"2, WHITEHALL GARDENS, "June 28th, '75.
"DEAR SIR CHARLES,
"I am obliged to you for sending me your book; I find it agreeable and amusing. Belles Lettres are now extremely rare, but, I must confess, very refreshing. Your grandfather had a true literary vein, and you have done wisely in collecting his papers.
"Very much yours,
"B. DISRAELI."
This pleasant note was the beginning of an acquaintance, though by a series of chances Sir Charles never met the Tory leader outside Parliament till Lord Beaconsfield was in the last year of his life.
When coming through Paris he had, 'of course at once' gone to see Gambetta, whom he found 'privately ridiculing the various suggestions made as to a constitution for his country.' Gambetta suggested as an alternative that they should allow the National Assembly elected after the war—
'to continue to govern the country without filling up death vacancies, and with the provision that when at last it became reduced to one member, he should take any title or give to any person that he pleased any title, or adopt any form of government that he should think fit!'
Shortly after Mr. John Morley went with an introduction from Sir Charles to Gambetta, which nearly miscarried.
"I went for two nights" (he wrote) "to Gambetta's office (the office of the République Française), and found him 'not come.' As I would not sit up late three nights … I desisted. Then he wrote me the most courteous letter, making a more sensible appointment at his private quarters. This I kept. He gave a most gracious and even caressing reception, and I was intensely interested in him."