Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol III (1901).djvu/455

 leaving Osborne, the queen and the prince crossed in her yacht Victoria and Albert to Cherbourg on 19 Aug. in order to inspect the dockyard, arsenal, and fortifications. Every facility of examination was given them, but amid the civilities of the welcome the queen did not ignore the use to which those gigantic works might be put if England and France came to blows. The relations of the queen and emperor abounded in irony.

Meanwhile the nation was in the throes of the Indian mutiny—a crisis more trying and harrowing than the recent war. Having broken out in the previous June, it was in August at its cruel height, and the queen, in common with all her subjects, suffered acute mental torture. She eagerly scanned the news from the disturbed districts, and, according to her wont, showered upon her ministers entreaties to do this and that in order to suppress the rebellion with all available speed. Palmerston resented the queen's urgency of counsel, and wrote (18 July) with unbecoming sarcasm, to which she was happily blind, how fortunate it was for him that she was not on the opposition side of the House of Commons. At the same time he reminded her that 'measures are sometimes best calculated to succeed which follow each other step by step.' The minister's cavils only stimulated the activity of her pen. She left Osborne for her autumn holiday at Balmoral on 28 Aug. Parliament was still sitting. Her withdrawal to the north before the prorogation excited adverse criticism, but throughout her sojourn at Balmoral little else except India occupied her mind. She vividly felt the added anxieties due to the distance and the difficulty of communication. Happily, just after the court left Scotland (on 16 Sept.) events took a more favourable turn. On 3 Dec., when the queen opened parliament in person, the mutiny was in process of extinction. The sudden death of the Duchess de Nemours in November at Claremont increased at the time the queen's depression. 'We were like sisters,' she wrote ; 'bore the same name, married the same year, our children of the same age.' But the need of arranging for the celebration of her eldest daughters marriage soon distracted her attention. As many as seventeen German princes and princesses accepted invitations to be present. The festivities opened on 19 Jan. 1858 with a state performance at Her Majesty's Theatre, when Macbeth' was performed, with Phelps and Miss Faucit in the chief parts, and was followed by Mr. and Mrs. Keeley's rendering of the farce of 'Twice Killed.' The wedding took place at St. James's Palace on the 25th, and eight days later the bride and bridegroom left England. The queen felt the parting; severely, and dwelt upon her mixed feelings of joy and sorrow in her replies to the addresses of congratulation which poured in upon her.

Before the queen quite reconciled herself to the separation from her daughter, she was suddenly involved in the perplexities of a ministerial crisis. The French alliance which Palmerston had initiated proved a boomerang and destroyed his government. On 15 Jan. an explosive bomb had been thrown by one Orsini, an Italian refugee, at the emperor and empress of the French while entering the Opera House in Paris, and though they escaped unhurt ten persons were killed and 150 wounded. It was soon discovered that the plot had been hatched in England, and that the bomb had been manufactured there. A strongly worded despatch from the French minister Walewski to Palmerston demanded that he should take steps to restrict the right of asylum in England which was hitherto freely accorded to foreign political malcontents. Addresses of congratulation to the emperor on his escape, which he published in the official 'Moniteur,' threatened England with reprisal. Palmerston ignored Walewski's despatch, but introduced a mild bill making conspiracy to murder, hitherto a misdemeanour, a felony. The step was approved by the queen, but it was denounced as a weak truckling to Palmerston's old friend Napoleon, and his bill was defeated on the second reading (19 Feb.) Thereupon he resigned. The queen begged him to reconsider the matter. Although she never derived much comfort from Palmerston, she had great faith in his colleague Clarendon, and it was on his account that she sought to keep the ministry in office; but Palmerston persisted in resigning, and she at once summoned Lord Derby. The queen, although she recognised the parliamentary weakness of a conservative government, was successful in urging him to attempt it. It gratified her that the brother of Sir Robert Peel, General Jonathan Peel, became secretary for war. 'His likeness to his deceased brother,' she wrote, 'in manner, in his way of thinking, and in patriotic feeling, is quite touching.' Friendly relations with France were easily re-established by the new ministry, and the queen was