Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/593

 ball, which was attended by the president and the chieftains of political and diplomatic society. At an entertainment provided by M. Waddington, minister for foreign affairs, the prince met for the first time Gambetta, whose career had interested him and whose oratory he had admired as a chance visitor to the Chambre des Députés. Lord Lyons undertook the introduction. Gambetta thanked the prince for his frank expression of sympathy with France, and the prince assured the republican statesman that he had never at any time been other than France's warm friend. The interview lasted three quarters of an hour. Before they parted the prince expressed the hope of seeing Gambetta in England. Though that hope was not fulfilled, the prince sought further intercourse with Gambetta in Paris. Later in the year (22 Oct.) the prince met the English exhibitors at the British embassy, and gracefully spoke of his wish to unite France and England permanently in bonds of amity. Nearly a quarter of a century later he was to repeat as king in the same place almost the identical words, with the effect of arresting the attention of the world.

V The prince was less curious about domestic than about foreign policy, but his lively interest in every influential personality led him to cultivate the acquaintance of all who controlled either. It was still the queen;s wish that her ministers should treat him with official aloofness, and habits of reticence were easy to Lord Beaconsfield, her favourite prime minister. Assiduously courting his royal mistress's favour, he tacitly accepted her modest estimate of her son's political discretion. Yet Lord Beaconsfield's forward foreign policy in opposition to Russia was quite as congenial to the prince as to his mother, and he made many professions of his agreement. In all companies he announced his anti-Russian sentiment, and he talked of applying for a command in the field, if war broke out between Russia and England (cf., Further Recollections, 1903, p. 126). He sedulously cultivated the conservative leader's society. In January 1880, when Lord Beaconsfield's political position speciously looked as strong as ever, the prince went by his own invitation on a visit to Hughenden, the prime minister's country residence (12 Jan.). The old statesman was some- what embarrassed by the compliment. After his fall from power, the prince's attentions continued, and Lord Beacons- field dined with the prince at Marlborough House on 19 March 1881. It was the last time Lord Beaconsfieid dined from home. Exactly a month later he died. The prince represented Queen Victoria at the funeral, and laid on the coffin a wreath with a card on which he wrote ' A tribute of friendship and affection.'

With a complete freedom from party prepossessions, the prince was at the same time seeking to extend his personal knowledge of the liberal leaders. The advanced radical wing of the liberal party won before the dissolution of 1880, both in parliament and the country, a prominent place which roused high expectations. Sir Charles Dilke was the radical chief, and Mr. Chamberlain, whom the prince met at Birmingham in 1874, was Dilke's first lieutenant. An invitation to Mr. Chamberlain to dine at Marlborough and the House in 1879 caused the group surprise, and when on 12 March 1880 Lord Fife, a member of the prince's inner circle, invited Dilke to dinner to meet the Prince of Wales, 'who would be very happy to make your acquaintance,' the situation looked to the radical protagonist a little puzzling. But the prince's only purpose was to keep in personal touch with the promoters of every rising cause. To Dilke the prince 'laid himself out to be pleasant.' They talked nearly all the evening, chiefly on French politics and the Greek question.

From an early period the prince had occasionally attended debates in both houses of parliament, seated in the upper chamber on the cross benches and in the House of Commons in the peers' gallery in the place over the clock. He rarely missed the introduction of the budget or a great political measure. On 6 May 1879 he personally engaged in the parliamentary conflict. He voted for the second reading of the deceased wife's sister bill, which, in spite of his support, was rejected by 101 to 81. Lord Houghton seems to, have persuaded him to take the step> which challenged the constitutional tradition of the heir-apparent's insensibility in public to controversial issues. With the accession of Gladstone and the liberals to power in the spring of 1880 he set himself to follow the course of politics with a keener zest. He took the oath in the House of Lords at the opening of the new parliament with a view to regular attendance. The prime minister was willing