Now good-bye, dearest Uncle. Ever your devoted Niece,
Victoria R.
Queen Victoria to the King of the Belgians.
Osborne, 19th December 1848.
My dearest, kindest Uncle,—Your dear letter, full of interesting topics, which I received yesterday, gave me great pleasure, and I thank you much for it. The success of Louis Napoleon51 is an extraordinary event, but valuable as a universal condemnation of the Republic since February.
It will, however, perhaps be more difficult to get rid of him again than one at first may imagine. Nemours thinks it better that none of themselves should be called into action for some time to come. I fear that he feels now that they ought to have foreseen the dangers in February, and ought not to have yielded; when I said to him that the Pope had declared that he would never quit Rome, and did so do the very next day, he said: "Ah! mon Dieu, on se laisse entraîner dans ces moments." Louise said to me that her Father had so often declared he would never quit Paris alive, so that when she heard of his flight she always believed it was untrue and he must be dead....
Footnote 51: He was elected President on the 10th of December, by an immense majority.
Queen Victoria to Lord John Russell.
THE QUEEN AND PALMERSTON
Windsor Castle, 22nd December 1848.