I had met Prince Albert several times already, in Paris; but I had never seen Queen Victoria before.  Bright and witty, with an arch and pleasant smile not always quite devoid of mischief, the young sovereign was in all the freshness and brilliance of her youth and the radiance of her happiness.  She and her royal husband gave us a welcome of which I preserve the most grateful recollection, and from that day forward I conceived a profoundly respectful affection for her Majesty, which has increased with my advancing years.

Our visit to Windsor was short and devoid of striking incident, beyond the acquaintance I made there with men of eminence in war or state craft, such as the Duke of Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, and Lord Aberdeen.  It was at this time that the Queen of Great Britain’s journey to the Chateau d’Eu was decided on.  I went with my flotilla as far as Cherbourg to meet her.

When she got there, she invited me on board her own vessel, the splendid yacht Osborne, commanded by a son of the late King William IV., Lord Adolphus Fitzclarence, a very good fellow, but a somewhat rubicund specimen of the old-fashioned British sailor, with an eye he had some difficulty in keeping open; which failing earned him the following reply to his chaffing remark, made to a little schoolboy, already somewhat sensitive about his personal dignity.  “Oh, what a bad hat you have!”

“And you, what a damned bad eye!”

Lord Aberdeen, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, was also on board the yacht, besides Lord Liverpool, Lord Charles Wellesley, Colonel Wylde, and the ladies-in-waiting—­that charming Lady Canning whom we had known in Paris as a child, and who died in India, after having shown great courage during the terrible Sepoy mutiny, and a not less charming Miss Liddell, who afterwards became Lady Bloomfield.

The Queen’s entrance into Treport was favoured by splendid weather; the little wet dock, crammed with fishing boats, and the old church, were gilded by the rays of the setting sun, while opposite us, on the rock overlooking the port, rose the great cross before which the fishermen’s wives go and pray in stormy weather.  We went ashore to the firing of cannon and the rattle of thousands of sabots on the shingle, among a good-humoured crowd of sailors, short-petticoated fishwives, and white-capped Normandy peasant women, all making their comments aloud, while here and there appeared a gendarme’s cocked hat, or the broad-brimmed headgear of some country cure.  It was a picturesque sight, so gay and noisy, and so thoroughly French, and the young sovereign seemed delighted with its novelty.  There was no cavalry escort nor lining of the road from Treport with troops; but the splendid squadrons of the 1st Cuirassiers, in their copper breast-plates, were drawn up in echelon at regular distances apart in the open fields, and saluted with their trumpets as we went by; while at the chateau itself the Guard of Honour was furnished by a battalion of riflemen drawn up in close order, their dark uniform and military air causing Lord Charles Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington’s son, and a thoroughbred soldier himself, to exclaim, “Oh, what splendid little fellows!”