CHAPTER XI
PERIOD OF FIRST MARRIAGE
I.
Having successfully faced his opponents in Parliament, and having also got assurances from the authorities in France that he would not be shadowed, Sir Charles was able to spend the Easter recess with Lady Dilke in Paris:
'At Easter we went to Paris and went about a good deal, seeing much of Gambetta, of Milner Gibson (who had completely left the world of English politics, and lived at Paris except when he was cruising in his yacht), Michel Chevalier, and the Franquevilles. We attended sittings of the Assembly at Versailles, drove over the battlefields, dined with the Louis Blancs to meet Louis's brother, Charles Blanc, the critic and great master of style, … breakfasted with Evarts the American lawyer, to meet Caleb Gushing, his colleague on the American case on the Alabama claims; met at the Franquevilles' Henri de Pène and Robert Mitchell, the Conservative journalists; and saw "Mignon," Katie's favourite opera, and "Rabagas." This last famous piece, which was being played at the Vaudeville, where it was wonderfully acted, had been written during the premiership of Émile Ollivier, but being brought out when Ollivier was half forgotten, and when the name of Gambetta was in all men's mouths, was supposed by many to have been intended as a satire of the tribune, though it is far more applicable in every point to Ollivier's career.'
Many years later Sir Charles was to form a friendship of lifelong duration with Louis Napoleon's Minister Ollivier. But from this visit to Paris dates the beginning of an intimacy between the young English member of Parliament and the leader of French democracy.
He had already met Gambetta once in the end of 1871, and to renew this acquaintance was a special purpose in going to Paris. He had conceived the plan of writing a history of the nineteenth century. On the origin of the Franco-German War Gambetta was a high authority, and it was to discuss these questions that during this visit he for the first time came to see Sir Charles, who records: 'Had Gambetta to breakfast with us, when he stayed the whole day talking with me.'
In five minutes the two men must have been in touch. Those who knew Sir Charles knew how his intense geniality of nature, masked sometimes for outsiders by a slight austerity, his air boutonné—as it was described by those who did not pass the barrier—showed immediately with those to whom he was drawn. That rire enfantin, described by Challemel-Lacour, would burst out at the first quick turn of talk, and he would give his whole self, with an almost boyish delight, to the encounter with a nature whose superabundant vitality and delight in life, as in Gambetta's case, equalled his own.
For these two the common points of interest were strongly marked. Not only was there the kindred geniality of disposition, and the kindred interest in the history and fortune of France: there was in each an overwhelming love of country; strong, indeed, in Gambetta, and in Dilke so strong that it can best be described in the words of a French friend who, watching him, said to Sir Charles's second wife: "That man is a great patriot, for with his whole self he serves his country, never staying to consider how she has served him."
In the spring of 1872 both men were young: Dilke not yet twenty-nine, Gambetta just thirty-four. But the past of one was crowded with experience, and the other had already made history.
Sir Charles here inserts—
'a word of the personality of Gambetta, who for a long time was my most intimate friend, and for whose memory I have still the deepest regard.
'It was on All Saints' Day of 1868 that a few republicans had paid a fête-of-the-dead visit to the tomb of a Deputy killed on the side of the Constitution at the time of the coup d'état, and had found it in a miserable state. Delescluze (who was two and a half years later to meet Baudin's fate, being killed, like him, in a black coat, unarmed, on a Paris barricade) communicated with Challemel-Lacour, and a subscription for a fitting tomb was started, which soon became an imposing manifestation of anti-Bonapartist opinion. [Footnote: The need for a fitting tomb is shown by the circumstance of Baudin's death and burial. He had gone early in the morning of December 3rd, 1851, to help in the construction of a barricade at the point where the Rue Ste. Marguerite and the Rue de Cotte meet. Two companies of the line arrived from the Bastille and formed an attacking party, and were joined by some men in blouses, who cried, on seeing the deputies: "À bas les vingt-cinq francs!" Baudin, unarmed, standing on the top of the barricade, replied: "Vous allez voir comment on meurt pour vingt- cinq francs." An attempt to address the soldiers by the Constitutionalists failed, and a shot from the barricade was replied to by a general volley, and Baudin fell, pierced by three shots. His body was taken to the Hôpital Ste. Marguerite, and when claimed by his brothers was given up only on condition that it should not be shown to the people, but immediately and quietly buried. He was buried on December 5th secretly in the cemetery of Montmartre (See Dictionnaire des Parlementaires, by Robert and Cougny).]
'The Government having prosecuted the papers which published the subscription lists, Challemel-Lacour caused the selection of Gambetta as counsel. He was a young barrister speaking with a strong Southern accent, which, however, disappeared when he spoke in public, vulgar in language and appearance, one-eyed, of Genoese (possibly Jewish) race, full of power. Gambetta made a magnificent speech, which brought him at one bound into the front rank among the republican leaders. His description of December 2nd was such as had never been excelled even by Cicero or by Berryer: "At that time there grouped themselves around a pretender a number of men without talent, without honour, sunk in debt and in crime, such as in all ages have been the accomplices of arbitrary violence, men of whom one could repeat what Sallust had said of the foul mob that surrounded Catiline, what Caesar said himself of those who conspired along with him: 'Inevitable dregs of organized society.'" The word Pretender, without adjectives, may seem somewhat weak as applied to the Prince President, the head of the band, but those who have heard Gambetta alone know the contempt which he could throw into his voice in the pronunciation of such a word. Finest of all the passages that remain to us of Gambetta's eloquence was one near the close of this memorable speech, which began: "During seventeen years you who are the masters of France have never dared to keep December 2nd as the national anniversary. That anniversary we take as that on which to commemorate the virtues of our dead who died that day—" Here the Advocate Imperial tried to interrupt him so as to spoil his peroration, and the written version now printed in his speeches differs altogether in language from that which was taken down by the shorthand writers at the time, although the idea is exactly the same. The two counsel spoke together for some minutes, each trying to shout down the other, until Gambetta's tremendous roar had crushed his adversary, whereupon, in the middle of his peroration, with a really Provençal forgetfulness of his art and subject, Gambetta interposed— "He tried to close my mouth, but I have drowned him"—and then went on.'
This picture is made more vivid by the pencillings on Sir Charles's copy of Daudet's Numa Roumestan, where the word "Gambetta" is scribbled again and again opposite passages which describe Numa's wonderful ringing voice, his quick supple nature, all things to all men, catching as if by magic the very tone and gestures of those with whom he spoke, prodigal as the sun in greetings and in promises, poured out in a torrent of words, which seemed "not to proceed from ideas, but to waken them in his mind by the mechanical stimulus of their sound, and by certain intonations even brought tears into his eyes."
