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But the most interesting kind of portraiture is that which arises spontaneously in people's minds. When Victoria came to the throne, says Mr. Sentiment and romance were coming into fashion; and the spectacle of the little girl-queen, innocent, modest, with fair hair and pink cheeks, driving through her capital, filled the hearts of the beholders with raptures of affectionate loyalty.
She was his girl-queen, and he was her slave; she was his mistress, and he was her dog; and, dog-like, he fawned at her feet even when she rated him and placed her little foot on his neck. "I hope you will not be bored, my boy, but I am thinking of bringing that wretched Leam Dundas here for a few days. I don't like a girl of her age and character to be left for a full month alone.
The girl-queen listened with breathless eagerness to the strange revelations, often interrupting with passionate exclamations, for her short taste of Cyprian life had been so colored with the glamour of love and happiness and the excitement of her novel surroundings that the vague forebodings which were beginning to temper the brilliancy had suggested no serious shadows.
It breathes a spirit of fatherly interest which excellently becomes a minister of religion, glancing, from the close of a long life spent in public affairs, at the possibilities, at once awful and splendid, which lay before the Girl-Queen. The preacher, in his opening paragraphs, briefly announces his theme. His starting-point is the death of the King.
While Necker's Parisian friends rejoiced, his enemies at court prepared his downfall. Now the most powerful enemy of Necker's reforms and economies was the queen, Marie Antoinette. The light- hearted girl-queen had little serious interest in politics, but when her friends complained of Necker's miserliness, she at once demanded his dismissal.
Anne of Austria was enchanted with the beauty of the boy, who had just attained his twelfth year, and whose intellect was as remarkable as his person; but giddy, thoughtless, and ever eager for amusement, the girl-Queen, overlooking the fatal circumstances in which he was placed, immediately commanded that he should exhibit his talent; and the poor fatherless child, whose whole career had been blighted only a few short hours before, was compelled to this unseemly display; after which he was regaled with sweetmeats, and returned to the custody of his gaolers, by whom he was shortly afterwards imprisoned in the castle of Nantes.
"Yes," answered the unelated, considerate girl-Queen, "but the widowed Queen is not to be reminded of the fact first by me."
If she had, she would not have thought that the presence of Leam Dundas would bore or annoy him. The clumsy features gladdened into smiles, the dull eye brightened, the dim complexion flushed: if ever a face expressed supreme delight, Alick's did then; and it expressed what he felt, for, as we know, the one love of his boyish life was this girl-queen of his fancy.
It was in such vigils, since her great sorrows had come to her, that the desolate girl-queen had learned her life-lessons and she was no longer afraid of their solemnity, coming thus into closer friendship with her own soul and a more implicit faith. "Dear Father in Heaven!" she cried. "Thou knowest it is because I love them that I leave them, to do their life-work! and Thou wilt grant me wisdom!
Sentiment and romance were coming into fashion; and the spectacle of the little girl-queen, innocent, modest, with fair hair and pink cheeks, driving through her capital, filled the hearts of the beholders with raptures of affectionate loyalty. What, above all, struck everybody with overwhelming force was the contrast between Queen Victoria and her uncles.
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