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THE

QUARTERLY REVIEW.

No. 460.-JULY, 1919.

Art. 1.-QUEEN VICTORIA AND FRANCE.*

WHEN the Princess Victoria was born, on May 24, 1819, she had, except for somewhat distant connexions with the Royal Houses of Holland and Denmark, no relation who was not of German blood. The nation over which she was to rule had willed that it should be so. In the second half of the 17th century, the reigns of two monarchs who were half-French had convinced the people of this country that their future sovereigns must be chosen from the German House which could trace its descent, through James I to Henry VII and Edward IV and so to William the Norman, and through James VI to Robert the Bruce and so to Malcolm Canmore and his English Queen, the descendant of Alfred the Great. Three considerations made it certain that the House of Hanover would inter-marry with German princely families. Our law provided that all such marriages must be with Protestants; and the custom of the time, subsequently supported by the Royal Marriage Act of 1772, ensured that the marriages of royal personages should be contracted within the limits of what may be described as royal circles. Germany abounded in Protestant princes and princesses; and it was, therefore, in the nature of things that they should provide from among their number consorts for British princes and princesses.

At the date of Princess Victoria's birth, the danger from France was at an end; and it was a fortunate

The quotations marked with an asterisk are taken from Queen Victoria's unpublished correspondence and diaries, by gracious permission of H.M. The King.

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accident that, before she succeeded to the throne, she had been brought into close and intimate contact with relations by marriage who were of French blood. No sovereign of this country since Queen Anne had possessed any near relationship to the French Royal House; the wife of George I had, indeed, French blood in her veins, but the tragedy of her life prevented the transmission to her children of any French influences, beyond what might be derived from heredity. When the Princess Victoria was thirteen, her mother's brother, Leopold, afterwards King of the Belgians, the widower of the Princess Charlotte of Wales, married Louise, the eldest daughter of Louis Philippe, afterwards King of the French. This marriage was the first of a series of alliances between Queen Victoria's Coburg relations and the Orleans family. In 1837, a cousin of the Queen married Louis Philippe's second daughter; in 1840, another cousin married his second son, the Duc de Nemours; and in 1843, a third cousin married his third daughter.

By far the most important of these marriages, from the point of view of the development of Queen Victoria's outlook and sympathies, was that of the King of the Belgians. The Duchess of Kent, a Coburg by birth, was devoted to her brother Leopold; and his relations with his niece were like those of a father and daughter. The reminiscences of her early childhood, written by the Queen in 1872, and printed in the Letters of Queen Victoria,' indicate her affection for 'dear Uncle Leopold,' whose generosity had come to the help of the impoverished mother and child after the death of the Duke of Kent. King Leopold, among other paternal offices, guided the girl's reading, and urged her to study the memoirs of the great and good Sully,' which he presented to her; but, he added, 'As they have not been written exclusively for young ladies, it will be well to have Lehzen to read it with you' ('Letters,' 1, 51). The record of the books she read shows that she was interested in France and the French; and when, in 1835, she met the Queen of the Belgians for the first time, she fell in love with her French aunt. Aunt Louisa has the most delightful sweet expression I ever saw. She is quite delightful and charming. She is so gay and merry too' (Girlhood of Queen Victoria,' 1, 188).

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It was both novel and desirable that a sovereign of Great Britain should be educated to love French people and French ways; and she soon extended her affection from his daughter to Louis Philippe himself, who wrote, on her accession, a graceful letter in which he reminded her that he had been the friend of her father when the Duke of Kent, nearly forty years earlier, had been Commander-in-Chief in British North America. King Leopold wrote to her about his father-in-law's 'great disposition to be on the best possible terms with England,' and she replied that by the happy circumstance of your double near relationship to me and to the King of the French, Belgium-which was in former times the cause of discord between England and France-becomes now a mutual tie to keep them together.'

