Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II

her first visit to Germany. Surely none of all the new places she had visited within the last few years could have been of such surpassing interest to the traveller. It was her mother's c

e met by King Leopold and Queen Louise, who parted from their royal niece at Verviers. On the Prussian frontier Lord Westmoreland, the English ambassador, and Baron Bunsen met her

dirty town of the Three Kings gave the strangers an enthusiastic reception. The burghers even did their best to get

-in-law, the Princess of Prussia, and the Court. The party went into one of the salons to hear the famous tatoo played by four hundred musicians, in the middle of an illumination by means of torches and coloured lamps. The Queen was reminded that she was in a land of music by hearing at a

were presented to the Queen, "which interested me very much," the happy wife says simply. "They were greatly delighted to see Albert and pleased to see me.... I felt

y on the balcony found the back of the statue presented to their gaze. The Freischutzen fired a feu-de-joie. A chorale was su

t all over it, and it is just as it was, in no way altered.... We went into the little bower in the garden, from which you have a beautiful view of t

prospect of their union was still very uncertain in those days, and yet it must sometimes have crossed his mind as he built air-castles in the middle of his reading; or strolled with a comrade along those old-fashioned streets, among their population of "wild-looking students," with long fair hair, pipes between their lips, and the scars of many a sword-duel on forehead and cheek; or penetrated into the country, where the brown peasant women, "with curious caps and handkerchiefs," came

aterloo from British and German tongues, after days of hot and desperate fighting, to mark the glorious triumph of their brotherhood in arms. "Now it resounds on the banks of our fair Rhine, amidst the blessings of that pea

eyes brightened through tears, and as the King was taking his seat again, she rose and b

ine saw, through a drizzle of rain which did not greatly mar the spectacle, a splendid display o

shipping, and along the road on the opposite bank. Rockets now shot from all parts of the horizon. The royal party embarked in a steamer at St. Tremond and glided down by the river. As they passed the banks blazed with fireworks and musketry. At their approach the bridge glowed with redoubled light, and, opening, le

and saw more of the professors who had taught him, and of students similar to those who had been his class-fellows. Then she went once more to Cologne, and visited its glory, the cathedral, at that time unfinished, returning to Bruhl to hail with delight the arrival of the Kin

en. Jenny Lind sang in the concert. It was her Majesty's first opportunity of hearing the great singer, who, of all her sister singers,

e queens-of England, Prussia, and Belgium-two kings, a prince consort, an archduke, and a future emperor and empress, could propitiate the adverse barometer, or change the sulky face of the sky. Between showers the Queen

took leave of their visitors, still under heavy rain. The weather cleared afterwards for a time, however, and beautiful Bingen, with the rest of the Rh

ht serenade before the hotel windows. On the rest-day which Sunday secured, the Queen saw the good nurse who had brought the royal pair into the world. Her Majesty had also her fi

ctacle of her sister-women treated as beasts of burden, the travellers journeyed to Wurzburg. There Prince Luitpold of Bavaria met and welcomed them to a magnificent palace, where the luggage, which ought to have preceded the wearied travellers, was not forthcoming. Another long day's driving, beginning at a little after six in the morning, would bring the party to Coburg. By one o'clock they were at the old prince- bishop's stately to

with many petticoats, and the men in leather breeches. Many girls were there with wreaths of flowers." A triumphal arch, a Vice-Land-Director, to whose wor

d day for the little State. He and his queen took their places beside Queen Victoria and Prince Albert-Ernest Duke of Coburg mounting on horseback and riding beside the carriage as its chief escort. In this order the procession, "which looked extremely pretty," was f

girlish rehearsals must have

ssed us very kindly-a very young-looking man for his age, for he married mamma to my father, and christened and confirmed Albert and Ernest." Neither was the motherly presence of her whose marriage vow the Ober- Superintendent had blessed, who had done so much to contribute to the triumph of this day, wanting to its complete realization of all that such a day should have been. The Duchess of Kent was already on a visit to her nephew, standing on the ol

get the late sovereign and house-father who had hoped so eagerly to welcome them to the ancestral home. They were there, but his place was filled by another. At Coburg and at Rosenau, which had b

is the widowed Queen's residence when she is dwelling in the neighbourhood. Beautiful in itself among its woods and hills, it was doubly beautiful to both from its associations. The room in which the Queen slept was that in which the Prince

ir tutor. [Footnote: The Prince was then such a mere child that the tutor used to carry him in his arms up and down stairs. One is reminded of the old custom of appointing noble governors for royal children of the tenderest years, and of the gracious pathetic relations which sometimes existed between bearded knights and infant kings. Such was the case

s a visit to the fortress overhanging the town, which looks as far away as the sea o

man theatre, where Meyerbeer's Huguenots was given, and

n at the palace, when not only those persons who had the magic prefix von to their names were admitted, but de

e meadow- fortunately the fine weather had set in-where there were tents decorated with flowers, in which the royal party dined, while the band played and the children danced "so nicely and merrily, waltzes, polkas, and it was the prettiest thing I ever saw," declared the Queen. "Her Majesty talked to the children, to their

ith a great bal

e Albert continued to take the greatest interest in it, and had made the Queen a contributor to its treasures. At dinner the Queen tasted bratürste (roasted sausages), the national dish of Coburg, and pronounced it excellent,

