im in an overwhelming stream. Between 1853 and
1857 fifty folio volumes were filled with the comments of his pen upon
the Eastern question. Nothing would induce him to stop. Weary ministers
staggered under the load of his advice; but his advice continued, piling
itself up over their writing-tables, and flowing out upon them from
red box after red box. Nor was it advice to be ignored. The talent for
administration which had reorganised the royal palaces and planned the
Great Exhibition asserted itself no less in the confused complexities of
war. Again and again the Prince's suggestions, rejected or unheeded at
first, were adopted under the stress of circumstances and found to be
full of value. The enrolment of a foreign legion, the establishment of
a depot for troops at Malta, the institution of periodical reports and
tabulated returns as to the condition of the army at Sebastopol--such
were the contrivances and the achievements of his indefatigable brain.
He went further: in a lengthy minute he laid down the lines for a
radical reform in the entire administration of the army. This was
premature, but his proposal that "a camp of evolution" should be
created, in which troops should be concentrated and drilled, proved to
be the germ of Aldershot.

Meanwhile Victoria had made a new friend: she had suddenly been
captivated by Napoleon III. Her dislike of him had been strong at first.
She considered that he was a disreputable adventurer who had usurped the
throne of poor old Louis Philippe; and besides he was hand-in-glove
with Lord Palmerston. For a long time, although he was her ally, she was
unwilling to meet him; but at last a visit of the Emperor and Empress to
England was arranged. Directly he appeared at Windsor her heart began
to soften. She found that she was charmed by his quiet manners, his
low, soft voice, and by the soothing simplicity of his conversation. The
good-will of England was essential to the Emperor's position in Europe,
and he had determined to fascinate the Queen. He succeeded. There was
something deep within her which responded immediately and vehemently to
natures that offered a romantic contrast with her own. Her adoration
of Lord Melbourne was intimately interwoven with her half-unconscious
appreciation of the exciting unlikeness between herself and that
sophisticated, subtle, aristocratical old man. Very different was the
quality of her unlikeness to Napoleon; but its quantity was at least
as gre