On March 17th, during the Midlothian campaign, Mr. Gladstone had said, “Austria has ever been the unflinching foe of freedom in every country of Europe. Austria trampled Italy under foot, Austria resisted the unity of Germany.... Austria has never been the friend even of Slavonic freedom. Austria did all she could to prevent the creation of Belgium. Austria never lifted a finger for the regeneration and constitution of Greece. There is not an instance—there is not a spot upon the whole map where you can lay your finger and say—there Austria did good.” Such words as these had stung and irritated beyond endurance the proud Hungarian noble. The only excuse offered was that the speech had been rendered necessary for election purposes, but Count Károlyi was not the man to allow the honour of his Sovereign and his country to be used as a counter in the electioneering game. He was furious, and had declared more than once that if he met Mr. Gladstone he should turn his back upon him; he also threatened that he would resign his post. Lord Granville smoothed matters over. Mr. Gladstone that evening apologized to Count Károlyi, and a day or two later wrote him a letter which the Emperor Francis Joseph characterized as “the letter of an English gentleman.” At home the letter was bitterly criticized. Mr. Gladstone was taunted with having humiliated himself and his country also. There were not a few Liberal politicians who joined in the strictures passed by Lord George Hamilton and Lord Salisbury.[23] The conversation between Count Károlyi and Mr. Gladstone lasted some minutes; it was evident that the apology was politely but coldly received. As it was a fine night the Ambassador, with whom I was very intimate, asked me to walk home with him; he talked of nothing but Mr. Gladstone and Lord Granville. For the latter Count Károlyi professed great friendship, and even affection, but from what he said to me then, and on other occasions, I know that he had been too deeply wounded to share the Emperor’s admiration for “the letter of an English gentleman,” or its author. But it was not only in smoothing the asperities that Mr. Gladstone could, perhaps, hardly help raising with Foreign Powers that Lord Granville had to exercise his diplomatic skill. There were not a few rifts within the Liberal lute which it needed all those gentle and purring ways, that in his youth had earned for him the name of “Pussie,” to hinder from widening. He was by nature essentially the peace-maker, the reconciler. Cabinets do not always, like “birds in their little nests, agree.”