much for you and
loves you so much, that she was rejoiced beyond measure that you
escaped so well and took the thing with so much _courage_. That you
have shown _great fortitude_ is not to be doubted, and will make a
very great and good impression. I see that the general feeling is
excellent, but what a melancholy thing to see a young man, without
provocation, capable of such a diabolical act! That attempts of that
sort took place against George III., and even George IV., one can
comprehend; but you have not only been extremely liberal, but in no
instance have you hitherto come into contact with any popular feeling
or prejudice; besides, one should think that your being a lady would
alone prevent such unmanly conduct. It shows what an effect bad
example and the bad press have. I am sure that this act is _une
singerie_ of what passes in France, that it is a fancy of some of
those societies _de Mort aux Rois et Souverains_, without knowing
wherefore, merely as a sort of fashion....

[Pageheading: EGYPT AND THE POWERS]

_The King of the Belgians to Queen Victoria._

ST CLOUD, _26th July 1840._

MY DEAREST VICTORIA,--Your dear letter of the 19th greatly delighted
me....

Let me now add a few words on politics. The _secret_ way in which the
arrangement about the arbitration of the Turco-Egyptian affairs has
been signed, the keeping out of France in an affair so _near_ it
and touching its interests in various ways, has had here a very
_disastrous_ effect.[26] I cannot disguise from you that the
consequences may be very serious, and the more so as the Thiers
Ministry is supported by the movement party, and as _reckless of
consequences_ as your own Minister for Foreign Affairs, even much more
so, as Thiers himself would not be sorry to see everything existing
upset. He is strongly impregnated with all the notions of fame and
glory which belonged to part of the Republican and the Imperial times;
he would not even be much alarmed at the idea of a Convention ruling
again France, as he thinks that _he_ would be the _man to rule_ the
Assembly, and has told me last year that he thinks it for France
perhaps the _most powerful_ form of Government.[27]

The mode in this affair ought to have been, as soon as the Four Powers
had agreed on a proposition, to communicate it officially to France,
to join it. France had but two ways, either to join or to refuse
its adhesion. If it had chosen the last, it would have been a free