Queen Victoria to the Earl of Aberdeen

Windsor Castle, 13th January 1855.

The Queen has received Lord Aberdeen's letter of the 11th, and has since seen Lord John Russell's letter. It shows that the practice of the Queen's different Cabinet Ministers going to Paris, to have personal explanations with the Emperor, besides being hardly a constitutional practice, must lead to much misunderstanding. How is the Emperor to distinguish between the views of the Queen's Government and the private opinions of the different members of the Cabinet, all more or less varying, particularly in a Coalition Government?

The Queen hopes therefore that this will be the last such visit. The Ambassador is the official organ of communication, and the Foreign Secretary is responsible for his doing his duty, and has the means of controlling him by his instructions and the despatches he receives, all of which are placed on record.

Footnote 3: The cause of Lord John's visit to Paris had been the illness there of his sister-in-law, Lady Harriet Elliot; but he took the opportunity of conferring both with the Emperor and his Ministers on the conduct of the war.—Walpole's Life of Lord John Russell, chap. xxv.