THE QITEEN OF ENGLAND AT 770 - COURT OF
FRANCE.
THE visit of Queen Victoria to France is fuller "Contrasts In tlig • ••:-
'comparison with her last visit. She goes new• Ili Ant an istnpkin, and a young Empress in the capital; she '(hen to visit. the bourgeois King at his country-seat : now she be treated with more ceremony, with less pretension of family, affeetion4perhapa , with More reality of esteem. The emitrai( tienitlatine suggested itself before, when Louie 'Napoleon succeeded'tquis Philippe as a - guest at Windsor ; but its fell feriae must be felt on seeing the later French Sovereign in his home. Here, the larger field of the scene still presented the objects of daily familiarity : there, the ,se file." Whether it was presenting her to the rustle, co En, or handing her into the char-i=banc afterwards sedt to. ser, or lunching in the tent where form was so little regarded thatl the. gentlemen kept their hats on, it wasall studiously easy, and 'overwhelmingly unpretending. 'Yet the 'Bourgeois ways had an eye to - business. " Ce cherAberdeen," then attendance on the Queen, was entertaioeUivitk. conViOationa_ paving the.way to that Spanish marriage WhicliWuglit iVenrite ' young ,Montpeasier's budding moustache to alindrid **het,: " and the "entente cordiale" covered the schemes Of the industrious father to settle his Children in the world.
All has changed. There was reality in the scene, but the ge- nuine was mingled with the adulterated. The philosonher-states-, Man Guizot, who placidly superintended the homely- clad intrigues of the "Napoleon of Peace," and who afterwards reproved the mad- ness of the revolution that unseated the head of the firi1J fOe that adulteration of statesman ship which is'W_ _tirse 'than, lid tin of food, drinks, and drugs; because t* oouip1ishd&7i ran-statesman, Who dreads discord, rapine; &V iiltio.dabed,'had 'dot the same physical antipathies to the vices which approached in no form of violence or debauch. He Would probably . frown on the gauds of an usurping Caesar, but he complacently took part in tba' schemes which prostituted home itself to intrigue. The false wae:-,' greater than the genuine, and it prevailed. ' That -scene has pissed' away. De Joinville, who kept up so animated a conversation the fair Queen his father's guest, his lovely Brazilian wife smiling in her generous beauty, had not yet written his "Note" on the invasion of England ; far less had he sought an asylum in the land he was to invade, and learned there, shut out from A noisy world, to reflect' on the mutabilities of fortune, or to speculate On some possible partnership With the then apparently impossible representative of St.' Louis., . Louis Philippe,- the "ere noble," made his last apeeranco before a French audience in the character of "Mr. Slant to find a tomb in England; the cellar -that supplied Wines for his hospitality has gone to the hammer the "Victoria _gallery," formed "to cOnsrfatP.J inomte the visit," is a name,: itself remembered only for th.iegi sake of the•visitor ;< the family 18 dispersed; the Only Inc who has • 5,1i1 positively gaited a settlement is that very Montpensier whozelt.019 matrimonial destiny was the object of the paternal speculation
the hour; and the ancient "courrier de l'Enipire," introduce • by the good old King to his visitor as a relic, has proved to be an avant-eourrier.
In great things the change is not leas *Milli the lighter noes- series of the scene, themselves the studied "properties" intended„, for effect. The people who then cheered Queen -Victoria, at the bidding of the chief performer, cheered perhaps with a heartier; good-will than they now own in their drilled voices-; yet the sa:„..,,,s quel has shown that the Bourgeois regime lisat i!rtsoWelk.h,0.0
whale funnier° is changed. ,
On the former visits, all was plainness, homely family ease,. . warmth - of feeling, effusion. Louis Philippe conquered by the •tradeirman's art, striving to make supply wait upon demand, and; professing to have in his shop the very article wanted. It was to • be not a state but a friendly visit, and EnoVeefiewed with .friendship. The radiant King out-raced the Nyrapha,,and.came One board to welcome Victoria ; even On deck he so little restrained' his exuberant afl'ection that he could not help embrii*grthe' young Queen ; nor was that the last time he .kiagff daughter." For, like the genuine bourgeois, that Sore shone most en famille, and felt strongest in the ,
" &c "—his subjects were "sea enfans " Queen Vic _
suited to France as the Imperial rule which has succeeded. Then, safe in a Moderate and Itindlp-permitted audacity, les Francais were always ." going " soniewhere, for " le lour de gloire eat arrive.; ' next they went; With a lavish haste too truly ex- pressed,' "tiourir poor Is pattie";. and now, under the operatic and adventurous inspirations of St. Leo, they are always " Partans pour la Syrie"or even for the Crimea. It is de facto their choice-: they have lost their liberty, but have their will, and that is their way, They never "rise" but to try to lift one faction above the other; Liberty etiolating Tyranny in its dietations ; and now they have as Much freedom as is consistent with the military organization they ..loVe' Wakwski is not Guizot, but he has en- tertained the best English society in his Mansion at the Hyde Park.00ibraltar'; the "entente cordiale ": has been succeeded by the 'Anglo-Galilean - alliance, . the .-oitiirille Note by the united armies; ' Onizot has Married the Princess Lieven ; France and England have invaded .Russia indefenee of nationalindependence; Italy and "the Nationalities'. looking with hope to the .meeting of thesrewneffsneeeSsers'of Napoleon and the Georges in the pa- laces -eithe;Bottibrins-.
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