sickness, are causes of the deepest concern and anxiety to the Queen and the Prince. The braver her noble troops are, the more patiently and heroically they bear all their trials and sufferings, the more miserable we feel at their long continuance. The Queen trusts that Lord Raglan will be very strict in seeing that no unnecessary privations are incurred by any negligence of those whose duty it is to watch over their wants.
"The Queen heard that their coffee was given them green instead of roasted, and some other things of this kind, which have distressed her, as she feels so anxious that they should be as comfortable as circumstances can admit of. The Queen earnestly trusts that the large amount of warm clothing sent out has not only reached Balaclava, but has been distributed, and that Lord Raglan has been successful in procuring the means of hutting for the men. Lord Raglan cannot think how much we suffer for the army, and how painfully anxious we are to know that their privations are decreasing…. The Queen cannot conclude without wishing Lord Raglan and the whole of the army, in the Prince's name and her own, a happy and glorious new year."
No sooner had Parliament reassembled than Mr. Roebuck brought forward his famous motion for the appointment of a committee to inquire into the state of the army and the management of the War Department of the Government.
Lord John Russell resigned office, and there was a threatened resignation of the whole Ministry, an ill-timed step, which was only delayed till Mr. Roebuck's motion was carried, by a large majority, not amidst the cheers, but to the odd accompaniment of the derisive laughter of the Liberal members who had voted for the motion. Lord Aberdeen's Ministry immediately resigned office; and after an abortive attempt on the part of Lord Derby, at the request of the Queen, to form a new Ministry, Lord Lansdowne and Lord John Russell were in succession asked to take the leadership, but each in his turn had to own his inability to get the requisite men to act under him. In summoning Lord John Russell to become Premier, the Queen had expressed a wish that Lord Palmerston—the man to whom the country looked as the only proper war minister—should take office. The wish, especially flattering and acceptable to Lord Palmerston, because it indicated that old differences were forgotten, was in marked keeping with a certain magnanimity and candour—excellent qualities in a sovereign— which have been prominent features in her Majesty's character.
Lord John Russell having been as unsuccessful as his predecessors in forming a Ministry, Lord Palmerston was sent for by the Queen and offered the premiership, and the most popular minister of the day was soon able, to the jubilation of the country, to construct a Cabinet.
On the 10th of February, the anniversary of the Queen's marriage-day, there was this year, as usual, a home festival, with the nursery drama of "Little Red Riding Hood" performed by the younger members of the family, and appropriate verses spoken by Princess Alice, who seems to have been the chosen declaimer among the princes and princesses. But beneath the rejoicing there were in the elders anxiety, sympathetic suffering, and the endurance of undeserved suspicion. The committee carrying out the inquiry proposed by Mr. Roebuck's motion, conceived most unjustly that the Prince's hostile influence prevented them from obtaining the information they desired. The Queen's health was suffering from her distress on account of the hardships experienced by her soldiers, so that when Lord Cardigan returned to England, repaired to Windsor, and had the royal children upon his knee, they said, "You must hurry back to Sebastopol and take it, else it will kill mamma!"
On the 2nd of March the strange news burst upon Europe, exciting rather a sense of solemnity than any less seemly feeling, of the sudden death of the Emperor Nicholas, former guest and fervent friend of the Queen—for whom she seems to have retained a lingering, rueful regard—grasper at an increase of territory, disturber of the peace of Europe, dogged refuser of all mediation. He had an attack of influenza, but the real cause of his death is said to have been bitter disappointment and mortification at his failure to drive the allies out of the Crimea. The "Generals, January and February," on whom he had counted to work his will, laid him low.
CHAPTER XXVI.
INSPECTION OF THE HOSPITAL AT CHATHAM—VISIT OF THE EMPEROR AND EMPRESS OF THE FRENCH—DISTRIBUTION OF WAR MEDALS.
