ehind him and grievously injuring him; while
at a later period he succeeded in inflicting serious damage upon a
Turkish dignitary appointed by the Sultan to attend him during his
shooting trips in Syria. It is of him, too, that is related the story
of how, when asked as a youth of twenty, by Queen Victoria, during
one of his stays at Balmoral, what sport he had had while out deer
stalking, he replied proudly: "Well, grandma, I did not succeed in
killing a stag, but I hit quite a number." It is recorded that there
was a painful silence after this remark, and that the prince was not
again urged to go out deer stalking during his stay at Balmoral!

Princess Henry is probably the least favored, both as to beauty and
brilliancy of intellect, of the daughters of the late Grand Duke of
Hesse, and of his consort, Princess Alice, second daughter of Queen
Victoria. Her three sisters, the Grand Duchess Sergius of Russia,
Princess Louis of Battenberg, and the young czarina, are renowned for
their loveliness and their cleverness, the latter inherited from their
talented mother; whereas Princess Irene and her brother, the reigning
Grand Duke of Hesse, take far more after their father. Princess Irene
was born in 1866, during the Seven Weeks' War, when her father was
called upon to fight his own brothers in the Prussian army, and his
brother-in-law, the late Emperor Frederick, then Crown Prince of
Prussia. Her baptismal sponsors were the officers and men belonging
to the two cavalry regiments under her father's special command during
that war:--there is no other princess in Europe who has ever had two
entire regiments of cavalry for godfathers! The name of Irene was
bestowed upon her by way of gratitude for the restoration of peace,
and she used always to be known in her young days at Darmstadt as the
"Friedenskind," or "child of peace." After her mother's death from
diphtheria, it was the latter's eldest sister, the now widowed Empress
Frederick, who endeavored, as far as possible, to look after the
children, and it was perhaps this that led to Prince Henry's falling
in love with his cousin. The match was strongly opposed by Prince
Bismarck, partly upon the ground of the close relationship of the
parties, but mainly on account of his hatred for the reigning house of
Hesse. But when Prince Henry declared that he would remain single all
his life unless he were allowed to marry Princess Irene, consent was
given, and the wedding took plac