Part 3 (1/2)
”OSBORNE, _22nd January 1873_.
”The Queen sends Mr Martin the copies of two letters that will interest him.[17] The Empress Augusta's especially is very generous and kind. The Queen thanks Mr Martin for his last letters, and is very sorry he could not have the last look, which she so very deeply regrets not having had herself. As soon as she returns to Windsor, she will go to the poor Empress....”
I had written to the Queen a full account of the funeral. To this she refers: ”The reception on Thursday must have been most affecting. The dear boy is said to behave so well. The Queen sends on the copy of a letter which gives a touching trait of him. The Dean of Westminster [Stanley] the other day said it would be such a good thing, if the poor Emperor's great charm of manner, great amiability and kindness, and wonderful power of attracting people--in short, _fascination_--which the Queen herself felt very strongly, could be generally known; but he did not exactly know _how_. The Queen said she thought it might be possible to do it in Mr Martin's _Life of the Prince_; for the visits to Boulogne of the Prince _alone_ in 1854, of the Emperor and Empress to Windsor in 1855, and of ourselves to Paris in the same year are full of the greatest interest, and the Queen has a very full account of them in her Journal, which she thinks of having extracted, and she feels Mr Martin would be pleased to pay a tribute to one whose reverse of fortune and great misfortunes were borne with such dignity and patience, and without any bitterness towards others.”
The Queen placed in my hands a ma.n.u.script copy of her Journal of these visits. The attractive qualities of the Emperor were so fully ill.u.s.trated by the copious extracts of which I made use in the Prince's _Life_, that it required no commentary or eulogium of mine to show them in relief. The complete Journal of these visits was printed for the Queen in 1881. It is a historical doc.u.ment, which will be of permanent interest. In sending me a copy on the 10th of October of that year, the Queen writes:--
”The little account of the two French visits in 1855 has delighted those of the Queen's children and friends--only two of the latter, as yet--to whom she has given it. But she finds a great omission on her part, and that is, of _all_ the names of all those who accompanied us to Paris.
She here sends the list, and would ask how it could be added, and sends one of the copies for him to look at and see how it could best be done,--whether as a leaf at the end of the book, or as a note like the dinner-list at Windsor, and include the Emperor and Empress's suite who came with them to Windsor.”
The reply was to send a printed slip with the list of the names to be inserted at the end of the volume. With the exception of Lady Ponsonby, then Miss Bulteel (Maid of Honour), not one of the numerous persons named in the list is now alive. She is, therefore, the sole survivor of the Queen's suite who was present on the occasion of the Queen's reception at the Opera House in Paris, of which the very graphic description is given in the _Quarterly Review_ article of April last, already referred to.[18] It is a very welcome addition to the Queen's own very modest account of what must have been a remarkably brilliant and memorable scene, but of which the most she records is, that her ”reception was very hearty,” that _G.o.d save the Queen_ was sung splendidly, and that ”there could not have been more enthusiasm in England.”
In the midst of the public cares and perplexities of the time, the Queen had to face, at the end of 1871, a deeper anxiety than all other in the dangerous illness of the Prince of Wales. To place herself by his bedside, to cheer and to encourage, and never to surrender hope, however dread the symptoms, was characteristic of her strong, loving nature and brave spirit. Her conduct at that trying time drew her people nearer to her, and their sympathy bound her to them by a very tender tie. Through her kindness I was kept informed by telegram of the progress of the Prince through the extremes of danger to convalescence. Among the letters which the Queen wrote to me from Osborne after her return there with the Prince from Sandringham, the following pa.s.sage occurs:--
”OSBORNE, _Feb. 13, 1872_.
”Two new sad and shocking events have overclouded the joyful return of the dear Prince of Wales: the one which, contrasting as it did with the Queen's own case, made her feel it most keenly--viz., the death of her dear niece[19] from scarlet fever, a terrible blow to her dear sister, who is so delicate herself; the other, the horrible a.s.sa.s.sination of poor Lord Mayo, a n.o.ble and most loyal subject, and most admirable Viceroy, which has shocked the Queen dreadfully! It is awful, and _how_ could it happen? Some dreadful neglect, surely.
”The dear Prince of Wales, though quite himself, bears great traces of his fearful 'death-illness.' He seems like new-born, pleased at every tree and flower, ... and gazing on them with a sort of 'Wehmuth' which is quite touching....”
Fortunately for the recovery of the Prince of Wales, the treatment of typhus was now better understood than it had been but a few years before. ”Ah!” the Queen said to me soon after this time, ”had _my_ Prince had the same treatment as the Prince of Wales, he might not have died!”--one of those sad, vain imaginings of ”what might have been,”
common to us all, but on which the Queen was too wise to allow her mind to dwell.
The Queen had long ceased to have reason to complain of want of appreciation on the part of the people. On the contrary, it was enthusiastically shown whenever she was seen in public, and most impressively when she went in January 1872 to the thanksgiving service in St Paul's for the recovery of the Prince of Wales. Her letters are full of expressions of satisfaction at these demonstrations of public feeling. Thus she writes, for example, to me on the 10th of April 1872: ”There never was a greater success or a greater exhibition of spontaneous loyalty than the Queen's visit to the East End the other day;” and a few days later (23rd April) she calls my attention to a similar display ”at two very pretty military events which took place at Parkhurst last Thursday, and here [Osborne] yesterday, on the occasion of giving new colours to the 79th Cameron Highlanders,” and of her acceptance from them of the old colours. ”Their former chaplain,” she adds, with her usual love of detail, ”who has been fourteen years with them, and in Lucknow, came on purpose to bless the colours, which he did extremely well and touchingly. It is a splendid regiment.”
The great change in the public mind, which resulted in the fall of Mr Gladstone's Ministry at the beginning of 1874, took the Queen somewhat by surprise. ”The result of the elections,” she writes to me (10th February 1874), ”is astounding. What an important turn the elections have taken! It shows that the country is not _Radical_. What a triumph, too, Mr Disraeli has obtained, and what a good sign this large Conservative majority is of the state of the country, which really required (as formerly) a strong Conservative party!”
Amid the turmoil of the elections which led to this important result a domestic incident took place--the Confirmation of the Princess Beatrice, which was communicated to me in the following letter (January 13, 1874):--
”The Queen cannot resist sending the lines which Mlle. Norele wrote on her sweet Beatrice at her Confirmation. She did so look like a lily, so very young, so gentle and good. The Queen can only pray G.o.d that this flower of the flock, which she really is (for the Queen may truly say she has never given the Queen one moment's cause of displeasure), may never leave her, but be the prop, comfort, and companion of her widowed mother to old age! She is the Queen's Benjamin.”
The prayer, we know, was granted. Mlle. Norele's graceful lines form a worthy pendant to the charming picture presented in this letter. I give them with my own translation, as it pleased the Queen at the time:--
”Seule, au pied de l'autel,
”Alone, at the Altar's foot, Nous l'avons contemplee,
Thus was she seen, Au bonheur immortel,
Humbly adoring, mute, Comme un ange, appelee.
With looks serene.
De son front la candeur
Awe touch'd us, and we felt Imprimait le respect,
How pure that sight, Et toute sa blancheur
Fair lily! as she knelt, Du lis avait l'aspect.
Robed all in white.
Son ame calme et pure
Within that holy spot, Semblait en ce saint lieu
Her soul did seem Oublier la nature,
To soar, all earth forgot, Et monter vers son Dieu.
To the Supreme.