I have never
heard it suggested that the French Government did not behave with the
most perfect honour to this Government and this country all through
these grave transactions; but I have heard it stated by those who must
know, that nothing could be more honourable, nothing more just, than
the conduct of the French Emperor to this Government throughout the
whole of that struggle. More recently, when the war in China was begun
by a Government which I have condemned and denounced in the House
of Commons, the Emperor of the French sent his ships and troops to
co-operate with us, but I have never heard that anything was done
there to create a suspicion of a feeling of hostility on his part
towards us. The Emperor of the French came to London, and some of
those powerful organs of the press, who have since taken the line of
which I am complaining, did all but invite the people of London to
prostrate themselves under the wheels of the chariot which conveyed
along our streets the revived Monarchy of France. The Queen of England
went to Paris, and was she not received there with as much affection
and as much respect as her high position and her honourable character
entitle her to?
What has occurred since? If there was a momentary unpleasantness, I
am quite sure that every impartial man will agree that, under the
peculiarly irritating circumstances of the time, there was at least
as much forbearance shown on one side of the Channel as on the other.
Then, we have had much said lately about a naval fortification
recently completed in France, which has been more than one hundred
years in progress, which was not devised by the present Emperor of the
French.
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