Against the Bill. For the Bill.
Conservatives. . . . 250 Gladstonians. . . . 230
Liberals. . . . . . 93 Nationalists. . . . 83
___ ___
343 313
Majority against the Bill, 30.
Reeve was triumphant, and wrote to Mr. T. Norton Longman the next day, 'What a triumphant division! What a defeat for the G. O. M.! Even he must believe this. I think his colleagues will hardly agree to dissolve. If they do, they will be annihilated.'
They did, and they were. The General Election held in July fully ratified the vote of the House on June 7th, and left the Gladstonians and Parnellites combined in a minority of 115.
To Mr. T. Norton Longman
C. O., June 23rd.—Sir Francis Doyle's Epilogue [Footnote: The last chapter of Doyle's Reminiscences and Opinions (8vo. 1886). It is more than 'invective;' it contains much sound argument and admirable illustration.] is a powerful piece of invective; but it is essentially addressed to Gladstone's public career and conduct, and if he likes to publish it, I see no objection. Doyle was at Eton with Gladstone, and is one of his oldest and most intimate friends—or rather, was so. What he has written is not stronger than what George Anthony Denison has published on Gladstone, he too being a friend of forty years. I do not remember another instance in which a man's best and earliest friends have turned upon him, to unmask him, and that without any motive of personal resentment. It is the noble motive which led Brutus to strike Caesar.
If this is to appear, it should be published immediately, as it relates to the affairs of the day.
C. O., July 21st.—I think Gladstone has fulfilled all my predictions and completed the ruin of the Liberal party and his own. The net result is that he has brought in the Tories for several years.
Whilst this tremendous storm was raging in the political world in England, France also had been much excited. The letters of the Comte de Paris have shown that he was, in point of fact, conducting an intrigue for the subversion of the republic, the re-establishment of the monarchy; and it is not surprising that the Government, more or less cognisant of what was going on, struck in defence of the constitution under which they ruled. Their action was said to be illegal; but in time of war the laws depend on, are upheld by, and interpreted by the greater force; and on June 23rd the Comte de Paris, with his family, was ordered to quit France, and the Orleanist princes, including the Duc d'Aumale, were deprived of their rank in the army, their names being erased from the army list. On June 29th Reeve noted in his Journal, 'To Tunbridge Wells, to see the Comte de Paris, exiled the week before;' but that is all; the home interest was too absorbing, though even of that the only trace in the Journal is on July 5th, 'Unionist meeting at Tuckton. I took the chair. Election.'