The return visit of the Queen to Paris took place in the autumn of the same year. She was accompanied by her husband and the Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal. Some characteristic incidents connected with the Queen’s visit to Paris ought to be mentioned, especially that, although overflowing with friendliness and good feeling to the Emperor, she thought it her duty to explain to him that nothing could shake her kindly relations with the Orleans family. She told him that she had been intimate with them when they were in power, and she could not drop them when they were in adversity. Possibly Louis Napoleon remembered this conversation in 1870, when he himself was an exile in England, and experienced the benefit of the Queen’s faithfulness to her friends when they were in trouble. In this same conversation he opened the subject of his confiscation of the property of the Orleans family, and the Queen gave frank expression to her own views on the subject. The Queen remarks in her diary:-- “I was very anxious to get out what I had to say on the subject, and not to have this untouchable ground between us. Stockmar, so far back as last winter, suggested and advised that this course should be pursued.” After these visits letters were frequently interchanged between the two Sovereigns. In one of his, Louis Napoleon appears to have plumed himself on the advantages of an absolute monarchy, especially in conducting negotiations with other States, uncontrolled power of decision vested in the Sovereign alone, and so on. To which the Queen rejoined, “There is, however, another side to this picture, in which I consider I have an advantage which your Majesty has not. Your policy runs the risk of remaining unsupported by the nation,” and you may be exposed “to the dangerous alternative of either having to impose it upon them against their will, or of having suddenly to alter your course abroad, or even, perhaps, to encounter grave resistance. I, on the other hand, can allow my policy free scope to work out its own consequences, certain of the steady and consistent support of my people, who, having had a share in determining my policy, feel themselves to be identified with it.” Here, too, there was food for reflection on the Emperor’s part in after years. The Royal children greatly enjoyed their visit to Paris, and it is said that when the time came for their departure the Prince of Wales begged the Empress to get permission for him and the Princess Royal to be left behind to prolong their visit. “The Empress said she was afraid this would be impossible, as the Queen and the Prince would not be able to do without them;” to which the boy replied, “Not do without us! I don’t fancy that, for there are six more of us at home, and they don’t want us.”