Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/570

 through illness. The royal party travelled in the royal barge from Westminster to London Bridge. On 1 May 1851 he was at the opening of the Great Exhibition, and was much impressed by the stateliness of the scene. With his tutor and his brother Alfred he frequently visited the place in the next few months, and in June 1854 he attended the inauguration at Sydenham of the Crystal Palace, into which the exhibition building was con- verted. He accompanied his parents to the art treasures exhibition at Man- chester, staying at Worsley Hall with Lord Ellesmere (29 June-2 July 1857). He was twice at Eton (4 June 1853 and 1855) and once at Harrow (29 June 1854) for the speech days, but solely as an onlooker. More important was his first visit to the opening, on 12 Dec. 1854, of a new session of parliament, which was called in view of public anxiety over the Crimean war. That anxiety was fully alive in the royal circle. With his parents the prince visited the wounded soldiers in Brompton Hospital, and was at his mother's side when she first presented the V.C. decoration in Hyde Park (July 1857).

To the Crimean war, which brought his mother into alliance with Napoleon III, emperor of the French, the youth owed a new and more interesting experience than any that had yet befallen him. In August 1855 he and his eldest sister accompanied their parents on their glorious visit to Napoleon III and the Empress Eugenie at the Tuileries. It was the boy's first arrival on foreign soil. At once he won the hearts of the French people. His amiability and his delight in the attentions paid him captivated everybody. Prince Albert wrote to Stockmar with unusual lightness of heart how his son, 'qui est si gentil,' had made himself a general favourite. The impression proved imperishable. Frenchmen of every class and political creed acknowledged his boyish fascination. 'Le petit bonhomme est vraiment charmant,' wrote Louis Blanc, a French exile in England, who as he wandered about London caught frequent sight of the boy ; 'il a je ne sais quoi qui plait et, aux cotes de ses parents, il apparait comme un vrai personnage de f eerie.' This early friendship between the prince and France lasted through his life, and defied all vicissitudes of his own or of French fortunes.

While the prince's general demeanour gratified his parents, they were not well satisfied with his progress. He was reported to be wanting in enthusiasm and imagination, and to be subject to fits of ill-temper, which although brief were easily provoked. Prince Albert earnestly sought new means of quickening his intelligence. The curriculum was widened. In January 1856 the prince and his brother attended Faraday's lectures on metals at the Royal Institution ; and William Ellis was summoned to the palace to teach the prince and his eldest sister political economy. Ellis, like all the royal tutors, noted the superior quickness of the girl, and failed to move much interest in the boy. At the end of August 1856, a fortnight's walking tour was made with his tutor Gibbs and Col. William Henry Cavendish, groom-in-waiting to Queen Victoria and a first cousin of the duke of Devonshire. Starting from Osborne, the party slowly travelled incognito through Dorset, for the most part on foot, putting up at inns without ceremony. But the secret of the prince's identity leaked out, and the experiment was spoilt by public curiosity.

Prince Albert did not conceal his anxiety over his son's backwardness. He invited the counsel of Lord Granville (22 Jan. 1857). Granville frankly advised 'his being mixed up with others of his own age away from home.' He ridiculed as futile 'the visits of Eton boys to the Castle for a couple of hours. Never out of the sight of tutors or elderly attendants, he was not likely to develop the best boyish characteristics. A foreign tour with boys of his own age was suggested, and at some future date a voyage through the colonies and even to India.

In a modified fashion the advice was at once taken. In the spring of 1857 a second tour was made to the English lakes in the company of certain of the Eton boys who had been already occasional visitors to Windsor. Among them were Charles Wood, Mr. Gladstone's son, W. H. Gladstone, and Frederick Stanley, afterwards earl of Derby, Dr. Alexander Armstrong went as medical attendant and Col. Cavendish and Gibbs were in general charge. Lancaster, Bowness, Grasmere, and Helvellyn were all visited. But on the prince's return Prince Albert examined his son's diary and was distressed by its scantiness. A foreign tour followed in the summer. It was designed to combine study, especially of German, with the pleasures of sightseeing. On 26 July 1857 the prince left England to spend a month at