In March, the Queen’s refusal to permit the persons who represented England at the French Exhibition of 1867 to accept decorations, was made the subject of debate by Lord Houghton in the House of Lords. Her Majesty’s prejudice against introducing Foreign Orders and titles into England had often given offence to naturalised stockjobbers and pushing _parvenus_. She never even took kindly to the use of the title of “Baron” by the Rothschilds, though she tolerated it for reasons of an entirely exceptional nature. But if the Orders were admitted the titles must soon follow, and society might be inundated some day with Russian “Counts,” who, as the French say, had “a career behind them,” or with Austrian “Barons,” who had bought their honours out of the profits of financial gambling. The English Court, for this reason, has such strong opinions on the point that even English nobles, inheriting foreign titles, conceal them so successfully that few people ever suspect that the Duke of Wellington is a Portuguese prince, the head of the House of Hamilton a French duke, or Lord Denbigh a Prince of an uncrowned branch of the Imperial House of Hapsburg. It need not be said that Lord Houghton’s complaints were generally admitted to be frivolous, and that the Queen’s feeling that she must be the sole fountain of honour in England, was shared by the nation. If the services which an individual has rendered abroad have benefited England or mankind, or if it is possible to form a correct estimate of their value in England, the Queen held she must either reward them herself, or retain the right to permit the individual to receive a foreign decoration for them. There never has been any practical difficulty in dealing with such cases, and no self-respecting person has ever felt aggrieved because he was debarred from accepting Foreign Orders.[58]
On the 4th of January the Queen was grieved to hear of the death of the ex-Emperor of the French, at Chislehurst. Her tender sympathy was freely bestowed on the ex-Empress, who was prostrated by her misfortunes and her sorrow. Five years before, the death of this strange man, whose Imperial life seemed ever shadowed by the great crime of the _coup d’état_, would have convulsed Europe. Now the world seemed quite indifferent to it, and when politicians spoke of it, all they said was that by disorganising the Imperialist party in France, it lessened the labours of M. Thiers in founding the Third Republic. The English people, whom Napoleon III. had kept in feverish dread for two decades, and whose support and friendship he had rewarded with the perfidy of the Benedetti Treaty, did not pretend to mourn over his grave. They spoke of his character, which was a moral paradox, and his career, which was a political crime, without prejudice or ill-feeling. But as they thought of the horrors of the Crimean War, the wasted millions which Palmerston spent in fortifying the South Coast, and the final act of treachery which the German Government had revealed in July, 1870, there were some who considered that the Queen might have been less demonstrative in her manifestations of sorrow. But Her Majesty has never been free from the defects of her qualities. Quick to resent betrayal, her anger passes away as swiftly, when the betrayer broken by an avenging Destiny, and prostrate amid the wreck of his fortunes and his reputation, appeals to her sympathies. When Louis Philippe stood before her as a hunted fugitive, the Queen forgot the Spanish marriages. When Charles Louis Bonaparte fled for refuge to Chislehurst, she was too generous to remember his scheme for stealing Belgium.