A FRENCH STORY ABOUT THE QUEEN.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 853, 27 January 1883, Page 2

A FRENCH STORY ABOUT THE QUEEN.

The Gaulots publishes the following, but whether as a joke or as a piece of serious information, we must leave the, reader to decide for himself; —“ The Empress ol India is at her royal residence of Balmoral, in Scotland, that residence which she prefers to all others, because it belonged to Prince Albert, whom she has been mourning for twenty-one years. The most devoted and faithful of widows, the most kindly and respected of sovereigns, believes that at Balmoral, more than elsewhere, she meets, the Consort she has lost, and communicates with his spirit. Faithful John Brown, who is a medium, serves as a connecting link between the Queen and the deceased

Prince. People have often wondered why the Queen manifets such singular favor for Brown; why she offered him titles of nobility which the modest servant refused, only excepting that of esquire; why the marble statuette of Brown by Boehm is placed in the Queen’s bed-chamber on a whatnot, amidst portraits of members of the Royal family. The reply to' the question which has excited such curiosity in France and England is this : John Brown is the Queen’s Minister for her spiritual relations with the late Prince Albert. In the Cabinet Councils Her Majesty will sometimes say, ‘ 1 must first consult the Prince.’ It is at Balmoral that she invokes the Prince and that he replies to her. She goes into the study of the deceased, who is still alive for her; sits in au arra-chaif, he formerly used. On a chair near her are placed his night-clothes, as if in

readiness for him. A large fire burns in the spacious fire-place of the siegnorial chateau. John Brown brings respectfully on a tray the basin of gruel which his master was accustomed to take every evening, and places it on a table as if the Prince were about to come and take it. The Queen has a sheet of paper on her knees and a pen-

cil in her hand. The chair moves about, creaks, and strikes the’ ground. According to the Spiritist Alphabet, each letter is indicated by so many raps. The Queen puts the questions and John Brown interprets the answers of the Prince. The Hying and the dead converse on topics of this world and the next. The mind of the Queen is calmed, if not consoled, by these pious conversations, for her grief is of that kind which ends only with life. We pity those who may be tempted to smile at this faithful picture. Is it only a hallucination ? ;: Who can say ? The worst of hallucinations is that of those men who imagine they have fathomed all the laws of Nature.”