Year: 1878

OF IT.


TFRoN THz REGULAR CORRESPONDENT OF THE TRIBUNE.l


LONDON, May 2S.-The celebration Of the Queens
birthday on Saturday, routine affair for the most
part, was marked by one exceptional incident. the
withdrawal Of the Prince of Wales from all share
in the festivities. He did not appear at guard
mounting in the morning where 8, 700 troops turned
ont, and where he was expected. He was not heard
of during the day. and lac absent from the great
dinner given in the evening by Lord Beaconsfeld, to
which he had accepted an invitation. UnavOid-
ably prevented from being present" said the official
account He was not at Lady SalisbuTys
Foreign Office reception later in the even
ing; nor was the Princess, whose absence more
remarked and thought more extraordinary than
that of the Prince Next daV the report began to
spread that the Prince. who had shown signs of q
bad cold at the state Ball in Buckingham Palace on
the previous evening was confined TO his bed with
a sharp attack of bronchitis. This story answered
well enough for Sunday but when Monday morning
came and the papers had no news of the Princes
Illness and no bulletin appeared increduliy set in.
Before nightfall it was well understood that the
bronchitis was diplomatic bronchitis and that the
Prince had not been i'll at all. He stayed away
from the dinners and other celebrations in honor
of his mammals birthday by way of returning the
compliment his mamma had lately paid him in omit
ting his name from the list of guests invited the
week before to the State Banquet al Windsor gwen
in honor of his bTotheT-n-aw, the Crown Prince of
Germany. Even Princes are human. The slight
put upon the Heir Apparent by the Sovereign was
sufficiently obvious, and the Prince has avenged
himself in a to make his views clear to the
dullest comprehension. AS if TO contradict in the
most public way the bronchitis story, the Princess
went last night to the Gaety Theatre, where she
would not have gone had her husband been i'll. And
hear that the Prince himself is expected in Rotten
Row to-day; where Mrs. Langtry, for one, will be
glad to see him.


The oldest of all reasons is given for this new
quarrel between the Queen and the Prince. Her
Majesty is said to be angry because the Prince al
lowed 81. Gambetta TO be presented to him in Paris
and received hun civilly. Possibly she heard that
the Prince had invited N. Gambetta TO London as
his guest rumOr which 1 find believed among
people who are not ordinarily oreduOus There is
another more probable version. according to which
the Prince told NJ. Gambetta that he had heard he
was coming to London during the Summer, and
that he should be glad to see him if be came. That
is a very different matter from asking tho great
French Republican 70 stay at Marlborough House.
Whatever the fact be- it is conceivable enough that
the Queen. whose sympathies are Bonapartist down
to the ground, ehOuld dislike TO find her son
in relations of any kind with the man who has
done more than anybody else to make Bonapartism ~
impossible in France. She the personal friend
and admirer of the late Emperor. She has recorded
in her Diary the affection she bore him, and pub


shed the record in the last volume of Mr.. Theodore
Martins life of her late husband. She has maln-
tanned an intimate acquaintance with the ex-
Empress during her residence at Chislehurst and
her never-ceasing plots against the government Of
the country of which England is the friend and
ally. She receives her and her young PreteDder at
Windsor, and the latter owes no small part Of his
present popularity in London society to the known
partiaty of the Queen for his family and his cause
All this is so well understood that her anger about
the Gambetia incident is a natural explanation OF
the fresh coldness between her and her son. It's,
perhaps too natural; and suggested itself 20 num-
Der of people about the tme simply because IL
is plausible. Another reason has been given.
Tho anecdotes which coupled the names OF the
Prince OF Wales and of Madame Th6o long since
made their way over TO London, after having
been long the staple Of Boulevard gossip in
Paris The story Of the supper at the Figaro
office may have reached the Queens ears. This like
the other strikes me as purely eoniectural eXpla-
nation. but specious enough. Not much explanation
is needed, after all. 1t is long since Queen and
Prince have been friends, though the estrangemcnt
between them was thought to have been lessened of
late: partly by reason Of their common sympatlics
aud antipathies as between Turk and Russian.


That TIgQrO story was not likely 10 find favor in
the eyes OF q woman whose ideas on such subjects
are so oaustere as the Queens And there are seques
to it-publshed and unpublished. You heard at the
time how the Prince had paid midnight visit to the
Office OF q disreDutablc newspaper, and how the
Oneen's health had been proposed and drunk by
Madame Th6o and other not less improper females;
they and the Prince pledging each other. Two pie
lures are 70 commemorate this astonishing perform
auce One does actually exist, and haugs up in the
Office of NJ de Villcmessant, with the signature OF
Albert Edward. the date and word OF two Of polite
remembrance ia the Princes handwriting beneath.
The 10000 readers Of the journal have been duly
informed Of the fact but did not happen to see it
noticed in any English paper at the time. The un-
published sequel has an American flavor 10 it ; II,
ia fact. of American pareuiage, supposing the ac-
count true There is IN Paris a well known Amcri-
can known among other things, for his devotion to
the Bonapartes who is said to have been present at
tins supper as the guest OF by the invitation pro
curement Of the lady above mentioned, for whose
services an Acknowledgment in diamonds would
surely not be thought too great. lie, too joined in
the toast 10 the Queen and he not less than NJ. dc
Vllenessant has thought the scene iit subject for
what he calls a historical" picture That such a
peture has been ordered, that M Detaille ian artist
OF much celebrity is 10 paint it, that the agreed
price for il is o. 900 francs and that in the central
foreground are to be seen the figures Of the Prince
and of our Bonapartist American clintng glasses TO
the health Of tie Queen-all these are statements
have heard and should like to hear contradicted.


That the Prince Of Wales has no love for French
Republicans as euch, may be well enough believed,
but it is really pity he should permit himself to be
surrounded by men whose hatred TO the Republic is
their sole recommendation. When he sent 1000
francs the other day to the victims Of the Rue
B6ranger explosion, he sent them through NJ dc
Yillemessant editor Of this same paper. The Duke