King, at which the two young queens--to be--were present. The chronicle
describes the girls, who were of an age--having been born in the same year:
the sensible face of the fair-haired English Princess, and the extreme
dignity--especially after she had sustained an accidental fall--of the
Portuguese royal maiden, inured to the hot sun of the tropics. Don Miguel
was routed in the course of the following year (1834), and his niece was
established in her kingdom. Within the same twelve months she lost a father
and gained and lost a husband; for among the first news that reached her
English acquaintances was her marriage, before she was sixteen, and her
widowhood within three months. She had married, in January, the Duc de
Leuchtenberg, a brother of her stepmother and a son of Eugene Beauharnais.
He died, after a short illness, in the following March. She married again
in the next year, her re-marriage having been earnestly desired by her
subjects. The second husband was Prince Ferdinand of Coburg, belonging to
the Roman Catholic branch of the Coburgs, and cousin both to the Queen and
the Prince Consort. He was a worthy and, ultimately, a popular prince.
Donna Maria was grand-niece to Queen Amelie of France, and showed much
attachment to the house of Orleans. There is said to have been a project
formed by Louis Philippe, which was frustrated by the English Government,
that she should marry one of his sons, the Duc de Nemours.

In addition to the English tours which the Princess Victoria made with her
mother, the Duchess of Kent was careful that as soon as her daughter had
grown old enough to profit by the association, she should meet the most
distinguished men of the day--whether statesmen, travellers, men of
science, letters, or art. Kensington had one well-known intellectual centre
in Holland House, presided over by the famous Lady Holland, and was soon to
have another in Gore House, occupied by Lady Blessington and Count D'Orsay;
but even if the fourteen years old Princess had been of sufficient age and
had gone into society, such _salons_ were not for her. The Duchess