"My heart bleeds to think of it," wrote the Prince, of the army administration. He corresponded with Florence Nightingale, and encouraged her in her brave and saintly mission. When the sick and wounded began to arrive, in England both he and the Queen were faithful in visiting them in the hospitals, and Her Majesty had a peculiar sad joy in rewarding the bravest of the brave with the gift of the Crimean medal. In a private letter she gives a description of the touching scene. She says:
"From the highest Prince of the blood to the lowest private, all received the same distinction for the bravest conduct in the severest actions…. Noble fellows! I own I feel for them as though they were my own children…. They were so touched, so pleased! Many, I hear, cried, and they won't hear of giving up their medals to have their names engraved upon them for fear that they may not receive the identical ones put into their hands by me. Several came by in a sadly mutilated state."
One of these heroes, young Sir Thomas Trowbridge, who had had one leg and the foot of the other carried away by a round shot at Inkermann, was dragged in a Bath-chair to the Queen, who, when she gave him his medal, offered to make him one of her Aides-de-Camp, to which the gallant and loyal soldier replied, "I am amply repaid for everything." Poor fellow! I wonder if he continued to say that all his mutilated life?
Whenever during this war there was a hitch, or halt, in the victorious march of English arms, any disaster or disgrace in the Crimea, the attacks upon the Prince-Consort were renewed,—there were even threats of impeachment;—but when the "cruel war was over," the calumnies were over also. They were always as absurd as unfounded. Aside from his manly sense of honor the Prince had by that time, at least, ten good reasons for being loyal to England—an English wife and nine English children.
CHAPTER XXIV.
The Emperor and Empress of France visit Windsor—They are entertained by the City of London—Scene at the Opera—The Queen returns the Emperor's call—Splendor of the Imperial Hospitality.
The Queen's kind heart was really pained by the sudden death of the Czar, her sometime friend and "brother"—whose visit to Windsor was brought by the startling event vividly to her mind—yet she turned from his august shade to welcome one of his living conquerors, the Emperor Napoleon, who, with his beautiful wife, came this spring to visit her and the Prince. She had had prepared for the visitors the most splendid suite of apartments—among them the very bedroom once occupied by the Emperor Nicholas. It was the best "spare room" of the Castle, and the one generally allotted to first-class monarchs—Louis Philippe had occupied it. What stuff for ghosts for the bedside of Louis Napoleon did he and the Czar supply! A few days before the Emperor and Empress arrived, the Queen had a visit from the poor ex-Queen, Marie Amélie. There is a touching entry in Her Majesty's diary, regarding this visit. By the way, I would state that whenever I quote from Her Majesty's diary, it is through the medium of Sir Theodore Martin's book, and by his kind permission.
The Queen wrote: "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."
There is something exquisitely tender and pitiful in this. Most people, royal or republican, would "consider it not so deeply." The world has grown so familiar with the see-saw of French royalty, that a fall or a flight, exile or abdication moves it but little. In the old guillotine times, there were sensations.
England's great ally, and his lovely wife, Eugénie,—every inch an Empress,—were received with tremendous enthusiasm. Their passage through London was one long ovation. The Times of that date gives allowing account of the crowds and the excitement. It states also, that as they were passing King Street, the Emperor "was observed to draw the attention of the Empress to the house which he had occupied in former days,"— respectable lodgings, doubtless, but how different from the Tuileries!