It was in this year the King of Prussia made a state visit to England, and the marked attention he showed to Mrs. Fry was much noticed.  He went to meet her at Newgate, and he also insisted on going to Upton to dinner, where Mrs. Fry presented to the King her husband, eight daughters and daughters-in-law, seven sons, and twenty-five grandchildren, with other relatives, Gurneys, Buxtons, and Pellys—­an English family scene much enjoyed by the Prussian guest.  Other visits are described in her Journals, to the Queen Dowager, the Duchess of Kent, the Duchess of Gloucester, and others of the Royal Family; having interesting conversations about “our dear young Queen, Prince Albert, and their little ones; about our foreign journey, the King of the Belgians, and other matters.”  She often used to say she preferred visiting prisons to visiting palaces, and going to the poor rather than the rich, yet she felt it her duty to “drop a word in season” in high places, and at the same time to be “kept humble, watchful, and faithful to her Lord.”

After the fatigues of the Continental and London season, she was glad in the summer to occupy the house of her brother-in-law Mr. Hoare at Cromer, and when there she saw much of the residents at Northrepps Hall, The Cottage, and other places famed far and wide for their philanthropic associations.

She got home to Upton Lane, and spent the winter there.  The most noticeable event mentioned is her meeting at dinner Lord Ashley, at her son’s house.  “He is a very interesting man; devoted to promoting the good of mankind, and suppressing evil—­quite a Wilberforce, I think.”  Such was her opinion of the good Earl of Shaftesbury in his early days.

In the spring of 1843, feeling her health to be somewhat restored, she surprised her friends by announcing her wish to visit Paris again, to complete works of usefulness formerly initiated there.  More than once she saw the widowed Duchess of Orleans at the Tuilleries, the only other person present being her stepmother the Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg, “an eminently devoted pious woman,” by whom the Duchess of Orleans had been brought up from childhood.  They spoke much about the children of the House of Orleans, and “the importance of their education being early founded in Christian faith;” a desire which may be re-echoed in another generation.  Another important series of interviews was with M. Guizot, then the chief statesman of France.  Altogether the last visit to Paris was a pleasant and useful expedition.

XIV.

Last years.

The end was now drawing nigh—­the end of her busy, useful life.  In June, 1843, Elizabeth Fry attended the Quarterly Meeting at Hertford, the last time she left home expressly on religious service.  She felt it her duty, she said, “to encourage the weary, and to stir up to greater diligence the servants of the Lord, who uses weak and foolish instruments for His work,” yet who is “made unto His people, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.”