On the 3rd of March, the Queen and the Prince, with the Prince of Wales, Prince Alfred and the Duke of Cambridge, visited the hospital at Chatham, to which many of the wounded and sick soldiers had been brought home. The whole of the invalids who were in a condition to leave their beds "were drawn up on the lawn," each having a card containing his name and services, his wounds, and where received. Her Majesty passed along the line, saying a few kind words to those sufferers who particularly attracted her notice, or to those whose services were specially commended. It is easy to imagine how the haggard faces would brighten and the drooping figures straighten themselves in that royal and gentle presence.
In the course of the month, at an exhibition and sale of water-colour drawings and pictures by amateurs, in aid of a fund for the widows and orphans of officers in the Crimea, the artistic talent of which there have been many proofs in the Queen's and the Prince's children, was first publicly shown. A water-colour drawing by the Princess Royal, already a fine girl of fifteen—whose marriage was soon to be mooted, in which she had represented a woman weeping over a dead grenadier, displayed remarkable merit and was bought for a large price.
On the 16th of April the Emperor and Empress of the French arrived in England on a visit to the Queen. The splendid suite of rooms in Windsor Castle which includes the Rubens, Zuccarelli, and Vandyck rooms, were destined for the imperial guests. And we are told that, by the irony of fate, the Emperor's bedroom was the same that had been occupied on previous occasions by the late Emperor Nicholas and King Louis Philippe. Sir Theodore Martin refers to a still more pathetic contrast which struck the Queen. He quotes from her Majesty's journal a passage relating to a visit paid by the old Queen Amélie to Windsor two or three days before. "It made us both so sad to see her drive away in a plain coach with miserable post-horses, and to think that this was the Queen of the French, and that six years ago her husband was surrounded by the same pomp and grandeur which three days hence would surround his successor."
Prince Albert received the travellers at Dover in the middle of a thick mist which had delayed the corvette, hidden the English fleet, and somewhat marred what was intended to have been the splendour of the reception. After the train had reached London, the drive was through densely crowded streets, in which there was no lack of enthusiasm for the visitors.
The strangers did not reach Windsor till past seven. The Queen had been waiting for them some time in one of the tapestry rooms near the guard-room. "The expectation and agitation grew more intense," her Majesty wrote in her diary. "The evening was fine and bright. At length the crowd of anxious spectators lining the road seemed to move; then came a groom; then we heard a gun, and we moved towards the staircase. Another groom came. Then we saw the advanced guard of the escort; then the cheers of the crowd burst forth. The outriders appeared, the doors opened, I stepped out, the children and Princes close behind me; the band struck up "Partant pour la Syrie," the trumpets sounded, and the open carriage, with the Emperor and Empress, Albert sitting opposite to them, drove up, and they got out.
"I cannot say what indescribable emotions filled me, how much all seemed like a wonderful dream. These great meetings of sovereigns, surrounded by very exciting accompaniments, are always very agitating. I advanced and embraced the Emperor, who received two salutes on either cheek from me, having first kissed my hand. I next embraced the very gentle, graceful, and evidently very nervous Empress. We presented the Princes (the Duke of Cambridge and the Prince of Leiningen, the Queen's brother) and our children (Vicky, with very alarmed eyes, making very low curtsies); the Emperor embraced Bertie; and then we went upstairs, Albert leading the Empress, who in the most engaging manner refused to go first, but at length with graceful reluctance did so, the Emperor leading me, expressing his great gratification at being here and seeing me, and admiring Windsor." [Footnote: Life of the Prince Consort.]
Her Majesty was pleased with the Emperor; his low soft voice and quiet manner were very attractive. She was delighted with the Empress, of whom she repeatedly wrote with admiration and liking. "She is full courage and spirit," the Queen described her visitor, "yet so gentle, with such innocence and enjouement, that the ensemble is most charming. With all her great liveliness, she has the prettiest and most modest manner." There were morning walks during the visitors' stay, and long conversations about the war. A deputation from the Corporation of London came down to Windsor, and presented the Emperor with an address. There was a review of the Household troops in the Great Park, to which the Queen drove with the Empress. The Emperor, the Prince, and the Duke of Cambridge rode. There was a tremendous enthusiastic crowd in the Long Walk, and considerable pushing at the gates. The Queen was alarmed because of the spirited horse the Emperor rode.
