reductions in the duties on coffee and timber. It was absurd to dream of entering on a policy which involved further remission of taxation, so long as £5,000,000 of the revenue—for that was what the Income Tax brought in—depended on an annual vote of the House. Then the concordia discors of the majority was made manifest. As everybody had voted with Mr. Hume from different motives, it was impossible to get competent men to serve on the Committee. That difficulty, however, was after much trouble overcome, and the Government made the best of the situation. They accepted defeat; Lord John Russell, however, stipulating that, whatever might be done, the national credit must be maintained. In other words, he accepted the proposal on the ground that, though the motion granting the Income Tax for one year only was carried, there was no serious intention of refusing to renew the tax if necessary; and that it would be necessary was, of course, certain, unless the £5,500,000 derived from it were replaced by protective duties. This was not a very logical position, and Mr. Disraeli seized the opening which it gave him. Hume’s victory, technically speaking, implied that the financial arrangements of the country were in a provisional state.

Why, then, asked Mr. Disraeli, sacrifice any revenue at all till something like permanence had been imparted to these arrangements? On the 30th of July he brought forward a futile motion to this effect in a grandiose speech, and was supported by Mr. Gladstone, whose antipathy to the Government was fast becoming uncontrollable. Yet Mr. Gladstone’s argument was sound enough. To surrender the Window Tax for one like the hated House Duty, which rested on a narrow basis and was vitiated by special anomalies of inequality and injustice of incidence, that had secured its abolition in 1834, was surely bad finance. And what was gained? Six-sevenths of the house property of the country were exempted from taxation—house property being a fair enough subject for taxation, provided it be assessed on fair general principles. Nothing could be more precarious than the position of the Income Tax; yet but for it the surplus in hand, which Sir Charles Wood was flinging away, would not exist. Mr. Disraeli, however, in spite of Mr. Gladstone’s support, lost his motion. His inconsistency in voting for Mr. Cayley’s proposal, on the 8th of May, to abolish the Malt Tax, which yielded £5,000,000 of revenue, and in protesting, on the 30th of June, against the sacrifice of £1,600,000 of surplus, as ruinous to public credit, was, of course, disastrous to his pleading.

In the debates on Colonial Policy the Government were more successful than could have been anticipated. Mr. Baillie’s motion censuring Lord Torrington’s maladministration of the affairs of Ceylon was defeated by a large majority, which, says Mr. Greville, set the Cabinet, smarting from various reverses at the time, “on their legs again.”

On the 18th of April a much more important subject was broached by Sir W. Molesworth, who moved a series of resolutions demanding that the Colonies should be made autonomous, and charged to provide for their own defence. Other motions of the same sort as this one sprang from the animus against the Colonial Office which then existed among all parties. As Mr. Urquhart said in debate, independent members were of opinion that, if the good sense of the country did not put down the Colonial Office, the Colonial Office would put down the Empire. The objection of the Government to Sir W. Molesworth’s proposal was the old one to all Colonial reforms—that it must lead to the abandonment of our Colonial Empire. The debate was adjourned, and was not resumed.

The chronic discontent of the Cape Colonists, smarting under Lord Grey’s abortive design to quarter convicts on them, led to some acrimonious discussions, which aggravated popular antipathy to the costly Caffre War which was raging. Lord John Russell, however, contrived to evade attacks by persuading the House of Commons to appoint a Select Committee to inquire into the relations of the Colony to the Caffre tribes.

The Radicals of the Manchester school had raised early in the Session an agitation against Sir James Brooke, popularly called Rajah Brooke, of Sarawak. Rajah Brooke had waged war on the Dyak tribes because they were aggressive pirates. The Manchester school denied that the Dyaks were pirates, and contended that Sir James Brooke simply levied war on the natives in order to seize their territory. Mr. Hume insisted on referring the matter to a Select Committee, but he was defeated by a large majority, and the result of the debate was to exonerate Sir James Brooke from the charges of brutality and barbarism that had been advanced against him.

