"CHARLES W. DILKE."
A scrap from one of the grandfather's letters, April 25th, 1859, which points to the terms of intellectual equality that existed in the correspondence between the two, has also some historical interest:
"Hope your news of the French troops landing in Genoa is premature. War, however, seems inevitable; but I hope on, hope ever. I should be sorry to see the Austrians triumph over the Sardinians, for then they would fasten the chains on Italy tighter than ever. Yet I cannot hope that the worst man in Europe, the Emperor of the French, should triumph."
At the close of 1860, the lad set out on a more adventurous excursion to France, in a storm of snow so tremendous that trains were blocked in many places. However, he reached Amiens safely, saw and described it dutifully, then made for Paris.
Charles Dilke's familiarity with France was destined to be extended year by year till the end of his life. This visit of Christmas 1860 was the first which he made alone to that country; but part of the summer of 1859 had been spent by him with his family at Trouville, whence he wandered over Normandy, adding detail to his knowledge of Norman architecture.
But even stronger than the interest in historic architecture which his grandfather had imparted to him was the interest in men and affairs; above all, in those men who had assisted at great events. Throughout his life his love of travel, his taste for society, and his pursuit of first-hand information upon political matters helped to enlarge his list of remarkable acquaintances; and during this stay in France a new name was added to the collection of celebrities:
'At Havre I got to know King Jerome, father to "Plon-Plon" and father- in-law to my friend Princess Clothilde, and was duly interested in this last of the brothers of Napoleon. The ex-King of Westphalia was a wicked old gentleman; but he did not let a boy find this out, and he was courteous and talkative. We long had in both years, I think, the next rooms to his at Frascati's; and he used to walk in the garden with me, finding me a good listener. The old Queen of Sweden was still alive, and he told me how Désirée Clary [Footnote: Eugénie Bernardine Désirée Clary married, August 16th, 1798, Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, afterwards Charles XIV., King of Sweden. Her elder sister Julie had become the wife of Joseph Bonaparte in 1794.] had thrown Bonaparte over for him, and then had thrown him over for Bernadotte. He also described riding through Paris with Bonaparte on the day of Brumaire.'
Having completely outgrown the nervous invalidishness of his earlier boyhood, Dilke at eighteen years of age was extending his activities in all directions.
'In 1861 I find by my diaries that I was at the very height of my theatre-going, attending theatres in Paris and in London with equal regularity; and in this year I wrote an elaborate criticism of Fechter's Hamlet, which is the first thing I ever wrote in the least worth reading, but it is not worth preservation, and has now been destroyed by me. At Easter, 1861, I walked to Brighton in a single day from London, and the next day attended the volunteer review. I was a great walker, and frequently walked my fifty miles within the day. My interest in military affairs continued, and I find among my letters of 1861 passages which might have formed part of my writings on military subjects of 1887 to 1889. I went down to see the new Tilbury forts, criticized the system of the distribution of strength in the Thames defences, advocated "a mile of vigorous peppering as against a slight dusting of feathers every half-hour"; and went to Shoeburyness to see the trial of the Whitworth guns.'
His cousin, William Wentworth Grant Dilke, was Captain and Adjutant of the 77th Regiment, and Charles Dilke remembered the young officer's visit to bid good-bye before he departed for the Crimea, where he met his death.