It was on May 25th that Sir Charles left London to reach Paris, which was known by the 24th to be in flames.
'Crossing by Calais, I reached St. Denis at night, drove to Le Bourget, got a pass into Paris from the Germans at dawn, with a warning, however, that it would not bring me out again. By the drizzling rain I passed unhindered into Paris, all the gates being open and the drawbridges down, as the Federalists were both within and without the walls. I reached the great barricade in front of the gates of the Docks de la Villette at seven in the morning. My road had been lighted till the daylight grew strong by the flames of the conflagration of the warehouses. This day, Friday the 26th, was that of the third or last massacre of hostages—the thirty-seven gendarmes, the fifteen policemen, the eleven priests, and four other people, I believe. It was a very useless crime. When I reached the great barricade at a meeting of roads, one of which I think was called Route d'Allemagne, fighting had just recommenced after a pause during the night. At this point the field artillery were bombarding the barricade from the Rue Lafayette. I stood all day in comparative safety at the door of a baker's shop in the Rue de Flandre, for the baker was interested in what was going on sufficiently to keep his door open and look out and talk with me, though his shutters were up at all the windows. When evening came the Federalists still at this point maintained their strong position, and I, of course, knew nothing of the movements on the south by which the troops had all but hemmed them in. The baker with whom I had made friends offered me hospitality for the night, which I accepted, and I might have stayed longer with him had I pleased; but not knowing how long the fighting might continue, I determined to make my way into the Versailles lines at dawn.
'Fighting in our quarter had been again suspended at night, and in the grey light of early morning (it was fine after a long rain) I left my baker and made my way to the left, the left again, and then down a long street towards the Eastern Railway. A sentry about two hundred yards off presented his piece. I stood still in the middle of the street. He seemed then not to know what to do. I had on the red-cross armlet which I wore throughout the war, and held a white handkerchief in my hand. I suppose I looked respectable enough to be allowed to come nearer, for he let me advance. When near enough I called to him that I wished to speak with the officer of the post. He called out a corporal, to whom I made the same statement. They kept me there for a time which seemed an age, and then brought an officer. I shouted to him that I was an English newspaper correspondent, that I had an authorization as such, an English passport, and a Prussian pass into Paris, and that I was known to the Due de Broglie and to Lord Lyons; also that I could name friends in the centre of Paris to whom I might be sent under guard. He let me pass, and said: "Allez! Vous avez eu de la chance." I went straight to the Arts et Métiers. The dead were lying thick in the streets, especially at the Porte St. Martin barricade, where they were being placed in tumbrils. The fighting had been very heavy; the troops alone had lost 12,000 killed and wounded after entering Paris. At least as many Federalists were killed fighting, or wounded and finished, besides the great number shot after their surrender. I found Tresca, the father, picking up the pieces of the shells which were bursting in the courtyard, and putting them all together with wires, to the greater glory of his own particular make. It was the Federal artillery on the heights which was bombarding Paris with Tresca's shells. When one burst perfectly into some twenty equal pieces he would say:" Beautiful; that is one of mine." Any that burst into one large piece and two or three little ones he set down to the "génie militaire" of Vincennes.
'After several days I left Paris with Dr. W. H. Russell of the Times, my former opponent at Chelsea at the '68 election, whom I had last previously seen at Nancy on the day of Mars la Tour, and returned to London, having for the purpose of leaving Paris a pass from Marshal MacMahon's Chief of the Staff, which I still preserve.' [Footnote: This Diary Extract of the War of 1870 was published in the Nineteenth Century of January, 1914.]
So ends the story. Later in life, during his championship of army reform in the House of Commons, a Tory Colonel interrupted the civilian critic with some bluntness. "I have been on more battlefields," Sir Charles retorted, "than the honourable and gallant member has ever seen." The white ambulance cap, with its black and green peak, which he preserved as a memento, bore on its lining:
"WÖRTH. ORLÉANS. PHALSBOURG. LONGWY. MARS LA TOUR. BAPAUME. GRAVELOTTE. PARIS."
Preserved among Sir Charles's papers, and dated September 30th, 1870, there is this letter from John Stuart Mill:
"If Gladstone had been a great man, this war would never have broken out, for he would have nobly taken upon himself the responsibility of declaring that the English Navy should actively aid whichever of the two Powers was attacked by the other. This would have been the beginning of the international justice we are calling for. I do not blame Gladstone for not daring to do it, for it requires a morally, braver man than any of our statesmen to run this kind of risk."
At the outset of hostilities France, and not Germany, appeared to Sir Charles not only ostensibly, but really the attacking Power, and therefore the true menace to the liberties of Europe. The policy of Louis Napoleon was apparently responsible for the Franco-German War, and as he said in Greater Britain: "If the English race has a mission in the world, it is surely this, to prevent peace on earth from depending upon the verdict of a single man." With the fall of Napoleon and observation of the Germans as conquerors, Sir Charles became wholly French in his sympathies, and before long his close study of events preceding the war showed him that it had really been of Bismarck's making. This did not lead him to advocate "alliance," for when alliances between various Powers were constantly advocated, he declared his belief that "the time for permanent alliances is past"; [Footnote: Speech at Chelsea to his constituents, January 24th, 1876.] but his observations in these years made him through life the steady friend of France, the constant upholder of her value to Europe, the advocate of fellowship between her free greatness and that of his own free country. "France," said he, "has in England no stronger friend than I." He lectured and spoke more than once upon the great war and its results, and the passage which ends a Recess speech of 1875 was delivered after one of the critical moments when Germany had shown a disposition to renew attack on France. Someone had spoken of Germany "as the most 'moral' among the nations." Sir Charles replied:
'Not only do I think the conduct of Prussia towards Denmark the reverse of "moral," but I confess I have the same opinions of her later conduct towards France…. No doubt the military law presses hardly on the German people, and no doubt the Prussian Court tells them that it is the fault of France; but is it true? Do not believe in the French lamb troubling the waters to the hurt of the Prussian wolf. Taxes and emigration increase in Germany because, as Count Moltke said in his place in Parliament, "Germany must stand armed to the teeth for fifty years to defend the provinces which it took her but six months to win." But why have taken them? Did not England and Austria at the time warn Prussia what would be the wretched consequences of the act? German fears of to-day are the direct outcome of the frightful terms which victorious Germany imposed on France. She might have had money, reduction of forces, dismantlement of fortresses, but she would have the dismemberment of France and her money too. She insisted, in defiance of all modern political ideas, in tearing provinces from a great country against their will. France has since that time set an example of moderation of tone, yet Germany cries out that she will fight again, and crush her enemy to the dust. Poor German Liberals, who abandoned all their principles when they consented to tear Alsace and Lorraine from France, and who now find themselves powerless against the war party, who say: "What the sword has won the sword shall keep!"'