The slave-hunting squadron in West Africa was another question as to which the Government were sadly harried. The cost of keeping up the squadron rendered it extremely unpopular, and Mr. Hume forced the Government, in Committee of Supply, to make a statement as to its work. According to Lord Palmerston, it was active, energetic, and successful in suppressing the infamous traffic in slaves, and the House of Commons thought that the results of the squadron’s operations were so valuable that England ought not to grudge the money spent upon it. On the other hand, the Party of Economy contended that the reduction in the slave trade was due, not to the English squadron, but to the new policy of Brazil, whose Government had begun to co-operate with ours in seizing slave-traders, destroying barracoons, and releasing slaves.

Foreign affairs but slightly interested Parliament in 1851. No doubt a great deal of excitement was produced by the two letters on the State prosecutions by the Neapolitan Government, which Mr. Gladstone addressed to Lord Aberdeen, and much indignation was expressed at the stupid tyranny of King “Bomba,” whose dungeons were full of political prisoners. The charges of cruelty and injustice caused Sir De Lacy Evans to question the Foreign Secretary on the subject in the House of Commons, and from Lord Palmerston’s reply it turned out that above 20,000 persons were then confined in Neapolitan prisons for political offences, most of whom had been deprived of liberty in flagrant violation of the existing laws of their country. Copies of Mr. Gladstone’s letter were sent by Lord Palmerston to every foreign Government, in the hope that a joint-remonstrance from the Powers might put an end to King Ferdinand’s outrages on civilisation.

Mr. Cobden renewed his annual motion for bringing about a general disarmament among the European nations; and undoubtedly his speech was received with much more sympathy than usual by the House of Commons and the country. It was the year of the International Exhibition, and all the world was talking of fraternity among the nations, and of their strife being limited, in the golden future, to peaceful contests in the fields of industry. “We are witnessing now,” said Mr. Cobden in a memorable passage of his speech, “what a few years ago no one could have predicted as possible. We see men meeting together from all countries in the world, more like the gatherings of nations in former times, when they came up for a great religious festival; we find men speaking different languages and bred in different habits associating in one common temple erected for their gratification and reception.” The Government, he held, might with everlasting honour to themselves seize the favourable hour for broaching a peace policy, and endeavour to win the assent of Europe to a project for universal disarmament. The idea then in men’s minds was that England should set the example by approaching France with a proposal, that each country should reduce its armaments to the footing on which they stood at the time of the Syrian dispute. Lord Palmerston approved generally of Mr. Cobden’s objects, and was willing to say that he would do everything in his power to bring about the friendliest relations with France. But he did not wish to be fettered beforehand with definite instructions to open up at once negotiations for mutual disarmament; and, professing himself satisfied with this expression of opinion, Mr. Cobden withdrew his motion.

The Jews in the Session of 1851 failed to remove the political disabilities under which members of their community lay.[35] They carried their point in the House of Commons. In the House of Lords, however, the Tories threw the Jewish Disabilities Relief Bill out by a vote of 144 to 108. A hot controversy arose over the attempt of Alderman Salomons, the newly-elected member for Greenwich, to take the Oath without repeating the words, “On the true faith of a Christian.” It ended in the Alderman being removed from his seat by the Serjeant-at-Arms, and in Lord John Russell carrying a motion denying Mr. Salomons’s right to sit whilst he was unsworn.

The smaller measures of the Session included a Bill for strengthening the appellate branch of the Court of Chancery by appointing two extra judges. The Bill to legalise marriage with a deceased wife’s sister, though carried in the House of Commons, was, as usual, rejected in the Lords. Parliament was prorogued by the Queen in person on the 8th of August, and the occasion

was interesting, for the representatives of the people for the first time went into her presence from the new House of Commons, which had at last been made ready for occupation. The long procession through the grand corridors, between the two chambers, was accordingly a little more orderly than usual. The Royal Speech was devoted to a brief review of a barren but not unimportant Session.