'My friendship with Gambetta perhaps meant to me something more than the friendship of the man. Round him gathered all that was best and most hopeful in the state of the young republic. He, more than any other individual, had both destroyed the Empire and made new France, and to some extent the measure of my liking for the man was my hatred of those that he had replaced. Louis Napoleon … had dynastic ends in view…. The Napoleonic legend did not survive Sedan, and that it was unable to be revived in the distress which followed the Commune was largely owing to the policy and courage of Gambetta.
'There is some permanent importance in the discussions as to the origin of the war of 1870 which I had with Gambetta at this time; for it so happens that I have been able at various periods to discuss with the most absolute freedom the history of this period with the five men who knew most of it—Bismarck, Émile Ollivier, Gambetta, Nigra, and Casa Laigleisia (at that time Rancez), the Spanish diplomatist, afterwards three times Spanish Minister in London.
'The question which I often discussed with Gambetta, with Ollivier, with Nigra, with Rancez, until, in September, 1889, Bismarck's frank admissions settled the matter in my mind for good, has been one of the most disputed points in modern history. My opinion that Bismarck had prepared the war, and had brought about the Hohenzollern candidature in order to provoke it, was only strengthened by an article entitled "Who is responsible for the War?" by "Scrutator"—probably from the pen of Congreve, the Comtist, who I know was in correspondence with the Duc de Gramont. At Easter, 1872, I discussed the matter fully with Gambetta, with Rancez, with Klaszco (author of The Two Chancellors, and secret agent of the Austrian Government), and with Hansen, a Dane, and spy of the French Government. Rancez long represented Spain at Berlin, and it was he who, under Prim's orders, prepared the Hohenzollern candidature. He was then sent to Vienna, as it was wise for him to be out of the way when war, brought about by his agency, was impending; but he was fetched suddenly to Berlin from Vienna in 1869, and this was when the thing was settled. The facts are all known now." [Footnote: Bismarck, Gedanken und Erinnerungen, ii., chap, xxii., p. 90 (German edition); Benedetti, Ma Mission en Prusse, chap, vi., pp. 409, 410.] The King of Prussia, on July 13th (1870), refused to give assurances for the future, in simple and dignified language which meant peace. His telegram to Berlin was one of 200 words. Bismarck told me, when I was staying with him in September, 1889, that he was with Moltke and von Roon when it was received by them at Berlin, and that he deliberately altered the telegram by cutting it down "from a telegram of 200 words which meant peace into a telegram of 20 words which meant war;" and in this form it was placarded throughout North Germany in every village.
'I discussed repeatedly with Gambetta the incidents of the Cabinet at St. Cloud on the 14th (July, 1870). Gambetta proved to me that on the 14th the mobilization order was given by the Minister of War, and that on the same day the order was itself ordered by the Cabinet to be countermanded. The Duc de Gramont has said, with singular confusion, that it was decided on the 15th that the orders of the Minister of War should not be countermanded, and that the reserves should be called out. Ollivier assured me that after a six hours' sitting of the Cabinet he had finally left St. Cloud long before that hour at which Delord states in his history that the Cabinet again met in the presence of the Empress. There was no such sitting of the Cabinet, but there may have been a meeting of the Empress, the Duc de Gramont, and the Minister of War, and they may have dared to take it upon themselves to reverse the decision at which the Cabinet had arrived.
'The Duc de Gramont and the Minister of War had been in the minority at the Cabinet on the 14th when the Cabinet withdrew the order for the mobilization of the reserves, and this minority took it upon itself in the night to maintain the order for the calling out of the reserves. On the other hand, if there was ground for the impeachment of the Duc de Gramont, I am afraid that there was also ground for that of Ollivier in his own admissions. The declaration made to the Chambers on July 15th states that the reserves were called out on the 14th, and Ollivier allowed the decision of his Cabinet, which was his own, to be reversed in his own name, apparently with his approval. [Footnote: See note on p. 486, and the authorities cited there.]
'Bismarck's action in forcing on a war might be justified by his probable acquaintance with the engagement of Austria to France that she would join her in attacking Prussia in the early spring of 1871; but it is a curious fact that he has never, either to me or to anybody else, made use of this justification.
'Upon all these subjects the papers found in the palaces and published by the Government of National Defence had an essential bearing, and these I discussed, while they were fresh, with Gambetta and Ollivier. The same matters were again before me in the following year (1873), when I had the opportunity of attending the Bazaine Court-Martial, presided over by the Duc d'Aumale, and of again reading the papers found in the Tuileries (including the volume afterwards suppressed) on the spot, and while the events related were fresh in men's minds, as well as of talking over all doubtful points with my two friends.
'Bazaine at the Court-Martial looked only stupid, like a fat old seal, utterly unmilitary, and, as the French would say, "become cow-like." It was difficult to see in him the man who, however great his crimes in Mexico, had at least been a man of the most daring courage and of the most overweening ambition. In the suppressed volume of the papers of the Imperial family seized at the Tuileries there is a letter from General Félix Douay to his brother in which he describes Bazaine's attempt to become the Bernadotte of Mexico, and shows how, in order to obtain the Mexican throne, he kept up treasonable relations with the chiefs of the republican bands which it was his duty to combat. It is curious to find the French second-in-command writing to his brother, also a General, a letter which, somehow or other, came into the possession of the Emperor himself, in which he says: "It is terrible to see a great dignity prostrated in such fashion…. We have to go back to Cardinal Dubois to find such an accomplished scoundrel having made use of a situation of the highest confidence to sell his country and his master…. He will not long escape the infamy to which he is consigned by the wishes of all honest men in the army, who are daily more and more shocked by the scandal of his personal fortune." Colonel Boyer was chief of the staff to Bazaine in Mexico, and is mentioned in the correspondence between the two Generals Douay as being mixed up in these discreditable transactions; and he was afterwards, as General Boyer, concerned, it may be remembered, in the Régnier affair at Metz, when General Bourbaki was sent out under a pass from the Prussians on a fool's errand to the Empress Eugénie, there being some treasonable plot behind. This is now (1908) confirmed by the letter of the King of Prussia to the Empress Eugénie in the Bernstorff Memoirs.'
From 1872 onwards Sir Charles, in his many passages through Paris, invariably met Gambetta, 'and spent as much time with him as possible.' He was in this way kept fully informed on French politics by the most powerful politician in France. As Gambetta's power grew, Dilke's influence grew also, until there came a time when the friendship between the two was of international interest.
II.
On returning to London after the Easter recess of 1872, Sir Charles resumed his political duties in and out of Parliament. The Radical Club, of which he remained Secretary till he took office in 1880, exercised some little influence in the House of Commons, and was of some value in bringing men together for the exchange of ideas, but began to present difficulties in its working, and soon 'dropped very much into the hands of Fawcett. Fitzmaurice, and myself.'
