In December
'Dufferin wrote to me from Paris: "The Sultan is besotted with the notion of a German alliance against France, and of obtaining the assistance of Germany in freeing himself from foreign control in Asia."'
On New Year's Day, 1882, Sir Charles, while accompanying Lord Lyons on his round of official New Year visits, saw a despatch from Lord Odo Russell. [Footnote: Ambassador at Berlin.] In it Bismarck described his attitude towards the Turks, who had "asked him for protection against their protectors, who, with the sole exception of Germany, in their opinion, wanted 'to cut slices out of their skin.'" Bismarck had assured the Turks that he should never attack France unless seriously threatened by France, and would never in any circumstances "fire a cartridge for Turkey."
In the course of the summer of 1881 Sir Charles had become acquainted with a great personage in whom Bismarck always saw an enemy of his policy, and in so far as it was hostile to France the Memoir bears out his judgment.
'On July 13th the Prince of Wales introduced me to his sister, the Crown Princess of Germany. [Footnote: Though this was Sir Charles's first meeting with the Crown Princess, she had at the time of his father's death 'telegraphed her condolences to me at St. Petersburg, and to the Embassy, asking them to call on me and help me in the matter.'] She talked to me at length in the most friendly way with regard to France and Gambetta. She told me that she had been secretly to Cherbourg to hear Gambetta's famous speech, which he himself called "the first glass of wine administered to the convalescent." But she added that she stood absolutely alone in Germany in her pro-French opinions.
'The Crown Princess seemed very able, but inclined to sacrifice anything in order to produce an effect. I was afterwards sent for by them, and had a long talk in what are called the Belgian Rooms at the back of Buckingham Palace, on the gardens.
'On Monday, August 22nd, I called at Buckingham Palace by the wish of the Crown Prince, and saw him and the Crown Princess together. I thought him a dull, heavy German, and noted in my diary: "He dare not speak before he sees that she approves of his speaking." But he was a nice-minded, kind, and even pleasant man in his way.'
Sir Charles's formal summing-up of his impressions is to be found in his work on The Present Position of European Politics (1887):
"It is no secret that at times the Crown Princess has been unfriendly to Prince Bismarck. They are perhaps two personalities too strong to coexist easily in the same Court…. The Crown Prince, it must be admitted, intellectually speaking, is, largely by his own will, the Crown Princess. But that most able lady, when she shares the German throne, must inevitably have for her policy the Bismarck policy—the strength and glory of the German Empire."
Sir Charles notes that, although he was hard-worked in Parliament and in the Office, the peculiar nature of the Foreign Office work brought him necessarily a good deal into contact with royal personages and foreigners of distinction visiting London, and forced him 'to go out a good deal and burn the candle at both ends.' Of these official gaieties he gives no very grateful impression: