A sudden shock, which was only that of a great danger happily averted, broke in on the flush of all that was best worth having and doing in existence, and seemed to utter a warning against the instability of life at its brightest and fairest. There was stag-hunting on Ascot Heath, at which the Queen and the Prince were to be present. He was to join in the hunt and she was to follow with Prince Ernest in a pony phaeton. As she stood by a window in Windsor Castle, she saw Prince Albert canter past on a restless and excited horse. In vain the rider turned the animal round several times, he got the bit between his teeth and started at the top of his speed among the trees of the Park; very soon he brushed against a branch and unseated the Prince, who fell, without, however, sustaining any serious injury. The Queen saw the beginning but not the end of the misadventure, and her alarm was only relieved by the return of one of the grooms in waiting, who told the extent of the accident. _Noblesse oblige._ The Prince mounted a fresh horse and proceeded to the hunt, and the Queen joined him. "Albert received me on the terrace of the large stand and led me up," the Queen wrote in her Journal. "He looked very pale, and said he had been much alarmed lest I should have been frightened by his accident.... He told me he had scraped the skin off his poor arm, had bruised his hip and knee, and his coat was torn and dirty. It was a frightful fall." On the 20th of April, an event took place in France which at this time naturally was particularly interesting both to the Queen and the Prince. The Duc de Nemours, second son of Louis Philippe and brother to the Queen of the Belgians, married Princess Victoire of Saxe-Coburg, only daughter of the head of the Catholic branch of the family, sister of the King Consort of Portugal, and first cousin both to the Queen and Prince Albert. This marriage drew many intertwined family ties still more closely together. Princess Victoire was a pretty golden-haired girl, and is described afterwards as a singularly sweet, affectionate, reasonable woman. She had spent much of her youth at Coburg, and been a favourite playmate of Prince Albert, whose junior she was by three years. She was the friend of the Queen from girlhood. "We were like sisters," wrote her Majesty, "bore the same name, married the same year.... There was in short a similarity between us, which, since 1839, united us closely and tenderly." The Duc de Nemours, without the intellectual gifts of some of his brothers, resembled his good mother, Queen Amelie, in many respects. He had quiet, domestic tastes, and was affectionately attached to his wife. CHAPTER X. ROYAL OCCUPATIONS.--AN ATTEMPT ON THE QUEEN'S LIFE.