Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol III (1901).djvu/451

 (18 May). It was the queen's own suggestion, and it was the first time that the sovereign had performed such functions. 'The rough hand of the brave and honest private soldier came,' she said, 'for the first time in contact with that of their [his] sovereign and their [his] queen.' Later in the day she visited the riding school in Wellington barracks while the men were assembled at dinner. In the months that followed the queen and prince were indefatigable in exerting their influence against what they deemed unworthy concessions to Russia. From their point of view the resignation of Lord John on 16 July rendered the situation more hopeful.

At the moment domestic distress was occasioned by an outbreak of scarlet fever in the royal household, which attacked the four younger children. On their recovery the queen and prince sought to strengthen the French alliance by paying the emperor a return visit at Paris. Following the example of Prince Albert, the emperor had organised a great 'Exposition,' which it was his desire that his royal friends should compare with their own. On 20 Aug., after parliament had been prorogued by commission, the queen travelled, with the prince, the prince of Wales, and the Princess Royal, from Osborne to Boulogne. There the emperor met them. By an accident they reached Paris rather late, but they passed through it in procession to the palace of St. Cloud, and Marshal Magnan declared that the great Napoleon was not so warmly received on his return from Austerlitz. The occasion was worthy of enthusiasm. It was the first time that an English sovereign had entered the French capital since the infant Henry VI went there to be crowned in 1422. The splendid festivities allowed the queen time for several visits, not merely to the Exposition, but to the historic buildings of Paris and Versailles. Their historical associations greatly interested her, especially those which recalled the tragedies always fascinating to her of Marie Antoinette or James IL Among the official celebrations were a review on the Champ de Mars of 45,000 troops, and balls of dazzling magnificence at the Hotel de Ville and at Versailles. At the Versailles fete, on 25 Aug., the queen was introduced for the first time to Count (afterwards Prince) Bismarck, then Prussian minister at Frankfort, from whose iron will her host, and afterwards her daughter, were soon to suffer. The queen conversed with him in German with great civility. He thought that she was interested in him,

but lacked sympathy with him. The impression was correct. On reaching Boulogne on her way to Osborne (27 Aug.) she was accorded a great military reception by the emperor, who exchanged with her on parting the warmest assurances of attachment to her, her husband, and her children. The anticipations of a permanent alliance between the two countries seemed at the moment likely to be fulfilled, but they quickly proved too sanguine. The political relations between Napoleon III and the queen were soon to be severely strained, and her faith in his sincerity to be rudely shaken. Yet his personal courtesies left an indelible impression on her. Despite her political distrust she constantly corresponded with her host in autograph letters in terms of a dignified cordiality until the emperor's death ; and the sympathetic affection which had arisen between the queen and the Empress Eugenie steadily grew with time and the vicissitudes of fortune.

The month (September-October) which was spent, as usual, at Balmoral was brightened by two gratifying incidents. On 10 Sept. there reached the queen news of the fall of Sebastopol, after a siege of nearly a year a decisive triumph for British arms, which brought honourable peace well in sight. Prince Albert himself superintended the lighting of a bonfire on the top of a neighbouring cairn. The other episode appealed more directly to the queen's maternal feeling. The eldest son of the prince of Prussia (afterwards the Emperor Frederick I), who, attended by Count von Moltke, was at the time a guest at Balmoral, requested permission to propose marriage to the Princess Royal. She was barely sixteen, and he was twenty-four, but there were indications of a mutual affection. The manly goodness of the prince strongly appealed to the queen, and an engagement was privately made on 29 Sept. The public announcement was to be deferred till after the princess's confirmation next year. Prince Albert denied that the betrothal had any political significance. From the point of view of English politics it had at the instant little to recommend it. A close union between the royal families of London and Berlin was not likely to recommend itself to the queen's late host of Paris. To most English statesmen Prussia appeared to be on the downward grade ; and although Prince Albert and the queen had faith in its future, they were personally disappointed by the incompetence of its present ruler, the uncle of their future son-in-law. He had deserted them in the recent war