Apart from weekly attendance at its meetings, Sir Charles did not go out much. 'We were so wrapped up in ourselves,' he says, 'that I have no doubt we were spoken of as selfish.' The marriage had resulted in a tie much closer than the simple union of two people who would "get on very well together." Lady Dilke was a creature of glowing life. Those who remember her say that when she entered a room the whole atmosphere seemed to change: she was so brilliant, so handsome, so charged with vitality, so eager always in everything.
From this period there were dinners at 76, Sloane Street, twice a week, and among those who gathered about the Dilkes 'were Harcourt; Kinglake, the historian; Stopford Brooke (who had not then left the Church of England), Brookfield, the Queen's chaplain, commonly known as the "naughty parson," and husband of Thackeray's Amelia, Fitzmaurice; Charles Villiers; Mrs. Procter (widow of Barry Cornwall); Miss Tizy Smith, daughter of Horace Smith, of Rejected Addresses; James (afterwards Sir Henry James).' Browning also 'was constantly at the house,' and read there his "Red Cotton Nightcap Country"—'at his own request.' Lord Houghton began in these days an intimacy which lasted till his death. Of Americans, there were Leland ("Hans Breitmann") and Mark Twain, and with these are named a number of foreign guests: Émile de Laveleye, the economist; Ricciotti Garibaldi; Moret, the Spanish Minister.
'We used to judge the position of affairs in Spain by whether Moret wore or did not wear the Golden Fleece when he came to dinner. When Castelar was dictator and the Republic proceeding upon conservative lines, the sheep hung prominently at his side. When the Republic was federalist and democratic, as was the case from time to time, the sheep was left at home in a box.'
Others in the list of guests were Taglioni, 'in her youth the famous dancer, and in her old age Comtesse Gilbert de Voisins, the stupidest and most respectable of old dames,' and Ristori, the tragedian, who stayed at Sloane Street 'with her husband, the Marquis Capranica del Grillo, and their lovely daughter Bianca.'
A novel feature at some of Lady Dilke's evenings was the production of French comedies by M. Brasseur, the celebrated comedian, and father of the well-known actor of the present day. At all times in Sir Charles Dilke's life his house was a great meeting-place for those who loved and knew France and the French tongue.
Many painters were among the Chelsea constituents, and in 1868 Rossetti, having been pressed to vote, replied:
"I think if Shakespeare and Michael Angelo were going to the poll, and if the one were not opposing the other, and if there were no danger of being expected to take an active part in the chairing of either, I might prove for once to have enough political electricity to brush a vote out of me, like a spark out of a cat's back. But I fear no other kind of earthly hero could do it."
Another constituent was Carlyle, who in 1871 came to Dilke with a memorial in favour of a Civil List pension for Miss Geraldine Jewsbury. Out of him also no vote had been "brushed": he had exercised the franchise only once in his life. Passing through his native village, he had seen a notice that persons who would pay half a crown could be registered, and he had paid his fee and had been registered. He had thought at the time, so he told Sir Charles, that "heaven and hell hung on that vote," but he "had found out afterwards that they did not."
It was in the course of 1872 that Sir Charles carried out one of his grandfather's instructions by distributing old Mr. Dilke's books—
'in those quarters where I thought they would be useful in the cause of historic research, or where they would be best preserved. The British Museum had the first choice, and took those of the books relating to the Commonwealth, to the Stuarts, to Pope, and to Junius, which they had not already on their shelves. [Footnote: 'The Stuart papers consisted of the Caryll papers and the Seaforth Mackenzie papers, which last were first used by the Marchesa Campana da Cavelli in the preparation of a great work on the Stuart documents, in which they were fully quoted.'] I then offered the remainder of the Junius collection to Chichester Fortescue, at that time President of the Board of Trade (afterwards Lord Carlingford), husband of the famous Lady Waldegrave, and tenant in consequence of Strawberry Hill, where he was reforming Horace Walpole's library.'
It was a house at which Sir Charles became very intimate but not till some years later. About this time Lady Strachie remembers the interest with which, as a young girl at her aunt's table, she glanced down the row of guests to catch the profile of 'Citizen Dilke,' who, with his wife, was dining there for the first time.
Lord Carlingford believed that Francis wrote Junius, a view which old Mr.
Dilke opposed.
'But Abraham Hayward, who was constantly with him, held anti- Franciscan opinions, and he would, I knew, have the full run of the books, which I was certain in Fortescue's hands would be carefully preserved. My arrangements were not concluded until the end of the following year, 1873, when I presented the last of the Pope books and all my grandfather's Pope manuscripts to John Murray, the publisher, in consequence of his great interest in the new edition.' [Footnote: Elwin and Courthope's edition of Pope's works.]
In the same year Sir Charles Dilke made another arrangement which testified to the strength of his brotherly affection. Wentworth Dilke had left his personal property in the proportion of two-thirds to the elder son and one-third to the younger; and had also exercised a power of appointment which he held by dividing his wife's property in the same way. Charles Dilke now decided that the shares should be equalized, and secured this by handing over one-sixth of his property to Ashton, who was at this time in Russia, on a journey of exploration extending over the greater part of that Empire.
About this time also Sir Charles purchased Notes and Queries for £2,500 from its founder, Mr. Thoms, the Librarian of the House of Lords, 'one of the dearest old men that ever was worshipped by his friends,' and a devoted admirer of old Mr. Dilke. He appointed Dr. Doran to be editor, "partly as consolation for having refused him the editorship of the Athenaeum, for which he had asked as an old contributor and as the yearly acting editor in the 'editor's holiday.'" But Sir Charles's choice had fallen on Mr. Norman MacColl, 'that Scotch Solomon,' as he sometimes called this admirable critic, who conducted the paper for thirty years.
'In the autumn we went abroad again, and took a letter of introduction to George Sand, for whose talent Katie had a great admiration. We missed her at Trouville, but found her afterwards in Paris—an interesting person, hideously ugly, but more pleasant than her English rival novelist, the other pseudonymous George. They had few points in common except that both wrote well and were full of talent of a different kind and were equally monstrous, looking like two old horses.'
Of George Eliot's "talent" he wrote to Hepworth Dixon in 1866:
"The only fact of which I am at this present very certain … is that Miss Evans is not far from being the best indirect describer of character and the wittiest observer of human nature that has lived in England since Shakespeare, and I think that there are touches in Amos Barton, Scenes from Clerical Life, and in the first few chapters of The Mill on the Floss quite worthy of Shakespeare himself."
Also there is reference to a letter quoted in George Eliot's Life which tells that the year 1873 "began sweetly" for her, because "a beautiful bouquet with a pretty legend was left at my door by a person who went away after ringing." 'It was I,' says Sir Charles, 'who left that bouquet and I who wrote that legend. It was Katie who prepared the bouquet and asked me to take it.'
III.
After the tempestuous scene of March 19th, Sir Charles had remained on the whole a silent member of Parliament.