Legislation, in fact, had been brought to a standstill by the anti-Papal Bill, which had been obstinately obstructed. The prestige of the Ministry was gone, and their natural strength completely abated by the mutiny of the Irish Whigs. And yet, when Lord John Russell resumed office after his resignation, he gained rather than lost in power, and the attack on him became more and more languid every day. The truth is that the people did not think much about politics after May, 1851. The Ministry was safe after the failure of the Tories to take their places. But it was no stronger than when it had been beaten on Mr. Locke King’s motion, and its lease of office depended largely on the tolerance of disdain. The people were indeed preoccupied with the Great Industrial Exhibition of All Nations to such an extent that they paid no more attention, during the latter half of the Session, to the doings of the Government, than to the debates of a local vestry. “There is,” writes Mr. Greville on the 8th of June, “a picture in Punch of the shipwrecked Government saved by the ‘Exhibition’ steamer, which really is historically true, thanks in great measure to the attractions of the Exhibition, which has acted on the public as well as upon Parliament.... There has been so much indifference and insouciance about politics and parties that John Russell and his Cabinet have been released from all present danger. The cause of Protection gets weaker and weaker every day; all sensible and practical men give it up as hopeless.”[36] That he had been saved by the “Great Exhibition” steamer evidently did not satisfy Lord John Russell. Hence he seems to have been ever hankering after a plan for strengthening his Cabinet by the addition to it of a Peelite element. Sir George Cornewall Lewis was sent down to Netherby in September to intrigue with Sir James Graham for this purpose, but Graham, though offered the Board of Control, or as it would now be called the India Office, refused to join the Cabinet because he was afraid lest Lord John Russell might make dangerous concessions to the Party who were agitating for Parliamentary Reform. It is interesting to note that Lord Palmerston strongly opposed this project of inviting Graham to join the Whig Cabinet, and strove hard to induce his colleagues to make their overtures to Mr. Gladstone. It is impossible to blame Sir James for the course he took. Lord John Russell’s incurable antipathy to statistical research induced him to hand over the question of Reform to a small Ministerial Committee, consisting of Lord Minto, Lord Carlisle, and Sir C. Wood, and so little did the Whigs love Reform, that some of them, like Lord Lansdowne, had resolved to leave the Cabinet if a strong Reform measure were proposed.

Another circumstance helped to weaken the Ministry. Lord Palmerston, as usual, succeeded during the autumn in again irritating the Queen and his own colleagues by one of his singular freaks at the Foreign Office. When Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot, arrived at Southampton on the 23rd of October, he was welcomed by a popular demonstration, and some leading Radicals took part in it. Lord Palmerston immediately resolved to receive him, and it became known that if he did this the Austrian Government would recall their Ambassador. Lord John Russell pointed out the impropriety of the step which Lord Palmerston obstinately insisted on taking. Palmerston’s last word on the subject to the Prime Minister was that he considered he had a right to receive M. Kossuth privately and unofficially, and that he would not be dictated to as to the reception of a guest in his own house, though his office was at the disposal of the Government. A meeting of the Cabinet was immediately summoned, and the matter was laid before those present by Lord John Russell. It was agreed that Lord Palmerston could not with propriety receive Kossuth, and he promised to submit to the decision of his colleagues. Up to this point everything went smoothly, and the Queen was greatly relieved in mind to learn that the Foreign Secretary had been so reasonable as to promise not to insult a friendly Power. Her feeling on the subject was that, being at peace with Austria, we had no right to get up demonstrations in favour of persons who had been endeavouring to upset the Austrian Government. “I was at Windsor,” writes Mr. Greville on the 16th of November, “for a Council on Friday. There I saw Lord Palmerston and Lord John mighty merry and cordial, talking and laughing together. Those breezes leave nothing behind, particularly with Palmerston, who never loses his temper, and treats everything with gaiety and levity. The Queen is vastly displeased with the Kossuth demonstrations, especially at seeing him received at Manchester with as much enthusiasm as attended her own visit to that place.... Delane[37] is just come from Vienna, where he had a long interview with Schwarzenberg, who treated, or at least affected to do so, the Kossuth reception with contempt and indifference.”[38] Two days after Mr. Greville made this entry in his Diary, to the amazement of the Queen and Lord John Russell, Lord Palmerston, addressing a deputation that waited on him from Finsbury and Islington, expressed on behalf of England his strong sympathy with the cause of the Hungarian revolutionary leaders. He had kept the word of promise to the ear, but had broken it to the hope. What he had said was infinitely more irritating to Austria than his reception of Kossuth could have been. The breach of faith with his indignant colleagues was inexcusable, and it prepared the way for Palmerston’s expulsion from the Cabinet, which followed his recognition of the coup d’état in December.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE FESTIVAL OF PEACE AND THE COUP D’ÉTAT.

The diplomatic body in London also behaved churlishly to the promoters of the scheme, arguing that foreigners, by coming in contact with the democratic institutions of England, would lose their taste for Absolutism. When Prince Albert proposed that the Ambassadors should have an opportunity of taking part in the proceedings by presenting an Address to the Queen, M. Van de Weyer, as senior member of the diplomatic body in London, privately asked the opinion of his colleagues on the subject. They all gave their assent with one exception, Baron Brunnow, who was “not at home” when M. Van de Weyer called on him. But at a meeting of the diplomatic body it was decided by a majority of them not to present any Address to her Majesty. This decision was arrived at mainly by the influence of Brunnow, who said he could not permit the Russian nation or people to be mentioned in an Address of this kind. He was also jealous of allowing M. Van de Weyer or any other Ambassador to speak for the Russian Government. The Queen was chagrined at this incivility, and instructed M. Van de Weyer to tell his colleagues that of course she could not compel them “to accept a courtesy which anywhere else would be looked on as a favour.” Brunnow, however, held out. In the end it was agreed that the Ambassadors should present no Address, but merely be formally presented to the Queen at the opening function, and, having bowed, that they should file away to the side of the platform, where they certainly did not cut an imposing figure during the ceremony of inauguration.

On the 29th of April the Queen made a private visit to the Exhibition, and returned from it saying that her eyes were positively dazzled with “the myriads of beautiful things” which met her view. Though some of the Royal Family, like the Duke of Cambridge, were afraid that there might be a riot on the opening day, the Queen was not affected in the least by their warnings, asserting that she had the completest faith in the good sense, good humour, and chivalrous loyalty of her people. Nor was this confidence misplaced. On the day of the opening, she was received with passionate demonstrations of loyal enthusiasm from the crowds, amounting in the aggregate to about 700,000 persons, who came forth to see her pass. As for those who entered the building, they seemed awestruck with astonishment at the brilliant scene, radiant with life and colour, which lay before their eyes. At half-past eleven on the 1st of May the Royal cortège left the Palace, and filed along in a stately procession through the enormous crowds who swarmed in the Green Park and in Hyde Park. “A little rain fell,” writes the Queen, “just as we started, but before we came near the Crystal Palace the sun shone and gleamed upon the gigantic edifice, upon which the flags of all the nations were floating. We drove up Rotten Row, and got out at the entrance on that side. The glimpse of the transept through the iron gates, the waving palms, flowers, statues, myriads of people filling the galleries and seats around, gave us a sensation which I can never forget, and I felt much moved. We went for a moment to a little side room, where we left our shawls, and where we found Maria and Mary [now Princess of Teck], and outside which were standing the other Princes. In a few seconds we proceeded, Albert leading me, having Vicky at his right hand and Bertie [Prince of Wales] holding mine.... The tremendous cheers, the joy expressed in every face, the immensity of the building, the mixture of palms, flowers, trees, statues, fountains, the organ (with 200 instruments and 600 voices, which sounded like nothing), and my beloved husband, the author of this ‘Peace-Festival,’ which united the industry of all nations of the earth—all this was moving indeed, and it was and is a day to live for ever.”[39] When the National Anthem had been sung, Prince Albert, at the head of the Commissioners, read their Report to the Queen. She in turn read a short reply. A brief prayer was offered by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and then the “Hallelujah Chorus” was sung. The grand State procession of all the dignitaries was then formed, and walked along the whole length of the crowded nave amidst deafening cheers. “Every one’s face,” writes the Queen in her Diary, “was bright and smiling, many with tears in their eyes. Many Frenchmen called out ‘Vive la Reine!’.... The old Duke and Lord Anglesey walked arm in arm, which was a touching sight.” When the procession returned to the point from which it started, Lord Breadalbane proclaimed the Exhibition open in the name of the Queen, whereupon there was a flourish of trumpets and more cheering. “Everybody,” writes the Queen,

“was astonished and delighted. Sir George Grey (Home Secretary) in tears.” On the way home her Majesty again met with a magnificent reception. After entering the Palace, she and the Prince showed themselves on the balcony and bowed their adieus to the vast throng, whose loyal shouts rent the air. The most perfect order was maintained, and, writes the Queen, “the wicked and absurd reports of dangers of every kind which a set of people, namely, soi-disant fashionables and the most violent Protectionists spread, are silenced.... I must not,” she adds, “omit to mention an interesting episode of this day, namely, the visit of the good old Duke on this his eighty-second birthday to his little godson, our dear little boy.[40] He came to us both at five, and we gave him a golden cup and some toys, which he himself had chosen, and Arthur gave him a nosegay.” From every quarter congratulations on the complete success of the day poured in upon the Queen, and though 700,000 spectators lined the route between the Exhibition and the Palace, no accidents and not a single police case could be traced to this enormous gathering of sightseers.

