Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen Volume II Part 14

Lord John Russell resigned office, and there was a threatened resignation of the whole Ministry, an ill-timed step, which was only delayed till Mr. Roebuck's motion was carried, by a large majority, not amidst the cheers, but to the odd accompaniment of the derisive laughter of the Liberal members who had voted for the motion. Lord Aberdeen's Ministry immediately resigned office; and after an abortive attempt on the part of Lord Derby, at the request of the Queen, to form a new Ministry, Lord Lansdowne and Lord John Russell were in succession asked to take the leaders.h.i.+p, but each in his turn had to own his inability to get the requisite men to act under him. In summoning Lord John Russell to become Premier, the Queen had expressed a wish that Lord Palmerston--the man to whom the country looked as the only proper war minister--should take office. The wish, especially flattering and acceptable to Lord Palmerston, because it indicated that old differences were forgotten, was in marked keeping with a certain magnanimity and candour--excellent qualities in a sovereign-- which have been prominent features in her Majesty's character.

Lord John Russell having been as unsuccessful as his predecessors in forming a Ministry, Lord Palmerston was sent for by the Queen and offered the premiers.h.i.+p, and the most popular minister of the day was soon able, to the jubilation of the country, to construct a Cabinet.

On the 10th of February, the anniversary of the Queen's marriage-day, there was this year, as usual, a home festival, with the nursery drama of "Little Red Riding Hood" performed by the younger members of the family, and appropriate verses spoken by Princess Alice, who seems to have been the chosen declaimer among the princes and princesses. But beneath the rejoicing there were in the elders anxiety, sympathetic suffering, and the endurance of undeserved suspicion. The committee carrying out the inquiry proposed by Mr. Roebuck's motion, conceived most unjustly that the Prince's hostile influence prevented them from obtaining the information they desired. The Queen's health was suffering from her distress on account of the hards.h.i.+ps experienced by her soldiers, so that when Lord Cardigan returned to England, repaired to Windsor, and had the royal children upon his knee, they said, "You must hurry back to Sebastopol and take it, else it will kill mamma!"

On the 2nd of March the strange news burst upon Europe, exciting rather a sense of solemnity than any less seemly feeling, of the sudden death of the Emperor Nicholas, former guest and fervent friend of the Queen--for whom she seems to have retained a lingering, rueful regard--grasper at an increase of territory, disturber of the peace of Europe, dogged refuser of all mediation. He had an attack of influenza, but the real cause of his death is said to have been bitter disappointment and mortification at his failure to drive the allies out of the Crimea. The "Generals, January and February," on whom he had counted to work his will, laid him low.

CHAPTER XXVI.

INSPECTION OF THE HOSPITAL AT CHATHAM--VISIT OF THE EMPEROR AND EMPRESS OF THE FRENCH--DISTRIBUTION OF WAR MEDALS.

On the 3rd of March, the Queen and the Prince, with the Prince of Wales, Prince Alfred and the Duke of Cambridge, visited the hospital at Chatham, to which many of the wounded and sick soldiers had been brought home. The whole of the invalids who were in a condition to leave their beds "were drawn up on the lawn," each having a card containing his name and services, his wounds, and where received. Her Majesty pa.s.sed along the line, saying a few kind words to those sufferers who particularly attracted her notice, or to those whose services were specially commended. It is easy to imagine how the haggard faces would brighten and the drooping figures straighten themselves in that royal and gentle presence.

In the course of the month, at an exhibition and sale of water-colour drawings and pictures by amateurs, in aid of a fund for the widows and orphans of officers in the Crimea, the artistic talent of which there have been many proofs in the Queen's and the Prince's children, was first publicly shown. A water-colour drawing by the Princess Royal, already a fine girl of fifteen--whose marriage was soon to be mooted, in which she had represented a woman weeping over a dead grenadier, displayed remarkable merit and was bought for a large price.

On the 16th of April the Emperor and Empress of the French arrived in England on a visit to the Queen. The splendid suite of rooms in Windsor Castle which includes the Rubens, Zuccarelli, and Vandyck rooms, were destined for the imperial guests. And we are told that, by the irony of fate, the Emperor's bedroom was the same that had been occupied on previous occasions by the late Emperor Nicholas and King Louis Philippe. Sir Theodore Martin refers to a still more pathetic contrast which struck the Queen. He quotes from her Majesty's journal a pa.s.sage relating to a visit paid by the old Queen Amelie to Windsor two or three days before. "It made us both so sad to see her drive away in a plain coach with miserable post-horses, and to think that this was the Queen of the French, and that six years ago her husband was surrounded by the same pomp and grandeur which three days hence would surround his successor."

