of humor.” When the inevitable time for speech-making came, and the Prince Consort had to return thanks for the toast of the Queen’s and his own health, Her Majesty writes that it was a dreadful moment, which she hoped never to have to go through again. “He did it very well, though he hesitated once. I sat shaking, with my eyes _cloués sur la table_.” The Emperor and Empress were both very nervous, and the Queen shook so she could not drink her coffee. The reception given to the Queen was magnificent and uncomfortable in the highest possible degree. One flight of rockets, a mere incident in a grand display of fireworks, was said to have cost 25,000 francs. From first to last, the fête was organized with regard to the highest possible degree of expense. The Queen and Prince were more than ever impressed that the strength of Cherbourg was a menace to England, and called the attention of their own Ministers, who were in attendance, to the obvious necessity for England to look more sharply to her coast and naval defences. How thankful Her Majesty must have been when the end of each day’s festivity was reached! Even in the diary the mere words form a little oasis, “At twenty minutes to ten we went below, and read and nearly finished that most interesting book, ‘Jane Eyre.’” The alarm felt by the Queen and Prince as to the hostile intentions of Louis Napoleon towards England were fully shared by the nation. After the attempt by Orsini, early in 1858, to assassinate the Emperor by the explosion of bombs under his carriage as it was approaching the Opera House, England was accused of having harbored the conspirators, and with having thereby encouraged their crime. It was true that Orsini had come direct from England, and though this did not make England responsible for him, yet some irritation on the part of France was quite excusable. This expression of irritation, however, passed all reasonable bounds. The Emperor received a large number of addresses from Colonels in the French army congratulating him on his escape; and these addresses, which were published at full in the official organ of the French Government, were, in many instances, full of clamorous demands for war with England. One of these effusions spoke of England as “the land of impurity, which contains the haunts of monsters which are sheltered by its laws;” another requested the Emperor to give the word, and the “infamous haunt in which machinations so infernal are planned”--that is, London--“should be destroyed forever.” England’s answer was the Volunteer movement, and the dismissal from office of Lord Palmerston’s Government, because it was believed to have been too subservient to the demands of France.