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1857

PROPOSAL OF FRENCH EMPEROR.

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ideas,, to guide his policy, and to prevent by personal communication with the Queen, your Royal Highness, and Her Majesty's Government, the dissidences et mésintelligences which the Emperor thinks will arise from the want of such communication. I fear that such a visit would not be very agreeable to Her Majesty, but in the Emperor's present frame of mind, and his evident alarm lest it should be thought that the alliance has been in any way ébranlée, I cannot entertain a doubt that much good might be done, or at all events that much mischief might be averted by the Emperor being allowed to pay his respects to Her Majesty in the way he proposes.

'I have discussed the matter after the Cabinet this evening with Lord Palmerston, who takes entirely the same view of the matter as I have taken the liberty of expressing to your Royal Highness.'

Next day the Prince replied from Osborne to Lord Clarendon, that he had shown his letter to the Queen, 'who wishes me to say in answer, that she will of course be ready to do what may appear best for the public interest. We shall therefore be ready to receive the Emperor, with or without the Empress, here at Osborne in the quiet way he proposes.' It would be impossible, the Prince adds, to do so until the work of the season in London was over. "The latter half of July, the time at which the Queen would naturally be here, and the best yachting season, might appear to the Emperor as the most eligible, and the least forcé. . . . I have no doubt,' says the Prince in conclusion, that good will arise from a renewed intercourse with the Emperor. The only thing one perhaps may be afraid of is the possibility of his wishing to gair us over to his views with regard to a redistribution of Europe, and his disappointment at our not being able to assent to his plans and aspirations.'

M. de Persigny was informed by Lord Clarendon of Her Majesty's readiness to receive the proposed visit, and a few days afterwards (30th May), the Emperor, writing to the Queen with congratulations on her birthday, says: 'Persigny m'a écrit que votre Majesté daignait nous inviter à aller passer quelques jours à Osborne in private. Rien ne saurait nous être plus agréable, car il nous semble qu'il y a déjà bien longtemps que nous ne nous sommes vus.

In returning (3rd June) this letter to the Prince, who had sent it for his perusal, Lord Clarendon says, 'Lord Cowley feels sure that the visit will be very useful, and that the friendly warnings which the Emperor will receive are likely to make him pause in the realization of his map-mending projects.'

CHAPTER LXXVII.

Visits of Grand Duke Constantine and Archduke Maximilian-Princess Charlotte of Belgium-The Prince presides at Conference on National Education-First Distribution of Victoria Crosses-Prince created Prince Consort-Queen's Visit to ManchesterLetter by M. de Tocqueville, with his impressions of the Prince Consort.

BEFORE leaving Osborne the Queen received a flying visit from the Grand Duke Constantine, who arrived there on the 30th direct from Cherbourg in Her Majesty's yacht Osborne. Lord Palmerston was there to meet him, but nothing occurred to give political significance to the visit, and the next night the Grand Duke left, after having made a cruise with Her Majesty to see the fleet at Spithead.

On the 3rd of June the Court returned to London, where it remained till the 9th, when it moved for a few days to Windsor. The next day the Prince writes to Baron Stock

mar :

'We came here yesterday for Ascot. The few days we were in London I was almost done to death with questions and stupid details for the season (all crammed into so short a space), for levees, drawing-rooms, the christening, balls and concerts, the Crystal Palace festival,' the Royal visit to Manchester, the visit of Fritz, of the Archduke, who arrives on the 12th, of Uncle Leopold and the children, who come at the end of this month or beginning of the next, Bertie's Continental tour, etc.

2

3

'Besides all this, I am worried by the fact of having to preside and speak at the Educational Conference on the 22nd.

'The subject is a very important, and, with all our polit

1 The first of the great Händel Commemoration Festivals, On the 17th, when the Judas Maccabeus was given by 2,500 artists, the Prince in his Diary describes the performance as quite excellent (ganz vortrefflich).

2 Prince Frederick William of Prussia, now Crown Prince of Germany. 3 The Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph of Austria.

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THE ARCHDUKE MAXIMILIAN.

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ical and theological antagonisms, an extremely ticklish one, and my address, I regret to say, will be very long. One's nervous system, therefore, has something to endure.

'If, after all, we manage to get to Osborne, we are there menaced by an Imperial visit, which at present is a strict secret, but which will no doubt come to pass.'

On the 14th the Archduke Maximilian arrived in London. The Prince had not previously met him, but he appears to have felt drawn towards him at once. On learning the Duke's engagement to the Princess Charlotte of Belgium some months before, he had written to tell the Archduke of the pleasure with which the Queen and himself had heard of the betrothal of their dear Cousin to a young Prince of whom we hear nothing but good,' and her alliance with whom was one purely of the heart. May Heaven's blessing,' he added, 'be upon a connection thus happily begun, and in it may you both attain life's true happiness, which is only to be found in a home where the heart finds satisfaction for its wants.'