'I am going to keep quiet till the general election' (he says in a letter of May 1st, 1873) 'as the best means of retaining my present seat. If I should be turned out, look out for squalls, as I should then stand on an extreme platform for every vacancy in the North.'
The main objects of the Radical group were, first, extension and redistribution of the voting power, and, secondly, a universal system of compulsory education, controlled by elective school boards. In October of this year (1872) Sir Charles and Lady Dilke went down as Mr. Chamberlain's guests to Birmingham, where Sir Charles spoke on free schools (basing himself, as usual, on his observation of other countries) with Mr. Chamberlain in the chair. In November there was a return visit, and Mr. Chamberlain spoke under Dilke's chairmanship at St. James's Hall on electoral reform. 'Chamberlain's was the first important speech that he had delivered to a London public meeting,' and probably these reciprocal visits and chairmanships gave the first general intimation of an alliance which for a dozen years was destined to influence Liberal policy.
In the autumn of 1872, Sir Charles 'started a small Electoral Reform Committee.' Its purpose was to assist, first, the Bill of Mr. Trevelyan making the qualification for a vote in counties the same as in boroughs, and, secondly, his own resolution which demanded that seats should be redistributed in proportion to the number of electors. The outcome was an arrangement under which Mr. Trevelyan substituted for his Bill a resolution dealing with both matters; and this resolution, moved by him and seconded by Sir Charles, afforded annually a gauge of the progress made, as indicated by the division list.
'Chamberlain co-operated with me, but was more keen about his own education subjects.'
At this time the attitude of Sir Charles and his associates towards the Liberal party was one of detachment bordering on hostility. Chamberlain, writing from Birmingham on March 2nd, 1873, noted that the Irish University Bill was "going badly in the country, and the Noncons. and Leaguers in the House ought to have the game in their hands." He wished "they would have the pluck to tell Mr. Gladstone that they will do nothing to bolster up a Ministry which will not give satisfactory assurances upon English education;" and he wanted Mr. George Dixon to go on with his resolution in favour of universal free schools and carry it to a division.
"If members do not vote with him, and there is a general election soon, they will have a nice little crow to pick with their constituents; whereas if there is no division on this issue, all our labour during the recess is lost, and our friends are disheartened…. Viewed ab extra, there is no doubt the boldest policy is the best. It is probable from what I have seen that the weakest course is best suited to the atmosphere of what some people are pleased to call a 'reformed House of Commons.'"
In the following week the Irish University Bill which was "going badly in the country" received a new and unexpected stab: Cardinal Cullen denounced it in a pastoral on March 9th. The debate on the second reading terminated during the small hours of March 12th. Government was defeated by three on a division of 284-287. On the 13th Mr. Gladstone's Ministry tendered their resignations, and the Queen sent for Mr. Disraeli, who declined either to accept office or to recommend a dissolution. By March 20th it was formally announced that the Government would go on, but it went on with power and prestige greatly diminished.
On July 6th Chamberlain wrote to Dilke advocating an "irreconcilable policy," and asking for news of any "fanatics willing to join the Forlorn Hope and help in smashing up that whited sepulchre called the Liberal party." This letter concluded with an attack on Mr. Bright, who had just joined the reconstructed Ministry, but whose influence Mr. Chamberlain thought was "quite too small to save the Government." [Footnote: One cause of the Government's unpopularity was the attempt of Mr. Ayrton (First Commissioner of Public Works) to limit the right of public meeting in Hyde Park, to which there is this allusion: 'In July I was greatly occupied in the House of Commons in fighting against Ayrton's Parks Bill. It was at dinner at my house one night that, in his dry, quiet way, old Kinglake chirped out, "For so insignificant a personage Mr. Ayrton is quite the most pompous individual that I know." Mr. Ayrton's unpopularity was a powerful cause of Mr. Gladstone's downfall in 1874.'] Sir William Harcourt, though hardly less discontented, was openly more conformable, and towards the close of 1873 took office as Solicitor- General. He wrote:
"I do not know if I have done a very wise or a very foolish thing. Probably the latter. But it is done, and my friends must help me to make the best of it. It was a great inducement to me the having Henry James [Footnote: Sir Henry James became Attorney-General in September, 1873.] as a colleague…. I feel like an old bachelor going to leave his lodgings and marry a woman he is not in love with, in grave doubt whether he and she will suit. However, fortunately, she is going to die soon, and we shall soon again be in opposition below the gangway. The Duke of Argyll says that now I am in harness I must be driven in blinkers; but, then, dukes are insolent by nature. Whatever comes, I shall never leave the House of Commons. I do not see why I am not to be a politician because I am a law officer. Law officers used to be politicians some years ago."
The Civil List question was raised again in Parliament in this year, when the Crown Private Estates Bill was introduced; and an amendment moved by Mr. George Anderson, member for Glasgow, complaining of the secrecy which attached to Royal wills, was supported, not only by Sir Charles, but by "the leader of the old Whigs in the House of Commons," Mr. E. P. Bouverie, a Privy Councillor, who to his horror found himself named to tell against the Bill, and thus identified with the "republican" opposition. 'Speaker Brand no doubt owed him some grudge.' [Footnote: The Right Hon. E. P. Bouverie had been a very successful Chairman of Committees of the whole House, and was indicated by public option as a probable Speaker. He was recognized as a leading authority on the Law of Parliament.] Dilke's own speech had demanded the annual publication of the receipts and disbursements of the Crown Private Estates, and though he waited long to carry his point, he saw this amongst other proposals adopted on the recommendation of the Civil List Committee of 1910, on which he served.
Proof was not wanting that his determined attitude on these matters had won him the support of great masses of the democracy. Miners' Unions and Labourers' Unions wrote, begging, some for his portrait, others for an address; also, in places where opposition had been offered to his speaking, reprisals were exacted.
'Early in January, 1873, we went to Derby, at the request of the chairman of my meeting at Derby which had failed in the winter of '71-72, when, though a majority were upon our side, a gang of hired poachers had entrenched themselves in a corner of the room, had burned cayenne pepper, and defied all attempts to drive them out. The chairman was a man of determination who did not mean to be beaten. He organized his meeting on this occasion with almost too much care, for I fancy he brought fighting friends from Nottingham and other bruising places to it. The Tory roughs appeared, as on the former occasion. Before we were allowed to enter the room they were charged by means of battering rams with such effect that their entrenchments were destroyed, and they themselves were mostly stunned and carried out one by one. No one was dangerously hurt, but there were many broken heads. Lady Dilke was present in the thick of it, and, according to the newspaper reports, anxiously begged the stewards to deal gently with those whom they threw out. After this the meeting was held in peace. But the result was a formal Government inquiry, and the removal of the chairman of the meeting from the County Bench by the Lord Chancellor. He turned clergyman, to the benefit of Notes and Queries and of the societies for antiquarian research, for, being a man of active mind, and finding the care of small parishes of ritualistic tendencies insufficient to occupy his whole time, he became the author of the famous book, Churches of Derbyshire, and of much other antiquarian work.'
