watching our proceedings seems to give a zest to the enjoyment of these moments snatched from State parade and ceremony. Here, too, the Royal children are brought out by their nurses, and the whole arrangement seems like real domestic pleasure.” On the 28th of August--the very day after the prorogation of Parliament--the Queen and Prince Albert embarked at Southampton, to spend a short time with the King of the French, who was staying at Château d’Eu, near Tréport. The voyagers sailed in their new yacht, _Victoria and Albert_, which was only just finished, but of which we have heard much in later years. For a couple of days they cruised about the Isle of Wight, and along the coast of Devonshire, and then, crossing the Channel, arrived at Tréport on the evening of September 2nd. Louis Philippe came off in his barge to welcome the distinguished visitors, and was accompanied by several members of his family, by M. Guizot, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, by Lord Cowley, the English Ambassador at Paris, and by several officers and others. The English party were rowed ashore in the French barge, over which the Royal Standards of France and England floated in genial companionship. The reception of the Queen was such as almost to overpower her with emotion, and the whole visit appears to have yielded her Majesty the deepest satisfaction. The determination of the Queen and Prince Albert to cross over to France appears to have been unknown to the English Ministers until shortly before the time of starting. There were, of course, some rumours of such an intention; but even in the highest quarters they were disbelieved. In his “Journal,” published in 1857, Mr. Raikes asserts that the whole affair “was a wily intrigue, managed by Louis Philippe through the intervention of his daughter, the Queen of the Belgians, during her frequent visits to Windsor with King Leopold, and was hailed by him with extreme joy, as the first admission of the King of the Barricades within the pale of legitimate sovereigns.” The Duke of Wellington observed to Mr. Raikes, “I was never let into the secret, nor did I believe the report then in circulation, till at last they sent to consult my opinion as to forming a Regency during the Queen’s absence. I immediately referred to precedents as the only proper guide. I told them that George I., George II. (George III. never went abroad), and George IV., had all been obliged to appoint Councils of Regency; that Henry VIII., when he met Francis I. at Ardres, was then master of Calais, as also when he met Charles V. at Gravelines; so that, in these instances, Calais being a part of his dominions, he hardly did more than pass his frontier--not much more than going from one county to the next. Upon this I decided that the Queen could not quit this country without an Act of Regency. But she consulted the Crown lawyers, who decided that it was not necessary.” In days like our own, when the Government of the country