When Mr. Gladstone left Leeds after his stay of little more than forty-eight hours, he might safely have used the words of Julius Caesar. He had conquered everybody. Even his political opponents were for the moment subdued by the magic of his eloquence; whilst those who, like myself, had for the first time enjoyed direct personal intercourse with him were completely subjugated by the fascination of his manner, and those remarkable social and intellectual gifts which made him so long the foremost figure in English society. Of course, to one who had been a Gladstonian ever since those early days in the 'sixties at Newcastle of which I have spoken in a previous chapter, the joy of knowing the great man in the flesh was very great. Yet not even the strength of my admiration for one so supremely gifted, so ardent in his faith, and so strenuous in his actions made of me a blind follower of his leadership. Not many months after that meeting with him at Leeds I found myself sharply separated from him in a political controversy of which I shall soon have to speak. I found refreshment after the fatigues connected with the Leeds gatherings in an excursion to Tunis. In 1881 the French, upon a distinctly fraudulent pretext, had invaded the territories of the Bey of Tunis. Their professed purpose was to punish a certain tribe of "Kroumirs," who, it was alleged, had committed outrages in Algeria. The Kroumirs, as it turned out, were a product of the imagination of M. Roustan, the diplomatic agent of France in Tunis. No such tribe was known to the Tunisians, but the pretext served, and Tunis was invaded. The truth, as the world now knows, was that France was resolved to have some compensation for our ill-starred acquisition of Cyprus. She dared not move in the direction of Morocco, because of the jealousy of the other Powers of Europe; but she had obtained the tacit consent of Prince Bismarck to the Tunisian expedition. Of the pledges she gave as to the objects and the limitations of that expedition I need not speak. Yet one is entitled to remember that if the force of circumstances has compelled our neighbours to break their word with regard to Tunis, we are equally justified in alleging the same reason for the breach of our own promises concerning Egypt.