moment her blue waters and green fields might be dyed with blood. At any
moment a swarm of foreign invaders might trample her pride in the dust,
and crush her as other nations had been effectually crushed. But she meant
to sell her liberty dear. Out of a population averaging 9,000,000 souls
there were 120,000 regular troops, 347,000 volunteers, and 78,000 militia;
and still Napoleon paused.

Upon the threatened throne still sat good Farmer George and his prim
German consort, models of dull domesticity, of narrow convictions, of
punctilious etiquette--the epitome of respectable and respected
mediocrity, save when, with a profound irony, the recurring blast of
insanity transformed the personality of the stolid monarch, and shattered
the complacency of the smug little Court. Within its shelter hovered the
bevy of amiable Princesses, whose minutest word and glance yet lives for
us in the searchlight of Fanny Burney's adoring scrutiny. Afar, the sons
pursued their wild careers. The Prince of Wales, the mirror of fashion,
diced and drank, coquetted with politics and kingship, and--a very
travesty of chivalry--betrayed his friend, broke the heart of the woman
who loved him, deserted the woman who had wedded him, and tortured with
petty jealousy the sensitive soul of the child who might rule after him.

In secret silence Mrs Fitzherbert endured the calumny of the world, and
ate out her heart in faith to the faithless. With flippant and undignified
frivolity the Princess of Wales strove to support an anomalous position
and find balm to her wounded pride and weak brain; while the passionate,
all-human child-princess, Charlotte, awakening with pitiful precocity to
the realities of an existence which was to deal with her but harshly,
pitted her stormy soul against a destiny which decreed that before her the
sweets of life were eternally to be flaunted, to be eternally withheld.