That singer was Jenny Lind.
About this time lovers of impassioned oratory felt the joy which the astronomer knows "when a new comet swims into his ken" in the appearance of a brilliant political orator, of masterly talent and more masterly will. This still young man of Hebraic origin, rather dashing and flashing in manner and dress, had not been thought to have any very serious purpose in life, and does not seem to have much impressed the Queen or Prince Albert at first; but the time came when he, as a Minister and friend, occupied a place in Her Majesty's respect and regard scarcely second to the one once occupied by Lord Melbourne. This orator was Benjamin Disraeli.
CHAPTER XX.
A Troublous Time—Louis Philippe an Exile—The Purchase of Balmoral—A
Letter of Prince Albert's—Another attempt on the Queen's Life—The
Queen's instructions to the Governess of her Daughters—A visit to
Ireland—Death of Dowager Queen Adelaide.
At last came 1848—a year packed with political convulsions and overthrows. The spirit of revolution was rampant, bowling away at all the thrones of Europe. England heard the storm thundering nearly all round the horizon, for in the sister isle the intermittent rebellion broke out, chiefly among the "Young Ireland" party, led by Mitchel, Meagher and O'Brien. This plucky little uprising was soon put down. The leaders were brave, eloquent, ardent young men, but their followers were not disposed to fight long and well—perhaps their stomachs were too empty. The Chartists stirred again, and renewed their not unreasonable or treasonable demands; but all in vain. There is really something awful about the strength and solidity and impassivity of England. When the French monarchy went down in the earthquake shock of that wild winter, and a republic came up in its place, it surely would have been no wonder if a vast tidal-wave of revolution caused by so much subsidence and upheaving had broken disastrously on the English shores. But it did not. The old sea-wall of loyalty and constitutional liberty was too strong. There were only floated up a few waifs, and among them a "forlorn and shipwrecked brother," calling himself "John Smith," and a poor, gray- haired, heart-broken woman, "Mrs. Smith," for the nonce. When these came to land they were recognized as Louis Philippe and Marie Amélie of France. Afterwards most of their family, who had been scattered by the tempest, came also, and joined them in a long exile. The English asylum of the King and Queen was Claremont, that sanctuary of love and sorrow, which the Queen, though loving it well, had at once given over to her unfortunate old friends, whom she received with the most sympathetic kindness, trying to forget all causes of ill-feeling given her a year or two before by the scheming King and his ambitious sons.
In the midst of the excitement and anxiety of that time, a gentle, loving, world-wearied soul passed out of our little mortal day at Gotha, and a fresh, bright young soul came into it in London. The dear old grandmother of the Prince died, in her palace of Friedrichsthal, and his daughter, Louise Caroline Alberta, now Marchioness of Lorne, was born in Buckingham Palace.
Among those ruined by the convulsions in Germany were the Queen's brother, Prince Leiningen, and her brother-in-law, Prince Hohenlohe. So the thunderbolt had struck near. At one time it threatened to strike still nearer, for that spring the Chartists made their great demonstration, or rather announced one. It was expected that they would assemble at a given point and march, several hundred thousand strong, on Parliament, bearing a monster petition. What such a mighty body of men might do, what excesses they might commit in the capital, nobody could tell. The Queen was packed off to Osborne with baby Louise, to be out of harm's way, and 170,000 men enrolled themselves as special constables. Among these was Louis Napoleon, longing for a fight of some sort in alliance with England. He did net get it till some years after. There was no collision, in fact no large compact procession; the Chartists, mostly very good citizens, quietly dispersed and went home after presenting their petition. The great scare was over, but the special constables were as proud as Wellington's army after Waterloo.
When the Chartist leaders had been tried for sedition and sentenced to terms of imprisonment, and the Irish leaders had been transported, things looked so flat in England that the young French Prince turned again to France to try his fortune. It was his third trial. The first two efforts under Louis Philippe to stir up a revolt and topple the citizen king from the throne had ended in imprisonment and ridicule; but now he would not seem to play a Napoleonic game. He would fall in with republican ideas and run for the Presidency, which he did, and won. But as the countryman at the circus, after creating much merriment by his awkward riding in his rural costume, sometimes throws it off and appears as a spangled hero and the very prince of equestrians; so this "nephew of his uncle," suddenly emerging from the disguise of a republican President, blazed forth a full-panoplied warrior-Emperor. But this was not yet.
In September of this year the Queen and Prince first visited a new property they had purchased in the heart of the Highlands. The Prince wrote of it: "We have withdrawn for a short time into a complete mountain solitude, where one rarely sees a human face, where the snow already covers the mountain-tops and the wild deer come creeping stealthily round the house. I, naughty man, have also been creeping stealthily after the harmless stags, and today I shot two red deer." … "The castle is of granite, with numerous small turrets, and is situated on a rising-ground, surrounded by birchwood, and close to the river Dee. The air is glorious and dear, but icy cold."
What a relief it must have been to them to feel themselves out of the reach of runaway royalties, and "surprise parties" of Emperors and Grand Dukes.