In July, the Queen and Prince took to their yacht again, for a visit to the Emperor and Empress, at Cherbourg, and had a grand reception, and there was a great _fête_, and fireworks and bombs and rockets; but the account is not half so interesting to me as the one given by Her Majesty, of their return to Osborne; an exquisite picture that, which I feel I must reproduce almost entire: ... "At twenty minutes to five, we landed at our peaceful Osborne. ... The evening was very warm and calm. Dear Affie was on the pier, and we found all the other children, including Baby, standing at the door. Deckel (a favorite dog), and our new charming kennel-bred Dachs 'Boy,' also received us with joy." I like that bringing in of the dogs to complete the-picture.
The Queen continues: "We went to see Affie's (Alfred's) table of birthday presents--entirely nautical. ... We went with the children, Alice and I driving, to the Swiss Cottage, which was all decked out with flags in honor of Affie's birthday. ... I sat (at dinner) between Albert and Affie. The two little boys (Princes Arthur and Leopold) appeared. A band played, and after dinner we danced, with the three boys and three girls, a merry country dance on the terrace."
A little later, the Queen and Prince made a visit to their daughter in Germany. Her Majesty's description of the happy meeting is very sweet. "There on the platform stood our darling child, with a nosegay in her hand. She stepped in, and long and warm, was the embrace. ... So much to say and to tell and ask, yet so unaltered--looking well--quite the old Vicky still."
From beautiful Babelsberg, she wrote: "Vicky came and sat with me. I felt as if she were my own again."
This was not a long, but a very happy visit; the Queen and Prince had received many courteous attentions from the Prussian Court, and had found their beloved daughter proud and content. From Osborne, in a letter to his daughter, the Prince-Consort writes: "Alfred looks very nice and handsome in his new naval cadet's uniform--the round-jacket and the long- tailed coat, with the broad knife by his side." The next month the Prince went to Spithead, to see this son off on a two-years' cruise--and felt that his family had indeed begun to break up. The next exciting public matter was the news of Louis Napoleon's alliance with King Victor Emmanuel in the war against Austria. And this was the Emperor who, had given out that his empire was "peace"--that the only clang of arms henceforth to be heard therein would be a mighty beating of swords and spears into plow-shares and pruning-hooks. The next domestic excitement was caused by a telegram from Berlin, announcing the birth of a son to the Crown Prince and Princess, and that mother and child were doing well. Queen Victoria was a grandmother, and prouder, I doubt not, than when afterwards she was made Empress of India.