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 associated with victory and triumph.
Lord Raglan had never approved of the assault, 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 shore, 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 fête all day with banners, floral arches, and at last an illumination. Amidst the clatter of soldiers, the music of brass bands playing "God 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 Embassy 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 associated 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, passing through densely crowded streets, amidst enthusiastic shouts of "Vive l'Empereur!" "Vive la Reine d'Angleterre!" At the Elysée 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.
Nôtre Dame, where the Archbishop of Paris and his clergy met the visitors, and the Hôtel de Ville, followed in the regular order of sightseeing.
The Queen dwells not only on the kindness but on the quietness of the
Emperor as a particular "comfort" on such an occasion.
Les Demoiselles de St. Cyr was acted in the evening. In the Salle de Mars all the company passed before the Queen, the Empress presenting each in turn. The Emperor and Empress, preceded by their gentlemen, always took the Queen and the Prince to their rooms.
On, Tuesday Versailles was the visitors' destination. They went in many carriages. Troops and national guards, and especially gendarmes, were to be seen everywhere. The gardens and the fountains, with throngs of company, were much admired.
The Queen visited the two Trianons. At the larger the Emperor showed her the room and bed provided for her, in the expectation of her visiting Paris, by "poor Louis Philippe;" Madame Maintenon's sedan- chair, by which Louis XIV. was wont to walk; and the little chapel in which "poor Marie (Louis Philippe's daughter) was married to Alexander of Wurtemberg in 1838," two years before the Queen's marriage.
At Little Trianon the Empress (who had a passion for every relic of Marie Antoinette) joined the party, and luncheon was eaten in one of the cottages where princes and nobles were wont to play at being peasants.
In the evening the Emperor, with his guests, paid a State visit to the opera-house in the Rue Lepelletier. Part of the performance was a representation of Windsor Castle, with the Emperor's reception there, when "God save the Queen" was splendidly sung, and received with acclamation. The Emperor's happy animation, in contrast to his usual impassiveness, was remarked by the audience.
Wednesday's visit, in the continuously fine August weather, was to the French Exhibition, which the Queen and the Prince were so well calculated to appreciate. They rejoiced in the excellent manner in which England was represented, particularly in pottery. The specially French productions of Sèvres, Goblins, and Beauvais were carefully studied. The Queen also examined the French Crown jewels, the crown bearing the renowned Regent diamond, which, though less large than the Koh-i-noor, is more brilliant. The Emperor presented the Prince with a magnificent Sèvres vase, a souvenir of the Exhibition of 1851. The Tuileries was visited, and luncheon taken there in rooms containing pictures and busts or Napoleon I., Josephine, &c., &c. The Queen received the Prefect and consented to attend the ball to be given in her honour.
After a visit to the British Embassy, the Queen and the Prince, with the Princess Royal and one of the ladies of the suite, took a drive incognito through Paris, which they enjoyed exceedingly. They went in an ordinary remise, the three ladies wearing common bonnets and mantillas, and her Majesty having a black veil over her face.
On Thursday morning the Queen rested, walking about the gardens with her young daughter, and sketching the Zouaves at the gate. The afternoon was spent at the Louvre, where the Queen mentions the heat as "tropical."
After dinner at the Tuileries, the party stood laughing together at an old-fashioned imperial cafetière which would not let down the coffee, listening to the music, the carriages, and the people in the distance, and talking of past times; as how could people fail to talk at the Tuileries! The Emperor spoke of having known Madame Campan (to whose school his mother was sent for a time), and repeated some of the old court dresser's anecdotes of Marie Antoinette and the Great Revolution.
In her Majesty's full dress for the ball given to her by the City of
Paris, she wore a diadem in which the Koh-i-noor was set. Through the
illuminated, crammed streets, the Queen proceeded to the Hotel de
Ville, and entered among flags, flowers, and statues, "like the
Arabian Nights," the Emperor said.
The royal visitors occupied chairs on a dais. One quadrille and one valse were danced, the Emperor being the Queen's partner, while Prince Albert danced with Princess Mathilde (the Empress was in delicate health); Prince Napoleon and Madame Haussman (the wife of the Prefect of the Seine), and Prince Adalbert of Bavaria and Lady Cowley (wife of the English ambassador) completing the set.
