Fortunately for the recovery of the Prince of Wales, the treatment of typhus was now better understood than it had been but a few years before. "Ah!" the Queen said to me soon after this time, "had my Prince had the same treatment as the Prince of Wales, he might not have died!"—one of those sad, vain imaginings of "what might have been," common to us all, but on which the Queen was too wise to allow her mind to dwell.
The Queen had long ceased to have reason to complain of want of appreciation on the part of the people. On the contrary, it was enthusiastically shown whenever she was seen in public, and most impressively when she went in January 1872 to the thanksgiving service in St Paul's for the recovery of the Prince of Wales. Her letters are full of expressions of satisfaction at these demonstrations of public feeling. Thus she writes, for example, to me on the 10th of April 1872: "There never was a greater success or a greater exhibition of spontaneous loyalty than the Queen's visit to the East End the other day;" and a few days later (23rd April) she calls my attention to a similar display "at two very pretty military events which took place at Parkhurst last Thursday, and here [Osborne] yesterday, on the occasion of giving new colours to the 79th Cameron Highlanders," and of her acceptance from them of the old colours. "Their former chaplain," she adds, with her usual love of detail, "who has been fourteen years with them, and in Lucknow, came on purpose to bless the colours, which he did extremely well and touchingly. It is a splendid regiment."
The great change in the public mind, which resulted in the fall of Mr Gladstone's Ministry at the beginning of 1874, took the Queen somewhat by surprise. "The result of the elections," she writes to me (10th February 1874), "is astounding. What an important turn the elections have taken! It shows that the country is not Radical. What a triumph, too, Mr Disraeli has obtained, and what a good sign this large Conservative majority is of the state of the country, which really required (as formerly) a strong Conservative party!"
Amid the turmoil of the elections which led to this important result a domestic incident took place—the Confirmation of the Princess Beatrice, which was communicated to me in the following letter (January 13, 1874):—
"The Queen cannot resist sending the lines which Mlle. Norèle wrote on her sweet Beatrice at her Confirmation. She did so look like a lily, so very young, so gentle and good. The Queen can only pray God that this flower of the flock, which she really is (for the Queen may truly say she has never given the Queen one moment's cause of displeasure), may never leave her, but be the prop, comfort, and companion of her widowed mother to old age! She is the Queen's Benjamin."
The prayer, we know, was granted. Mlle. Norèle's graceful lines form a worthy pendant to the charming picture presented in this letter. I give them with my own translation, as it pleased the Queen at the time:—
| "Seule, au pied de l'autel, | "Alone, at the Altar's foot, |
| Nous l'avons contemplée, | Thus was she seen, |
| Au bonheur immortel, | Humbly adoring, mute, |
| Comme un ange, appelée. | With looks serene. |
| De son front la candeur | Awe touch'd us, and we felt |
| Imprimait le respect, | How pure that sight, |
| Et toute sa blancheur | Fair lily! as she knelt, |
| Du lis avait l'aspect. | Robed all in white. |
| Son âme calme et pure | Within that holy spot, |
| Semblait en ce saint lieu | Her soul did seem |
| Oublier la nature, | To soar, all earth forgot, |
| Et monter vers son Dieu. | To the Supreme. |
| Seigneur, bénis sa foi, | Bless, Lord, the vow she pays, |
| Garde-lui ton amour, | Make her Thy care, |
| Que sa vie sous ta loi | So blest be all her days, |
| Ressemble à ce beau jour!" | Like this, and fair!" |
In the spring of 1874 the Queen suffered a great loss in the death of her devoted and most trusted friend, M. Silvain van de Weyer.
On the 24th of April she writes:—
"The Queen has felt much regret at poor Livingstone's fate, and we are now very anxious, alas! again about dear M. Van de Weyer.[20] She herself is very much overdone and overworked, and her nerves overstrained. Never did so many things come together as this winter and spring. On the 18th of May she hopes, D.V., to get off to the North for a month, and then really to get rest."