CHAPTER XIV
HAWARDEN CASTLE
I have been scrupulously exact in reporting nearly all the essential parts of my conversation with Lord Granville.
I should like to do as much for the long interview which I had later with Mr. Gladstone, at that time Prime Minister in the English Cabinet. The words of this eminent statesman are all of them imbued with a special character, which renders them in the highest degree interesting, even when they ran counter to my wishes. However, “est modus in rebus” and one must know when to stop in a short narrative and be careful above all not to repeat oneself.
Mr. Gladstone clearly had the same ideas as Lord Granville regarding the war and regarding England’s neutrality and the possibility of her taking any steps in the interests of France. In substance he told me exactly the same as Lord Granville had done on all these questions.
It will appear later that the two Ministers must have conferred together and taken concerted views before receiving me, so as to express exactly the same opinions. So I will do no more than give an extract of my conversation with Mr. Gladstone and record in summary the principal questions which arose.
I first met Mr. Gladstone at the house of his colleague, Lord Granville.
The latter gave a dinner in my honour the day after my first interview with him, and among other persons he had also invited Mr. Gladstone. That is how I made this gentleman’s acquaintance, and I looked forward to profiting by it in furtherance of the enterprise which had brought me to London.
It was certainly impossible for me to hope, after the formal declaration of Lord Granville, that his colleague the Prime Minister would have different views and would be more disposed than the former to depart from the contemplative policy which seemed so dear to England.
At the same time I was convinced that it was not necessary for England to plunge into war, which she would not do at any price, in order effectively to serve France’s interests. If only she had consented to take up another attitude, her intervention would have certainly sufficed without it being necessary to go to the point of armed intervention in order to modify Prussian demands at the moment of negotiation.
I had not lost all hope of persuading English statesmen of this truth, and I was very desirous of seeing the Prime Minister to sound his thoughts, and in my turn express our views and aspirations.