The day ended with a ball in the Waterloo Room, when the Queen danced a quadrille with the Emperor, who, she wrote, "danced with great dignity and spirit. How strange" she added "to think that I, the grand-daughter of George III., should dance with the Emperor Napoleon, nephew of England's great enemy, now my nearest and most intimate ally, in the Waterloo Room, and this ally only sixteen years ago living in this country in exile, poor and unthought of."
A Council of War was held the day after the Emperor's arrival, at which the Queen was not present. It was attended by the Emperor, the Prince, Lords Palmerston, Panmure, Hardinge, Cowley (English ambassador in Paris), Count Walewski (French ambassador in London), Marshal Vaillant, &c., &c. It met at eleven, and had not separated at two, the hour of luncheon, after which a chapter of the Order of the Garter—for which special toilettes were indispensable, was to be held. The Empress went and told Lord Cowley how late it was, in vain. She advised the Queen to go to them. "I dare not go in, but your Majesty may; it is your affair." The Queen passed through the Emperor's bedroom, which was next to the council-room, knocked, and entered to ask what was to be done, perhaps a solitary instance of a queen having to go in search of her guests. Both the Emperor and the Prince rose and said they would come, but business was so enchaining that still they delayed, and the ladies had to take luncheon alone.
The Emperor was invested with the Order of the Garter in the Throne- room. The forms were the same as those followed in the investiture of Louis Philippe, and no doubt the one scene recalled the other vividly enough. Bishop Wilberforce was present and gives some particulars: "A very full chapter. The Duke of Buckingham (whose conduct had not been very knightly) came unsummoned, and was not asked to remain to dinner. The Emperor looked exulting and exceedingly pleased." After the chapter, the Emperor sent for the Bishop, that he might be presented. His lordship's opinion was that Louis Napoleon was "rather mean- looking, small, and a tendency to embonpoint; a remarkable way, as it were, of swimming up a room, with an uncertain gait; a small grey eye, looking cunning, but with an aspect of softness about it too. The Empress, a peculiar face from the arched eye-brows, blonde complexion; an air of sadness about her, but a person whose countenance at once interests you. The banquet was magnificent. At night," ends Bishop Wilberforce, "the Queen spoke to me. 'All went off very well, I think; I was afraid of making some mistake; you would not let me have in writing what I was to say to him. Then we put the riband on wrong, but I think it all went off well on the whole.'"
The Emperor and Empress were invited to a banquet at Guildhall. They went from Buckingham Palace, to which the Queen and Prince Albert had accompanied them. The Queen wrote in her journal that their departure from Windsor made her sad. The passing through the familiar rooms and descending the staircase to the mournful strains of "Partant pour la Syrie" (composed by the Emperor's mother, Queen Hortense, and heard by her Majesty fourteen different times that April day), the sense that the visit about which there had been so much excitement was nearly over, the natural doubt how and when the group would meet again, touched her as with a sense of foreboding.
The Emperor and Empress drove from Buckingham Palace to Guildhall in six of the Queen's State carriages, the first drawn by the famous cream-coloured horses. The whole route was packed with people, who gave the visitors a thorough ovation. The City hall was decorated with the flags of England, France, and Turkey; and the lion and the eagle conjointly supported devices which bore the names "Alma, Balaclava, and Inkermann." At the déjeuner sherry was served which had reached the venerable age of one hundred and nine years, was valued at £600 the butt, and had belonged to the great Napoleon. The same evening, the Queen and the Prince, with their guests, went in State to the Italian Opera, where Fidelio was performed. "We literally drove through a sea of human beings, cheering and pressing near the carriage." The illuminated streets bore many devices—of N.E. and V.A., which the Emperor remarked made the word "Neva"—a coincidence on which he appears to have dwelt with his share of the superstition of the Buonapartes. The Opera-house and the royal box were richly decorated for the occasion. On entering, her Majesty led the Emperor, and Prince Albert the Empress, to the front of the box, amidst great applause. The audience was immense, a dense mass of ladies and gentlemen in full dress being allowed to occupy a place behind the singers on the stage.