Sir Charles notes that this address at Derby was in fact his first pronouncement on "Free Land." In the following week, at Chelsea, he spoke upon Free Trade, and in both these speeches used the phrase, "Free land, free church, free schools, free trade, free law," laying down, early in 1873, 'the principles on which Chamberlain and John Morley afterwards went in the construction of the pamphlet known as The Radical Programme.'
Sir G. Trevelyan writes:
"In the first months of 1872 he was supposed to have injured himself greatly by his proceedings with regard to the Civil List; and yet, _to my knowledge, within a very few years Mr. Disraeli stated it as his opinion that Sir Charles Dilke was the most useful and influential member, among quite young men, that he had ever known."
In pursuit of his plan of "keeping quiet" till the impending dissolution, he took no prominent action in these months; but he backed independent Liberalism whenever he saw a chance, as, for instance, by subscribing to forward the candidature of Mr. Burt, who had then been selected by the Morpeth miners to represent them. There was, however, a further reason for this quiescence. Lady Dilke at the close of the season was seriously ill, and it was late in autumn before she could be taken abroad to Monaco. Here, under the associations of the place, Dilke wrote his very successful political fantasy, Prince Florestan.
Another event which clouded 1873 was Mill's death—'a great loss to us. Ours was the last house at which he dined, and we, with the Hills' (the editor of the Daily News and his wife), 'were the last friends who dined with him. The Watts portrait for which he had consented to sit was finished for me just when he died.'
'I loved him greatly,' Sir Charles writes. The relation between the two had been that of master and disciple, and Mill may be said to have carried on and completed the work of old Mr. Dilke.
[Illustration: JOHN STUART MILL.
From the painting by G. F. Watts, R.A., in the Westminster Town Hall.]
CHAPTER XII
RE-ELECTION TO PARLIAMENT—DEATH OF LADY DILKE
Having remained abroad until after Christmas, 1873, the Dilkes stayed at Brighton for the sake of Lady Dilke's health, Sir Charles coming to town as occasion needed.
His address to his constituents in 1874 assumed a special character in view of the approaching dissolution. He reviewed the whole work done by the 'Householder Parliament,' and more particularly the part taken in it by the members for Chelsea. It was an independent speech, making it quite clear that from the introduction of the Education Bill in 1870 the speaker had "ceased to be a steady supporter of the Government," and showing that "during the past three years the present Government had been declining in public esteem." Sir Charles recalled the various matters on which he had criticized their action, laying emphasis on two points. One was the Act of 1871 for amending the Criminal Law in regard to combinations of workmen, which had been passed in response to a long and vehement demand that the position of Trade Unions should be regularized. The amending Act had really left the Unions worse off than before: "the weapon of the men is picketing, and the weapon of the master is the black list. The picketing is practically prohibited by this Bill, and the black list is left untouched." [Footnote: See "Labour," Chapter LII. (Volume II., pp. 342- 367).]
The other matter of interest was the Irish Peace Preservation Bill of 1873, a Bill which, as he said, would have raised great outcry if applied to an English district; yet, 'because it applied only to Ireland, and the Irish were unpopular and were supposed to be an unaccountable people different from all others,' it had passed with small opposition. He could not understand 'how those who shuddered at arbitrary arrests in Poland, and who ridiculed the gagging of the Press in France, could permit the passing of a law for Ireland which gave absolute powers of arrest and of suppression of newspapers to the Lord-Lieutenant.'
Ireland has frequently afforded a test of the thoroughness of Liberal principles, and Sir Charles was distinguished from most of his countrymen by a refusal to impose geographical limitations on his notions of logic or of conduct. He was the least insular of Englishmen.
In this speech of January, 1874, printed for circulation to the electors, he went very fully into the matter of the Civil List controversy, but did not touch his avowal of republican principles, because that declaration had been made outside Parliament, and he had never spoken of it in Parliament. He dealt with the matter, however, in a letter written to one of his supporters for general publication:
"You ask me whether you are not justified in saying that I have always declined to take part in a republican agitation. That is so. I have repeatedly declined to do so; I have declined to attend republican meetings and I have abstained from subscribing to republican funds. I also refused to join the Republican Club formed at Cambridge University, though I am far from wishing to cast a slur on those Liberal politicians—Professor Fawcett and others—who did join it. The view I took was that I had no right to make use of my position as a member of the House of Commons, gained largely by the votes of those who are not even theoretical republicans, to push on an English republican movement. On the other hand, when denounced in a Conservative paper as a 'republican,' as though that were a term of abuse, I felt bound as an honest man to say I was one. But I am not a 'republican member' or a 'republican candidate,' any more than Mr. Gordon" (his opponent) "is a monarchical candidate, because there is neither Republican party nor Monarchical party in the English Parliament. I said at Glasgow two years ago: 'The majority of the people of Great Britain believe that the reforms they desire are compatible with the monarchic form of government,' and this I believe now as then."
'At the time when the letter was written,' notes the Memoir, 'an immediate dissolution of Parliament was not expected, but it was only just in time (being dated January 20th) to be of the most use, for the sudden dissolution occurred four days after its publication. The word "sudden" hardly perhaps, at this distance of time, conveys an impression of the extraordinary nature of the event.'
The Cabinet's decision to dissolve, arising out of difficulties on the Budget, was announced on January 24th. By February 16th the elections were over, and Mr. Gladstone's Government had resigned, the Tories having come back with a solid majority. It was an overthrow for the Liberal party, but Sir Charles survived triumphantly, though ten seats in London were lost to Mr. Gladstone's following. Mr. Ayrton, the First Commissioner of Works, against whom Sir Charles and his fellow-Radicals had fought fiercely, was ejected from the Tower Hamlets, and never returned to public life. Another victim was Sir Charles's former colleague.
'To the astonishment of many people, I was returned at the head of the poll, the Conservative standing next, and then Sir Henry Hoare, while the independent Moderate Liberal who had stood against me and obtained the temperance vote, obtained nothing else, and was, at a great distance from us, at the bottom of the poll.'
When all the political journalists in England were reviewing, after his death in 1911, the remarkable career that they had watched, some for half a lifetime, one of the veterans among them wrote: [Footnote: The Newcastle Daily Chronicle.]
"We do not think that Sir Charles Dilke owed a great deal to the Liberal party, but we certainly think that the Liberal party owed a very great deal to Sir Charles Dilke. In the dark days of 1874, when the party was deeper in the slough of despond than it has ever been before or since in our time, it was from the initiative and courage of Sir Charles Dilke that salvation came. His work in organizing the Liberal forces, especially in the Metropolis, has never received due acknowledgment.'
