'An amusing billet adventure was named in another letter to my wife:
'"I am in a Legitimist chàteau: one side of the room, Callots; the other, Comte de Chambord. Over the bed a large crucifix. The room belongs to 'Mathilde.' But as I live with the staff I do not see the family. The butler is charming, and the fat coachman turned out two of his horses to make room for 'Madame' and 'W'f'd'r.' I had to write a letter to a French newspaper, which had charged me with turning my back on the standard of a regiment instead of bowing to it, and dated from this place: 'Château de Boussencourt.'"'
His observations were summed up in an article for the Fortnightly, which was later translated into French by an officer on the staff of the Commander-in-Chief, and, after appearing in a review, was published separately by the military library. His strictures on the handling of the cavalry led to a controversy in France into which he was obliged later to enter.
'As I passed through Paris on my return, Galliffet wrote: "You are as a writer full of kindness, but very dangerous as an observer, and next time I shall certainly put you on the treatment of the military attachés—plenty of dinners, plenty of close carriages, plenty of gendarmes, no information, and a total privation of field-glasses. This will be a change for you, especially in the matter of dinners. Lady Dilke cannot have forgiven me for sending you back in such wretched condition."'
M. Joseph Beinach wrote in 1911:
'Nous recommandions tous deux le rajeunissement des cadres. II s'est trouvé enfin un ministre de la guerre, M. le général Brun, pour aborder résolument le problème. Comme nos souvenirs revenaient fréquemment aux belles journées de ces manoeuvres de l'Est! Je revois encore Dilke chevauchant avec nous dans l'état-major de Gallififet. II y avait la le général Brault, le général Darras, le général Zurlinden, le "commandant" Picquart, Thierry d'Alsace, le marquis Du Lau…. Ah! la "bataille" de Margerie-Haucourt, sous le grand soleil qui, dissipant les nuages de la matinée, fit scintiller tout à coup comme une moisson d'acier les milliers de fusils des armées réunies! Comme c'est loin! Que de tombeaux!… Mais nous sommes bien encore quelques-uns à avoir gardé intactes nos âmes d'alors!' [Footnote: An article in the Figaro written after Sir Charles Dilke's death.]
II.
It was in 1889 that Sir Charles Dilke came into touch with Cecil Rhodes during a visit paid by the latter to England.
'In July, 1889, I saw a good deal of Cecil Rhodes, who was brought to my house by Sir Charles Mills, [Footnote: Then Agent-General for the Cape and a great personal friend.] and afterwards came back several times. He was at this moment interesting, full of life and vigour, but when he returned to England after the British South Africa Company had been started he seemed to have become half torpid and at the same time dogmatic. The simplicity which had distinguished him up to the end of his visit of 1889 seemed to have disappeared when he came back in 1891; and his avowed intention of ultimately coming to England to take part in English politics seemed also a strange mistake, as he was essentially a man fitted for colonial life, and had none of the knowledge, or the mode of concealing want of knowledge, one or other of which is required for English public work.'
'In August, 1889, I received a note from Rhodes from Lisbon which constitutes, I believe, a valuable autograph, for his friends all say he "never writes." I had asked him to clear up an extraordinary passage in one of Kruger's speeches (on which I afterwards commented in Problems of Greater Britain), and Rhodes wrote: