232

LETTER BY LADY LYTTELTON.

1849

close packed, with people. And the thought, that all were feeling alike, both for the Queen and the poor little fair-headed child they cheered, was overpowering. He and his sister behaved very well, civilly and nicely. But they could not of course feel all that I felt. The Prince was perfect in taste and manner, putting the Prince of Wales forward, without affectation, and very dignified and kind himself.

'The most striking time to me was, after landing, the procession, along a long covered gallery, which held many thousand people, each side of the Prince and children. The cheers close to us, and the countenances, every one looking so affectionately, quite like parents, on the two little creatures, stretching over one another to see and smile at them, I shall never forget. The Rotunda is handsome, and was filled all over with people in full dress, like the Opera House, and they made a thundering applause, clapping hands, as soon as the Royal party came in... What a striking curious thing is that loyalty! And how deep and strong in England!'s speech was most pompous, and he is ridiculous in voice and manner. And his immense size, and cloak, and wig, and great voice, addressing the Prince of Wales about his being the "pledge and promise of a long race of kings," looked quite absurd. Poor Princey did not seem at all to guess what he

meant. . .

The Queen was wretched at being prevented from going to see the children received on their first state occasion. Everybody in full dress; liveries like the State Drawing-Rooms; and all sorts of old feudal City customs, the swans (live ones) in their barge, with their keeper, the Lord Mayor's barge, quite dazzling, just ahead of ours, and he and all the functionaries in new robes of scarlet cloth or crimson velvet. And such floods of sunshine all the time, and an incessant thundering of "God Save the Queen!" by a succession of bands; and the bells, and the Tower guns!enough to drive one mad.'

The strange contrasts of human life, its mingled gaiety and sadness, its alternate brilliancy and gloom, are nowhere more sharply felt than in a Royal home like that of England. Hier wird's gefreit, und anderswo begraben-'

6

1849

ILLNESS OF QUEEN ADELAIDE.

233

'Tis here a bridal, there a burial,' says a Mountaineer in Schiller's Wilhelm Tell. So is it with all who have homes, and friends and kinsfolk to love and be loved by. But where the number of persons in whom an interest is felt is so large, where the public cares and duties are so wide and various, as they are in the Palace, the chances and changes of life, its pleasures and its sorrows, crowd one upon another with unusual rapidity and force. In the midst of the splendours of the scene just described, the Prince's heart was heavy with the thought, that one who was very dear to the Queen and to himself was drawing slowly on in pain the last days of an honoured life. For some time the Dowager Queen Adelaide had been very ill, and, in a few days, he was, along with the Queen, to make his last visit to her. I shall never forget,' says the Queen, writing (27th November) to King Leopold, 'the visit we paid to the Priory [Stanmore] last Thursday. There was death written in that dear face. It was such a picture of misery, of complete anéantissement, -and yet she talked of everything. I could hardly command my feelings when I came in, and when I kissed twice that poor, dear thin hand. . . . I love her so dearly. She has ever been so maternal in her affection to me. She will find peace and a reward for her many sufferings.'

These were brought to a close on the 2nd of December. The Special Gazette,' which announced her death, bore testimony to the many eminent virtues' which rendered her the object of universal esteem and affection.' But of more value is such a tribute as that paid to her in the following letter by the Queen to her uncle at Brussels:

'Osborne, 4th December, 1849.

'I know how truly you will grieve with us for the loss of our dearly beloved Queen Adelaide, though for her we must

234

DEATH OF QUEEN ADELAIDE.

1849

not repine. Though we daily expected this sad event, yet it came as suddenly, when it did come, as if she had never been ill, and I can hardly realise the truth now. You know how very kind she was at all times to me, and how admirably she behaved from the time the King died. She was truly motherly in her kindness to us and to our children, and it always made her happy to be with us, and to see us! She is a great loss to us both, and an irreparable one to hundreds and hundreds. She is universally regretted, and the feeling shown is very gratifying. Her last moments were, thank God, very peaceful, and it was hardly an hour before she died that they perceived the approaching end. She spoke half an hour before, and knew those around her.

...

'Poor Mama is very much cut up by this sad event, and to her the Queen is a very great and serious loss.

6 The dear Queen has left the most affecting directions (written eight years ago) for her funeral, which she wishes should be as private as possible. She wishes her coffin to be carried by sailors,-a most touching tribute to her husband's memory, and to the Navy, to which she was so much attached!'

A few days brought to the Queen a letter from her sister, the Princess Hohenlohe, then at Baden-a letter which was the echo of her own sentiments of gratitude and affection towards Queen Adelaide. 'What you say,' it bore, is most true: she has left behind her love, respect, and gratitude, and she was ever ready to go to her place of eternal rest, where she will find that happiness which she never knew here.... Let us think of her bliss after this life of suffering, which she spent in doing good to thousands, who will bless her memory. . . Let her life be an example to us!'

Such and so dear was this good Queen to those who knew

1849

HER CHARACTER.

235

her best. 'There was a daily beauty in her life,' which impressed all who had eyes to see, and hearts to feel. Yet even this nature, so devoted, so pure, so void of blame, which was a living rebuke to the frivolity or worse of those who hatch and propagate the impure gossip, which is always more or less current in certain circles of so-called 'society,' was not spared by its prurient malice, while she lived, and has not escaped the more cowardly shafts of posthumous slander.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

In the aspect of Europe at the close of 1849, there was little to cheer the political observer. The storm of revolution had been quelled, but it had left many wrecks behind it, many burning animosities, many baffled aspirations, in which the elements of brooding disquiet and ultimate conflict were plainly visible. Of the momentous problems, social and political, which it had brought to the front, none had in truth been solved. The cause of order had, no doubt, triumphed. In England and Belgium, this triumph was due to the perfect accord between the people and the Government. But of which of the other great kingdoms of Europe could this be said? If they were tranquil, the tranquillity was that of exhaustion, or of a despair, that felt itself powerless before the overwhelming material forces of Governments, who now showed little disposition to use with moderation the power which they had reconquered with so much difficulty.

France, the first to fall into disorder, had been the first to set about the work of reorganisation. She had shown, by the election of Louis Napoleon as President, the determination to put an end to the social despotism of the men who had made her the sport of their insane theories. Twice had the revolutionary leaders in Paris,--on the 29th of January, and again on the 13th of June, 1849-endeavoured, by a rising of the mob, to recover the influence they had lost; but the firmness of the President, seconded by the prompt and de