The next day, a beautiful April day, the Queen discovered was the forty-seventh birthday of the Emperor; and when she went to meet him in the corridor, she wished him joy and gave him a pencil-case. He smiled and kissed her hand, and accepted with empressment two violets— the Buonapartes' flower—brought to him by Prince Arthur. All along the thronged road to Sydenham, cries of "Vive l'Empereur!" and "Vive l'Impératrice!" alternated with cheers for the Queen. The public were not admitted while the royal party were in the palace, but they gathered twenty thousand strong on the terrace; and when her Majesty, with her guests, came out on the balcony to enjoy the beautiful view, such shouts of loyalty and welcome filled the spring air as struck even ears well accustomed to public greetings. After luncheon the Queen and her visitors returned to the Palace, having to pass through an avenue of people lining the nave, to reach the balcony from which the strangers were to see the fine spectacle of the fountains playing. The Queen owned afterwards she was anxious; yet, she added, "I felt as I leant on the emperor's arm, that I was possibly a protection for him. All thoughts of nervousness for myself were lost. I thought only of him; and so it is, Albert says, when one forgets oneself, one loses this great and foolish nervousness." A sentence worthy of him and of her.
Alas for fickle fortune and the changes which time brings! The present writer was accidentally present on the occasion of the Emperor and Empress's last visit to the Crystal Palace. They came from Chislehurst without any announcement, when they were not expected, on an ordinary shilling day in autumn, the company happening to be few. A slight stir and one or two policemen coming to the front, suggested that some theft had been committed, and that the offender was about to be taken into custody and removed from the building. Then an official walked bareheaded down the cleared nave, and behind him came a little yellow- skinned shrunken man in plain clothes, on whose arm a lady in a simple black silk walking-dress and country hat leant lightly, as if she were giving instead of receiving support. He made a slight attempt to acknowledge the faint greetings of the spectators, some of them ignorant of the identity of the visitors, all of them taken by surprise. She smiled and bowed from side to side, a little mechanically, as if anxious to overlook no courtesy and to act for both. It was not long after the battle of Sedan and the imprisonment at Wilhelmshohe, and the hand of death was already upon him. The couple hurried on, as if desirous of not being detained, and could not have tarried many minutes in the building when a few straggling cheers announced their departure.
In the afternoon of the 20th of April a second council relating to the war in the Crimea was held, at which the Queen was present. With her large interest in public affairs, her growing experience, and her healthy appetite for the work of her life, she enjoyed it exceedingly. "It was one of the most interesting scenes I was ever present at," she wrote in her journal. "I would not have missed it for the world."
On Saturday, the 21st of April, the visitors left, after the Emperor had written a graceful French sentence in the Queen's album, and an admonitory verse in German, which had originally been written for himself, in the Prince of Wales's autograph book. The Queen accompanied her visitors to the door, and parted from them with kindly regret. As they drove off she "ran up" to see the last of the travellers from the saloon they had just quitted. "The Emperor and Empress saw us at the window," she wrote, "turned round, got up, and bowed…. We watched them, with the glittering escort, till they could be seen no more…." The Prince escorted the Emperor and Empress to Dover. The Queen wrote in a short memorandum her view of the Emperor's character, and what she expected from the visit in a political light. Through the good sense of the paper one can see how the confiding friendly nature had survived the rough check given to it by Louis Philippe's manoeuvres and dissimulation.
