It was natural that the Queen, with that eager enthusiasm which was so much a part of her character, especially in this still radiantly happy period of her life, should have welcomed the thought of a marriage between her eldest daughter and the future King of Prussia. She had formed the most favourable opinion of Prince Frederick William during his brief sojourn in England in 1851. He was a man of high and honourable character at a time when such virtues were rare among the marriageable princes of reigning families, and his parents were regarded by the Queen and Prince Albert as among their dearest and most intimate friends. The Prince of Prussia had spent some time in England after the Berlin revolution of 1848, and on parting from Madame Bunsen, the wife of the Prussian Minister, he had exclaimed: "In no other State or country could I have passed so well the period of distress and anxiety through which I have gone." During his stay he had become intimate with the Queen and Prince Albert--indeed, the Queen, as was her way when she trusted and admired, had grown to be warmly attached to him. She regarded him as noble-minded, honest, and cruelly wronged; and, what naturally endeared him to her still more, he showed great confidence in Prince Albert, apparently always accepting the advice constantly tendered him by the Prince. All through his life Prince Albert had seen a vision of a Germany united under the leadership of Prussia, and it was delightful to him to learn that it was now open to him to enter into a close relationship with one whom he naturally believed destined to play a supreme part in the regeneration of his beloved fatherland. It is not generally known that Prince Albert had written a pamphlet entitled "The German Question Explained," in which he propounded a scheme for a federated German Empire with an Emperor at the head. This pamphlet must have been either privately printed or withdrawn from circulation, for not even Sir Theodore Martin, when writing the Prince's life, could procure a copy. This suggested marriage of the Princess Royal opened out to her father the fair prospect of being able to bring about by his counsel and assistance the realisation of his disinterested ambitions for the future welfare of Germany. The then King of Prussia was already sick unto death; the Prince of Prussia had now passed middle age; everything pointed to the probability that within a reasonable time Prince Frederick William would become ruler of Prussia and, incidentally, overlord of the German peoples. There is good authority for the truth of the now famous story of "La Belle Alliance."