Several Arabs in long white burnouses were among the guests, and kissed the hands of the Queen and the Emperor. Her Majesty made the tour of the stately suite of rooms, lingering in the one in which "Robespierre was wounded, Louis Philippe proclaimed, and from the windows of which Lamartine spoke for so many hours in 1848."
On Friday there was a second visit to the Exhibition, and in the afternoon a grand review of troops in the Champ de Mars, which the Queen admired much, regretting that she had not been on horseback, though the day was not fine. From the Champ de Mars the visitors drove to the Hôtel des Invalides, and there occurred the most striking scene in the memorable visit, of which the passages from the Queen's journal in the "Life of the Prince Consort," give so many graphic, interesting details. Passing between rows of French veterans, the Queen and the Prince went to look by torchlight at the great tomb, in which, however, all that was mortal of Napoleon I. had not yet been laid. The coffin still rested in a side chapel, to which her Majesty was taken by the Emperor. The coffin was covered with black velvet and gold, and the orders, hat, and sword of "le Petit Caporal" were placed at the foot. The Queen descended for a few minutes into the vault, the air of which struck cold on the living within its walls.
The Emperor took his guests in the evening to the Opéra Comique. It was not a State visit, but "God save the Queen" was sung, and her Majesty had to show herself in front of the Emperor's private box. On Saturday the royal party went to the forest of St. Germain's, and a halt was made at the hunting-lodge of La Muette. The Grand Veneur and his officials in their hunting-dress of dark-green velvet, red waistcoats, high boots, and cocked hats, received the company. The dogs were exhibited, and a fanfare sounded on the huntsmen's horns.
The strangers repaired to the old palace of St. Germain's, where her Majesty saw the suite of rooms which had served as a home for her unhappy kinsman, James II. It is said she went also to his tomb, and stood by it in thoughtful silence for a few minutes. On the return drive to St. Cloud detours were made to Malmaison, where the Emperor remembered to have seen his grandmother, the Empress Josephine, and to the fortress of St. Valérien.
The same night there was a State ball at Versailles. At the top of the grand staircase stood the Empress—"like a fairy queen or nymph," her Majesty writes, "in a white dress trimmed with bunches of grass and diamonds, …" wearing her Spanish and Portuguese orders. The enamoured Emperor exclaimed in the hearing of his guests, "Comme tu es belle!" (how beautiful you are!) The long Galerie de Glaces, full of people, was blazing with light, and had wreaths of flowers hanging from the ceiling. From the windows the illuminated trellis was seen reflected in the splashing water of the fountains. The balconies commanded a view of the magnificent fireworks, among which Windsor Castle was represented in lines of light.
The Queen danced two quadrilles, with the Emperor and Prince Napoleon,
Prince Albert dancing with Princess Mathilde and the Princess of
Augustenburg. Among the guests presented to her Majesty was Count
Bismarck, Prussian Minister at Frankfort.
The Queen waltzed with the Emperor, and then repaired to the famous Oeil-de-Boeuf, hung with Beauvais tapestry. After the company had gone to supper, the Queen and the Emperor's procession was formed, and headed by guards, officers, &c. &c, they passed to the theatre, where supper was served. The whole stage was covered in, and four hundred people sat in groups of ten, each presided over by a lady, at forty small tables. Innumerable chandeliers and garlands of flowers made the scene still gayer. The boxes were full of spectators, and an invisible band was playing. The Queen and Prince Albert, with their son and daughter, the Emperor and the Empress, Prince Napoleon, Princess Mathilde, and Prince Adalbert of Bavaria, sat at a small table in the central box. Her Majesty seems to have been much struck with this Versailles ball, which was designed and arranged by the Empress from a plate of the time of Louis XV. It was said there had been no ball at Versailles since the time of Louis XVI. The last must have been the ball in the Orangery, on the night that the Bastille fell.
Sunday was Prince Albert's birthday, which was not forgotten among these brilliant doings. Loving hands laid out the flower-decorated table with its gifts. At luncheon the Emperor presented the Prince with a picture by Meissonier. The Empress gave a pokal, or mounted cup, carved in ivory. During a quiet drive with the Emperor through the park in the morning, the Queen, with her characteristic sincerity, courageously approached a topic which was a burden on her mind, on which Baron Stockmar had long advised her to act as she was prepared to do. She spoke of her intercourse with the Orleans family, on which the French ambassador in London had laid stress as likely to displease the Emperor. She said they were her friends and relations, and that she could not drop them in their adversity, but that politics were never touched upon between her and them. He professed himself perfectly satisfied, and sought in his turn to explain his conduct in the confiscation and forced sale of the Orleans property.