The centre of his influence was among those who knew him best—his own constituents. 'I had indeed invented a caucus in Chelsea before the first Birmingham Election Association was started,' he says of his own electoral machinery. [Footnote: See Chapter XVII., p. 268.] The Eleusis Club was known all over England as a propagandist centre. Here he had no occasion to explain his speeches at Newcastle or elsewhere. "We were all republicans down Chelsea way when young Charlie Dilke came among us first," said an old supporter. Yet the propaganda emanating from the Eleusis Club was not republican.
Here and all over the constituency he made innumerable and unreported speeches to instruct industrial opinion. He laid under contribution his whole store of extraordinary knowledge, suggesting and answering questions till no Parliamentary representative in the country was followed by his supporters with an attention so informed and discriminating.
"Nothing of the sort had been known since David Urquhart, in the first half of the Victorian age, opened his lecture-halls and classrooms throughout the world for counter-working Palmerston, and for teaching artisans the true inwardness of the Eastern Question." [Footnote: Mr. T. H. S. Escott, the New Age, February 9th, 1911.]
Sir Charles himself gives in the Memoir some sketch of the feelings with which Liberals confronted that rout of Liberalism, and of the steps taken to repair the disaster.
'Harcourt wrote (upon paper which bore the words "Solicitor-General" with a large "No longer" in his handwriting at the top):
'"Rari nantes in gurgite vasto. Here we are again…. To tell you the truth, I am not sorry. It had to come, and it is as well over. We shall get rid of these canting duffers of the party and begin afresh. We must all meet again below the gangway. We shall have a nice little party, though diminished. I am very sorry about Fawcett, but we shall soon get him back again."
'My first work was to bring back Fawcett, and by negotiations with Homer, the Hackney publican (Secretary of the Licensed Victuallers' Protection Association), into which I entered because Fawcett's defeat had been partly owing to the determined opposition of Sir Wilfrid Lawson's friends, who could not forgive his attacks on the direct veto, I succeeded in securing him an invitation to contest Hackney, where there was an early vacancy. Fitzmaurice and I became respectively Chairman and Treasurer of a fund, and we raised more money than was needed for paying the whole of Fawcett's expenses, and were able to bank a fund in the name of trustees, of whom I was one, for his next election.
'Fitzmaurice, in accepting my invitation to co-operate with me in this matter, said that he had succeeded in discovering a place to which posts took two days, "wherein I can moralize at leisure on the folly of the leaders of the Liberal party."
'When Fawcett returned to the House, he would not let himself be introduced by the party Whips; but was introduced by me, in conjunction, however, with Playfair, who, besides being one of his most intimate political friends, had been for a short time before the dissolution a member of the Government. On this occasion Fitzmaurice wrote: "Gladstone, I imagine, is the person least pleased at the return of Fawcett, and I should think has been dreaming ever since that Bouverie's turn will come next." Cowen said in the Newcastle Chronicle, Fawcett "contributed as much as any man in the late House of Commons to damage the late Government. During the last session he voted in favour of the proposals made by Mr. Gladstone's Government about 160 times, and he voted against them about 180 times. It always struck me that Professor Fawcett's boasted independence partook greatly of crotchety awkwardness." Fawcett's personal popularity was, however, great, not only with the public, but with men who did not share his views and saw much of him in private life, such as the ordinary Cambridge Dons among whom he lived, and whose prejudices upon many points he was continually attacking. Nevertheless he was a popular guest.'
Elsewhere, relating how Fawcett disturbed the peace of Mr. Glyn, the ministerial Chief Whip from 1868 onwards. Sir Charles explained that—
'when he had some mischief brewing late at night, he used to get one of the Junior Whips to give him an arm through the lobby, and as he passed the Senior Whip at the door leading to the members' entrance would say "Good-night, Glyn," as though he were going home to bed.'
Mr. Glyn thought "the blind man" had gone to bed, but in reality he had simply passed down to the terrace, and would sit there smoking till the other conspirators saw the moment to go down and fetch him. 'I fear it was by this stratagem that he had helped me to defeat Ayrton's Bill for throwing a piece of the Park into the Kensington Road opposite the Albert Hall.'
It is possible that Dilke was a name of even greater horror to the orthodox Whiggish opinion of this date than to the regular adherents of Toryism. The general attitude at this moment towards "the Republican"— "Citizen Dilke"—is illustrated by an anecdote in the Reminiscences of Charles Gavard, who was for many years First Secretary at the French Embassy. He says that when Sir Charles Dilke stood for Chelsea in 1874, he attended several of his meetings—
"partly, I must admit, in the spirit of the Englishman who never missed a performance of van Amburg, the lion-tamer, hoping some day to see him devoured by his lions. On one occasion, at Chelsea Town Hall, I had the honour of leading Lady Dilke on to the platform, and was greeted, with such a round of applause as I am not likely to enjoy again in my life. But, to my horror, I heard the reporters inquiring as to my identity. Fortunately, Sir Charles perceived the peril I was in, and gave them some misleading information. Otherwise, my name might have appeared in the Press, and my diplomatic career have been abruptly ended for figuring in public among the supporters of so hostile an opponent of the form of government prevailing, in the country to which I was accredited."
Sir Charles's personal triumph at the polls amid the general rout of his party inevitably enhanced his position in the House. And upon it there followed a wholly different success which established his prestige precisely on the point where it was the fashion to assail it. He had been decried as 'dreary'; yet London suddenly found itself applauding him as a wit.
The Fall of Prince Florestan of Monaco was published anonymously in March, 1874. To-day the little book is perhaps almost forgotten, although one can still be amused by the story of the Cambridge undergraduate, trained in the fullest faith of free-thinking Radicalism, who finds himself suddenly promoted to the principality of Monaco, and who arrives in his microscopic kingdom only to realize that his monarchical state rests on the support of two pillars—a Jesuit who controls the Church and education, and M. Blanc, who manages the gaming tables. The consequence of Prince Florestan's attempt to put in practice democratic principles where nobody wanted them was wittily and ingeniously thought out, and the tone of subdued irony admirably kept up. The work was characteristically thorough. The 126 functionaries, the 60 soldiers and carbineers, the 150 unpaid diplomatic representatives of Monaco abroad, the Vicar-General, the Treasurer-General, the Honorary Almoner, and all the other "appliances and excrescences of civilized government," which went to make up that "perfection of bureaucracy and red tape in a territory one mile broad and five miles long," were all statistically accurate. Throughout the whole a reference to other monarchies and other swarms of functionaries was delicately implied.
The quality of the book is rather that of talk than of writing. It has the dash, the quick turn, and the vivacity of a good improvisation at the dinner-table; and a quotation will illustrate not so much Sir Charles's literary gift as the manner of his talk:
"On the 5th of February I reached Nice by the express, and, after reading the telegram which announced the return of Mr. Gladstone by a discerning people as junior colleague to a gin distiller, was presented with an address by the Gambettist mayor at the desire of the legitimist préfêt. The mayor, being a red-hot republican in politics, but a carriage-builder by trade, lectured me on the drawbacks of despotism in his address, but informed me in conversation afterwards that he had had the honour of building a Victoria for Prince Charles Honoré—which was next door to giving me his business card. The address, however, also assumed that the Princes of Monaco were suffered only by Providence to exist in order that the trade of Nice, the nearest large French town, might thrive.
