Her Majesty notes with pleasure the arrival of "our dear, excellent old friend Stockmar," whose presence, however, by no means gave universal satisfaction. Indeed, Sir Theodore Martin says frankly that, although his visit was due solely to his desire to meet the Queen and Prince Consort, it was viewed with rancorous suspicion by the aristocratic party, who held in abhorrence the man whom they knew to be the great advocate for the establishment of constitutional government in Germany. He was even accused of actively intriguing for the downfall of the Manteuffel Administration, having, it was said, "brought in his pocket, all cut and dry from England, the Ministry of the new era." Stockmar's views of what was needful to raise Germany to her proper place among the nations were unchanged, but age and infirmity had for some time made him a mere looker-on. Nevertheless, it is probable that neither the Queen nor Prince Albert in the least realised how inadvisable, in the interests of the Princess Royal, was the old man's visit. It must not, however, be thought that the Prussians were indifferent to the Princess Royal's singular personal charm. We have a most interesting glimpse of this in a long letter written to Queen Victoria by the beautiful and brilliant Duchess of Manchester, herself a Hanoverian by birth, who afterwards married the Duke of Devonshire and for many years held a remarkable position in English society. The Duchess relates how well the Princess Royal was looking during the manoeuvres on the Rhine, and how much she seemed to be beloved, not only by all those who knew her, but also by those who had only seen and heard of her. "The English could not help feeling proud of the way the Princess Royal was spoken of, and the high esteem she is held in. For one so young it is a most flattering position, and certainly, as the Princess's charm of manner and her kind unaffected words had in that short time won her the hearts of all the officers and strangers present, one was not astonished at the praise the Prussians themselves bestow on her Royal Highness. The Prussian Royal Family is so large, and their opinions politically and socially sometimes so different, that it must have been very difficult indeed at first for the Princess Royal, and people therefore cannot praise enough the high principles, great discretion, sound judgment, and cleverness her Royal Highness has invariably displayed." And the Duchess adds, on the authority of Field Marshal Wrangel, that the soldiers were particularly delighted to see the Princess on horseback and without a veil. The Royal visit to Babelsberg came to an end all too soon, and the leave-taking was tearful and emotional in the extreme. Queen Victoria wrote with natural feeling, "All would be comparatively easy, were it not for the one thought that I cannot be with her at the very critical moment when every other mother goes to her child!"