One result of the Exhibition was the celebration of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts. It was thought that the great gathering of foreigners offered a fitting occasion for celebrating an event of the kind, and Prince Albert was asked to preside over the commemoration. His Royal Highness agreed, but stipulated that the celebration was to have no denominational or sectarian turn. Representatives of all parties, therefore, were invited; and the Prince’s speech, which he prepared with unusual care, was marked by broad catholicity of feeling, and was admirably in harmony with the great festival of civilisation which he himself had organised. Lord John Russell was so deeply impressed with the speech, that he wrote to the Queen congratulating her on the effect that it had produced. In reply the Queen wrote as follows:—“We are both much pleased at what Lord John Russell says about the Prince’s speech of yesterday. It was on so ticklish a subject, that we could not feel certain beforehand how it might be taken.” At the same time, the Queen felt sure that the Prince would say the right thing, from her entire confidence in his great tact and judgment. The Queen, at the risk of not appearing sufficiently modest (and yet why should a wife ever be modest about her husband’s merits?), must say that she thinks Lord John Russell will admit now that the Prince is possessed of very extraordinary powers of mind and heart. She feels so proud of being his wife, that she cannot refrain from herself paying a tribute to his noble character.”[41]

As might have been expected, the London season of the Exhibition year was an exceptionally brilliant one. It was marked by a strange combination of eccentricity and gaiety. The Duke of Brunswick kept the town talking with sufficient volubility, and his voyage to France in a balloon, the “Victoria,” with Mr. Green, the aëronaut, was a nine days’ wonder. In midsummer “Bloomerism” whetted the wits of Londoners. The votaries of “Bloomerism” took their name from the wife of a gallant American officer. This lady invented a new costume for women, consisting of loose trousers gathered at the ankles, a short, full skirt, and a broad hat. Adventuresses and “advanced” ladies tried to popularise the costume, but failed. Ridicule killed their cause, and when barmaids in public-houses and “fast” women generally began to adopt “Bloomerism,” its doom was sealed. The season of 1851 was, indeed, clouded with but one dismal fact; the aristocracy were somewhat pinched because agricultural prices were low, and yet the nobility bore their part in the great vortex of hospitality, which the World’s Fair had set whirling, bravely enough. London swarmed with distinguished foreigners, and balls and routs and dinner-parties went on without ceasing.

The first striking event of the season was the withdrawal of Macready from the stage on the 1st of February, and from the Memoirs of that great actor we find that the Queen made a point of being present at his farewell performance on the 26th of February at Drury Lane—the scene of his triumphs, not only as an actor but as a manager, who had restored Shakespeare’s plays to the stage in their fullest integrity. Nor was this the only performance which her Majesty honoured with her presence. Writing on May 17th, Lord Malmesbury records that “Lady Londonderry appeared at the Duke of Devonshire’s play in a gown trimmed with green birds, small ones round the body and down the sides, and large ones down the centre. The beak of one of the birds caught in the Queen’s dress, and was some time before it could be disentangled.” On the 12th of June there was a grand fancy ball at the Palace, the period chosen for illustration being the time of Charles II. The nobility and gentry appeared in the characters of their ancestors. The high officers of State donned the costumes of their predecessors in the reign of the “Merry Monarch.” “We went to the Queen’s Ball,” writes Lord Malmesbury; “it is said that her Majesty received 600 excuses out of 1,400 invitations, and that she did not fill up their places. I thought it very inferior to the first two. Most of the fancy dresses shabby, as if they had been got up cheap.”

