Queen Victoria to the King of the Belgians.
ARREST OF O'CONNELL
Windsor Castle, 17th October 1843.
My dearest Uncle,—Your kind letter of the 13th I received yesterday, and return you my warmest thanks for it....
By your letter, and by one I received from Victoire yesterday morning, I see every reason to hope that we shall see the dear Nemours, for there will be no difficulty to prevent that poor stupid Duc de Bordeaux from being in London at the time. He is to be informed indirectly that the Nemours are coming at the beginning of next month on a visit to us, in consequence of a pressing invitation of ours; this alone will keep him off, as the contrast would be disagreeable to the Legitimists. Independent of this, his disembarkation at Hull, and proceeding at once to Scotland, seems to indicate his wish to be in private.
The great event of the day is O'Connell's arrest;73 they have found bail, but the trial will shortly commence. The case against him is very strong, the lawyers say.
Everything is perfectly quiet at Dublin. You will have seen how O'Connell has abused the King; it is all because our visit to Eu has put an end to any hopes of assistance from France, which he pretended there would be, and he now declares for the Duc de Bordeaux!...
You must encourage the dear King and Queen to send over some of the dear family often to us; ils seront reçus a bras ouverts....
We intend to take advantage of Feodore and Ernest's going to the Queen Dowager's to pay a visit to Cambridge, where we have never been; we mean to set off to-morrow week, to sleep at Trinity Lodge that night, and the two following nights at Lord Hardwicke's,74 which is close to Cambridge. These journeys are very popular, and please and interest Albert very much.... Believe me, always, my dearest Uncle, your very affectionate Niece,
Victoria R.