[Illustration: The Queen in 1845. (_From a painting by John Partridge._)]
During the next two or three years, the Queen and Prince Albert seized every opportunity for travel, short though their journeys had to be. They visited not only several of the lordly mansions of England, but they also spent a few days in Belgium and made a short stay at the court of the French King. In 1844, they went again to Scotland, and this time "Vicky," as they called the Princess Royal, was old enough to go with them. There were two more children in the royal nursery by this time, and the Queen wrote in her journal that "Alice and the baby and good Bertie" came to bid the travelers farewell. She was quite delighted that "Vicky" stood at the window of a little inn and bowed to the people outside. One of her hosts on this visit to Scotland was the Duke of Argyll. She describes in her journal his son, the two-year old Marquis of Lome, and calls him "such a merry, independent little child."
One of the disadvantages of being a sovereign is that the simplest acts are looked upon as being of political significance. Victoria wished to meet the French King, to whom Prince Albert was distantly related, and she did not wish to talk politics. On her visit to France she was interested in seeing the King's barge and its many oarsmen in white, with red sashes; in the royal chapel, the first Roman Catholic church that she had ever entered; in the little picnic that the King ordered in the forest; in the picturesque white caps of the peasant women, their bright-colored aprons and kerchiefs; and she noted even the tone of the church bells, and said that it was much prettier than that of the bells in England. She enjoyed her visit heartily; but far away in Russia the keen-eyed Emperor Nicholas was watching her movements, and he was not quite pleased. "The government of Turkey will soon fall to pieces," he said to himself, "and if it does, France would like to secure a piece of that country. If England should help her, she might be able to do so, and this visit looks as if England and France were becoming too friendly." The result of the Czar's meditations was that word was sent to the Queen that he was on his way to visit her and might be looked for at once. Queen Victoria had expected him to come the following year, but he liked to make visits in this sudden fashion, and there was nothing to do but to prepare for him as best she could in forty-eight hours, for she had no longer time in which to make ready.