Page:Reminisences of Captain Gronow.djvu/76

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Anecdotes and Reminisences

presence two dances. In the first she accepted the hand of the late Duke of Devonshire, and in the second that of the Earl of Aboyne, who had danced with Marie Antoinette, and who, as Lord Huntley, lived long enough to dance with Queen Victoria. The Princess entered so much into the spirit of the fête as to ask for the then fashionable Scotch dances. The Prince was dressed in the Windsor uniform, and wore the garter and star. He made himself very amiable, and conversed much with the Ladies Hertford, Cholmondeley, and Montford. Altogether, the fête was a memorable event.

A year afterwards, the Duke of York said to his royal niece, "Tell me, my dear, have you seen any one among the foreign princes whom you would like to have for a husband?" The Princess naïvely replied, "No one so much prepossesses me as Prince Leopold of Coburg. I have heard much of his bravery in the field, and I must say he is personally agreeable to me. I have particularly heard of his famous cavalry charge at the battle of Leipsic, where he took several thousand prisoners, for which he was rewarded with the Order of Maria Thérèse." In a few months afterwards she became the wife of the man