We were grieved to hear Papa had been so ill.
Footnote 11: Son of Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, and brother of the King of Portugal, afterwards a candidate for the hand of Queen Isabella of Spain. See post, p. [487].
Footnote 12: Prince Augustus, afterwards married to the Princess Clémentine, daughter of King Louis Philippe.
The King of the Belgians to Queen Victoria.
THE KING OF PRUSSIA
Laeken, 4th February 1842.
My dear Victoria,—Thousand thanks for your kind letter of the 1st, which I received yesterday.
The King of Prussia is a very delightful person;13 he is so clever and amiable, and, owing to his good-nature, not by any means fatiguing. I fear you had cold weather yesterday for the opening of Parliament. To-day we have here a tremendous fog; Heaven grant that it may not be so heavy on the Thames! else the King's journey will be rendered difficult.
We expect him to-morrow about eleven o'clock; he wishes to be at Antwerp at five, which would indicate his departure from hence at three o'clock. There can be no doubt that nothing could be better than to link this country as much as possible to Germany. The public feeling was and is still favourable to this, but in Germany some years ago they were childishly ultra, and kicked us off most unnecessarily, which renders everything of the sort now much less easy. In a political point of view the King's journey will prove useful, as it takes him still more out of the clutches of Russia and gives him more correct views of what is going on in the West of Europe.
I wish the King may also talk to his helter-skelter cousin in Holland; if the man goes on in his wild intrigues, though he will get most probably nothing by it himself, he may do a great deal of harm, and may force us to incline more towards France for fear of his intrigues with France.