Prince Albert received the travellers at Dover in the middle of a thick mist which had delayed the _corvette_, hidden the English fleet, and somewhat marred what was intended to have been the splendour of the reception. After the train had reached London, the drive was through densely crowded streets, in which there was no lack of enthusiasm for the visitors.

The strangers did not reach Windsor till past seven. The Queen had been waiting for them some time in one of the tapestry rooms near the guard-room. "The expectation and agitation grew more intense," her Majesty wrote in her diary. "The evening was fine and bright. At length the crowd of anxious spectators lining the road seemed to move; then came a groom; then we heard a gun, and we moved towards the staircase. Another groom came. Then we saw the advanced guard of the escort; then the cheers of the crowd burst forth. The outriders appeared, the doors opened, I stepped out, the children and Princes close behind me; the band struck up "Partant pour la Syrie," the trumpets sounded, and the open carriage, with the Emperor and Empress, Albert sitting opposite to them, drove up, and they got out.

"I cannot say what indescribable emotions filled me, how much all seemed like a wonderful dream. These great meetings of sovereigns, surrounded by very exciting accompaniments, are always very agitating.

I advanced and embraced the Emperor, who received two salutes on either cheek from me, having first kissed my hand. I next embraced the very gentle, graceful, and evidently very nervous Empress. We presented the Princes (the Duke of Cambridge and the Prince of Leiningen, the Queen's brother) and our children (Vicky, with very alarmed eyes, making very low curtsies); the Emperor embraced Bertie; and then we went upstairs, Albert leading the Empress, who in the most engaging manner refused to go first, but at length with graceful reluctance did so, the Emperor leading me, expressing his great gratification at being here and seeing me, and admiring Windsor."

[Footnote: Life of the Prince Consort.]

Her Majesty was pleased with the Emperor; his low soft voice and quiet manner were very attractive. She was delighted with the Empress, of whom she repeatedly wrote with admiration and liking. "She is full courage and spirit," the Queen described her visitor, "yet so gentle, with such innocence and _enjouement_, that the _ensemble_ is most charming. With all her great liveliness, she has the prettiest and most modest manner." There were morning walks during the visitors' stay, and long conversations about the war. A deputation from the Corporation of London came down to Windsor, and presented the Emperor with an address. There was a review of the Household troops in the Great Park, to which the Queen drove with the Empress. The Emperor, the Prince, and the Duke of Cambridge rode. There was a tremendous enthusiastic crowd in the Long Walk, and considerable pus.h.i.+ng at the gates. The Queen was alarmed because of the spirited horse the Emperor rode.

The day ended with a ball in the Waterloo Room, when the Queen danced a quadrille with the Emperor, who, she wrote, "danced with great dignity and spirit. How strange" she added "to think that I, the grand-daughter of George III., should dance with the Emperor Napoleon, nephew of England's great enemy, now my nearest and most intimate ally, in the Waterloo Room, and this ally only sixteen years ago living in this country in exile, poor and unthought of."

A Council of War was held the day after the Emperor's arrival, at which the Queen was not present. It was attended by the Emperor, the Prince, Lords Palmerston, Panmure, Hardinge, Cowley (English amba.s.sador in Paris), Count Walewski (French amba.s.sador in London), Marshal Vaillant, &c., &c. It met at eleven, and had not separated at two, the hour of luncheon, after which a chapter of the Order of the Garter--for which special toilettes were indispensable, was to be held. The Empress went and told Lord Cowley how late it was, in vain.

She advised the Queen to go to them. "I dare not go in, but your Majesty may; it is your affair." The Queen pa.s.sed through the Emperor's bedroom, which was next to the council-room, knocked, and entered to ask what was to be done, perhaps a solitary instance of a queen having to go in search of her guests. Both the Emperor and the Prince rose and said they would come, but business was so enchaining that still they delayed, and the ladies had to take luncheon alone.