This was the season during which “the Spanish beauty,” Mademoiselle de Montijo, afterwards Empress of the French, shone meteor-like in London Society, and divided the honours with Narvaez, “an ugly, little fat man, with a vile expression of countenance,” according to Lord Malmesbury, and who, after being Prime Minister of Spain, and having headed many pronunciamientos, uttered one famous bon mot on his deathbed. When he was asked by the priest to forgive his enemies, he answered, “I have none, as I always got rid of them.”[42]

On the 9th of July, however, the most remarkable event of the season took place. It was the gorgeous ball given at Guildhall by the Lord Mayor and Corporation of the City of London to celebrate the success of the Great Exhibition. That success was now assured. The weekly takings at the gates had never been less than £10,298. In one week they had amounted to £22,189, and already Prince Albert was discussing, with his confidential advisers, what they should do with the large surplus which they were certain they would have in hand. The crowning triumph of the undertaking was therefore celebrated by the City magnates with more than their usual display of lavish magnificence. The Queen and Prince Albert accepted invitations, and when they started in their State carriage from Buckingham Palace, they drove through dense crowds of people, amidst shouts of congratulations delivered in all sorts of tongues. Nay, when they left the Guildhall on the morning of the 10th of July, at daybreak, they were amazed to find loyal crowds still waiting to cheer them, with no diminution of enthusiasm as they drove home. “A million of people,” writes the Prince to Baron Stockmar on the 14th of July, “remained till three in the morning in the streets, and were full of enthusiasm towards us.” He says, also, that the ball passed off “brilliantly,”[43] but with this must be read, as a mild corrective, the description given by Lord Malmesbury in his Diary, which is as follows:—“July 10th.—Went in the evening to Madame Van de Weyer’s. I hear the ball to the Queen at the Guildhall was extremely amusing. People very ridiculous. The ladies passed her at a run, never curtseying, and then returned to stare at her. Some of the gentlemen passed with their arms round the ladies’ waists, others holding them by the hand at arm’s length, as if they were going to dance a minuet. One man kissed his hand to the Queen as he went by, which set her Majesty off in a fit of laughter.” The ball, however, marked the beginning of the end of this splendid season. “To-night,” writes Prince Albert to Baron Stockmar in the letter just alluded to, “we have our last ball. The day after to-morrow I come back here to dine with the Agricultural Society.... On the 18th we return to Osborne for good.” It was not, however, till the 28th of July that the Court removed to Osborne, and on the 18th they visited the Crystal Palace once more. This visit the Queen describes in a letter to Stockmar, in which she says:—“The immense number of manufacturers with whom we have spoken have gone away delighted. The thousands who are at the Crystal Palace when we are leaving are all so loyal and so gratified, many never having seen us before. All this will be of a use not to be described. It identifies us with the people, and gives them an additional cause for loyalty and attachment.”

On the 27th of August the Queen, Prince Albert, and their family left Osborne for Balmoral, which had now been purchased by the Prince from its owner. On the journey northwards they were received at Peterborough by the venerable Bishop of that see, who had been her Majesty’s tutor, and a touching interview took place between the Queen and her old preceptor. At Boston and Doncaster loyal addresses were presented, the party passing the night at the Angel Inn, Doncaster, much to the delight of the inhabitants of that town. On the 28th they reached Edinburgh, where they occupied the State apartments at Holyrood, and drove through the town in the evening. Next day they arrived at Balmoral, where they remained till the 7th of October. During this holiday the Queen and her husband devoted themselves to the rural occupations that always while away the autumn in the Highlands—the Queen walking, driving, riding, sketching, and visiting the cottages of the poor people in her neighbourhood, with whom she had become an especial favourite—the Prince pursuing his favourite sport of deer-stalking, with even more than his wonted ardour. They also entertained many distinguished guests, among whom may be mentioned Hallam the historian, and Liebig the chemist, who were both charmed with the welcome which they received, and with the easy simplicity of the Queen’s life in her northern home.

On the 8th of October they proceeded to Edinburgh, and met with one or two adventures by the way which brought vividly to the Queen’s mind the hazards of railway travelling. When nearing Forfar the axle of a carriage truck became overheated by friction, and the train was stopped till the truck was uncoupled. At Kirkliston there was an explosion of steam in one of the feeder-pipes of the engine, which delayed the train for an hour, and prevented the Royal party from reaching Edinburgh till eight o’clock at night. Next morning they resumed their journey. At Lancaster, where they stopped for luncheon, the Queen and her children went to view John of Gaunt’s ancient castle, and she was presented with its keys at the gateway of the stronghold—two addresses being read to her, which she herself has said were “very prettily worded.” In the afternoon the Royal party reached Croxteth Park, the seat of the Earl of Sefton. Next morning they started to visit Liverpool, calling on Lord Derby at Knowsley Park on the way.

