On the 12th the King was to have left, but first the Corporation of London went down to Windsor in civic state to present Louis Philippe with an address. This unusual compliment from the City was due partly to the general satisfaction which the visit, with, its promise of continued friendly relations between England and France, gave to the whole country, partly to the circumstance that it was judged inadmissible, in view of the susceptibility of the French nation, for the King of France to pay a formal visit to London, since the Queen of England, in her recent trip to Treport, had not gone to Paris. A somewhat comical contretemps occurred in the preparation of the reply to this address. It was written by the person who usually acted for the King in such matters, and brought to him shortly before the arrival of the Corporation, when Louis Philippe found to his disgust that the speech was so French in spirit, and expressed in such bad English, he could not hope to make it understood. "It is deplorable…. It is cruel," cried the mortified King. "And to send it to me at one o'clock! They will be here immediately!" No time was to be lost; the King had to sit down and, with the help of his host and hostess, who had come to his rooms opportunely, to write out a more suitable answer.
In M. Guizot's "Memoirs" he tells a curious incident of this visit. On retiring to his room at night he lost his way, and appeared to wander, as Baroness Bunsen feared she might do on a similar occasion, along miles of corridors and stairs. At last, believing he recognised his room-door, he turned the handle, but immediately withdrew, on getting a glimpse of a lady seated at a toilet-table, with a maid busy about her mistress's hair. It was not till next day that from some smiling words addressed to him by the Queen the horrified statesman discovered he had been guilty of an invasion of the royal apartments.
Louis Philippe started on his homeward journey accompanied by her Majesty and Prince Albert, who were to go on board the Gomer and there take leave of their guest. Afterwards they were to embark in the royal yacht and cross to the Isle of Wight. But the stormy weather overturned all these plans. The swell in the sea was so great that it was feared the King could not land at Treport. Eventually he parted from the Queen and the Prince on shore, returned in the evening to London, went to New Cross—where he found the station on fire—proceeded by train to Dover, and sailed next day, amidst wind and rain, in French steamer to Calais. In order to soften the disappointment to the officers and crew of the Gomer, the Queen and Prince Albert breakfasted on board that vessel before they proceeded to the Isle of Wight.
The cause of the cruise of the Queen and the Prince at this season was the wish to see for themselves the house and grounds of Osborne, belonging to Lady Isabella Blatchford. They were to be sold, and had been, suggested by Sir Robert Peel to her Majesty and the Prince as exactly constituted to form the retired yet not too remote country and seaside home—not palace, for which the royal couple were looking out. It is unnecessary to say that the personal visit was quite satisfactory, though the purchase was not made till some months later. The engraving gives a pleasant idea of the Osborne of to-day, with its double towers—seen out at sea—its terraces, and its fountains.
On the 21st of October the Queen and the Prince happened to be yachting off Portsmouth. It was the anniversary of the battle of Trafalgar, and the Victory lay in the roads, adorned with wreaths and garlands from stem to stern. The Queen expressed her desire to visit the ship. She went at once to the quarter-deck to see the spot where Nelson fell. It is marked by a brass plate with an inscription, on this day surrounded by a wreath of laurel. The Queen gazed in silence, the tears rising to her eyes. Then she plucked a couple of leaves from the laurel wreath, and asked to be shown the cabin in which Nelson died. The cockpit was lit up while the party were inspecting the poop of the Victory, which bears the words of the great Admiral's last signal, "England expects every man to do his duty." In the cockpit, long associated with merry, mischievous sprites of "middies," there had been for many a year the representation of a funeral urn, with the sentence, "Here Nelson died." The visitors looked at the spot without speaking. There, on this very day in the fast-receding past, amidst the hardly subdued din of a great naval battle, the dying hero with his failing breath made the brief, tender appeal to his faithful captain, "Kiss me, Hardy." The Queen requested that there might be no firing when she left the ship, and was sped on her way only by "the three tremendous British cheers of the sailors manning the yards."
On the 28th of October the great civic ceremonies of the opening of the new Royal Exchange by the Queen took place. The morning had been foggy, but cleared up into brilliant autumn sunshine, a happy instance of the Queen's weather, when a considerable part of the programme, as a matter of necessity, was enacted under the open sky.
Crowds almost as great as on the day of the Coronation six years before occupied the line of route, swarming in St. James's Park and St. Paul's Churchyard and at Charing Cross, while the Poultry—deriving its name from the circumstance that it was once filled with poulterers' shops—was reserved for the Livery of the City Companies. Every window which could command the passing of the pageant was filled with spectators. The Queen, in her State coach, drawn by her cream-coloured horses, drove through the marble arch at Buckingham Palace about eleven o'clock. She was accompanied by Prince Albert, and attended by Lady Canning in the absence of the Duchess of Buccleugh, Mistress of the Robes, and by the Earl of Jersey, Master of the Horse. The great officers of her Household in long procession preceded her, and she was followed by an escort of Life Guards. At this time the Queen's popularity was a very active principle, though not more heartfelt and abiding than it is to-day. As she appeared, it is said the words "God bless you," uttered by some loyal subject, were caught up and passed from lip to lip, running through the vast concourse. The simply-clad lady of the Highlands was magnificently dressed to-day, to do honour to her City of London, in white satin and silver tissue, sparkling with jewels. On her left side she wore the star of the Order of the Garter, and round her left arm the Garter itself, with the motto set in diamonds. She had at the back of her head a miniature crown entirely composed of brilliants, while above her forehead she wore a diamond tiara. Prince Albert was in the uniform of a colonel of artillery.
The City magnates as usual had gathered at Child's Bank, from which they went to Temple Bar. The common councilmen were in their mazarine-blue cloaks and cocked hats, the aldermen in their scarlet robes, the Lord Mayor in a robe of crimson velvet, with a collar of SS, and, strange to say, a Spanish hat and feather. In truth a goodly show. The gates of Temple Bar, which had been previously closed, were thrown open to admit the royal procession. The Queen's carriage drew up. The Lord Mayor advanced on foot before the spikes on which many a traitor's head had been stuck, and with a profound reverence offered to her Majesty the City sword, which, the Queen touched as a sign of acceptance, and then waved it back to the Lord Mayor. Nothing can read better, but accidents will happen.
From Lady Bloomfield, on the authority of the late Sir Robert Peel, who told the story in the maid-of-honour's hearing, we have additional particulars. The Lord Mayor, in his Spanish hat and feather, was at this very moment in as awkward a predicament as ever befell an unlucky chief magistrate. He had drawn on a pair of jack-boots over his shoes and stockings, to keep the mud off till the moment of action. Unfortunately the boots proved too tight, and could not be got off when the sign was given that the Queen was coming. One of the victim's spurs caught in the fur trimming of an alderman's robe, and rendered the confusion worse. The Lord Mayor stood with a leg out, and several men tugging at his boot. In the meantime the Queen was coming nearer and nearer; she was only a few paces off, while the representative of her good City of London struggled in an agony with one boot on and one off. At last he became beside himself, and cried wildly, "For God's sake put that boot on again." He only got it on in time to make his obeisance to her Majesty. He had to wear the detestable boots till the banquet; just before it, he was successfully stripped of his encumbrances.
As the procession went on, the civic body fell into its place, the Lord
Mayor on horseback, where his jack-boots would not look amiss, with three
footmen in livery on each side of him, carrying the City sword before the
Queen's coach.