LONDON FRIENDS


It was in 1874, as I have already mentioned, that on an introduction
from Matthew Arnold we first made friends with M. Edmond Scherer, the
French writer and Senator, who more than any other person--unless,
perhaps, one divides the claim between him and M. Faguet--stepped into
the critical chair of Sainte Beuve, after that great man's death. For M.
Scherer's weekly reviews in the _Temps_ (1863-78) were looked for by
many people over about fifteen years, as persons of similar tastes had
looked for the famous "Lundis," in the _Constitutionnel_ of an earlier
generation.

We went out to call upon the Scherers at Versailles, coupling with it,
if I remember right, a visit to the French National Assembly then
sitting in the Chateau. The road from the station to the palace was deep
in snow, and we walked up behind two men in ardent conversation, one of
them gesticulating freely. My husband asked a man beside us, bound also,
it seemed, for the Assembly, who they were. "M. Gambetta and M. Jules
Favre," was the answer. So there we had in front of us the intrepid
organizer of the Government of National Defense, whose services to
France France will never forget, and the unfortunate statesman to whom
it fell, under the tyrannic and triumphant force of Germany (which was
to prove, as we now know, in the womb and process of time, more fatal to
herself than to France!), to sign away Alsace-Lorraine. And we had only
just settled ourselves in our seats when Gambetta was in the tribune,
making a short but impassioned speech. I but vaguely remember what the
speech was about, but the attitude of the lion head thrown back, and the