The Duchess of Cambridge has spoken publicly for the first time about her hopes of starting a family.
The Duchess spoke off-the-cuff after she was presented with a bouquet by two-year-old Raffaela Cheater while on walkabout in Quebec City.
The little girl’s father, British ex-pat David Cheater, wished the Duchess well with her efforts to start a family.
“Yes, I hope to,” she replied.
Prince William said when the couple got engaged last year that they would like to have children, but the simple admission was the first time that the Duchess has confirmed that she is looking to start a family.
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Babies in the early years of marriage have become something of a royal tradition. The Duke was born 11 months after his parents, the Prince of Wales and Diana, Princess of Wales, married in 1981. The Prince of Wales was born 11 months after the Queen married the Duke of Edinburgh in 1947.
The remark was made as the couple shook hands with members of the crowd after attending a military ceremony on the latest leg of their tour of Canada. The event was disrupted as a crowd of about 300 protesters staged a noisy protest, blowing horns, whistles and vuvuzelas and shouting anti-royal slogans. They were kept a safe distance from the Duke and Duchess by a squad of riot police.
“We have nothing against them,” said Julien Gaudreau, a spokesman for the separatist movement, the Resistance Network of Quebec. “They are a sweet couple. They can be in love all they want. But more than 70 per cent of the population of Quebec want to get rid of the monarchy.”
However reasonable he sounded, some of the protesters adopted a virulently personal tone in their attacks on the couple. “Get the f*** out of here,” read one banner, “And don’t come back.” Another called them “parasites”.
Demonstrations in Quebec are a traditional part of royal visits. Protesters turn out whenever royals are around, even though the separatist movement has lost political momentum in recent years.
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So far the couple, who travelled overnight from Montreal to Quebec down the St Lawrence on the frigate Montreal, have adopted the usual royal approach with demonstrations, that of pretending that they are not there.
Even though the demonstrators were more than 200 metres away, the couple could hear them: at one point during the ceremony, which marked the giving of the freedom of the city to the celebrated Quebec regiment, the Royal 22nd, or Van Doos (an anglicised mispronunciation of the first two syllables of vingt-deuxiéme) William turned his head towards the sound of the protest.
A spokesman for the Prince said: “They are taking it in their stride. It is a very warm welcome they are getting. They consider it to be all part of the rich fabric of Canada.”
An onlooker at one demonstration, the film-maker Eric Scott, said: “Separatism is like a skin condition — it will never entirely disappear. But the majority of Québécois, when it comes to the cold, hard question of whether they want to separate, say no.” Earlier the couple discovered that no matter what they look like, most Québécois are friendly — even green-haired punks. Pierre, a 24-year-old circus skills student, became the latest Canadian to be won over by the couple when they visited Maison Dauphine, a drop-in centre for homeless youths. Pierre, who showed off his juggling skills with cigar boxes (“awesome,” said the Prince), admitted that he was not a huge monarchist before he met the couple.
With his green dreadlocks, nose ring, inch-wide holes in his ears, tattoos and a “Ska is Death” T-shirt, he did not look much like one either.
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He said: “I’m not a big royalist, but it’s special to meet them, a privilege.”
The Maison Dauphine was established by Father Michael Boisvert, a Jesuit, in 1992, after he realised the urgent need to help young down-and-outs who congregated in a square nearby.
Away from such weighty matters, earlier in Montreal a new aspect of William’s character emerged: that he fancies himself as a budding Escoffier.
Until now his only culinary boast has been that he makes a mean shepherd’s pie. After 40 minutes in the city’s top cookery school however, it was herb and cranberry-crusted lamb and croustillant a l’effiloche de canard confit — and a distinctly competitive attitude to his lobster soufflé.
The Duke and Duchess were visiting the Institut de tourisme et d’hôtellerie du Quebec where they took part in a cookery workshop with the Premier of Quebec, Jean Charest.
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Mr Charest produced the first soufflé of the session, which was brought forward for display with a flourish by the Duchess.
Two minutes later the Prince brought his soufflé up, removed the Premier’s and said: “Much better! This one is mine.”
It was, he said, “a soufflé-off”. And if that wasn’t painful enough, he turned to Mr Charest and rubbed it in with one of those Windsor puns that his father used to love: “If you could rise to the challenge that would be great.”
A despondent Mr Charest, who has a reputation as an accomplished cook, took a sad look at his rejected soufflé and said:“Now I guess I will have to pack it up and bring it home.”