The Emperor was invested with the Order of the Garter in the Throne- room. The forms were the same as those followed in the invest.i.ture of Louis Philippe, and no doubt the one scene recalled the other vividly enough. Bishop Wilberforce was present and gives some particulars: "A very full chapter. The Duke of Buckingham (whose conduct had not been very knightly) came unsummoned, and was not asked to remain to dinner.

The Emperor looked exulting and exceedingly pleased." After the chapter, the Emperor sent for the Bishop, that he might be presented.

His lords.h.i.+p's opinion was that Louis Napoleon was "rather mean- looking, small, and a tendency to _embonpoint_; a remarkable way, as it were, of swimming up a room, with an uncertain gait; a small grey eye, looking cunning, but with an aspect of softness about it too. The Empress, a peculiar face from the arched eye-brows, blonde complexion; an air of sadness about her, but a person whose countenance at once interests you. The banquet was magnificent. At night," ends Bishop Wilberforce, "the Queen spoke to me. 'All went off very well, I think; I was afraid of making some mistake; you would not let me have in writing what I was to say to him. Then we put the riband on wrong, but I think it all went off well on the whole.'"

The Emperor and Empress were invited to a banquet at Guildhall. They went from Buckingham Palace, to which the Queen and Prince Albert had accompanied them. The Queen wrote in her journal that their departure from Windsor made her sad. The pa.s.sing through the familiar rooms and descending the staircase to the mournful strains of "Partant pour la Syrie" (composed by the Emperor's mother, Queen Hortense, and heard by her Majesty fourteen different times that April day), the sense that the visit about which there had been so much excitement was nearly over, the natural doubt how and when the group would meet again, touched her as with a sense of foreboding.

The Emperor and Empress drove from Buckingham Palace to Guildhall in six of the Queen's State carriages, the first drawn by the famous cream-coloured horses. The whole route was packed with people, who gave the visitors a thorough ovation. The City hall was decorated with the flags of England, France, and Turkey; and the lion and the eagle conjointly supported devices which bore the names "Alma, Balaclava, and Inkermann." At the _dejeuner_ sherry was served which had reached the venerable age of one hundred and nine years, was valued at 600 the b.u.t.t, and had belonged to the great Napoleon. The same evening, the Queen and the Prince, with their guests, went in State to the Italian Opera, where _Fidelio_ was performed. "We literally drove through a sea of human beings, cheering and pressing near the carriage." The illuminated streets bore many devices--of N.E. and V.A., which the Emperor remarked made the word "Neva"--a coincidence on which he appears to have dwelt with his share of the superst.i.tion of the Buonapartes. The Opera-house and the royal box were richly decorated for the occasion. On entering, her Majesty led the Emperor, and Prince Albert the Empress, to the front of the box, amidst great applause. The audience was immense, a dense ma.s.s of ladies and gentlemen in full dress being allowed to occupy a place behind the singers on the stage.

The next day, a beautiful April day, the Queen discovered was the forty-seventh birthday of the Emperor; and when she went to meet him in the corridor, she wished him joy and gave him a pencil-case. He smiled and kissed her hand, and accepted with empressment two violets-- the Buonapartes' flower--brought to him by Prince Arthur. All along the thronged road to Sydenham, cries of "Vive l'Empereur!" and "Vive l'Imperatrice!" alternated with cheers for the Queen. The public were not admitted while the royal party were in the palace, but they gathered twenty thousand strong on the terrace; and when her Majesty, with her guests, came out on the balcony to enjoy the beautiful view, such shouts of loyalty and welcome filled the spring air as struck even ears well accustomed to public greetings. After luncheon the Queen and her visitors returned to the Palace, having to pa.s.s through an avenue of people lining the nave, to reach the balcony from which the strangers were to see the fine spectacle of the fountains playing.

The Queen owned afterwards she was anxious; yet, she added, "I felt as I leant on the emperor's arm, that I was possibly a protection for him. All thoughts of nervousness for myself were lost. I thought only of him; and so it is, Albert says, when one forgets oneself, one loses this great and foolish nervousness." A sentence worthy of him and of her.

