CHAPTER XLVI.

THE revival of trade, and the general prosperity of the country, greatly stimulated by the continued influx of gold from the recently discovered gold-fields of Australia, made themselves felt in London in a season of unusual animation

and gaiety. The accounts which reached King Leopold seem to have made him fear, that this might involve a mischievous increase to the fatigue,—already sufficiently great, as he well knew,-which this busy time always brought to the Queen and Prince. Her Majesty, writing to him on the 1st of June, thus calms his apprehensions by explaining to what a very limited extent the Court took part in what are called the gaieties of the London season.

Allow me just to say one word about the London season. The London season consists for us of two State Balls and two Concerts. We are hardly ever later than twelve o'clock at night, and our only dissipation is going three or four times a week to the play or opera, which is a great amusement and délassement to us both. As for going out, as people do here every night, to balls and parties, and to breakfasts and teas all day long besides, I am sure no one would stand it worse than I should.

'So you see, dearest Uncle, that in fact the London season is nothing to us. The person who really is terribly fagged during the season with business and seeing people so constantly is Albert. This often makes me anxious and unhappy.'

1852

PROROGATION OF PARLIAMENT.

451

This year the season was brought sooner than usual to a close by the early prorogation of Parliament. By the end of June the Government had carried through all the measures of importance which they had proposed. The Militia Act was passed, New Zealand had received a Constitution, various important measures of legal and sanitary reform had been sanctioned. The Ministry, in appealing to the country were able to show that, although new to the work of administration, they had been neither remiss nor unskilful, so far as they had hitherto gone. On the 29th of June the Queen was able to announce to her uncle the approaching Dissolution of Parliament. It was by this time tolerably clear, and this is implied in Her Majesty's words, that men, not measures, would be the issue at the hustings. Our Parliament is to be prorogued on Tuesday and dissolved the same day by Proclamation. Lord Derby himself told us, that he considered Protection as quite gone. It is a pity they did not find this out a little sooner; it would have saved so much annoyance, so much difficulty.'

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On the 1st of July Parliament was prorogued by the Queen in person. I have been (as usual) much fagged,' the Queen writes to her uncle two days afterwards, these last few days, and shall be glad to find myself quietly established at our dear Osborne.' In the same letter Her Majesty speaks with much emotion of a loss to the family circle in the death, of which she had just heard, of Count Mensdorff, the Queen's and Prince's uncle by marriage.' 'I loved him dearly, and who that knew him did not?-and so did Albert, who knew him from his earliest years, and formerly saw much of him.'

1 Count Mensdorff-Pouilly married Sophia, the eldest sister of the Prince Consort's father and of the Duchess of Kent. He emigrated from France at the time of the first Revolution, and attained high rank and distinction in the Austrian service. His sons were the intimate companions of the Prince's youth. GG 2

452

COUNT MENSDORFF-POUILLY.

1852

In a letter the same day from the Prince to the Dowager Duchess of Saxe-Coburg, he pays a striking tribute to this admirable man :—

'I intended to answer your dear letter of the 5th, and now, alas! on the contrary, must write you a letter of mourning and condolence. You, too, will shed many a tear for our dear uncle, for I know how much you loved and honoured him, -as how could you do otherwise? I cannot get his poor sons out of my mind, and how desolate and lonely they must be feeling. Here and there the phenomenon of a man of noble chivalrous spirit, like uncle Mensdorff, reconciles one to the world, which is so full of what is base, foul, and corrupt; and indeed without such men as he it would be unendurable.

'We go to the country to-day, where we hope to find summer at last. Parliament was prorogued and dissolved two days ago. The day before we had an interesting ceremony, the baptism of the Princess Gouromma, the elevenyear-old daughter of the Rajah of Coorg, an amiable intelligent Indian girl. Victoria was godmother, and will look after her education.2 The father returns to India.

'The new elections begin forthwith, during which we shall remain quietly at Osborne. After my birthday we shall change to Scotland, where Balmoral, which we have hitherto only had on lease, is now our own property. Feodore [the Queen's sister] will come with her children to Mama [the Duchess of Kent], and stay with her at Abergeldie.'

A few days afterwards the Prince writes again to his step

mother:

The lime-blossoms and oranges remind me terribly of

2 This young Princess married a Scotch gentleman, a cadet of the family of the Campbells of Kinloch, and died young.

1852

RESULTS OF ELECTIONS.

453

Gotha, where we commonly were in Friedrichsthal about the time of poor good grandmama's birthday.3 Now how far behind us does all that lovely time already lie! And how many dear ones have departed from us!

Our little ones prosper. We took four of them to sea

last week on a little cruise to the south-west coast. Feodore comes here to-day with Ada and her son Charles, in company with Mama. I am delighted at the thought of seeing them again. But she, too, has sustained a bitter loss since her last visit to us; and I fear there will be much to remind her of Elise !'

Meanwhile it had become apparent that the result of the elections would leave the balance of parties very much as before, with no decisive working majority on either side. Many of the most useful men, however, both Liberal and Conservative, had lost their seats. The Peelite party had most reason to complain, Mr. Cardwell, Lord Mahon, and Sir George Clark, being among the most conspicuous of their number who were for a time excluded from Parliament, while the Liberal side had to regret in Sir George Grey one of the ablest and most useful of their leaders. In England and Scotland the elections passed off quietly. But in Ireland they led in many places to scenes of violence and outrage, due in a great measure to the fierce religious animosity infused into them by the active intervention of the Roman

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I can,' the Prince writes from Osborne to the same correspondent on the 16th July, 1855, smell in spirit the perfume of the orange and lime blossoms, which must now be around you in sweet Friedrichsthal. . . . The nose is the organ which is capable of the strongest and most enduring recollections (so at least the psychologists teach), and I have four little orange-trees upon the terrace, and a pair of lime-trees in the park, which have not yet however taken it into their heads to blossom, that are intended to assist my nose in its mnemonic activity.'

In the death of Elise, her eldest daughter, a highly-gifted girl, who died at Venice in 1851 of consumption, in her twenty-first year.

454

ELECTION RIOTS IN IRELAND.

1852

more.

Catholic Clergy. At Cork, at Limerick, and Belfast, the military were called out to protect the voters and disperse the mob, and at Six Mile Bridge, in the County Clare, a troop, who were escorting the tenants of the Marquis of Conyngham to the polling booth, fired without orders, but not before they had themselves been nearly all severely injured, killing six of their assailants and wounding many The reports of the conduct of the priests, forwarded to the Government, spoke of them as not only preaching outrage and sedition from the altars, but as heading armed bands, stopping up the roads, helping to drag people from their beds, and in some instances knocking them down with bludgeons. So far was this carried, that the Lord Lieutenant (the Earl of Eglinton) felt it his duty to suggest, that one of the first steps of the Government in the new Parliament should be the appointment of Committees in both Houses to investigate the conduct of the priests, and the systematic intimidation practised by them.

In answer to a letter from the Prince in which he reported the results of the elections, Baron Stockmar writes (5th August):

That I cannot gather from the papers the full scope and effect of the recent elections, is only natural. Some people, indeed, may think they know what they are driving at (wohin sie sich halten), and how they mean to vote, but the mêlée of the political struggle will enforce many modifications of their plans. If just now, when constitutional government is at a discount, English parties shall show stupidity or a bad spirit in dealing with real and universal English interests, I should be apprehensive an example of this sort would act injuriously upon the course of general European policy.

Would your Royal Highness let me know what you think