'I heard from Lord Lyons, and gathered from confidential telegrams, that the idea of disarmament was in the air again in Europe. This, of course, really meant a disarmament to be imposed by the Empires and Italy upon France. But it was stopped again, as it had often been stopped before, by Russia.
'I had told Lord Granville that I thought Gambetta would offer the Embassy in London to Ferry, and that I did not know if the Queen would like his marriage being only a civil one, and that the Roman Catholics in England would certainly make it disagreeable for him. Lord Granville wrote on this: "I am glad to be rid of Challemel-Lacour. He must be a clumsy fellow to have got on such bad terms with both Saint- Hilaire and Gambetta." In the following week, however, Gambetta made up his mind that J. Casimir-Périer should become his Ambassador in London. But Gambetta fell before he had been able to give him the place.
'On the night before I left I dined with Pouyer-Quertier, who had been Finance Minister of France under Thiers at the time of the Frankfort Treaty. He told me a wonderful story about how, when the negotiations had been all but broken off, he went to bed in despair. But in the morning before light there was a knock at his door. He got up in his nightshirt, and there was Bismarck in full uniform, who made him get back into bed, saying he would catch cold. Then, drawing a chair to the bedside, Bismarck spread out the treaty on the night-table and wrangled on, till after a while he said that it was dry work, and got up and rang and asked for beer. After the beer had been brought by a sleepy waiter, he rang again and asked for kirsch, and poured a quantity of the liqueur into the beer. Then he made the poker red-hot in the fire which he had relighted, stirred up the mixture, and invited Pouyer-Quertier to drink. Pouyer-Quertier said: "I drank it thinking of my country, and Bismarck clapped me on the back, and said that I was such a good fellow that the evacuation should take place at once, and this is how the final article was signed; it was signed on the table at my bedside." I did not believe the story, but when I asked Bismarck years later he said that it was true.'
Returning to London on November 5th
'I left Paris at a moment of great excitement over the financial situation, there having been a kind of Roman Catholic financial union which had beaten a Jewish ring, and which afterwards itself collapsed. It was said that James de Rothschild had lost his money in this business; but his brother-in-law told me that … it was not true that he had lost a sixpence.'
On November 19th Sir Charles left London, and saw Rouvier and Gambetta late that evening in Paris. 'The Gambetta Ministry had been formed, and it was thought important that I should see Rouvier at once.' Next day, Sunday the 20th, he 'breakfasted with Gambetta, meeting Spuller and General Billot.' To the latter he had been introduced by Gambetta in January, 1880, when Billot was 'commanding the Marseille Corps d'Armée: an intriguer who, in the event of war occurring between 1887 and 1890, would have been second-in-command of the armies of France.' [Footnote: "A letter to a friend of this date shows that Sir Charles did not think Gambetta's Ministry was likely to be in a strong position when it came into power:
"FOREIGN OFFICE, "PARIS, "21st November, 1881.
"Gambetta is, according to the papers, at war with the Senate and with the Church. I think that he is at war with the Senate, and that this is foolish of him. I don't think he is at war with the Church. It is the Senate, more than the Church, which is offended by the appointment of a rampant atheist and vivisector as Minister of Religion. The Church has probably less to fear from Bert than from less known men. Gambetta is to see the Nuncio to-day, and I don't think that the Nuncio, who has long been his warm personal friend, is likely to express much alarm.
"The Senate is more serious. The monstrous folly of Bert's appointment, the dismissal of the senator de Normandie, governor of the Bank, and the putting only one senator into the Cabinet, have irritated it beyond all bearing. Gambetta may gain twenty seats in January, but even supposing that he is supposed to have a majority in the Senate, it is a majority in which you have to count semi- Conservative rivals such as Leon Say and de Freycinet, foes like Challemel-Lacour, and men of the extreme Left like Victor Hugo, who are more likely to follow Clémenceau than Gambetta. And yet he needs the Senate to keep the other House in order by the threat of a dissolution, which requires the consent of the Senate.">[
Gambetta had taken the Foreign Office himself: