e also a mixture
of all sorts of moist compounds, which one is told is fresh air, but
which is not the least like it. I suppose, however, that my neighbour
in Holland, where they have not even got a hill as high as yours in
Buckingham Gardens, would consider Laeken as an Alpine country. The
tender meeting of the old King and the new King,[141] as one can
hardly call him a young King, must be most amusing. I am told that if
the old King had not made that love-match, he would be perfectly
able to dethrone his son; I heard that yesterday from a person rather
attached to the son and hating the father. In the meantime, though
one can hardly say that he is well at home, some strange mixture of
cut-throats and ruined soldiers of fortune had a mind to play us some
tricks here; we have got more and more insight into this. Is it by
instigation from him personally, or does he only know of it without
being a party to it? That _is_ difficult to tell, the more so as he
makes immense demonstration of friendly dispositions towards us,
and me in particular. I would I could make a _chassez croisez_ with
Otho;[142] he would be the gainer in solids, and I should have sun and
an interesting country; I will try to make him understand this, the
more so as you do not any longer want me in the West.

[Footnote 140: The Pragmatic Sanction of Philip V. was
repealed in 1792 by the Cortes, but the repeal was not
promulgated by the King. Under the Salic Law, Don Carlos would
have been on the throne. See _ante_, p. 44. (Ch. V, Footnote 9)]

[Footnote 141: William I., who had abdicated in order to marry
again, and William II., his son, who was nearly fifty.]

[Footnote 142: The King of Greece, elected in 1833.]

[Pageheading: AMBASSADORS' AUDIENCES]

_Queen Victoria to Sir Robert Peel._

_25th October 1841._

With respect to the appointment of Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench,
the Queen approves of Mr Pennefather[143] for that office. The Queen
may be mistaken, for she is not very well acquainted with the judicial
officers in Ireland, but it strikes her that Serjeant Jackson belonged
to the very violent Orange party in Ireland, and if this should be the
case she suggests to Sir Robert Peel whether it would not be better
_not_ to appoint him. If, on the other hand, the Queen should be
mistaken as to his political opinions, she would not disapprove of his
succeeding Mr Pennefather.

The Queen saw in the pa