The Earl of Aberdeen, the Foreign Secretary of the day, accompanied the Queen and Prince to France. The English Foreign Office at this time regarded with apprehension a scheme which they believed Louis Philippe and his Minister, Guizot, had in view of strengthening French interests in Spain by marrying one of the King’s sons to the young Queen Isabella. Louis Philippe, on the occasion of the Queen’s visit, assured her most positively, and Guizot said the same thing to Aberdeen, that he had no wish or intention of the kind, that even if his son were asked in marriage for the Queen of Spain, he would not consent. The Queen of Spain and her sister the Infanta were then young girls of thirteen and twelve respectively. The French King’s assurances to our Queen went so far as a positive promise that even if one of his sons should eventually marry the Infanta, he should not consent to the union until after the Queen of Spain was married and had children. It is necessary to go at length into the wretched story. Louis Philippe and Guizot covered themselves with infamy. Through their influence a hateful marriage was forced on Queen Isabella, her consent to it being, it is said, wrung from her under the influence of intoxication; from this marriage it was hoped and believed that no children would be born. At the same time that this so-called marriage was announced, it was also made public that the Infanta would be married to the Duc de Montpensier, son of Louis Philippe. The two marriages took place on the same day, October 10th, 1846. Well might Stockmar write of this odious transaction, as “a political intrigue which exceeds in immorality and vulgarity everything brought out in modern times on the theatre of politics; a part which would have shut out any one who had attempted to play it in the circle of private life from all respectable society.”