Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 6.djvu/209

 QUEEN VICTORIA 865 were more marked than the breaking up of that monotony which the restrictions that hitherto prevailed as to the residence of the royal family in one or two state palaces entailed. We can well understand how the Empress Eugenie should have found the Tuileries, in spite of its grandeur, no better than " une belle prison? and her delight at the comparative freedom she enjoyed at Windsor. The queen and Prince Consort inaugurated a new era in the customs of the court by taking advantage of the facilities afforded by modern methods of conveyance. Scarcely any part of the country celebrated for scenery, or any town famous for its indus- tries, remained unvisited by them. The beneficial effects of these journeys were great. Loyalty is to a large ex- tent a personal matter, and is necessarily deepened when the representative of the state not only possesses moral dignity of character but comes frequently into contact with the people. It is also of use to the crown that its wearer should know, from actual observation, the conditions of life in the country. It is in the light of this mutual action of acquaintance between prince and people that we estimate the value of that knowledge which the Prince of Wales, his brothers, and his sons have gained of so many parts of the empire. The Prince Consort felt keenly the use of these influences. " How important and beneficent,'" he once said, " is the part given to the royal family of England to act in the devel- opment" of those distant and rising countries, who recognize in the British crown and their allegiance to it, their supreme bond of union with the mother country and to each other ! " During each year of their married life the queen and Prince Consort went on some interesting tour. In England, Oxford and Cambridge, Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, received loyal visits, while such historical houses as Chatsworth, Hatfield, Stowe, and Strathfieldsay were honored by their pres- ence. Ireland was thrice visited. Wales more than once. The first visit to Scotland was made in 1 842, another in 1 844, and from 1 847 only one year passed without a long residence in the north first at Ardverachie, on Loch Laggan, and then at what was to be their Highland home on Deeside. Repeated visits were also made to the Continent, sometimes in state and sometimes in as much privacy as could be commanded. It is when we come to this bright time, so full of fresh interest and of a de- lightful freedom, that we have the advantage of the queen's own " Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the Highlands." Her visit to Edinburgh in 1842, and the drive by Birnam and Aberfeldy to Taymouth, and the splendor of the recep- tion, when, amid the cheers of a thousand Highlanders and the wild notes of the bagpipes, she was welcomed by Lord Breadalbane, evidently stirred every feeling of romance. " It seemed," she wrote, "as if a great chieftain of olden feudal times was receiving his sovereign." It appeared like a new world, when, throw- ing off for a time the restrictions of state, she found herself at Blair two years afterward, climbing the great hills of Atholl, and from the top of Tulloch look- ing forth on the panorama of mountain and glen. " It was quite romantic ; here we were with only this Highlander behind us holding the ponies, not a house,