ws with
regard to the Budget,[33] and will be glad to see him on Wednesday at
three o'clock. She had been alarmed by vague rumours that it was the
intention of the Government to propose great changes in the present
financial system, which, with an adverse majority in the House
of Commons and at the eve of a Dissolution, must have led to much
confusion. She thinks the course suggested by Lord Derby to consider
the Budget merely as a provisional one for the current year, by far
the wisest, the more so as it will leave us a surplus of L2,000,000,
which is of the utmost importance in case of unforeseen difficulties
with Foreign Powers.[34]

[Footnote 33: Its chief feature was a renewal of the expiring
Income Tax.]

[Footnote 34: Accordingly, no financial changes were proposed
until after the General Election. See _post_, p. 406.]

_Mr Disraeli to Queen Victoria._

HOUSE OF COMMONS, _26th April._
(_Monday night, twelve o'clock._)

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, with his humble duty to your
Majesty, reports to your Majesty that the Militia Bill has been
carried (second reading) by an immense majority.

For 315
Against 165

The concluding portion of the debate was distinguished by the speeches
of Mr Sidney Herbert and Mr Walpole, who made their greatest efforts;
the first singularly happy in his treatment of a subject of which he
was master, and the last addressing the House with a spirit unusual
with him.

[Pageheading: FRANCE AND THE BOURBONS]

_Queen Victoria to the King of the Belgians._

BUCKINGHAM PALACE, _27th April 1852._

MY DEAREST UNCLE,--I thank you much for your kind and affectionate
letter of the 23rd. I have somehow or other contrived to lose my day,
for which reason I can only write a very short letter. It seems to be
generally believed that Louis Napoleon's assumption of the title of
Emperor is very near at hand, but they still think war is not likely,
as it would be such bad policy.

What you say about the ill-fated Spanish marriages, and the result of
the poor King's wishing to have no one but a Bourbon as Queen Isabel's
husband being that the _French won't_ have _any_ Bourbon, is indeed
strange. It is a melancholy result.

I shall certainly try and read Thiers' _Revolution, Consulat, et
Empire_, but I can hardly read _any_ books, my whole _lecture_ almost
being taken up by the immense quantity of despatches we have to rea