, and the Ober-Superintendent Genzler made a brief oration "expressive of his joy at receiving the great Christian Queen who was descended from their Saxon dukes, who were the first Reformers, and at the doors of the church where the Reformation was first preached." The Queen describes the service as like the

." No wonder; Coburg was home to her, like her native air or her mother tongue; she must have learnt to know it at her mother's knee. Her husband's experience was added to the earlier recollecti

ions in the town, while the Queen sketched at Rosenau-closed with the last visit to the theat

by no other hands than those of the Queen and the Prince's brother and sister-in-law on a table "dressed with flowers."' Peasants came in gala dress, [Footnote: The Queen admired greatly many of the peasant costumes, often as serviceable and durable as they were becoming, which she saw in Germany. She expressed the regret so often uttered by English travellers that English labourers and workers at handicrafts, in place of retaining a dress of their own, have long ago adopted a tawdry version of the fa

en with addresses more or less discursive, and "white and green young ladies," literally bombarded the travellers with speeches, flowers, and poems. At last the Duke of Coburg's territory was again entered after it was dark; and the party reached the lovely castellated country-seat of Reinhardtsbrunn, amidst forest and mountain scenery, with its lake in front of the house, set down in the centre of

he Queen's account, "and found Albert and Ernest with her. She is a charming old lady, and though very small, remarkably nice-looking, erect and active, but unfortunately very deaf.... She was so ha

they paid in Gotha was a solemn one, to the chapel which formed the temporary resting-place of the body of the late Duke, till it could be removed to its vault in Coburg. Then the rooms in which the father had died were visited. These were almost equally melancholy, left as they had been, unchanged, with the wreaths

was harmless enough, for the object aimed at was a wooden bird on a pole. The riflemen, led by the rifle-king (schutzen-konig), the public officials, and deputations of peasants marched past

were often together, and the Queen speaks with pleasure of the Baroness's "unchanged devotion," only she was quieter than formerly. It must have appeared like another dream to both, that "the l

h occasionally commanded views so remote as those of the Hartz Mountains, to Jagersruh, a hunting-lodge on a height "among stately firs that look like cedars." Here the late Duke had excit

and enclosed with canvas. In the centre of this enclosure was a pavilion open at the sides, made of branches of fir-trees, and decorated with berries, heather, and forest flowers; in short, a sylvan bower

gen, and Duke Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, the Prince's uncle, stood by the ladies. Stags to the number of upwards of thirty, and other game, were driven into the enclos

none of the gentlemen like this butchery." She turns quickly

oyalty from far and near flocked to meet the Queen of England. These innumerable cousins repaired with the Queen to the park opposite the Schloss, and shared in the festival. The orchestra, composed of many hundreds of singers, was opposite the pav

erried over to the "Island of Graves," the burial-place of the old Dukes of Gotha when the duchy was distinct from that of Coburg. An ancient gardener pointed out to the visitors that only one more flower-covere

nd, "with many a longing, lingering look at the pine-clad mountains," the Queen and the P

hed grandmother of the delightful "dear" family party rendered it not very probable that she, for one, would see all her children round h

her Majesty and the Prince were, they went to see the great reformer's room, and looked at the ink-splash on the wall-the mark of his conflict with the devil-the stove at which he warmed himself, the rude table at which he wrote and ate, and above all, the glorious view over the myriads of tree-tops with which he must have refreshed his steadfast soul. But if Luther is the hero of the Wartburg, there is also a heroine-the central figure of that "

where Ludwig I., who turned Munich into a great picture and sculpture gallery, and buil

t-seeing had become for the present a weariness, and after Bonn, with its memories, had been left behind, it was a rest to the royal travellers-as to most other travellers at times-to turn away their jaded eyes, relinquish the duty of alert observation, forget what was passing around them, and lose themselves in a book, as if they were in England. Perhaps the home letters had awakened a little home-sickness in the couple who had been absent for a

stus of Saxe- Coburg, and M. Guizot, once more came alongside. After the friendliest greetings, the Queen and Prince Albert landed with their host, though not without difficulty. The tide woul

y; even the plague of too much publicity and formality had been got rid of at Chateau d'Eu. The Queen was delighted to renew her intercourse with the large, bright family circle-two of them her relations and fast friends. "It put me so much in mind of t

on, the indefatigable old man had been at the trouble and expense of erecting a theatre, and bringing down from Pari

e last opportunity, when Prince Albert was taking Prince Joinville over the Fairy, glibly to assure the Queen and Lord Aberdeen that he, Lo

congratulated themselves on how well this little visit had prospered, in addition to the complete success of the German tour. With the sea like a lake, and sky and sea of the deepest blue, in the early morning the yacht weighed anchor for England. Under t

the happiest times in her life. She said when she thought of it, i