Although the outbreak had been in the main directed against the Roman Catholic missionaries, it was quite as much an attack upon M. Fontanier, the French Consul, who was one of the victims. I knew him when he was interpreter to the French Legation at Peking. Combining piety with bullying, he was a violent Ultra montane bigot, one of those Christians who seek to propagate their cause by methods more really anti-Christian than those of what they call “the heathen.” My only wonder had been that he was not murdered long before. A man who would prove his Christianity by kicking over into the mud of Peking the humble stall of a poor old apple-woman, because it stood between the wind and his nobility, was hardly to be pitied—and of that I was a witness. The poor priests had in him but a sorry protector, a weak reed to lean upon. The Queen listened with great interest. “I am afraid,” she said, “that sometimes the missionaries are rather injudicious.” It was a revelation to me that in the midst of the pressure of affairs so much nearer home, and so appallingly important, the Queen should yet have found time to make herself mistress of the concerns of the Far East. Her memory was amazing, and it was that most precious quality which made her such a valuable and sure guide to her ministers in matters of precedent and detail. I had been at Balmoral once before, some twelve years earlier, when I was staying at Invercauld, and, as usual, the neighbouring lairds and their guests were invited over to a ball. It was fixed in my memory by an incident trifling in itself, and yet not without interest as showing one side of the Queen’s character—her great dignity. It was ill attempting anything like presumption in her presence. A country dance was going on, in which the Queen took part. There was a certain gentleman present, dressed in gorgeous Highland array, who, after having had his turn and made his bow to her Majesty, cheated, and, instead of taking his proper place, tried to win the chance of dancing up to her a second time. The Queen saw through the trick at once, and when the ambitious dancer came up to her, stopped dead short and very quietly drawing herself up, pointed to his proper place, and beckoned up the gentleman whose turn it was. What the foolish man expected to gain it would be hard to say, but he was known as a very pushing person, and what he did gain was a setting down in the face of the whole company, which must have made him, as America says, “feel mean.”