There is a painful interest in noting the strongly favorable impression produced upon his hosts by the distinguished young Prince, then only twenty-five years old, whose career was to come within a few years to a most tragic close, made more tragic by the mental wreck of his young and beautiful bride by which it was followed. The day after his arrival the Prince speaks of him in his Diary as 'very kind and amiable.' Two days later the entry is, 'We have grown quite attached to the Archduke, who is indeed a very distin

4

4 The Archduke Maximilian accepted the Imperial Crown of Mexico, which was offered to him in pursuance of a decision of the Assembly of Notables, dated 10th July, 1863, and by a majority of the Mexican people. He was shot at Queretaro on the 19th of June, 1867, by order of Juarez, the President of the revolutionary republic of Mexico. Just before he was shot, the Emperor took out his watch, and pressing a spring which concealed a portrait of the Empress, he kissed it, and gave it to the Abbé who attended him, saying: Carry this souvenir to Europe to my dear wife; and if she be ever able to understand you, say that my eyes closed with the impression of her image, which I shall carry with me above." He had too much reason to think the message might never be understood; for even before this terrible blow fell on her, the mind of the Empress Charlotte, highly sensitive and enthusiastic as it was, had been shaken by the failure of all the bright anticipations with which the Emperor and herself had gone to Mexico. She had come to Paris some months before the Emperor Maximilian's murder, to plead with the French Government for help, which was refused. Thence she had gone to Rome; and in an interview with the Pope on the 9th of October, 1866, her insanity became apparent. She partially recovered; but after several relapses her reason became clouded in 1869, apparently beyond hope of recovery.

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PRINCESS CHARLOTTE OF BELGIUM.

1857

guished personage.' A week later the mention of the Archduke's departure is followed by the words: 'He was as loth to part from us as we were to let him go. We have become great friends.' It speaks volumes for the character of the Archduke that so severe an observer as the Prince wrote to him a few days afterwards: 'You have conquered my sincerest friendship, which, resting as it does on a similarity in our modes of feeling and thinking, promises to be firmly knit for life by the ties of kinship.' Of his bride, who had come on a visit to the Queen a few days before, the Prince in the same letter says: 'Charlotte's whole being seems to me to have been warmed and unfolded by the love that is kindled in her heart. I have never seen so rapid a development in the space of one year. She appears to be happy, to be devoted to you with her whole soul, and eager to make herself worthy of her future position.' The Princess (born 7th June, 1840) had not then completed her seventeenth year.

The Archduke arrived in time to be present at the christening of the Princess Beatrice in the private chapel at Buckingham Palace, on the 16th of June. In a letter written just after the ceremony by the Queen to his future fatherin-law, we find him spoken of in the warmest terms:

'The christening of little Beatrice is just over, and was very brilliant and nice. We had the luncheon in the fine ball-room, which looked very handsome. The Archduke (who has been here since Sunday evening) led me to the chapel, and at the luncheon I sat between him and Fritz. I cannot say how much we like the Archduke; he is charming, so clever, natural, kind, and amiable, so English in his feelings and likings, and so anxious for the best understanding between Austria and England. With the exception of his mouth and chin he is good-looking, but I think one does not in the least care for that, as he is so very kind, clever and pleasant. I wish you really joy, dearest Uncle, at having got such a husband for dear Charlotte, as I am sure he is quite worthy of her, and will make her happy.

'He may and will do a great deal for Italy. The Archduke speaks much and affectionately of his dear bride. When we were at luncheon he said to me, "I hope it is a good omen for the future that on this occasion England sits between Austria and Prussia [ich hoffe dass es von guter Bedeutung für die Zukunft ist, dass bei dieser Gelegenheit

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THE ARCHDUKE MAXIMILIAN.

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England zwischen Oesterreich und Preussen sitzt]," in which hope I sincerely join.'

Interested as Baron Stockmar was sure to be in the future happiness of King Leopold's daughter, it must have been peculiarly agreeable to the Prince to be able to set his mind at rest as to the prospects of the marriage :

'We are exceedingly pleased with Archduke Max,' he wrote (18th June). He is a remarkable young man, very Anglomane, with nothing of the bigot about him, and liberal in his political views. Charlotte will certainly be happy with

him.'

In the same letter the Prince was also able to send news which he knew would please his friend, that a marriage was arranged, which the Prince had been entrusted to negotiate, between the Princess Stephanie of Hohenzollern and Don Pedro, King of Portugal:

'I received,' he says, 'an answer yesterday from the Prince of Hohenzollern, who accepts for his daughter and himself. I am greatly delighted at the success of the offer.'

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We shall hereafter have occasion to see how deep was the interest felt by the Prince in both the parties to this union, and how terribly he was shaken by their early deaths.

This month was an unusually busy one with the Prince, in the numbers of meetings and public ceremonials which he had to attend. The opening of the South Kensington Museum and the Sheepshanks Gallery on the 20th was to him of peculiar interest, as realising one of his most cherished

5 Charles Anthony, Prince of Hohenzollern, formerly Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen. Sigmaringen was dropped from his title after the cession to Prussia of his sovereign rights to that principality, 18th October, 1861. In recognition of this cession all the Hohenzollern Princes are recognised as younger members of the Prussian House, and the head of the family is styled 'Royal Highness.' His eldest son Leopold, whose nomination as King of Spain in 1870 was the ostensible cause of the Franco-German War, married (12th Sept. 1861) Antoinette, sister of the present King of Portugal; his second son Charles is now Prince of Roumania; and his second daughter Marie married (25th April, 1867) Prince Philippe, Count of Flanders. Prince Hohenzollern, on the fall of the Manteuffel Ministry in November, 1858, became First Minister of Prussia, having been called to that position by the present Emperor of Germany, soon after his appointment as Regent during the illness of his brother the late King of Prussia.

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