They would have been welcomed with a splendid reception from the Mayor and Corporation and inhabitants of the great northern seaport, had not the weather broken, and had not torrents of rain poured down without ceasing, veiling everything and everybody in the densest fog. Still the Queen persisted in proceeding with the appointed programme, and, good-naturedly determined to make the best of the unpropitious elements, she visited the eastern and southern districts of the town, inspected the docks by land, viewed them from the Mersey from the deck of the Fairy, and made a return progress through the central and northern streets, which by this time were one sea of mud, where, however, patient and loyal crowds stood waiting to cheer their Sovereign and her family as they passed. “We proceeded,” writes her Majesty, “to the Council Room, where we stood on a throne, and received the addresses of the Mayor and Corporation, to which I read an answer, and then knighted the Mayor, Mr. Bent, a very good man.” What seems to have pleased the Queen most was her visit to St. George’s Hall, a building which she enthusiastically described as “being worthy of ancient Athens.” Here she had to step out on the balcony and stand in the rain bowing her acknowledgments to the vast crowd who stood cheering with undamped ardour in the street below. From Liverpool the Queen and her party, attended by Lady Ellesmere, the Duke of Wellington, Lord and Lady Westminster, and Lord and Lady Wilton, proceeded in a barge along the Bridgwater Canal to Worsley Hall, the seat of Lord Ellesmere. The barge was towed by four horses, and whilst one half was covered in, over that part which was open an awning was stretched. “The boat,” writes the Queen, “glided along in a most noiseless and dream-like manner amidst the cheers of the people who lined the sides of the canal.” At Worsley Hall the Queen met Mr. Nasmyth, the inventor of the steam-hammer, and she seems to have been greatly delighted with his conversation, and fascinated by his drawings and maps explaining his investigations into the geography of the moon. The evening, indeed, was devoted mainly to scientific conversation, this ascetic turn being given to it by the arrival of the news that the first great submarine telegraph cable had been successfully laid between Dover and Calais. Next day, the 10th of October, the weather brightened, and the Royal party visited Manchester, the working people of the town turning out in holiday garb to welcome their Sovereign. “A very intelligent but painfully unhealthy-looking population they all were, men as well as women”—such is the Queen’s description of her hosts. In the Peel Park, Salford, her reception by 82,000 school children of all sects and creeds, and their singing of the National Anthem, appear to have surprised and impressed her profoundly. She also remarked “the beautifully dressed” Mr. Potter, the Mayor of Manchester, “the Mayor and Corporation of which town,” writes the Queen, “had till now been too Radical to have robes.” Mr. Potter was duly knighted for his courtesy and kindness to the Royal party, and the Queen expressed herself as especially delighted with the order and good behaviour of the crowds who followed. She notes, however, in her Diary “that there are no really fine buildings” in Manchester—an observation which serves to mark the progress made by this now splendid city since 1851. Next day the Royal party left Worsley Hall, passed again through Manchester, and through Stockport, Crewe, Stafford, Rugby, Weedon, Wolverton, and Watford, where their carriages were found waiting for them ready to post to Windsor, which they reached at half-past seven in the evening.

On the 14th of October the Queen paid her final visit to the Great Exhibition, and she records the fact that “an organ, accompanied by a fine and powerful brass instrument, the Sommerophone, was being played, and it nearly upset me.” The Sommerophone had a compass of five octaves, and

when played by its inventor, Herr Sommer—the only performer who could make it discourse music—was one of the marvels of a year singularly full of the marvellous. Next day the grand show was closed with somewhat scant ceremony, the Queen writing in her Diary, “How sad and strange to think that this great and bright time has passed away like a dream, after all its triumph and success.” It is curious to observe that in the contemporary expressions of public feeling which were prompted by the wind-up of the Exhibition, the same note of melancholy is sounded, as if there were abroad a half-conscious foreboding that the Festival of Peace was only too likely to be followed by War.

