child very much, but I cannot realize that it is supposed to belong to me."
While Ernst roamed the woods in search of game, Luise sighed and wrote to her friend.
"My husband revels in shooting. I remain alone with my Ladies during the day . . . in the evening my heart beats happily when I hear the roll of the carriage and trample of the horses."Her ladies-in-waiting were "all right," she said,
"to be present at the choice of a new dress or to tell me what they think of the beautiful or bad weather ... but not to know my thoughts."
In the summer of 1819, Luise's second child was born. When the time was near her carriage rolled out from the town to Rosenau. From her bedroom window she could see the high pines of the Thuringian forest, and the nearer fields, sweet with meadow saffron and clover.
On August 26, the Dowager Duchess wrote to the Duchess of Kent, in London, "I am sitting by my Luischen's bed. She was yesterday morning safely and quickly delivered of a little boy." Frau Siebold, the accoucheuse who had brought Princess Victoria into the world in May, had arrived only three hours before "the little one uttered his first cry in the world and looked around him, like a squirrel, with big black eyes." The Dowager Duchess continued, "The quiet of this house, only interrupted by the murmuring of the water, is so agreeable ... How pretty the May Flower will be when I see it in a year's time! Siebold cannot sufficiently describe what a dear little love it is."
As soon as she was well, Luise wrote to her friend, "My affectionate thanks for your dear letter . . . You should see him; he is pretty like an angel, he has big blue eyes, a beautiful nose, quite a small mouth and dimples in his cheeks. He is friendly and he smiles the whole time, and he is so big that a cap which Ernst wore when three months is too small for him, and he is only seven weeks as yet." She added, "Ernst wishes to give him the old Saxon name of Albert."
1819-1820
FOR some months the domestic scenes at Kensington and Coburg were peaceful. Worldly troubles were less sour for parents who were able to watch their healthy, growing children. Prince Albert's grandmother wrote of his being "quick as a weasel," with " large blue eyes and limpid
-11-
Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com
Publication information:
Book title: Reign of Queen Victoria.
Contributors: Hector Bolitho - Author.
Publisher: Macmillan.
Place of publication: New York.
Publication year: 1948.
Page number: 11.
This material is protected by copyright and, with the exception of fair use, may not be further copied, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means.
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