Source:
The letters of Queen Victoria: a selection from Her Majesty's correspondence between the years 1831 and 1861: published by authority of His Majesty the King, edited by Arthur Christopher Benson and Viscount Reginald Baliol Brett Esher, 1907
Above: Princess Victoria of Kent, future Queen of the United Kingdom and Ireland, lithograph by Francis William Wilkin.
Above: Leopold, King of the Belgians, lithograph by Erin Corr.
The letter:
RAMSGATE, 14th November 1836.
... What you say to me relative to Church matters I quite comprehend, and always am very thankful for advice from you.
I am reading away famously. I like Mrs. Hutchinson's Life of her husband only comme cela; she is so dreadfully violent. She and Clarendon are so totally opposite, that it is quite absurd, and I only believe the juste milieu. ...
Your speech interested me very much; it is very fine indeed; you wrote it yourself, did you not?
Belgium is indeed the happiest country in the world, and it is all, all owing to your great care and kindness. "Nous étions des enfans perdus," General Goblet said to me at Claremont, "quand le Roi est venu nous sauver." And so it is. ...
Pray, dear Uncle, say everything most kind from me to Ernest and Albert, and believe me, always, your affectionate Niece,
VICTORIA.
Pray, dear Uncle, is the report of the King of Naples' marriage to the Archduchess Theresa true? I hear the king has behaved uncommonly well at Naples during the cholera panic. I enclose the measure of my finger.
Notes: comme cela = like this
juste milieu = middle ground
"Nous étions des enfans perdus quand le Roi est venu nous sauver." = "We were lost children when the King came to save us."
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