Save for these anxious diplomatic perplexities, the Balmoral holiday was a highly enjoyable one, notable for long mountain excursions, of which the Queen’s ascent of Ben Macdhui was one of the most striking. The Prince Consort’s address to the British Association at Aberdeen was well received, and it was followed by a Highland gathering of philosophers at Balmoral, whose _fête_ was, however, marred by tempestuous weather. On the journey south the Queen opened, on the 14th of October, the great waterworks at Loch Katrine for the supply of Glasgow--works on a scale of magnificence not unworthy of the Roman Empire. After a pleasant, but brief sojourn in Wales, the Queen and her husband reached Windsor on the 17th, pleased to find that the Prince and Princess Frederick William proposed soon to visit them. They came on the 9th of November--when the birthday of the Prince of Wales was celebrated--and stayed till the 3rd of December. The last month of the year was spent at Osborne, till Christmastide came round, when the Royal Family removed to Windsor, where, writes the Prince Consort in his Diary, “we danced in the New Year.” CHAPTER III. THE COURT AND THE CABINET. The Queen’s Distrust of French Policy--Her Conferences with Lord Clarendon--The French Pamphlet on “The Pope and the Congress”--Palmerston’s Proposal of an Alliance Offensive and Defensive with France--Intriguing between Palmerston and Persigny--Recall of Cavour--Affairs in China--Mr. Cobden’s Commercial Treaty with France--Cession of Nice and Savoy to France--The Anglo-French Alliance at an End--Lord John Russell’s Reform Bill--Threatened Rupture with France--Russia Attempts to Re-open the Eastern Question--Garibaldi’s Invasion of the Two Sicilies--Collapse of the Neapolitan Monarchy--The Piedmontese Invade the Papal States--Annexation of the Sicilies to Sardinia--Meeting between Napoleon III. and the German Sovereigns at Baden--A New Holy Alliance--The Mahometan Atrocities in Syria--The Macdonald Scandal--Palmerston’s Fortification Scheme--The Lords Reject the Bill Abolishing the Paper Duty--The Volunteer Movement--Reviews in Hyde Park and Edinburgh--The Queen at Wimbledon--The Prince of Wales’s Tour in Canada and the United States--Betrothal of the Princess Alice--The Queen and her Grandchild--Serious Accident to the Prince Consort--Illness of the Queen.