other people of note and influence, were either
sent for by the princess or sent to her by the
Regent; but not one among them all—not even
Mr. Brougham, the sworn champion of liberalism
and the Princess Caroline—not even the Princess
Caroline herself, the sworn foe of the Regent
and the whole court party—had madness enough
to wish her to remain. On the contrary, they
all urged her to return at once to her father's
guardianship, and urged her to accept as meekly
as might be the fate to which he should please
assign her. Meekly? Not much of that could
be hoped for from the fiery daughter of the still
more fiery Caroline of Brunswick, or from the
imperious child of the most selfish man of his
time! Lord Brougham seems to have given her
sound and practical advice. The taunted badgered
girl turned to him and asked him what he would
advise her to do.

"Return to Warwick House or to Carlton
House, and on no account pass a night out of it."

She was exceedingly affected, even to tears,
and asked if he, too, refused to stand by her?
The day was beginning to break; a Westminster
election, to reinstate Lord Cochrane (after
the sentence on him, which abolished the pillory
and secured his restoration), was to be held that
day at ten o'clock. Mr. Brougham led the
young princess to the window, and said, "I
have but to show you to the multitude, which
in a few hours will fill these streets, and that
park—and, possibly, Carlton House will be
pulled down, but, in an hour after, the soldiers
will be called out, blood will flow, and if your
royal highness lives a hundred years, it will
never be forgotten that your running away from
your home and your father was the cause of the
mischief; and you may depend upon it, the
English people so hate blood that you will never
get over it."

These wise and seasonable words did what
no threats or attempts at coercion had been
able to do; the storm subsided, and Princess
Charlotte went home in one of her father's
coaches, to await her punishment for past
offences, and be a better girl in future.

It is not surprising that she tried to escape
the guardianship of a man whom she could not
but feel was the most bitter enemy she
possessed. The Regent was no father to her; he
was simply a master and a jailor; while she to
him was an obstacle, a displeasure, a rival, a
being to be harshly treated on all occasions, and to
be spoken against in the most uncompromising
manner possible. As, when he spoke of her to
the Empress of Russia, after the Orange match
was broken off, and abused her soundly, daughter
or no daughter. And as when she ran away
to her mother's, and he sat in the vacant rooms at
Warwick House, "very cool and rather pleased,
saying he was glad, that everybody would now
see what she was, and that it would be known on
the Continent, and no one would marry her;"
adding a few more striking amenities, in the usual
first-gentlemanly style of the Prince Regent. No
one can be astonished, and no one now can
judge her harshly if, in her first terror at knowing
that she was to be separated from her ladies
and given up wholly into the keeping of this
enemy of hers, she took the natural step of an
escape, and tried to avoid what she could not
overcome. But it made a tremendous scandal
at the time, and of course public opinion was
divided into two parties, according as the Regent
or the princess was in favour. Between father,
grandmother, and aunts—between monotony
and seclusion on the one side, tyranny and espionage
on the other—our poor princess had but
a weary time of it; leading about as stupid, careless,
and colourless an existence as it was well
possible for any one to have. None of her own
family ever visited her, save when absolutely
obliged by the frigid proprieties of their condition.
Her father would pass months without seeing
her; and when he did see her, it was only to rate
her, more or less severely, as the last fit of debauch
was pressing more or less heavily on the
royal blood and bile. Her grandmother's dislike
to her was positively frantic; her aunts were
timid, cold, and tried to keep matters as smooth
as they could by perpetual compromise. The
Regent was the ogre, the Saracen, the Jinn, the
cruel sprite, the haunting demon, of the princess's
life; and that terrible old queen was the fairy
godmother, who had not been asked to the
christening breakfast; and both together they made
her as miserable as any poor persecuted damsel
in a fairy tale, who is shut up in an enchanted
castle, and is forced to do all manner of despite
to her nature and her love.

Do not let us hear any more of the happiness
of a princess, or the perpetual delights of royalty.
Kings and queens are very like actors. They
keep all their flutter and grandeur for the stage
and the public; they parade before the footlights
with sweeping trains and flashing crowns of
burning jewels—with a crowd of courtiers ever
kneeling and huge censers of incense ever
burning before them. But they have comfortless
homes and aching hearts, and squalor and
wretchedness for their own firesides; and when quietly
behind the scenes, they hate, and squabble, and
bicker, and fret, just like meaner creatures: only
covering up the scars with a little French chalk
when the call-boy beckons, and the public parade
begins anew. "Happy as a princess?"—Happy
as a victim; free as a captive; cherished as an
enemy.  These were the conditions of Princess
Charlotte's life.

THE HUNDRED AND FIRST REGIMENT.

WHILE France possessed only one hundred
regiments—and that is not so very long ago—
Monsieur Jules Noviac, one of Figaro's
contributors, conceived the happy idea of giving a
general sketch of the leading features of the
French army, under the title of the Hundred
and First Regiment, which title, as no such
regiment then existed, acquitted the author of
the slightest intention of personality. "The
101st Regiment" (in combination with other
clever essays forming a volume to which it
gives the title) is now in its thirty-third edition.