Alas for fickle fortune and the changes which time brings! The present writer was accidentally present on the occasion of the Emperor and Empress's last visit to the Crystal Palace. They came from Chislehurst without any announcement, when they were not expected, on an ordinary shilling day in autumn, the company happening to be few. A slight stir and one or two policemen coming to the front, suggested that some theft had been committed, and that the offender was about to be taken into custody and removed from the building. Then an official walked bareheaded down the cleared nave, and behind him came a little yellow- skinned shrunken man in plain clothes, on whose arm a lady in a simple black silk walking-dress and country hat leant lightly, as if she were giving instead of receiving support. He made a slight attempt to acknowledge the faint greetings of the spectators, some of them ignorant of the identity of the visitors, all of them taken by surprise. She smiled and bowed from side to side, a little mechanically, as if anxious to overlook no courtesy and to act for both. It was not long after the battle of Sedan and the imprisonment at Wilhelmshohe, and the hand of death was already upon him. The couple hurried on, as if desirous of not being detained, and could not have tarried many minutes in the building when a few straggling cheers announced their departure. In the afternoon of the 20th of April a second council relating to the war in the Crimea was held, at which the Queen was present. With her large interest in public affairs, her growing experience, and her healthy appetite for the work of her life, she enjoyed it exceedingly. "It was one of the most interesting scenes I was ever present at," she wrote in her journal. "I would not have missed it for the world." On Saturday, the 21st of April, the visitors left, after the Emperor had written a graceful French sentence in the Queen's album, and an admonitory verse in German, which had originally been written for himself, in the Prince of Wales's autograph book. The Queen accompanied her visitors to the door, and parted from them with kindly regret. As they drove off she "ran up" to see the last of the travellers from the saloon they had just quitted. "The Emperor and Empress saw us at the window," she wrote, "turned round, got up, and bowed.... We watched them, with the glittering escort, till they could be seen no more...." The Prince escorted the Emperor and Empress to Dover. The Queen wrote in a short memorandum her view of the Emperor's character, and what she expected from the visit in a political light. Through the good sense of the paper one can see how the confiding friendly nature had survived the rough check given to it by Louis Philippe's manoeuvres and dissimulation.