Page:The Letters Of Queen Victoria, vol. 2 (1908).djvu/21



9th January 1844. I had the pleasure of receiving your kind letter of the 4th, which is written from Ardenne, where I grieve to see you are again gone without my beloved Louise.

Charlotte is the admiration of every one, and I wish much I could have seen the three dear children en représentation.

Our fat Vic or Pussette learns a verse of Lamartine by heart, which ends with "le tableau se déroule à mes pieds"; to show how well she had understood this difficult line which Mdlle Charier had explained to her, I must tell you the following bon mot. When she was riding on her pony, and looking at the cows and sheep, she turned to Mdlle Charier and said: "Voilà le tableau qui se déroule à mes pieds." Is not this extraordinary for a little child of three years old? It is more like what a person of twenty would say. You have no notion what a knowing, and I am sorry to say sly, little rogue she is, and so obstinate. She and le petit Frère accompany us to dear old Claremont to-day; Alice remains here under Lady Lyttelton's care. How sorry I am that you should have hurt your leg, and in such a provoking way; Albert says he remembers well your playing often with a pen-knife when you talked, and I remember it also, but it is really dangerous.

I am happy that the news from Paris are good; the really good understanding between our two Governments provokes the Carlists and Anarchists. Bordeaux is not yet gone; I saw in a letter that it was debated in his presence whether he was on any favourable occasion de se présenter en France!