On the 1st of May the Academy opened with Millais's "Rescue of children from a burning house," and with a remarkable picture by a young painter who has long since vindicated the reception it met with. It was Mr. F. Leighton's "Procession conveying Cimabue's Madonna through the streets of Florence."
On the 18th of May her Majesty distributed medals to some of the heroes of the war still raging. The scene was both picturesque and pathetic, since many of the recipients of the honour were barely recovered from their wounds. The presentation took place in the centre of the parade of the Horse Guards, where a dais was erected for the ceremony, while galleries had been fitted up in the neighbouring public offices for the accommodation of members of the royal family and nobility. Barriers shut off the actors in the scene, and a great gathering of officers, from the crowd which filled every inch of open space and flowed over into St. James's Park.
The Queen, the Prince, with many of the royal family, the Court, the Commander-in-Chief, the Secretary for War, and "a host of generals and admirals," arrived about eleven o'clock. The soldiers who kept the ground formed four deep, making three sides of a square, and the men to be decorated passed up the open space, until "the Queen stood face to face with a mass of men who had suffered and bled in her cause."
The Deputy-Adjutant-General read over the list of names, and each person, answering to the call, presented to an officer a card on which was inscribed his name, rank, wounds, and battles. As the soldiers passed in single file before the Queen, Lord Panmure handed to her Majesty the medal, which she gave in turn to the medal-holder. He saluted and passed to the rear, where friends and strangers gathered round him to inspect his trophy.
The first to receive the medal were the Queen's cousin and contemporary, the Duke of Cambridge, Lords Lucan, Cardigan, Major- General Scarlett, Sir John Burgoyne, Sir De Lacy Evans, and Major- General Torrens. It is needless to say how keenly the public were moved by the sight of their brave defenders, several of them scarred and mutilated, many tottering from weakness, some wearing on their sleeves bands of crape, tokens of mourning for kinsmen lying in Russian earth.
To every wounded man, officer or private, her Majesty spoke, some of those addressed blushing like girls under their bronze, and the tears coming into their eyes. The idea of personally presenting the medals to the soldiers was the Queen's own, and she must have been amply rewarded by the gratification she bestowed.
Three officers unable to walk were wheeled past her Majesty in bath- chairs. Among them was young Sir Thomas Troubridge, both of whose feet had been carried off by a round shot, while he had continued commanding his battery till the battle was over, refusing to be taken away, only desiring his shattered limbs to be raised in order to check the loss of blood. The Queen leant over Sir Thomas's chair and handed him his medal, while she announced to him his appointment as one of her aides-de-camp. He replied, "I am amply repaid for everything."
CHAPTER XXVII.
DEATH OP LORD RAGLAN—VISIT OF THE QUEEN AND PRINCE ALBERT TO THE EMPEROR AND EMPRESS OF THE FRENCH—FALL OF SEBASTOPOL.
A Sardinian contingent had now, by a stroke of policy on the part of Count Cavour, the Sardinian Minister, joined the English and French in arms in the Crimea; but an unsuccessful attack, made with heavy loss by the combined forces of the English and French on Sebastopol, filled the country with disappointment and sorrow. The attack was made on the 18th of June, a day which, as the anniversary of Waterloo, had been hitherto associated with victory and triumph.
Lord Raglan had never approved of the assault, but he yielded to the urgent representations of General Pelissier. The defeat was the last blow to the old English soldier, worn by fatigue and chagrin. He was seized with illness ending in cholera, and died in his quarters on the 29th of June, eleven days after the repulse. He was in his sixty- seventh year. The Queen wrote to Lady Raglan the day after the tidings of the death reached England.
During the summer the Queen received visits from King Leopold and his younger children, and from her Portuguese cousins. During the stay of the former in England scarlet fever broke out in the royal nurseries. Princess Louise, Prince Arthur, Prince Leopold, and finally Princess Alice, were attacked; but the disease was not virulent, and the remaining members of the family escaped the infection.
