In the Queen's weakness the young husband and father was continually developing new traits of manly tenderness. "His care and devotion were quite beyond expression." He declined to go anywhere, that he might be always at hand to do anything in his power for her comfort "He was content to sit by her in a darkened room, to read to her and write for her." "No one but himself ever lifted her from her bed to her sofa, and he always helped to wheel her on her bed or sofa into the next room. For this purpose he would come instantly when sent for from any part of the house." "His care for her was like that of a mother, nor could there be a kinder, wiser, more judicious nurse." Happy Queen!
The Queen made an excellent recovery, and the Court was back at Windsor holding Christmas and New Year relieved from all care and full of thankfulness. The peace and goodwill of the season, with the interchange of kindly gifts, were celebrated with pleasant picturesque German, in addition to old English customs. We have all heard wonderful tales of the baron of beef, the boar's head, the peacock with spread tail, the plum soup for which there is only one recipe, and that a royal one. There were fir-trees in the Queen's and the Prince's rooms and in humbler chambers. There was a great gathering of the household in a special corridor, where the Queen's presents were bestowed.
A new year dawned with bright promise on an expectant world. This last year had been so good in one sense that it could hardly be surpassed. What had it not done for the family life! It had given a good and loving wife to a good and loving husband, and a little child, with undreamt-of possibilities in its slumbering eyes and helpless hands. The public horizon was tolerably clear. The Welsh riots had been quelled and other acts of insubordination in the manufacturing districts put down—not without the use of force—but there was room for trust that such mad tumults would not be repeated. Father Matthews was reforming Ireland. There were far-away wars both with China and Afghanistan, certainly, but the wars were far away in more respects than one, distant enough to have their origin in the English protection of the opium trade, and interference—now with a peaceful, timidly conservative race—and again with fiercely jealous and warlike tribes, slurred over and forgotten, and only the successes of the national arms dwelt upon with pride and exultation.
Across "the silver streak" of the Channel there were more remarkable events, marked by a curious inconsistency, than the suitable marriage of the Duc de Nemours. Prince Louis Napoleon Buonaparte landed on the French coast with a handful of men prepared to invade the country, and was immediately overpowered and arrested. He was tried and condemned to imprisonment in the fortress of Ham, from which he escaped in due time, having earned for himself during long years the sobriquet of "the madman of Boulogne." The very same year Prince de Joinville, Louis Philippe's sailor son, was commissioned to bring the ashes of Napoleon from St. Helena to France. The coffin was conveyed in the Prince's frigate, La Belle Poule, to Cherbourg, whence a steamboat sailed with the solemn freight up the Seine to Paris. The funeral formed a splendid pageant, attended by the royal family, the ministers, and a great concourse of spectators. The dust of le petit caporal was deposited in a magnificent tomb in the Hotel des Invalides, before the eyes of a few survivors of his Old Guard.
Spain and Portugal were still the theatres of civil wars—now smouldering, now leaping up with brief fury. In Spain the Queen Regent, Christina, was driven from the kingdom, and had to take refuge in France for a time. In Portugal, in the middle of a political crisis, Maria da Gloria gave birth to a daughter, which died soon after its birth, while for days her own life was despaired of.
CHAPTER XI THE FIRST CHRISTENING.—THE SEASON OF 1841.
The Queen was able to open Parliament in person at the end of January.
The first christening in the royal household had been fixed to take place on the 10th of February, the first anniversary of the Queen's wedding-day, which was thus a double gala in 1841. The day before the Prince again had a dangerous accident. He was skating in the presence of the Queen and one of her ladies on the lake in the gardens of Buckingham Palace when the ice gave way a few yards from the bank, where the water was so deep that the skater had to swim for two or three minutes before he could extricate himself. The Queen had the presence of mind to lend him instant assistance, while her lady was "more occupied in screaming for help," so that the worst consequences of the plunge were a bad cold.
The christening took place at six in the evening in Buckingham Palace. The ceremony was performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, assisted by the Archbishop of York, the Bishop of London, the Bishop of Norwich, and the Dean of Carlisle. The sponsors were the Duke of Saxe-Coburg Gotha, represented by the Duke of Wellington, King Leopold, the Queen-dowager, the Duchess of Gloucester, the Duchess of Kent, and the Duke of Sussex, the most of whom had been present at the baptism of her Majesty, and were able to compare royal child and royal mother in similar circumstances. The Duke of Cambridge and his son, Prince George, with Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar, were among the company. The infant was named "Victoria Adelaide Mary Louisa."
The Annual Register for the year has an elaborate description of the new silver-gilt font used on the occasion. It was in the shape of a water-lily supporting a shell, the rim of which was decorated with smaller water-lilies. The base bore, between the arms of the Queen and Prince Albert, the arms of the Princess Royal, surmounted by her Royal Highness's coronet. The water had been brought from the river Jordan.