Alas for fickle fortune and the changes which time brings! The present writer was accidentally present on the occasion of the Emperor and Empress's last visit to the Crystal Palace. They came from Chislehurst without any announcement, when they were not expected, on an ordinary s.h.i.+lling day in autumn, the company happening to be few. A slight stir and one or two policemen coming to the front, suggested that some theft had been committed, and that the offender was about to be taken into custody and removed from the building. Then an official walked bareheaded down the cleared nave, and behind him came a little yellow- skinned shrunken man in plain clothes, on whose arm a lady in a simple black silk walking-dress and country hat leant lightly, as if she were giving instead of receiving support. He made a slight attempt to acknowledge the faint greetings of the spectators, some of them ignorant of the ident.i.ty of the visitors, all of them taken by surprise. She smiled and bowed from side to side, a little mechanically, as if anxious to overlook no courtesy and to act for both. It was not long after the battle of Sedan and the imprisonment at Wilhelmshohe, and the hand of death was already upon him. The couple hurried on, as if desirous of not being detained, and could not have tarried many minutes in the building when a few straggling cheers announced their departure.

In the afternoon of the 20th of April a second council relating to the war in the Crimea was held, at which the Queen was present. With her large interest in public affairs, her growing experience, and her healthy appet.i.te for the work of her life, she enjoyed it exceedingly.

"It was one of the most interesting scenes I was ever present at," she wrote in her journal. "I would not have missed it for the world."

On Sat.u.r.day, the 21st of April, the visitors left, after the Emperor had written a graceful French sentence in the Queen's alb.u.m, and an admonitory verse in German, which had originally been written for himself, in the Prince of Wales's autograph book. The Queen accompanied her visitors to the door, and parted from them with kindly regret. As they drove off she "ran up" to see the last of the travellers from the saloon they had just quitted. "The Emperor and Empress saw us at the window," she wrote, "turned round, got up, and bowed.... We watched them, with the glittering escort, till they could be seen no more...." The Prince escorted the Emperor and Empress to Dover. The Queen wrote in a short memorandum her view of the Emperor's character, and what she expected from the visit in a political light.

Through the good sense of the paper one can see how the confiding friendly nature had survived the rough check given to it by Louis Philippe's manoeuvres and dissimulation.

On the 1st of May the Academy opened with Millais's "Rescue of children from a burning house," and with a remarkable picture by a young painter who has long since vindicated the reception it met with.

It was Mr. F. Leighton's "Procession conveying Cimabue's Madonna through the streets of Florence."

On the 18th of May her Majesty distributed medals to some of the heroes of the war still raging. The scene was both picturesque and pathetic, since many of the recipients of the honour were barely recovered from their wounds. The presentation took place in the centre of the parade of the Horse Guards, where a dais was erected for the ceremony, while galleries had been fitted up in the neighbouring public offices for the accommodation of members of the royal family and n.o.bility. Barriers shut off the actors in the scene, and a great gathering of officers, from the crowd which filled every inch of open s.p.a.ce and flowed over into St. James's Park.

The Queen, the Prince, with many of the royal family, the Court, the Commander-in-Chief, the Secretary for War, and "a host of generals and admirals," arrived about eleven o'clock. The soldiers who kept the ground formed four deep, making three sides of a square, and the men to be decorated pa.s.sed up the open s.p.a.ce, until "the Queen stood face to face with a ma.s.s of men who had suffered and bled in her cause."

The Deputy-Adjutant-General read over the list of names, and each person, answering to the call, presented to an officer a card on which was inscribed his name, rank, wounds, and battles. As the soldiers pa.s.sed in single file before the Queen, Lord Panmure handed to her Majesty the medal, which she gave in turn to the medal-holder. He saluted and pa.s.sed to the rear, where friends and strangers gathered round him to inspect his trophy.

The first to receive the medal were the Queen's cousin and contemporary, the Duke of Cambridge, Lords Lucan, Cardigan, Major- General Scarlett, Sir John Burgoyne, Sir De Lacy Evans, and Major- General Torrens. It is needless to say how keenly the public were moved by the sight of their brave defenders, several of them scarred and mutilated, many tottering from weakness, some wearing on their sleeves bands of c.r.a.pe, tokens of mourning for kinsmen lying in Russian earth.

To every wounded man, officer or private, her Majesty spoke, some of those addressed blus.h.i.+ng like girls under their bronze, and the tears coming into their eyes. The idea of personally presenting the medals to the soldiers was the Queen's own, and she must have been amply rewarded by the gratification she bestowed.

