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 next step, but he convinced her that she had no course but one to follow. He assured her that Palmerston would prove conciliatory if frankly treated. Thereupon she took the plunge and bade Palmerston form an administration. Palmerston's popular strength was undoubted, and resistance on the part of the crown was idle. As soon as the die was cast the queen with characteristic good sense indicated that she would extend her full confidence to her new prime minister. On 15 Feb. he wrote to his brother : 'I am backed by the general opinion of the whole country, and I have no reason to complain of the least want of cordiality or confidence on the part of the court.' To the queen's satisfaction Lord Aberdeen had persuaded most of his colleagues to serve temporarily under his successor, but within a few days the Peelite members of the old government went out, the unity of the government was assured, and Palmerston's power was freed of all restraint.

Baseless rumours of the malign influence exerted by Prince Albert were still alive, but no doubt was permissible of the devoted energy with which the queen was promoting the relief of the wounded. In March she visited the hospitals at Chatham and Woolwich, and complained privately that she was not kept informed in sufficient detail of the condition and prospects of disabled soldiers on their return home. A new difficulty arose with the announcement on the part of Napoleon that he intended to proceed to the Crimea to take command of the French army there. His presence was certain to provoke complications in the command of the allied forces in the field. The emperor hinted that it might be well for him to discuss the project in person with the queen. She and her advisers at once acceded to the suggestion, and she invited him and the empress to pay her a state visit. On all sides she was thrown into association with men who had inspired her with distrust, but she cheerfully yielded her private sentiments at the call of a national crisis. The queen made every effort to give her guests a brilliant reception. She personally supervised every detail of the programme and drew up with her own hands the lists of guests who were to be com- manded to meet them. On 16 April the Visit of Na- em P eror an( l empress reached pofeon in, Dover and proceeded through April 1855. London to Windsor. Every elaborate formality that could mark the entertainment of sovereigns was strictly observed, and the emperor was proportionately impressed. The ordeal proved far less trying than the queen feared. At a great banquet in St. George's Hall on the evening of his arrival, the emperor won the queen's heart by his adroit flattery and respectful familiarity. She found him ' very quiet and amiable and easy to get on with.' There was a review of the household troops in Windsor Park next day, and on the 18th the queen bestowed on Napoleon the knighthood of the garter. A visit to Her Majesty's opera house in the Haymarket on the 19th evoked a great display of popular enthusiasm, and amid similar manifestations the royal party went on the 20th to the Crystal Palace. On the 21st the visit ended, and with every sign of mutual goodwill the emperor left Buckingham Palace for Dover. Of 'the great event' the queen wrote: 'On all it has left a pleasant satisfactory impression.' The royal party had talked much of the war with the result that was desired. On 25 April the emperor wrote to the queen that he had abandoned his intention of going to the Crimea. But throughout the hospitable gaieties the ironies of fate that dog the steps of sovereigns were rarely far from the queen's mind. Three days before the emperor arrived, the widowed ex-queen of the French, who had fallen far from her high estate, visited her at Windsor, whence she drove away unnoticed in the humblest of equipages. After the great ball in the Waterloo room at Windsor, when she danced a quadrille with the emperor on the 17th, she noted in her diary, ' How strange to think that I, the granddaughter of George III, should dance with the Emperor Napoleon, nephew of England's great enemy, and now my nearest and most intimate ally, in the Waterloo room, and this ally, only six years ago, living in this country an exile, poor and unthought of!'

Meanwhile peace proposals, which proved abortive, were under consideration at a conference of the powers at Vienna ; but the queen was resolved that none but the best possible terms should be entertained by her ministers. Lord John represented England and M. Drouyn de Lhuys France, and when Lord John seemed willing to consider conditions that were to the queen unduly favourable to Russia, she wrote peremptorily (25 April 1855) to Palmerston, reproves 'How Lord John Russell and M. Drouyn can recommend such proposals for our acceptance is beyond her [our] comprehension.' In May the queen identified herself conspicuously with the national feeling by distributing with her own hands war medals to the returned soldiers on the Horse Guards' Parade