Social condition of the Country in 1870--Mr. Bright’s “Six Omnibuses in Temple Bar”--Opening of Parliament--Mr. Gladstone’s Irish Land Bill--Amendments to the Bill--Dual-Ownership Established--The Bill and the House of Lords--The Revolt of Lord Salisbury--The Education Bill--Mutiny of the Liberal Dissenters--Mr. Lowe’s Second Budget--The Civil Service opened to Competition--Mr. Cardwell’s Failure at the War Office--The Queen and the Army--Mr. Childers and Admiralty Reform--Mr. Baxter and Navy Contracts--The Wreck of the _Captain_--Lord Granville and the Colonies--Death of Lord Clarendon--The Franco-Prussian War--Collapse of the French Armies--Sedan--Fall of the Bonapartist Dynasty--Proclamation of the Third Republic--Investment of Paris--The Government of National Defence at Tours--M. Gambetta Rouses Prostrate France--Gallant Stand of the Mobiles--A Passing Glimpse of Victory--The Queen and the War--Prussia and England--Russia Repudiates the Black Sea Clauses of the Treaty of Paris--Papal Infallibility and the Italian Occupation of Rome--King William Proclaimed German Emperor--Opening of London University--Betrothal of the Princess Louise--Death of General Grey--Death of Dickens--The Novelist and the Queen--Garden Party at Windsor Castle--The Red River Expedition 354 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE H. R. H. THE PRINCESS OF WALES. (_From a Photograph by Messrs. W. & D. Downey, London._) _Frontispiece_ The Prince Consort (_After the Photograph by Mayall_) xi Balmoral Castle, from the North, looking towards Lochnagar (_After a Photograph by G. W. Wilson and Co., Aberdeen_) 1 The Fortress of Gwalior 5 Lord Canning 8 Attempted Assassination of the Emperor of the French 9 View in Windsor Castle: the Inner Cloisters, looking West 13 The Queen’s Visit to Birmingham: The Procession passing along New Street 17 Visit of the Queen to the Emperor and Empress of the French at Cherbourg 20 Osborne House (_From a Photograph by J. Valentine and Sons, Dundee_) 21 Potsdam 24 The Queen leaving the Town Hall, Leeds 25 Victor Emmanuel 29 The Guard-Room, St. James’s Palace (_From a Photograph by H. N. King_) 33