'When Fawcett returned to the House, he would not let himself be introduced by the party Whips; but was introduced by me, in conjunction, however, with Playfair, who, besides being one of his most intimate political friends, had been for a short time before the dissolution a member of the Government. On this occasion Fitzmaurice wrote: "Gladstone, I imagine, is the person least pleased at the return of Fawcett, and I should think has been dreaming ever since that Bouverie's turn will come next." Cowen said in the Newcastle Chronicle, Fawcett "contributed as much as any man in the late House of Commons to damage the late Government. During the last session he voted in favour of the proposals made by Mr. Gladstone's Government about 160 times, and he voted against them about 180 times. It always struck me that Professor Fawcett's boasted independence partook greatly of crotchety awkwardness." Fawcett's personal popularity was, however, great, not only with the public, but with men who did not share his views and saw much of him in private life, such as the ordinary Cambridge Dons among whom he lived, and whose prejudices upon many points he was continually attacking. Nevertheless he was a popular guest.'
Elsewhere, relating how Fawcett disturbed the peace of Mr. Glyn, the ministerial Chief Whip from 1868 onwards. Sir Charles explained that—
'when he had some mischief brewing late at night, he used to get one of the Junior Whips to give him an arm through the lobby, and as he passed the Senior Whip at the door leading to the members' entrance would say "Good-night, Glyn," as though he were going home to bed.'
Mr. Glyn thought "the blind man" had gone to bed, but in reality he had simply passed down to the terrace, and would sit there smoking till the other conspirators saw the moment to go down and fetch him. 'I fear it was by this stratagem that he had helped me to defeat Ayrton's Bill for throwing a piece of the Park into the Kensington Road opposite the Albert Hall.'
It is possible that Dilke was a name of even greater horror to the orthodox Whiggish opinion of this date than to the regular adherents of Toryism. The general attitude at this moment towards "the Republican"— "Citizen Dilke"—is illustrated by an anecdote in the Reminiscences of Charles Gavard, who was for many years First Secretary at the French Embassy. He says that when Sir Charles Dilke stood for Chelsea in 1874, he attended several of his meetings—
"partly, I must admit, in the spirit of the Englishman who never missed a performance of van Amburg, the lion-tamer, hoping some day to see him devoured by his lions. On one occasion, at Chelsea Town Hall, I had the honour of leading Lady Dilke on to the platform, and was greeted, with such a round of applause as I am not likely to enjoy again in my life. But, to my horror, I heard the reporters inquiring as to my identity. Fortunately, Sir Charles perceived the peril I was in, and gave them some misleading information. Otherwise, my name might have appeared in the Press, and my diplomatic career have been abruptly ended for figuring in public among the supporters of so hostile an opponent of the form of government prevailing, in the country to which I was accredited."
Sir Charles's personal triumph at the polls amid the general rout of his party inevitably enhanced his position in the House. And upon it there followed a wholly different success which established his prestige precisely on the point where it was the fashion to assail it. He had been decried as 'dreary'; yet London suddenly found itself applauding him as a wit.
The Fall of Prince Florestan of Monaco was published anonymously in March, 1874. To-day the little book is perhaps almost forgotten, although one can still be amused by the story of the Cambridge undergraduate, trained in the fullest faith of free-thinking Radicalism, who finds himself suddenly promoted to the principality of Monaco, and who arrives in his microscopic kingdom only to realize that his monarchical state rests on the support of two pillars—a Jesuit who controls the Church and education, and M. Blanc, who manages the gaming tables. The consequence of Prince Florestan's attempt to put in practice democratic principles where nobody wanted them was wittily and ingeniously thought out, and the tone of subdued irony admirably kept up. The work was characteristically thorough. The 126 functionaries, the 60 soldiers and carbineers, the 150 unpaid diplomatic representatives of Monaco abroad, the Vicar-General, the Treasurer-General, the Honorary Almoner, and all the other "appliances and excrescences of civilized government," which went to make up that "perfection of bureaucracy and red tape in a territory one mile broad and five miles long," were all statistically accurate. Throughout the whole a reference to other monarchies and other swarms of functionaries was delicately implied.
The quality of the book is rather that of talk than of writing. It has the dash, the quick turn, and the vivacity of a good improvisation at the dinner-table; and a quotation will illustrate not so much Sir Charles's literary gift as the manner of his talk:
"On the 5th of February I reached Nice by the express, and, after reading the telegram which announced the return of Mr. Gladstone by a discerning people as junior colleague to a gin distiller, was presented with an address by the Gambettist mayor at the desire of the legitimist préfêt. The mayor, being a red-hot republican in politics, but a carriage-builder by trade, lectured me on the drawbacks of despotism in his address, but informed me in conversation afterwards that he had had the honour of building a Victoria for Prince Charles Honoré—which was next door to giving me his business card. The address, however, also assumed that the Princes of Monaco were suffered only by Providence to exist in order that the trade of Nice, the nearest large French town, might thrive.