As the King's health began to give way, so also did his temper more easily yield before small provocations, and more freely did he indulge in that early acquired habit of using strong expletives which has been noted, in her diary, by Fanny Burney. William the Conqueror, it is said, used to ungallantly beat his wife, Matilda, of whom he was otherwise so fond. William the Fourth was guilty of an offence only next to it in criminality,--by swearing in presence of his Consort, Adelaide. There is a well-known instance of this told in connection with a visit to the Royal Academy, in 1834. The occasion was that of a private view, with a very large public attendance, at Somerset House. The President of the Royal Academy received the illustrious visitors, and accompanied them through the rooms. In the course of their progress, he pointed out to the King the portrait of Admiral Napier, who had recently been in command of the Portuguese fleet, for Don Pedro. The King's political wrath was too strong for his infirmity, and, without forgetting the presence of his wife, nay, making such presence an excuse for not breaking forth into greater unseemliness, he exclaimed:--"Captain Napier may be d----d, sir! and you may be d----d, sir! and if the Queen was not here, sir, I would kick you down stairs, sir." Such a scene indicated as much infirmity as bad taste on the part of the chief actor, and must have sorely tried the patience and shaken the dignity of the Queen. She now, perhaps, as much or more than ever, required the support of those nearest to her. The old prejudices of the reform time against her had not yet died out, and to these was to be added certain malignity in foreign papers; a malignity which culminated in 1835 in the "Gazette de France," which paper seriously asserted that England was endeavouring to revolutionize Spain and Portugal, with ulterior purposes of pursuing the same course in Germany and Italy, as she had done in Belgium and in Greece;--and that at the head of this conspiracy for reconstructing Europe, were William the Fourth, the Duke of Wellington, and _Queen Adelaide_! Thus, the lady who had seldom during her life desired more than to be permitted to enjoy it tranquilly, and who had but little perplexed herself touching the ways of others, was held up, after being accused of being a political meddler at home, as being a political conspirator abroad.