But this long digression has carried me far away. I must get back to England and my little flotilla's stay there. My brother Aumale, who had accompanied me on my cruise, went with me to Windsor, where we paid our respects to Queen Victoria. Although in the course of my various voyages I had touched at several English ports, this was the first time I really saw England, hospitable England, and the first impression it made on me was very deep. Though the gray and smoky tint of both sky and water and buildings, and everything I passed as I went up the Thames to London Bridge, looked singularly dreary to my eyes, the immense commercial stir and general activity I saw exceeded anything I had ever expected to behold. And the ineffaceable impression of this greatness and power was quickly succeeded by another, no less profound, and which my long life has only confirmed, that here was a nation which had known how to pass through a revolution without permitting it to encroach on its social discipline, nor allowing democratic jealousies to destroy its traditions and sow discord between the different classes of its population.
I thought Windsor quite superb. The old castle, surrounded by its ancient trees, with its foundations lapped by the waters of the Thames, the national river, and seeming to stretch out its protecting arm over Eton and the picturesque college—whither the flower of the nation comes to receive the healthiest and soundest of educations at the hands of a purely clerical body—is a true symbol of the calm strength and steady permanence of the English Monarchy.
I had met Prince Albert several times already, in Paris; but I had never seen Queen Victoria before. Bright and witty, with an arch and pleasant smile not always quite devoid of mischief, the young sovereign was in all the freshness and brilliance of her youth and the radiance of her happiness. She and her royal husband gave us a welcome of which I preserve the most grateful recollection, and from that day forward I conceived a profoundly respectful affection for her Majesty, which has increased with my advancing years.
Our visit to Windsor was short and devoid of striking incident, beyond the acquaintance I made there with men of eminence in war or state craft, such as the Duke of Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, and Lord Aberdeen. It was at this time that the Queen of Great Britain's journey to the Chateau d'Eu was decided on. I went with my flotilla as far as Cherbourg to meet her.
When she got there, she invited me on board her own vessel, the splendid yacht Osborne, commanded by a son of the late King William IV., Lord Adolphus Fitzclarence, a very good fellow, but a somewhat rubicund specimen of the old-fashioned British sailor, with an eye he had some difficulty in keeping open; which failing earned him the following reply to his chaffing remark, made to a little schoolboy, already somewhat sensitive about his personal dignity. "Oh, WHAT a bad hat you have!"
"And you, what a damned bad eye!"
Lord Aberdeen, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, was also on board the yacht, besides Lord Liverpool, Lord Charles Wellesley, Colonel Wylde, and the ladies-in-waiting—that charming Lady Canning whom we had known in Paris as a child, and who died in India, after having shown great courage during the terrible Sepoy mutiny, and a not less charming Miss Liddell, who afterwards became Lady Bloomfield.
The Queen's entrance into Treport was favoured by splendid weather; the little wet dock, crammed with fishing boats, and the old church, were gilded by the rays of the setting sun, while opposite us, on the rock overlooking the port, rose the great cross before which the fishermen's wives go and pray in stormy weather. We went ashore to the firing of cannon and the rattle of thousands of sabots on the shingle, among a good-humoured crowd of sailors, short-petticoated fishwives, and white-capped Normandy peasant women, all making their comments aloud, while here and there appeared a gendarme's cocked hat, or the broad-brimmed headgear of some country cure. It was a picturesque sight, so gay and noisy, and so thoroughly French, and the young sovereign seemed delighted with its novelty. There was no cavalry escort nor lining of the road from Treport with troops; but the splendid squadrons of the 1st Cuirassiers, in their copper breast-plates, were drawn up in echelon at regular distances apart in the open fields, and saluted with their trumpets as we went by; while at the chateau itself the Guard of Honour was furnished by a battalion of riflemen drawn up in close order, their dark uniform and military air causing Lord Charles Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington's son, and a thoroughbred soldier himself, to exclaim, "Oh, what splendid little fellows!"
My father had put the Queen into a huge open vehicle, with room for twelve people in it, like a boat in shape, drawn by a team of eight horses, harnessed in the French style, with an outrider, coachman, footmen, and grooms all dressed in red. The postilion, who wore great boots as in a Van der Meulen picture, was the only servant in a blue livery. This contrast in colour arose out of a tradition which had been kept up in the royal stables, that the postilion, being supposed to have taken off his jacket for the sake of being cool, must always be dressed in the same colours as the other servants' waistcoats. The Orleans livery being scarlet with a blue waistcoat, the postilions wore blue. The Conde livery being chamois-colour, with amaranth waistcoats, the postilions must wear amaranth, and so on.
The royal waggon with its eight horses was anything but easy to manage on the narrow Norman roads. And one slight accident occurred of which I was the unlucky cause. I was riding beside the carriage door, and I got in the way when it was turning a corner, so that it got locked, and remained so for some minutes. My father stormed, and the Queen went into a fit of laughter; but the poor old coachman, a veteran belonging to the old state stables, cast a look at me that must have been like Vatel's glance before he ran himself through with his sword. I had brought disgrace on him at the most solemn moment in his life!