"In the evening at four we reached the station at Monaco, which was decked with the white flags of my ancestors. What a pity, was my thought, that M. de Chambord should not be aware that if he would come to stay with me at the castle he would live under the white flag to which he is so much attached all the days of his life. My reception was enthusiastic. The guards, in blue uniforms not unlike the Bavarian, but with tall shakos instead of helmets, and similar to that which during the stoppage of the train at Nice I had rapidly put on, were drawn up in line to the number of thirty-nine—one being in hospital with a wart on his thumb, as M. de Payan told me. What an admirable centralization that such a detail should be known to every member of the administration! Two drummers rolled their drums French fashion. In front of the line were four officers, of whom—one fat; Baron Imberty; the Vicar-General; and Père Pellico of the Jesuits of the Visitation, brother, as I already knew, to the celebrated Italian patriot, Silvio Pellico, of dungeon and spider fame.
"'Where is M. Blanc?' I cried to M. de Payan, as we stopped, seeing no one not in uniform or robes. "'M. Blanc,' said M. de Payan severely, 'though a useful subject to Your Highness, is neither a member of the household of Your Highness, a soldier of His army, nor a functionary of His Government. M. Blanc is in the crowd outside'" [Footnote: Prince Florestan, p. 23.]
Sir Charles sent the manuscript anonymously to Macmillans, with a statement that the work would certainly be a success, and that the author would announce himself on the appearance of the second edition. But the Macmillans, who had published Greater Britain, noted that the proposed little book contained several contumelious references to the "lugubrious speeches" of Sir Charles Dilke and his brother, and refused to have anything to do with it. To pacify them, Sir Charles, from behind his mask, had to excise some of the disagreeable things which he had said about himself. Enough was left to convince one egregious London daily paper not only that Matthew Arnold was the author, but that the special object of his new satire was Sir Charles Dilke, "a clever young man who fancies that his prejudices are ideas, and who, if he had the misfortune to be made King, would stir up a revolution in a week."
This was the very thing that Sir Charles wanted. Fundamentally the book was chaff—chaff of other people for their estimate of him. Finding himself perpetually under the necessity of explaining that his theoretic preference for Republicanism would not constrain him to upset a monarchy which happened to suit the nation where it existed, he wrote Prince Florestan, as though to say: 'This is what you take me for'; and even while it satirized the absurdity of Florestan's court and constitution, the book showed that it would be still more absurd to upset even the most ridiculous Government so long as it suited the people governed.
The ascription to Matthew Arnold was frequent. The book came out on March 16th, and within forty-eight hours had been reviewed in five leading papers, and, in all the guessing, no one in print guessed right.
The disclosure was made by Lady Dilke, who, entering a friend's drawing- room, caused herself to be announced as "Princess Florestan." Newspapers proclaimed the authorship; a popular edition of the book appeared, with malicious extracts from the various reviews that had been written when the authorship was unknown; and the result was to make Sir Charles, already universally known, now universally the fashion.
Though he had faced social ostracism with a courage all the greater in one who enjoyed society, he was unaffectedly glad to take his place again. One shrewd critic wrote that "Florestan's" success "had led some people to discover that they always liked Sir Charles Dilke."
"Society" (the writer went on) "still bears Sir Charles a grudge, and would have voted anything known to be his to be dull—like his speeches, as he good-naturedly said of himself. Amused, without knowing who amused them, the few fine people who supply views to the many fine people in need of them prove not ungrateful."
The return of a Conservative Government was accompanied by a period of comparative inaction on the part of Sir Charles and his friends; and the activities of the whole Liberal party were in a measure paralyzed by the withdrawal of Mr. Gladstone, not merely from leadership, but almost from the Parliamentary arena. Mr. Chamberlain, who had stood for Parliament and been defeated at Sheffield, wrote that he was engaged in purchasing the Birmingham Gasworks for the Corporation, and did not want to stand again till he had finished his mayoralty.'
"It may be well to let the crude attempts at democratic organizations, Radical unions, etc., etc., be disposed of before we talk over our propositions. I do not think the League will do. We must be a new organization, although our experience and acquired information may be useful."
'This was the death-warrant of the Education League, and the birth- certificate of the National Liberal Federation, always privately called by Chamberlain after the name given to it by his enemies, The Caucus.'
Sir Charles himself was mainly occupied in Parliament with pioneer work for the extension of the franchise; and by a series of small steps towards electoral reform he obtained ultimately, as a private member in opposition, very considerable results. It was not merely with the right to vote, but with the opportunity that he concerned himself, and his Bill to extend the polling hours till 8 p.m., introduced in the session of 1874, although it was opposed by the Government and rejected on a division, nevertheless became law in a few years, as a measure applying to London first, and then to the whole of the United Kingdom.
In the same session he served on a Committee to inquire into the adulteration of food, and obtained through a careful watching of the evidence "a considerable knowledge of the processes of manufacture, which was afterwards useful when I came to be charged with the negotiation of commercial treaties."
'I continued to interest myself in the question of local government, until I had shaped my views into the form of proposals which I was able to place in a Bill when afterwards at the Local Government Board, and to make public in a speech at Halifax in 1885.'
He adds: 'In 1874 I voted for Home Rule.' This was always for him a form of local government in its highest sense.
He was strong enough to take up a position of detachment, and from that vantage-ground he made at Hammersmith, on September 8th, 1874, an interesting speech, in which he gave free rein to the ironical mood of Prince Florestan. The Tories, he said, came into office with at all events a strong list of names: Mr. Disraeli, Lord Cairns and Mr. Gathorne Hardy could not easily be matched.
"On the other hand, our chiefs were nowhere. Mr. Gladstone was in the sulks, and Mr. Forster had been returned by Tory votes at Bradford, than which nothing is more weakening to a Liberal politician. Mr. Cardwell and Mr. Chichester Fortescue had gone to the Whig heaven; and Sir William Harcourt, whose great abilities were beginning to be recognized, was draping himself in the mantle of Lord Palmerston, and looked rather to a distant than to an immediate future.
"As though to strengthen the Conservative position, we were at the same time on our side called upon to surrender our parliamentary liberties as independent members to a triumvirate, composed of Mr. Goschen, Lord Hartington, and Mr. Forster—the title of the first being founded upon the fact that he was the intimate friend of Mr. Gladstone, whom the country had just condemned; that of the second, that he was a serious Marquis, the son of a highly respectable Duke; and that of the third, that he had the confidence of gentlemen who sat upon the other side of the House. Believing, as we did, that Mr. Disraeli never made mistakes, it was not easy to foresee the end of his administration.
