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 her return in 1894 she paid a last visit to Coburg the city and duchy which were identified with her happiest memories. There she was present, on 19 April 1894, at the inter-marriage of two of her grandchildren the Princess Victoria Melita of Coburg, the second daughter of her second son, Alfred, with the Grand Duke of Hesse, the only surviving son of her second daughter, Alice. On returning from Nice in March 1897, while passing round Paris, she was met at the station of Noisy-le-Sec by M. Faure, the president of the French Republic, who greeted her with every courtesy. On 5 May 1899 she touched foreign soil for the last time when she embarked at Cherbourg on her home-coming from Cimiez. She frequently acknowledged with gratitude the amenities which were extended to her abroad, and sought to reciprocate them. On 19 Aug. 1891 she welcomed the officers of the French squadron which was in the Channel under Admiral Gervais, and on 11 July 1895 she entertained the officers of an Italian squadron which was off Spithead under the Duke of Genoa.

The queen's court in her last years regained a part of its pristine gaiety. Music and the drama were again among its recognised recreations. In February 1890 there were private theatricals and tableaux at Osborne, in which the queen's daughters took part, and in their preparation the queen took great personal interest. Next year, for the first time since the prince consort's death, a dramatic performance was commanded at Windsor Castle, 6 March 1891, when Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera of 'The Gondoliers' was performed. In 1894 the Italian actress, Signora Eleanora Duse, performed Goldoni's 'La Locandiera' before the queen at Windsor, and Mr. Tree acted 'The Red Lamp' at Balmoral. Her birthday in 1895 she celebrated by a performance there of Verdi's opera of 'Il Trovatore' in the Waterloo Chamber. On 26 June 1900 Mascagni's 'Cavalleria Rusticana' with a selection from 'Carmen' was given there, and on 16 July 1900 the whole opera of 'Faust.'

Domestic incidents continued to bring the queen alternations of joy and grief in abundant measure. In December 1891 she was gratified by the betrothal of Princess Mary (May), daughter the Duke of of her cousin the Duchess of Teck, to the Duke of Clarence, elder son of the prince of Wales, who was in the direct line of succession to the throne. But death stepped in to forbid the union. On 14 Jan. 1892 the duke died. The tragedy for a time overwhelmed the queen. Was there ever a more terrible contrast?' she wrote to Tennyson ; a wedding with bright hopes turned into a funeral!' In an address to her people she described the occasion as 'one more sad and tragical than any but one that had befallen her.' The nation fully shared her sorrow. Gladstone wrote to Sir William Harcourt : ' The national grief re- sembles that on the death of Princess Char- lotte, and is a remarkable evidence of national attachment to the queen and rovai family' (6 Feb. 1892). Lord Selborne foresaw in the good feeling thus evoked a new bond of affection between the queen and the masses of her people. On the Duke of Clarence's death, his brother George, duke of York, became next heir to the crown after his father; and on 3 May 1893 the queen assented to his betrothal to the Princess May of Teck. Sorrow was succeeded by gladness. The Duke of York's marriage in the Chapel Royal at St. James's Palace on 6 July 1893, which the queen attended, revived her spirits ; and she wrote to her people a letter full of hope, thanking them for their congratulations.

Another change in her domestic environment followed. On 22 Aug. 1893 her brother-in-law, Duke Ernest of Saxe-Coburg, died. The cordiality of her early relations with him was not maintained. She had never thought highly of his judgment, and his mode of life in his old age did not commend itself to her. His death gave effect to the arrangement by which the duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha passed to her second son, Alfred, duke of Edinburgh ; and he and his family thenceforth made Coburg their chief home. Thus the German principality, which waa endeared to her through her mother's and her husband's association with it, was brought permanently under the sway of her descendants.

The matrimonial fortunes of her grand-children occupied much of her attention next year. At the time of the Grand children's Duke of Hesse's marriage with a marriages, daughter of the new Duke of Saxe-Coburg, which she herself attended at Coburg (19 April 1894), she warmly approved the betrothal of the Tsarevitch Nicholas with another granddaughter Alix, sister of the Grand Duke of Hesse. This was the most imposing match that any of her grandchildren had made, or indeed any of her children save her eldest daughter. Her second son was already the husband of a tsar's daughter. But this union brought the head of the Russian royal