The English Church service was read in a room at St. Cloud as before. In the afternoon the Emperor took his guests to the memorial Chapelle de St. Ferdinand, erected on the spot where the late Duc d'Orleans was killed.
On Monday, the 27th of August, the Queen wrote in her diary her deep gratitude for "these eight happy days, for the delight of seeing such beautiful and interesting places and objects," and for the reception she had met with in Paris and France. The Emperor arrived to say the Empress was ready, but could not bring herself to face the parting, and that if the Queen would go to her room it would make her come. "When we went in," writes her Majesty, "the Emperor called her: 'Eugénie, here is the Queen,' and she came," adds her Majesty, "and gave me a beautiful fan, and a rose and heliotrope from the garden, and Vicky a beautiful bracelet, set with rubies and diamonds, containing her hair…."
The morning was beautiful as the travellers, accompanied by the Emperor and Empress, drove for the last time through the town of St. Cloud, with its Zouaves and wounded soldiers from the Crimea, under the Arc de Triomphe, where the ashes of the great Napoleon had passed, to Paris and the Tuileries. There was talk of future meetings at Windsor and Fontainbleau. (And now of the places which the Queen admired so much, St. Cloud and the Tuileries are in ruins like Neuilly, while the Hôtel de Ville has perished by the hands of its own children.) Leave was taken of the Empress not without emotion;
At the Strasbourg railway station the Ministers and municipal authorities were in attendance, and the cordiality was equal to the respect shown by all.
Boulogne, to which the Emperor accompanied his guests, was reached between five and six in the afternoon. There was a review of thirty- six thousand infantry, besides cavalry, on the sands. The Queen describes the beautiful effect of the background of calm, blue sea, while "the glorious crimson light" of the setting sun was gilding the thousands of bayonets, lances, &c. It was the spot where Napoleon I. inspected the army with which he was prepared to invade England; while Nelson's fleet, which held him in check, occupied the anchorage where the Queen's squadron lay. Before embarking, her Majesty and Prince Albert drove to the French camps in the neighbourhood.
At last, when it was only an hour from midnight, in splendid moonlight, through a town blazing with fireworks and illuminations, with bands playing, soldiers saluting, and a great crowd cheering as if it was noonday, the Queen and the Prince returned to their yacht, accompanied by the Emperor. As if loth to leave them, he proposed to go with them a little way. The parting moment came, the Queen and the Emperor embraced, and he shook hands warmly with the Prince, the Prince of Wales, and the Princess Royal. Again at the side of the vessel, her Majesty pressed her late host's hand, and embraced him with an, "Adieu, sire." As he saw her looking over the side of the ship and watching his barge, he called out, "Adieu, Madame, au revoir," to which the Queen answered, "Je l'espère bien."
On the 6th of September the Court went to Scotland, staying a night at Holyrood, as usual in those years. On the Queen's arrival she drove through the old castle of Balmoral, the new house being habitable, though much of the building was still unfinished. An old shoe was thrown after her Majesty, Scotch fashion, for luck, as she entered the northern home, where everything charmed her.
On the 10th of September the Duchess of Kent, who was staying at Abergeldie, dined with the Queen. At half-past ten despatches arrived for her Majesty and Lord Granville, the Cabinet Minister in attendance. The Queen began reading hers, which was from Lord Clarendon, with news of the destruction of Russian ships. Lord Granville said, "I have still better news," on which he read, "'From General Simpson. Sebastopol is in the hands of the allies.'" "God be praised for it," adds the Queen.
Great was the rejoicing. Prince Albert determined to go up Craig Gowan and light the bonfire which had been ready the year before, had been blown down on the day of the battle of Inkermann, and was at last only waiting to be lit. All the gentlemen, in every species of attire, all the servants, and gradually the whole population of the little village, keepers and gillies, were aroused and started, in the autumn night, for the summit of the hill. The happy Queen watched from below the blazing light above. Numerous figures surrounded it, "some dancing, all shouting; Ross (the Queen's piper) playing his pipes (surely the most exultant of pibrochs), and Grant and Macdonald firing off guns continually," the late Sir E. Gordon's old Alsatian servant striving to add his French contribution to the festivities by lighting squibs, half of which would not go off. When Prince Albert returned he described the health-drinking in whiskey as wild and exciting.