In the early morning of the 16th of August, the Russians marched upon the French lines, and were completely routed in the battle of the Tchernaya, which revived the allies' hopes of a speedy termination of the war.
In the meantime, the Queen and Prince Albert, accompanied by the Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal, paid a visit to the Emperor and Empress of the French, near Paris. The palace of St. Cloud was set apart for the use of the Queen and the Prince.
Her Majesty landed at Boulogne during the forenoon of the 18th of August. She was received by the Emperor, who met her on the gangway, first kissed her hand, and then kissed her on both cheeks. He led her on shore, and rode by the side of her carriage to the railway station.
Paris, where no English sovereign had been since the baby Henry VI. was crowned King of France, was not reached till evening. The city had been en fête all day with banners, floral arches, and at last an illumination. Amidst the clatter of soldiers, the music of brass bands playing "God save the Queen," and endless cheering, her Majesty drove through the gathering darkness by the Bois de Boulogne to St. Cloud. To the roar of cannon, the beating of drums, and the echoing of vivats, she was greeted and ushered up the grand staircase by the Empress and the Princess Mathilde. Everybody was "most civil and kind," and in the middle of the magnificence all was "very quiet and royal."
The next day was Sunday, and after breakfast there was a drive with the Emperor through the beautiful park, where host and guests were very cheerful over good news from Sebastopol. The English Church service was read by a chaplain from the Embassy in one of the palace rooms. In the afternoon the Emperor and the Empress drove with their guests to the Bois de Boulogne, and to Neuilly—so closely associated with the Orleans family—lying in ruins. General Canrobert, just returned from the Crimea, was an addition to the dinner party.
On Monday the weather continued lovely. The Emperor fetched his guests to breakfast, which, like luncheon, was eaten at small round tables, as in her Majesty's residences in England. She remarked on the cookery that it was "very plain and very good." After breakfast the party started in barouches for Paris, visiting the Exposition des Beaux Arts and the Palais d'Industrie, passing through densely crowded streets, amidst enthusiastic shouts of "Vive l'Empereur!" "Vive la Reine d'Angleterre!" At the Elysée the corps diplomatique were presented to the Queen. In the meantime, the Emperor himself drove the boy Prince of Wales in a curricle through Paris. Afterwards the Queen and Prince Albert, in the company of the Emperor, visited the beautiful Sainte Chapelle and the Palais de Justice. On the way the Emperor pointed out the conciergerie as the place where he had been imprisoned.
Nôtre Dame, where the Archbishop of Paris and his clergy met the visitors, and the Hôtel de Ville, followed in the regular order of sightseeing.
The Queen dwells not only on the kindness but on the quietness of the
Emperor as a particular "comfort" on such an occasion.
Les Demoiselles de St. Cyr was acted in the evening. In the Salle de Mars all the company passed before the Queen, the Empress presenting each in turn. The Emperor and Empress, preceded by their gentlemen, always took the Queen and the Prince to their rooms.
On, Tuesday Versailles was the visitors' destination. They went in many carriages. Troops and national guards, and especially gendarmes, were to be seen everywhere. The gardens and the fountains, with throngs of company, were much admired.
The Queen visited the two Trianons. At the larger the Emperor showed her the room and bed provided for her, in the expectation of her visiting Paris, by "poor Louis Philippe;" Madame Maintenon's sedan- chair, by which Louis XIV. was wont to walk; and the little chapel in which "poor Marie (Louis Philippe's daughter) was married to Alexander of Wurtemberg in 1838," two years before the Queen's marriage.
At Little Trianon the Empress (who had a passion for every relic of Marie Antoinette) joined the party, and luncheon was eaten in one of the cottages where princes and nobles were wont to play at being peasants.
In the evening the Emperor, with his guests, paid a State visit to the opera-house in the Rue Lepelletier. Part of the performance was a representation of Windsor Castle, with the Emperor's reception there, when "God save the Queen" was splendidly sung, and received with acclamation. The Emperor's happy animation, in contrast to his usual impassiveness, was remarked by the audience.
