s kind expressions of
sympathy.

[Footnote 17: Under-Secretary for Home Affairs; afterwards, as
Lord Panmure, Secretary for War.]

[Footnote 18: Courvoisier.]

[Pageheading: MRS NORTON]

[Pageheading: PRINCESS CHARLOTTE]

_The King of the Belgians to Queen Victoria._

LAEKEN, _22nd May 1840._

MY DEAREST VICTORIA,--I received yesterday a most kind and dear letter
from your august hands. Charles,[19] who wanted to cross yesterday,
will have had very bad weather. He _is_ prepared not to make too long
a stay in England. He dined here on the 19th. Louise was prepared
to come to dinner, but was not quite equal to it; she therefore came
after it. He came also to see me on the 20th, before his departure for
Ostende. It is very gracious of you to have given him subsidies, but
in fact poor Feo stands more in need of it. She really is too poor;
when one thinks that they have but L600 a year, and that large
castles, etc., are to be kept up with it, one cannot conceive how they
manage it. It was a very generous feeling which prompted you to see
Mrs Norton, and I have been too much her friend to find fault with it.
True it is that Norton was freely accepted by her, but she was very
poor, and could therefore hardly venture to refuse him. Many people
will flirt with a clever, handsome, but poor girl, though not marry
her--besides, the idea of having old Shery[20] for a grandfather had
nothing very captivating. A very unpleasant husband Norton certainly
was, and one who had little tact. I can well believe that she was much
frightened, having so many eyes on her, some of which, perhaps, not
with the most amiable expression.

I was delighted to learn that you meant to visit poor Claremont, and
to pass there part of your precious birthday. Claremont is the place
where in younger days you were least plagued, and generally I saw you
there in good spirits. You will also _nolens volens_ be compelled to
think of me, and maybe of poor Charlotte.

This gives me an opening for saying a few words on this subject. I
found several times that some people had given you the impression that
poor Charlotte had been hasty and violent even to imperiousness and
_rudeness_. I can you assure that it was _not so_; she was quick, and
even violent, but I never have seen anybody so open to conviction, and
so fair and candid when wrong. The proverb says, and not without some
truth, that ladies come always back to the first words, to