Three officers unable to walk were wheeled past her Majesty in bath- chairs. Among them was young Sir Thomas Troubridge, both of whose feet had been carried off by a round shot, while he had continued commanding his battery till the battle was over, refusing to be taken away, only desiring his shattered limbs to be raised in order to check the loss of blood. The Queen leant over Sir Thomas's chair and handed him his medal, while she announced to him his appointment as one of her aides-de-camp. He replied, "I am amply repaid for everything."

CHAPTER XXVII.

DEATH OP LORD RAGLAN--VISIT OF THE QUEEN AND PRINCE ALBERT TO THE EMPEROR AND EMPRESS OF THE FRENCH--FALL OF SEBASTOPOL.

A Sardinian contingent had now, by a stroke of policy on the part of Count Cavour, the Sardinian Minister, joined the English and French in arms in the Crimea; but an unsuccessful attack, made with heavy loss by the combined forces of the English and French on Sebastopol, filled the country with disappointment and sorrow. The attack was made on the 18th of June, a day which, as the anniversary of Waterloo, had been hitherto a.s.sociated with victory and triumph.

Lord Raglan had never approved of the a.s.sault, but he yielded to the urgent representations of General Pelissier. The defeat was the last blow to the old English soldier, worn by fatigue and chagrin. He was seized with illness ending in cholera, and died in his quarters on the 29th of June, eleven days after the repulse. He was in his sixty- seventh year. The Queen wrote to Lady Raglan the day after the tidings of the death reached England.

During the summer the Queen received visits from King Leopold and his younger children, and from her Portuguese cousins. During the stay of the former in England scarlet fever broke out in the royal nurseries.

Princess Louise, Prince Arthur, Prince Leopold, and finally Princess Alice, were attacked; but the disease was not virulent, and the remaining members of the family escaped the infection.

In the early morning of the 16th of August, the Russians marched upon the French lines, and were completely routed in the battle of the Tchernaya, which revived the allies' hopes of a speedy termination of the war.

In the meantime, the Queen and Prince Albert, accompanied by the Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal, paid a visit to the Emperor and Empress of the French, near Paris. The palace of St. Cloud was set apart for the use of the Queen and the Prince.

Her Majesty landed at Boulogne during the forenoon of the 18th of August. She was received by the Emperor, who met her on the gangway, first kissed her hand, and then kissed her on both cheeks. He led her on sh.o.r.e, and rode by the side of her carriage to the railway station.

Paris, where no English sovereign had been since the baby Henry VI.

was crowned King of France, was not reached till evening. The city had been _en fete_ all day with banners, floral arches, and at last an illumination. Amidst the clatter of soldiers, the music of bra.s.s bands playing "G.o.d save the Queen," and endless cheering, her Majesty drove through the gathering darkness by the Bois de Boulogne to St.

Cloud. To the roar of cannon, the beating of drums, and the echoing of _vivats_, she was greeted and ushered up the grand staircase by the Empress and the Princess Mathilde. Everybody was "most civil and kind," and in the middle of the magnificence all was "very quiet and royal."

The next day was Sunday, and after breakfast there was a drive with the Emperor through the beautiful park, where host and guests were very cheerful over good news from Sebastopol. The English Church service was read by a chaplain from the Emba.s.sy in one of the palace rooms. In the afternoon the Emperor and the Empress drove with their guests to the Bois de Boulogne, and to Neuilly--so closely a.s.sociated with the Orleans family--lying in ruins. General Canrobert, just returned from the Crimea, was an addition to the dinner party.

On Monday the weather continued lovely. The Emperor fetched his guests to breakfast, which, like luncheon, was eaten at small round tables, as in her Majesty's residences in England. She remarked on the cookery that it was "very plain and very good." After breakfast the party started in barouches for Paris, visiting the Exposition des Beaux Arts and the Palais d'Industrie, pa.s.sing through densely crowded streets, amidst enthusiastic shouts of "Vive l'Empereur!" "Vive la Reine d'Angleterre!" At the Elysee the _corps diplomatique_ were presented to the Queen. In the meantime, the Emperor himself drove the boy Prince of Wales in a curricle through Paris. Afterwards the Queen and Prince Albert, in the company of the Emperor, visited the beautiful Sainte Chapelle and the Palais de Justice. On the way the Emperor pointed out the _conciergerie_ as the place where he had been imprisoned.

Notre Dame, where the Archbishop of Paris and his clergy met the visitors, and the Hotel de Ville, followed in the regular order of sightseeing.