ACADIENSIS
| Vol. I. | April, 1901. | No. 2. |
| David Russell Jack, | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
Editor. |
Queen Victoria—A Contrast.
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T SEEMS strange that among the many historical parallels suggest by the ending of the last reign, there has been but scanty reference to the death of Queen Victoria's grandfather, and the instructive contrasts therein presented. In all the history of royal tragedy there is no page more touching than that which describes the aged king in the last years of solitude, deprived of sight and reason.
One of my earliest recollections in childhood is of my father telling us how once he had seen King George III in the private apartments at Windsor, in those sad days He often, while at Charterhouse school, spent holidays at Windsor Castle, where his aunt, Mlle. de Montmollin, was the reader to Queen Charlotte. On one occasion he was taken to an inner portion of the private apartments, with earnest injunctions to silence, and there, through a half-raised curtain, he saw the venerable king, seated before a little organ, the long white beard completely changing his appearance from that familiar from the portraits.
At last, in the year 1820, the long awaited release came. In death all the royal honors were conferred, which so long had been of necessity withheld. The remains lay in state in the presence chamber, and were viewed by an immense multitude. Upon the coffin, the royal arms of England, and the electoral diadem of Hanover reposed.
