At the close of the year of 1844, a further complication was added to the many difficulties which surrounded the question of the Queen's marriage. "I believe," wrote Lord Cowley,[807] "that Louis Philippe is thinking of the marriage of Montpensier[808] with the sister of Isabella." The supposition was perfectly correct. It is impossible, however, to say with certainty when the King first decided to put forward his son as a candidate for the hand of the Infanta Fernanda. According to Guizot,[809] the suggestion was not made until the autumn of 1844, and it was then propounded, he alleges, for the purpose of reconciling Christina and the Spanish people to the insignificance of the Neapolitan alliance. But it was always, he asserts, made perfectly clear that the Montpensier marriage could not take place until the Queen had married and borne a child. Be that as it may, it was not considered advisable to inform Lord Aberdeen of this project. During the next few months, however, the new matrimonial scheme was the subject of many rumours, and, in the month of July, 1845, a visit of the Duke of Rianzarez to Paris was so generally believed to be connected with this affair, that it was felt that some explanation must be given to the British government.[810] M. Guizot, accordingly, informed Mr. Bulwer, who happened to be in Paris on his way to London, that he wished Lord Aberdeen to know that "King Louis Philippe and Queen Christina were desirous to settle the marriage for private and personal reasons into which the Infanta's fortune entered." It would not take place for some time, he assured him, and in any case not until Isabella had had children.[811] On September 8, 1845, Queen Victoria paid a second visit to Louis Philippe at the Château d'Eu. Her Majesty, Prince Albert, Aberdeen and Peel had been considerably disturbed by the news brought by Bulwer from Paris. But on the very day of the arrival of the Royal party at Eu, both the King and M. Guizot declared to Lord Aberdeen, "in the most positive and explicit manner, that until the Queen was married and had children, they should consider the Infanta precisely as her sister, and that any marriage with a French prince would be entirely out of the question. . . . I distinctly understood," wrote Aberdeen to Peel a few hours after he had received these assurances, "that it was not only a marriage and a child, but children that were necessary to secure the succession. I thought this was as much as we could desire at present, and that the question of a marriage with a French prince might safely be left to be considered, whenever the contingency contemplated should arrive. Many things may happen in the course of a few years."[812]