Wednesday's visit, in the continuously fine August weather, was to the French Exhibition, which the Queen and the Prince were so well calculated to appreciate. They rejoiced in the excellent manner in which England was represented, particularly in pottery. The specially French productions of Sèvres, Goblins, and Beauvais were carefully studied. The Queen also examined the French Crown jewels, the crown bearing the renowned Regent diamond, which, though less large than the Koh-i-noor, is more brilliant. The Emperor presented the Prince with a magnificent Sèvres vase, a souvenir of the Exhibition of 1851. The Tuileries was visited, and luncheon taken there in rooms containing pictures and busts or Napoleon I., Josephine, &c., &c. The Queen received the Prefect and consented to attend the ball to be given in her honour.
After a visit to the British Embassy, the Queen and the Prince, with the Princess Royal and one of the ladies of the suite, took a drive incognito through Paris, which they enjoyed exceedingly. They went in an ordinary remise, the three ladies wearing common bonnets and mantillas, and her Majesty having a black veil over her face.
On Thursday morning the Queen rested, walking about the gardens with her young daughter, and sketching the Zouaves at the gate. The afternoon was spent at the Louvre, where the Queen mentions the heat as "tropical."
After dinner at the Tuileries, the party stood laughing together at an old-fashioned imperial cafetière which would not let down the coffee, listening to the music, the carriages, and the people in the distance, and talking of past times; as how could people fail to talk at the Tuileries! The Emperor spoke of having known Madame Campan (to whose school his mother was sent for a time), and repeated some of the old court dresser's anecdotes of Marie Antoinette and the Great Revolution.
In her Majesty's full dress for the ball given to her by the City of
Paris, she wore a diadem in which the Koh-i-noor was set. Through the
illuminated, crammed streets, the Queen proceeded to the Hotel de
Ville, and entered among flags, flowers, and statues, "like the
Arabian Nights," the Emperor said.
The royal visitors occupied chairs on a dais. One quadrille and one valse were danced, the Emperor being the Queen's partner, while Prince Albert danced with Princess Mathilde (the Empress was in delicate health); Prince Napoleon and Madame Haussman (the wife of the Prefect of the Seine), and Prince Adalbert of Bavaria and Lady Cowley (wife of the English ambassador) completing the set.
Several Arabs in long white burnouses were among the guests, and kissed the hands of the Queen and the Emperor. Her Majesty made the tour of the stately suite of rooms, lingering in the one in which "Robespierre was wounded, Louis Philippe proclaimed, and from the windows of which Lamartine spoke for so many hours in 1848."
On Friday there was a second visit to the Exhibition, and in the afternoon a grand review of troops in the Champ de Mars, which the Queen admired much, regretting that she had not been on horseback, though the day was not fine. From the Champ de Mars the visitors drove to the Hôtel des Invalides, and there occurred the most striking scene in the memorable visit, of which the passages from the Queen's journal in the "Life of the Prince Consort," give so many graphic, interesting details. Passing between rows of French veterans, the Queen and the Prince went to look by torchlight at the great tomb, in which, however, all that was mortal of Napoleon I. had not yet been laid. The coffin still rested in a side chapel, to which her Majesty was taken by the Emperor. The coffin was covered with black velvet and gold, and the orders, hat, and sword of "le Petit Caporal" were placed at the foot. The Queen descended for a few minutes into the vault, the air of which struck cold on the living within its walls.
The Emperor took his guests in the evening to the Opéra Comique. It was not a State visit, but "God save the Queen" was sung, and her Majesty had to show herself in front of the Emperor's private box. On Saturday the royal party went to the forest of St. Germain's, and a halt was made at the hunting-lodge of La Muette. The Grand Veneur and his officials in their hunting-dress of dark-green velvet, red waistcoats, high boots, and cocked hats, received the company. The dogs were exhibited, and a fanfare sounded on the huntsmen's horns.
