er
been exactly defined--the duty of the different members of a cabinet to
one another, to the Prime-minister, and to the sovereign.

Queen Victoria had a high idea of her duties and responsibilities. From
any legal responsibility she was aware that she was exempt; but she did
not the less consider that a moral responsibility rested on her not to
be content to give her royal sanction as a mere matter of form to every
scheme or measure which might be submitted to her, but to examine every
case for herself, to form her own opinion, and, if it differed from that
of her ministers, to lay her objections and views fairly before them,
though prepared, as the constitution required, to act on their decision
rather than on her own, if, in spite of her arguments, they adhered to
their judgment. And in carrying out this notion of her duty she was
singularly aided by the Prince, her husband, a man of perfectly upright
character, of great general ability, and who, from the first moment of
his married life, regulated his views of every question, domestic and
foreign, by its bearing on English interests and English feelings, to
which he early acclimatized himself with a remarkable readiness of
appreciation.

In the administration of Lord John Russell, Lord Palmerston was Foreign
Secretary, and during its latter years foreign affairs occupied more of
the attention of the country than matters of domestic policy.

The revolution of 1848, which overthrew the Orleans dynasty, had
produced in France a state of affairs but little removed from anarchy,
which was scarcely mitigated by the election of Prince Louis Napoleon to
the Presidency of the new republic for four years, so constant was the
opposition which the Republican party in the Assembly offered to every
part of his policy. They even carried their opposition so far as to form
a deliberate plan for the impeachment of his minister and himself, and
for his arrest and imprisonment at Vincennes. But he was well-informed
of all these dangers, and on the morning of the 2d of December, 1851
(the day, as was commonly believed, having been selected by him as being
the anniversary of his uncle's great victory of Austerlitz), he
anticipated them by the arrest of all the leading malcontents in their
beds; which he followed up by an appeal to the people to adopt a new
constitution which he set before them, the chief article of which was
the appointment of a President for ten years.

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