Count Vitzthum was in Lisbon when the tidings of the Prince Consort’s death arrived, but he returned to London very soon afterwards. He says, “The consternation I found prevailing among all classes of the people surpassed my utmost expectations. Mr. Disraeli spoke to me with deep and heartfelt sorrow of the irreparable loss that England had sustained. ‘With Prince Albert,’ he said, ‘we have buried our Sovereign. This German Prince has governed England for twenty-one years with a wisdom and energy such as none of our kings have ever shown. He was the permanent Private Secretary, the permanent Prime Minister of the Queen. If he had outlived some of the ‘old stagers,’ he would have given us, while retaining all constitutional guarantees, the blessings of absolute government. Of us younger men who are qualified to enter the Cabinet, there is not one who would not willingly have bowed to his experience. We are now in the midst of a change of government. What to-morrow will bring forth no man can tell. To-day we are sailing in the deepest gloom, with night and darkness all around us.’” Some very curious details were collected by Count Vitzthum relating to the Prince Consort’s illness. On the 15th of January the Duke of Cambridge, who was then staying with his mother at Kew, invited Count Vitzthum and Count Apponyi to dinner, and from his conversation the former was able to glean the following facts:--“The illness,” writes Count Vitzthum, “which snatched away the Prince so suddenly in his forty-second year was at first nothing but a gastric fever, as his private librarian, Mr. Ruland, had informed me by letter on the day before I left for Lisbon. This so-called Windsor fever, so frequently recurrent at that season in the badly-drained town, soon, however, became typhoid. The Prince did not seem to be really ill, though as early as the 23rd or 24th of November his mind strangely wandered. His valet[116] felt instinctively what was necessary. ‘Living here will kill your Royal Highness,’ he frequently repeated. ‘You must leave Windsor and go to Germany for a time to rest and recover strength.’ These well-meant warnings passed unheeded by the patient, who showed the listlessness so foreign to his nature, but so characteristic of this disease. The most serious sign was sleeplessness and a total want of appetite. All the symptoms show that. I had the same illness myself last year. My own experience, therefore, makes me convinced that the sick man, from the indifference he showed for everything, especially for the preservation of his own life, had no idea of the danger he was in. This is the peculiarity of typhoid fever, which so completely shatters the nervous system. It requires, after timely diagnosis, complete rest and gentle treatment. When once the blood-poisoning has reached a certain stage no human aid can avail. [Illustration: CAMBRIDGE COTTAGE, KEW.]