" 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.
For her mother's birthday, in May, 1859, the Crown Princess came over and
made a delightful little visit. The Queen wrote of her: "Dear Vicky is a
charming companion." Of the Princess Alice she had before written: "She
is very good, sensible and amiable, and a real comfort to me." Mothers
know how much there is in those words--"a real comfort to me." The Crown
Princess found most change in baby--Beatrice--and after her return home,
her father often wrote to her of this little sister: "The little aunt,"
he says, "makes daily progress, and is really too comical.
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