The strangers repaired to the old palace of St. Germain's, where her Majesty saw the suite of rooms which had served as a home for her unhappy kinsman, James II. It is said she went also to his tomb, and stood by it in thoughtful silence for a few minutes. On the return drive to St. Cloud detours were made to Malmaison, where the Emperor remembered to have seen his grandmother, the Empress Josephine, and to the fortress of St. Valérien.
The same night there was a State ball at Versailles. At the top of the grand staircase stood the Empress—"like a fairy queen or nymph," her Majesty writes, "in a white dress trimmed with bunches of grass and diamonds, …" wearing her Spanish and Portuguese orders. The enamoured Emperor exclaimed in the hearing of his guests, "Comme tu es belle!" (how beautiful you are!) The long Galerie de Glaces, full of people, was blazing with light, and had wreaths of flowers hanging from the ceiling. From the windows the illuminated trellis was seen reflected in the splashing water of the fountains. The balconies commanded a view of the magnificent fireworks, among which Windsor Castle was represented in lines of light.
The Queen danced two quadrilles, with the Emperor and Prince Napoleon,
Prince Albert dancing with Princess Mathilde and the Princess of
Augustenburg. Among the guests presented to her Majesty was Count
Bismarck, Prussian Minister at Frankfort.
The Queen waltzed with the Emperor, and then repaired to the famous Oeil-de-Boeuf, hung with Beauvais tapestry. After the company had gone to supper, the Queen and the Emperor's procession was formed, and headed by guards, officers, &c. &c, they passed to the theatre, where supper was served. The whole stage was covered in, and four hundred people sat in groups of ten, each presided over by a lady, at forty small tables. Innumerable chandeliers and garlands of flowers made the scene still gayer. The boxes were full of spectators, and an invisible band was playing. The Queen and Prince Albert, with their son and daughter, the Emperor and the Empress, Prince Napoleon, Princess Mathilde, and Prince Adalbert of Bavaria, sat at a small table in the central box. Her Majesty seems to have been much struck with this Versailles ball, which was designed and arranged by the Empress from a plate of the time of Louis XV. It was said there had been no ball at Versailles since the time of Louis XVI. The last must have been the ball in the Orangery, on the night that the Bastille fell.
Sunday was Prince Albert's birthday, which was not forgotten among these brilliant doings. Loving hands laid out the flower-decorated table with its gifts. At luncheon the Emperor presented the Prince with a picture by Meissonier. The Empress gave a pokal, or mounted cup, carved in ivory. During a quiet drive with the Emperor through the park in the morning, the Queen, with her characteristic sincerity, courageously approached a topic which was a burden on her mind, on which Baron Stockmar had long advised her to act as she was prepared to do. She spoke of her intercourse with the Orleans family, on which the French ambassador in London had laid stress as likely to displease the Emperor. She said they were her friends and relations, and that she could not drop them in their adversity, but that politics were never touched upon between her and them. He professed himself perfectly satisfied, and sought in his turn to explain his conduct in the confiscation and forced sale of the Orleans property.
The English Church service was read in a room at St. Cloud as before. In the afternoon the Emperor took his guests to the memorial Chapelle de St. Ferdinand, erected on the spot where the late Duc d'Orleans was killed.
On Monday, the 27th of August, the Queen wrote in her diary her deep gratitude for "these eight happy days, for the delight of seeing such beautiful and interesting places and objects," and for the reception she had met with in Paris and France. The Emperor arrived to say the Empress was ready, but could not bring herself to face the parting, and that if the Queen would go to her room it would make her come. "When we went in," writes her Majesty, "the Emperor called her: 'Eugénie, here is the Queen,' and she came," adds her Majesty, "and gave me a beautiful fan, and a rose and heliotrope from the garden, and Vicky a beautiful bracelet, set with rubies and diamonds, containing her hair…."