At Osborne--Beginnings of Revolution--The Reform Banquets in Paris--Lola Montes and the King of Bavaria--Downfall of Louis Philippe’s Government--Flight of the King--Establishment of the Second Republic--The Queen and the Orleans Family--The Chartist Movement--Its Secret History--Its Leaders--The Queen Retreats to Osborne--The Chartist Meeting at Kennington--London in Terror--The Duke of Wellington’s Precautions--Abortive Risings at Bonner’s Fields and in Seven Dials--Riots in the Large Towns--Collapse of Chartism--Ireland and the “Young Irelanders”--The Rebellion of “’48”--The Battle of the Cabbage Garden--Arrest of Smith O’Brien and the “Young Ireland” Leaders--Austria and Prussia in Anarchy--Flight of Metternich--The Berlin Mob and the King--Anxiety of the English Court--The Queen’s Correspondence with her Half-Sister--The Anglo-Spanish Quarrel--Sir H. Bulwer Expelled from Madrid--The Queen’s Indignation at Lord Palmerston--Conversation between the Queen and Lord John Russell--Palmerston’s Victory--The “Three Budget” Session--The Anti-Income-Tax Agitation--Blundering in Finance--“Scenes” in Parliament--Irish and Colonial Controversies--The Encumbered Estates Act--Repressive Legislation--Dawn of the Reform Agitation. During the autumn Session of Parliament, while the Irish Coercion Bill was under debate, the Queen and her family retired to Osborne. Pleasant experiments in landscape gardening there formed an agreeable diversion from the distracting anxieties of foreign politics in London. And truly by this time affairs on the Continent began to assume a more threatening aspect than ever. In Switzerland the rebellion of the seven Catholic cantons of the Sonderbund had been crushed by General Dufour, who commanded the forces of the other fifteen cantons. The rising was suppressed before the Cabinets of England, Austria, France, Russia, and Prussia had time to intervene. But in Italy the popular party, excited by rumours of Lord Minto’s sympathy with their movement, were stirring up the people against their Austrian masters. The Pope was growing afraid of his own diluted Liberalism. France was rapidly becoming demoralised. Sensational trials in the law courts revealed a shocking amount of corruption in official circles in Paris. The deficit in the Budget was greater than had been anticipated. Louis Philippe was accused of debauching the electorate and the Representative Chamber by bribery; his quarrel with England, and his futile attempt to win compensatory alliances elsewhere, destroyed his prestige; the Liberal Party, secretly encouraged by his enemy, Lord Palmerston, attacked his Government with every weapon of invective and ridicule; his Ministers had lost the confidence of the people, and the demand for a wide extension of the franchise accordingly became loud and deep. To this demand, perfectly