"When people talked about the extinction of the Whigs, it certainly then seemed, on the contrary, that that party, instead of being extinct, had become all-embracing, for one knew nobody who was not a Whig. With a Whig Government in office under Mr. Disraeli, and a disorganized Whig opposition on the other side, there seemed to be in question only persons, and not principles. At the Same time, many Liberals thought that it would be better, as far as principles went, to keep the Conservatives in office, inasmuch as they possessed a majority in the House of Lords, and, being forced by the House of Commons and the country into passing Whig measures, would have to carry them through both Houses and into law, instead of dropping them halfway, as our people had often been compelled to do."
In this speech he assailed Mr. Disraeli's Government for legislation which laid restrictions only on "the poor and the lower middle classes, and which put down a servants' betting club, though it had precisely the same rules as prevail at Tattersall's." The Friendly Societies Bill, again, seemed to him "harassing," and drawn on the assumption that working men have not sense enough to investigate for themselves the position of the society which they wish to join.
"There cannot be too little interference with the great self-governed popular Societies. I think that this Bill is the thin end of the wedge, that espionage is the first step to control, and that control is a long step on the road which leads to the destruction of the Societies, and to the creation of a single Government provident organization, which I should regard as a great evil."
The speech attracted much attention, and Sir Charles was now quoted as one whom men would wish to see in any Liberal Ministry. In the public field, during the spring and summer of 1874, all went well with him. But his personal life during these months was overshadowed by approaching calamity.
Lady Dilke was again in ill-health, and was under the presentiment of approaching death. 'Our last happy time was at Paris at Christmas, 1873, on our way home from Monaco, when Gambetta's brightness was answered by our own.' Sir Charles occupied himself with buying land at Broadstairs, where the climate was specially favourable to his wife's health, but as the plans for building on it progressed, he could note that the keenness of her interest 'drooped and died.' After the beginning of August there were no more dinner-parties, and although those who came to the house—of whom Sir William Harcourt was the last to be admitted—found its mistress wearing a gay face, the gloom deepened over her, and she suffered acutely from insomnia. A child was born in September; she lived to see her son, the present Sir Wentworth Dilke, but she never rallied. Death came to her with difficulty, early in the night of September 20th. Sir Charles, overstrained already by long watching, was completely unstrung by the unlooked-for end of the final and terrible vigil. Having summoned his grandmother, Mrs. Chatfield, and asked her to take charge of his house and son—a charge which she fulfilled till her death—he fled from the scene of his suffering, and hid himself in Paris, seeing no one, and holding communication with no one.
'For about a month I think I did not see a letter. I worked steadily at historical work; but I have very little recollection of the time (except by looking at the notebooks which contain the work I did), and even within a few months afterwards was unable to recall it.'
All the letters which poured in speak again and again of Lady Dilke's radiant charm. Moret, the Spanish Minister, who had been one of the guests at the last of all her dinner-parties, recalled her as he saw her then, "si belle, si bonne, si souriante, que j'éprouvai moi-même le bonheur qu'elle respirait."
'The beginning of my friendship with Cardinal Manning was his letter to me at this time, in which he said, "We have met only once, and that in public, but it was that meeting which enables me to understand what your affliction is now."'
Gambetta wrote to him 'a really beautiful letter ':
"La République Française,
"16, RUE DU CROISSANT,
"PARIS,
"le 2 novembre, 1874.
"MON BIEN CHER AMI,
"Plus que jamais permettez-moi de vous donner ce nom, qui, au milieu des terribles épreuves qui vous accablent, n'exprime que bien imparfaitement les sentiments de profond attachement, de volontaire solidarité que je vous ai voués.
"Je sais, je mesure l'insuffisance amère de toute parole de consolation pour d'aussi grandes douleurs, d'aussi irréparables pertes. Car même l'impuissance de semblables remèdes qui m'ont empêché de vous écrire plutôt, m'ont arrêté dans le désir de venir près de vous à un moment aussi lugubre pour votre grand coeur. J'ai cru plus digne, plus respectueux de vos angoisses, d'attendre; et je m'en suis remis à votre pénétration naturelle pour comprendre et accepter mon silence.
"Aujourd'hui je viens vous dire que le plus haut prix que je puisse obtenir de notre commune affection serait de pouvoir penser que dans la fuite de la vie, je pourrais être assez heureux pour être de quelque utilité dans les actes de votre existence.
"Je viendrai vous voir demain mardi à 2 heures et vous répéter de vive-voix ce que je dis ici. Je suis tout entier à vous et de coeur,
"Votre ami,
"LÉON GAMBETTA."
From that day forward Sir Charles met him constantly.
'It would have been difficult to find a better companion at such a moment than one who was so full of interest in life, about things which were absolutely outside my own life, who was surrounded by people who could recall to me no circumstances of pain.'
After seeing Gambetta, Sir Charles roused himself to write a reply in the last days of October to Sir William Harcourt, whose sympathy had been expressed with a rare warmth of kindness, and who caused his son—then a boy of eleven, [Footnote: Afterwards the Right Hon. Lewis Harcourt, created Viscount at the end of 1916.]—'to write to me about Katie, who had been kind to him, which was a pretty thought, and proposed that I should go and live with him, which I ultimately did.'
'Some scraps of polities' were added to they letter, in the hope of reviving his interest in life; but Sir Charles at this moment was fully determined to resign his seat, feeling himself unable to face old associates and associations again. His brother Ashton, now busily and successfully at work in directing his newspaper, the Weekly Dispatch, begged him at least to consider his constituents. An election caused by the Radical member's retirement would certainly let in a second Tory. Also:
"For yourself, I really think, my dear boy, that work is the best remedy, and though you may not think it now, you could not give it up…. It seems selfish to speak of myself, but I should have to give up the Dispatch, as the thing is too serious for me to go into without your advice. Do think it over again, Charlie; there is no hurry. I will come next week. We must not make dear Dragon's [Footnote: Mrs. Chatfield, their grandmother.] last days unhappy by wandering over the world year after year. Remember your child, and that you must regard the living as well as the dead. I am sure she would never have let you sacrifice your career. Do think it over again."
Sir Charles adds: 'It was, however, Gambetta, I think, that saved me.'
In the course of the month (November, 1874) he wrote to his constituents in reply to a resolution sent by them, but could not promise to take his seat during the following session, and said that in any event he should have for a long time to transact business only by letter. 'From this time forward I got rapidly better as far as nervousness at meeting people went, although for many months I was completely changed and out of my proper self.' [Footnote: He, however, began to attend Parliament in the early part of the session of 1875.]
He sought escape in travel, starting suddenly in December for Algeria by way of Oran, and pushing through the desert as far as Laghouat and the Mzab.