CHAPTER LXXVII.

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 Stockmar :

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,2 of the Archduke,3 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, &c.

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

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. The Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph of Austria.

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THE ARCHDUKE MAXIMILIAN.

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'The subject is a very important, and, with all our political 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 so 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 favourable 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

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

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PRINCESS CHARLOTTE OF BELGIUM.

1857

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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 distinguished 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 father-in-law, we find him spoken of in the warmest terms:

"The christening of little Beatrice is just over, and was

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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ARCHDUKE MAXIMILIAN.

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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 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

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PRINCE PRESIDES AT CONFERENCE

1857

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 ideas. But even more interesting, as it certainly was more difficult, was the task which he had undertaken of presiding at the first meeting of the Conference on National Education, the main object of which was to consider what means could be devised to induce the poorer classes to keep their children

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.

He was much disappointed by the conclusion arrived at in the Report, published this mouth, of the National Gallery Commission in favour of the existing Gallery as against a proposal to erect a new Gallery at South Kensington, where better provision, the Prince thought, could be made for the pictures being well preserved, as well as seen, than in the smoky and vitiated atmosphere of Trafalgar Square.