These forebodings were justifiable. Affairs abroad began to assume a threatening aspect. It has been shown how the enthusiastic demonstrations with which Louis Kossuth had been honoured in England had caused the Queen many anxious moments. Her mind was sadly troubled, also, by the ostentatious display of sympathy which Lord Palmerston extended to the Hungarian patriot, and by the veiled threat of Austria to recall her Ambassador if these demonstrations continued. Mr. Greville has somewhat maliciously said that the Queen’s feelings on this subject were caused by jealousy. Kossuth’s reception at Manchester, he observes, had been even more enthusiastic than her own. Hinc illæ lacrymæ. Here Mr. Greville does her Majesty a gross injustice. The abhorrence of the English Court for Austrian Absolutism was strong and unstinted, and most forcible expression is given to it in many letters from Prince Albert to Stockmar. England, however, was at peace with Austria, and had no interest in going to war with her. But the Queen argued that it would be impossible to keep up even the semblance of friendly relations with foreign States, if her Foreign Secretary were to pose as the friendly protector of every rebel leader who had attempted to upset their Government, or received addresses in which their rulers were stigmatised as “odious assassins.” Her anger against Lord Palmerston was not to be appeased by his apologists, who reminded her that he was taking a popular and democratic line, which was sure to win for the Queen the affection of the people, thereby more than compensating her for the loss of Austria’s goodwill. Her answer, penned by herself in a vigorous letter to Lord John Russell on the 21st of November, was:—“It is no question with the Queen whether she pleases the Emperor of Austria or not, but whether she gives him a just ground of complaint or not. And if she does so she can never believe that this will add to her popularity with her own people.”[44] We have already[45] described the action which was taken by the Cabinet in relation to this business, and it now remains to record the next quarrel which her Majesty had with Lord Palmerston, and which ultimately led to his expulsion from the Ministry.

On the morning of the 4th of December the Queen was at Osborne, and there she was informed of the coup d’état in Paris on the 2nd inst. The Prince-President, Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, though he had sworn to protect the Republic, had, in concert with a clique of conspirators,[46] long before the 1st of December determined to restore the Empire. The first thing to do was to win over the army. The next to disgust the nation with Parliamentary institutions. The former task was easily accomplished. The latter, however, was somewhat more difficult, and the manner in which the conspirators set about it was most ingenious. Every newspaper that directed attention to the dangerous drift of the Prince-President’s policy was suppressed. He began to conspire, says Alexis de Tocqueville, “from November 10th, 1848. His direct instructions to Oudinot, and his letter to Ney only a few months after his election, showed his determination not to submit to Parliamentary Government. Then followed his dismissal of Ministry after Ministry, until he had degraded the office to a clerkship. Then came the semi-royal progress, then the reviews of Satory, the encouragement of treasonable cries, the selection for all the high appointments in the army of Paris of men whose infamous character fitted them to be tools. Then he publicly insulted the Assembly at Dijon, and at last, in October, we knew his plans were laid. It was then only that we began to think what were our means of defence, but that was no more a conspiracy than it is a conspiracy in travellers to look for their pistols when they see a band of robbers advancing.”[47]

Two powerful motives urged the Prince-President forward. The time for the revision of the Constitution was approaching, a fundamental law of which was that he was ineligible for re-election at the expiry of his term of office. This law virtually forced him to choose between usurpation and obscurity, unless he could get it revised in his interests. But it was evident to him that it would not be so revised, unless popular pressure were put upon the Assembly, by some imposing demonstration of the masses in his favour. To win their sympathies he demanded the abolition of the Electoral Law of May 31st, 1850. That law imposed a three years’ residential qualification on the voter, and in practice it reduced the electorate from 10,000,000 to 7,000,000 electors. The electoral law of May 31st was therefore the Prince-President’s moral weapon against the Assembly. The Assembly, however, refused to further his policy on both points, and endeavoured to protect itself against reprisals by authorising its President to exercise such control over the army as he might deem necessary for its protection. This in turn was resented by the Prince-President as an attack on the prerogatives of the Executive, and Cabinet after Cabinet fell in the course of the struggle between the Chief of the State and the Parliament. But the end was within sight when a Bill