King Leopold’s life was indeed “a history in itself.” He was almost ostentatiously indifferent to his position--ever impressing on his subjects that he reigned in their interest rather than in his own. It has been said that he could always bring them to reason by threatening to abdicate. The sagacity and tact with which he prevented the Catholics and the Liberals in Belgium from coming to blows, gave him great influence in Europe. But that influence was enhanced by his capacity for diplomatic intrigue, and the opportunities for exercising it which his curious family connections gave him. Though he began life as one of the obscurest of the petty Princes of Germany, he had married in succession the heiress of England and the daughter of the King of the French. By a double marriage, his children were allied to the Imperial House of Hapsburg. He was the uncle and mentor of the Queen and the Prince Consort--indeed, he and Baron Stockmar had brought about their marriage. His position was supposed to be unassailable from the day when, on being threatened with a revolution, he calmly began to pack a carpet-bag in presence of the popular leaders, who thereupon, in a paroxysm of fear, implored him not to leave the country. Yet, according to Lord Malmesbury, “the last years of his life were spent in perpetual terror of Louis Napoleon, and he was constantly alarming our Ministers and everybody on the subject.”[239] [Illustration: OPENING OF PARLIAMENT IN 1866: THE QUEEN AT THE PEERS’ ENTRANCE, WESTMINSTER PALACE.] CHAPTER XI. A STOP-GAP ADMINISTRATION. End of the Era of Compromise--Dawn of the new Epoch of Reform--Opening of Parliament by the Queen--The Queen’s Nervous Prostration at Osborne--Introduction of the Reform Bill--Hostility of the House of Commons--Dissentient Liberals in “the Cave of Adullam”--Defeat of the Reform Bill--Resignation of the Ministry--Lord Derby forms a Cabinet--His attempted Coalition with the Whig Dukes--Domestic Policy during the Session--The House of Commons and the Rinderpest--Another Prosperity Budget--Large Remissions of Taxation--Coercing Ireland--The White Terror in Jamaica--Marriage of the Princess Helena--The Financial Embarrassment of the Princess Louis of Hesse--The Queen Intercedes with Prussia on behalf of Hesse-Darmstadt--The Queen’s Gift to Mr. Peabody--The Queen’s Visit to Aldershot--The Foundation of the Albert Medal--Marriage of the Princess Mary of Cambridge--The Queen’s first Telegram to the President of the United States--The Queen’s Visit to Aberdeen and Wolverhampton.