The Empress Frederick: a memoir. Anonymous

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СКАЧАТЬ She was shown at her carriage window to the populace; and Lady Lyttelton, noting the universal grin in all faces, declares that the baby will soon have seen every set of teeth in the kingdom!

      Some months later she records that “the dear Babekin is really going to be quite beautiful. Such large smiling soft blue eyes, and quite a handsome nose, and the prettiest mouth.” The child early acquired the appropriate pet name of “Pussy,” while she herself, finding Lady Lyttelton’s name too large a mouthful, simplified it to “Laddle.”

      It may be here recorded that an absurd rumour had been circulated that the Princess Royal had been born blind, and it was this and other foolish gossip which first induced the Queen, at the suggestion of Prince Albert, to issue an official Court Circular, which has been continued ever since.

      The Queen had the baby constantly with her, and thought incessantly about her, with the result that the child was perhaps rather over-watched and over-doctored. She was fed on asses’ milk, arrow-root, and chicken broth, which were measured out so carefully that Lady Lyttelton fancied she left off hungry. Lady Lyttelton, indeed, had some experience of this dieting craze, for her brother, Lord Althorp, at one time, when he had a terror of getting fat, used to weigh out his own breakfast every morning, and when he had consumed the tiny allowance used to hasten out of the room lest he should be led into temptation!

      The little Princess was over-sensitive and affectionate, and rather irritable in temper, and with a prophetic eye Lady Lyttelton says that “it looks like a pretty mind, only very unfit for roughing it through a hard life, which hers may be.”

      After the birth of the Prince of Wales, Lady Lyttelton gives us a passing, but sufficiently terrible glimpse of the anxieties which Royal parents must all suffer, more or less. She mentions that threatening letters aimed directly at the children were received, and though they were probably written by mad people, nevertheless no protection in the way of locks, guard-rooms, and intricate passages was omitted for the defence of the Royal nurseries; while the master key was never out of Prince Albert’s own keeping.

      The Princess Royal spent her second birthday at Walmar Castle, and she is described as being “most funny all day,” joining in the cheers and asking to be lifted up to look at “the people,” to whom she bowed very actively whether they could see her or not.

      Perhaps one reason why she became, and remained, so fond of France was that from infancy she was placed in the charge of a French lady, Madame Charlier. She was very advanced through all her childhood, especially in music and painting, yet she remained quite natural and simple in all her ways.

      She was only three years old when Prince Albert wrote to Stockmar: “The children in whose welfare you take so kindly an interest are making most favourable progress. The eldest, ‘Pussy,’ is now quite a little personage. She speaks English and French with great fluency and choice of phrase.” But to her parents she generally talked German.

      “Our Pussette,” the Queen writes a few weeks afterwards, “learns a verse of Lamartine by heart, which ends with ‘Le tableau se déroule à mes pieds.’ To show how well she understood this difficult line, I must tell you the following bon-mot. When she was riding on her pony, and looking at the cows and sheep, she turned to Madame Charlier, and said: ‘Voilà le tableau qui se déroule à mes pieds!’ Is not this extraordinary for a child of three years?”

      It is evident that the oral teaching of languages had very sensibly preceded that of books, for when the Princess is four years and three months old we hear that she is getting on very well with her lessons, “but much is still to be done before she can read.”

      In spite of her accomplishments, she was a very natural human child, and could be naughty on occasion. Lady Lyttelton records about this time that the Princess, after an hour’s naughtiness, said she wished to speak to her; but instead of the expected penitence, she delivered herself as follows: “I am very sorry, Laddle, but I mean to be just as naughty next time”—a threat which was followed by a long imprisonment.

      Perhaps the Princess Royal’s happiest days were spent at Osborne, where she began going at the age of five. There the Royal children had a cottage, built on the Swiss model, to themselves. It comprised a dining-room, a kitchen, a store-room, and a museum; and in it the Princesses were encouraged to learn how to do household work, and to direct the management of a small establishment. When in their Swiss cottage, each princess was allowed to choose her own occupation and to enjoy a certain liberty; their parents used to be invited there as guests at meals which the Princess Royal and Princess Alice had themselves prepared.

      Years later, when they had both married to Germany, there were certain tunes which neither the Princess Royal nor Princess Alice could hear without tears rising to their eyes, so powerfully did the recollection of the happy birthdays and holidays they spent at Osborne remain with them. Not long before her death Princess Alice wrote to her mother: “What a joyous childhood we had, and how greatly it was enhanced by dear sweet Papa, and by all your kindness to us!”

      Many happy days were also spent by the Princesses at Balmoral. In the Highlands the restraints of Court life were entirely thrown off, and the Queen encouraged her daughters to come into close contact with the poorer classes of their neighbours, indeed everything in reason was done to arouse their sympathies for the needy and the suffering.

      The Princess Royal showed even in her early childhood an astonishing power of vivid expression. For example, when she was about five and a half, she found mentioned in a history book the name of an ancient poet called Wace. Lady Lyttelton thereupon observed that she had never heard of that poet till then, but the Princess insisted: “Oh, yes, I daresay you did, only you have forgotten it. Réfléchissez! Go back to your youngness and you will soon remember.”

      That the child had a natural and instinctive religious feeling is shown by another incident. She had narrowly escaped serious injury from treading on a large nail, and Lady Lyttelton explained to her that it had pleased God to save her from great pain. Instantly the child said: “Shall we kneel down?”

      In October 1847 the Princess Royal had an accident which might have been very serious.

      The children were riding with their ponies when the Princess was quietly thrown after a few yards of cantering. She was not hurt, but the Prince of Wales’s pony ran away with him. Fortunately he was strapped into the saddle, and, after one loud cry for help, he showed no signs of fear, but cleverly kept as tight hold of the reins as he could pull. The Princess Royal was not at all frightened herself until she saw her brother’s danger, and then she screamed out: “Oh, can’t they stop him? Dear Bertie!” and burst into tears. Fortunately all ended well, and the children went on riding as fearlessly as ever.

      In October 1848 the Royal children, crossing in the yacht Fairy from Osborne on their way to Windsor, witnessed a terrible accident—the sinking of a boatload of people in a sudden squall. It made a deep impression on all the children, and the Princess Royal kept thinking of it all that night.

      It is about this time that Lady Lyttelton observes: “The Princess Royal might pass, if not seen but only overheard, for a young lady of seventeen in whichever of her three languages she chose to entertain the company.”

      Nearly a year afterwards, Lady Lyttelton notes that “dear Princessey” had been now perfectly good ever since they came to Osborne, and she says that she continues to reflect and observe and reason like a very superior person, and is as affectionate as ever.

      Again, in April 1849, she notes every moment more and more “the blessed improvement of the Princess Royal.” “She is becoming capable of self-control and principle and patience, and her wonderful powers of head and heart continue. She may turn СКАЧАТЬ