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King Leopold's insistence upon the difficult and delicate position of Louis Philippe in France led the future Queen to be ready to make allowances for the provocations which French policy occasionally gave to British statesmen. Throughout the dispute over the revolt of Mehemet Ali against Turkey (1839-41), when France adopted an attitude antagonistic to that of the other Great Powers (Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia), and, under the guidance of Thiers, threatened to intervene as a partisan of Mehemet Ali, the Queen impressed on her ministers the necessity of doing nothing to irritate France. Louis Philippe was personally most anxious to preserve peace, and went so far as to dismiss Thiers; and the Queen, feeling that some return should be made by this country, found herself in conflict with Lord Palmerston. The Foreign Minister urged that the French, 'after having failed to extort concessions upon the Turkish Question by menaces of foreign war,' were now trying to obtain them by saying that such concessions are necessary in order to prevent revolution in France.' The Queen, in reply, insisted that, while the danger of revolution might be exaggerated, it did exist; and that there was nothing inconsistent with the honour and dignity of this country in 'attempts to soften the irritation still existing in France or to bring France back to her former position in the Oriental Question.' France, she said, had been in the wrong and had been humbled, but, therefore, it is easier than if we had failed to do

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something to bring matters right again' ('Letters,' I, pp. 291-315). Her intervention certainly aided the happy adjustment of our relations with France.

In 1843, Queen Victoria paid a visit to the King and Queen of the French, who some years earlier had suggested an informal visit to her at Brighton. Recent experience has made us familiar with State visits, and it is easy to underestimate the importance of the step then taken. No Sovereign of this country, after succeeding to the throne, had left the British Isles since George II had paid his last visit to Hanover in 1755; and no foreign monarch, while in the possession of his throne, had, for some centuries, been entertained in this country, except when the Allied Sovereigns visited London after the fall of Napoleon. The last State visit to France was the meeting of Henry VIII and Francis I on the Field of Cloth of Gold. The visit was, therefore, no customary or conventional formality, but a real compliment; and it took place before the Queen had paid a similar compliment to any German State, even to the Duchy of Coburg, the ruler of which was both her uncle and her father-in-law. The French people gave her a cordial reception, and she returned with a personal regard for Louis Philippe and the dear French family' ('Letters,' 1, 618).

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This regard' was shortly afterwards tested by the publication in the following spring of a pamphlet by the Prince de Joinville entitled Notes sur les forces navales de France,' in which he 'talked of ravaging our coasts and burning our towns.' The Queen was much chagrined, but did not allow the incident to interfere with her general policy; and, when Louis Philippe made a return visit to Windsor in the autumn, he gratified her by his real distress for his son's imprudence. Perhaps not less gratifying were his remark, 'Le Prince Albert, c'est pour moi le Roi,' and his description of the Prince as Mon Frère.' The consideration shown by the King of the French for the delicate position of the Queen's husband was enhanced by the unyielding etiquette of the Prussian Court when the Queen and the Prince paid a visit to Frederick William IV in 1845. On their return from this expedition, they made a second visit to Louis Philippe.

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The cordiality of these relations cooled during the long controversy about the 'Spanish Marriages.' The Queen was most anxious that Great Britain and France' should not appear at Madrid as countenancing conflicting parties' among the suitors of the young Spanish Queen and her sister; but Louis Philippe took advantage of the considerate hesitation shown by the British Government, and the Queen was naturally and justly indignant. 'Have confidence in him I fear I never can again,' she wrote to the King of the Belgians, and Peel, who is here [Windsor] on a visit, says a war may arise any moment once that the good understanding is disturbed' ('Letters,' II, 126). In the beginning of 1848, when Louis Philippe lost a devoted sister, the Queen, after consulting Lord John Russell, resumed personal relations by a letter of condolence. A few weeks later, the King of the French was an exile in England.

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The Queen treated the exiled family with great kindness and hospitality, but she fully appreciated the necessity of avoiding any suggestion of political sympathy with Orleanists in France. You will naturally understand,' she told the King of the Belgians, 'that we cannot make cause commune with them, and cannot take a hostile position opposite to the new state of things in France' ('Letters,' II, 183). She was willing to give Louis Napoleon a fair chance, and in December 1848, hailed his coming election as a sign of better times,' though she added, 'But that one should have to wish for him is really wonderful.' In February 1849, she praised his conduct as full of courage and energy.' The coup d'état, in December 1851, was a shock to her, as to healthy opinion everywhere in this country; and Lord John Russell's dismissal of Lord Palmerston, the Foreign Secretary, on the ground of his expressed approval of it before the Government had come to any conclusion on the subject, gave, for many reasons, great satisfaction to the Court. But it is abundantly clear from the Queen's correspondence that she was not hostile to the new Government if it should satisfy the French people. Writing on Dec. 9, she assumed that those in France who wished for order would rally round the President; on the 30th, she suggested to the King

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