Important part letter signed by Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg & Gotha (1819-1861) to an unidentified correspondent, dated 9th March 1852 discussing Alexandre Florian Joseph, Count Colonna-Walewski (1810-1868),  a Polish and French politician and diplomat. He was widely rumoured to be the (unacknowledged) illegitimate son of Napoleon I by his mistress, Countess Marie Walewska. He was sent to London in 1851 where he was charged with announcing a coup d'état to the Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston. In Britain at the time there were many people who feared an imment attack by the French and so the whole country was on tenterhooks. Albert discusses the extraordianry threat of being "seized in our Isle of Wight & carried prisoners to France". The "threat from the East" probably refers to the revolution in Hungary and the threat it posed to the monarchies in Europe.

"is got over, & then to abide by the decision of the country, the question may be considered as buried within a year, & it is high time that it should be so! I understand that Ct Walewsky's sudden departure from London has alarmed the alarmists to the utmost & that we are to-be seized in our Isle of Wight & carried prisoners to France - our only enemy at present is however the East wind, which is really tremedous & most unpleasant.

Hoping that it may not have given you cold ever.

Yours truly

Albert

Osborne.-
March 9. 1852"

Albert was the husband of Queen Victoria. He was born in the Saxon Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld into a family connected to many of Europe's ruling monarchs. At the age of 20, he married his first cousin, Queen Victoria; they had nine children. Initially he felt constrained by his role of consort, which did not afford him any power or responsibilities, but gradually developed a reputation for supporting many public causes, such as educational reform and the abolition of slavery worldwide, and was entrusted with running the Queen's household, office and estates. He was heavily involved with the organisation of the Great Exhibition of 1851, which was a resounding success.

The Queen came to depend more and more on his support and guidance. He aided the development of Britain's constitutional monarchy by persuading his wife to be less partisan in her dealings with Parliament—although he actively disagreed with the interventionist foreign policy pursued during Lord Palmerston's tenure as Foreign Secretary.

Albert died at the relatively young age of 42, plunging the Queen into deep mourning for the rest of her life. Upon Queen Victoria's death in 1901, their eldest son succeeded as Edward VII, the first British monarch of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, named after the ducal house to which Albert belonged.

Walewski was born at Walewice, near Warsaw in Poland. Aged fourteen, he rebelled by refusing to join the Imperial Russian army and fled to London, thence to Paris where the French government refused Tsar Alexander I's demands for his extradition to Russia.

Upon the accession of Louis-Philippe d'Orléans to the French throne in 1830, Walewski was dispatched to Poland, later the same year being entrusted by the leaders of the Polish November Uprising of 1830 as a diplomatic envoy to the Court of St James's. After the Fall of Warsaw, he took out letters of French naturalization and joined the French army, seeing action in Algeria as a captain in the Chasseurs d'Afrique of the French Foreign Legion. In 1837 he resigned his commission to begin writing plays and for the press. He is said to have collaborated with the elder Dumas on Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle and a comedy of his, L'Ecole du monde, was produced at the Theâtre Français in 1840.
Later that year Thiers, also a man of letters, became patron to one of Walewski's papers, Le Messager des Chambres, before sending him on a mission to Egypt. Under Guizot's government Walewski was posted to Buenos Aires to liaise with the British ambassador, John Cradock, 1st Baron Howden. Prince Louis Napoleon's accession to power in France as Napoleon III furthered his career with postings as envoy extraordinary to Florence and the Kingdom of Naples before London (1851–55), where he was charged with announcing the coup d'état to the prime minister, Lord Palmerston.

In 1855, Walewski succeeded Drouyn de Lhuys as Minister of Foreign Affairs and he acted as French plenipotentiary at the Congress of Paris the following year. As foreign minister, Walewski advocated entente with Russia, opposing his emperor's adventurous strategy in Italy which led to war with Austria in 1859. After leaving the Foreign Ministry in 1860 he became France's Minister of State, an office which he held until 1863. He served as senator from 1855 to 1865, before being appointed to the Corps Législatif in 1865 and as president of the Chamber of Deputies by the Emperor, who returned him to the Senate after a revolt against his authority two years later.

Walewski was created a duke in 1866, was elected a member of the Académie des beaux-arts, appointed Grand Cross of the Légion d'honneur and made a Knight of Malta, also receiving the Gold Cross of Virtuti Militari. Walewski died of a stroke at Strasbourg on 27 September 1868 and is buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

Size: 18.5 x 11.5 cm approx