So ends the story. Later in life, during his championship of army reform in the House of Commons, a Tory Colonel interrupted the civilian critic with some bluntness. "I have been on more battlefields," Sir Charles retorted, "than the honourable and gallant member has ever seen." The white ambulance cap, with its black and green peak, which he preserved as a memento, bore on its lining: "WÖRTH. ORLÉANS. PHALSBOURG. LONGWY. MARS LA TOUR. BAPAUME. GRAVELOTTE. PARIS." Preserved among Sir Charles's papers, and dated September 30th, 1870, there is this letter from John Stuart Mill: "If Gladstone had been a great man, this war would never have broken out, for he would have nobly taken upon himself the responsibility of declaring that the English Navy should actively aid whichever of the two Powers was attacked by the other. This would have been the beginning of the international justice we are calling for. I do not blame Gladstone for not daring to do it, for it requires a morally, braver man than any of our statesmen to run this kind of risk." At the outset of hostilities France, and not Germany, appeared to Sir Charles not only ostensibly, but really the attacking Power, and therefore the true menace to the liberties of Europe. The policy of Louis Napoleon was apparently responsible for the Franco-German War, and as he said in _Greater Britain_: "If the English race has a mission in the world, it is surely this, to prevent peace on earth from depending upon the verdict of a single man." With the fall of Napoleon and observation of the Germans as conquerors, Sir Charles became wholly French in his sympathies, and before long his close study of events preceding the war showed him that it had really been of Bismarck's making. This did not lead him to advocate "alliance," for when alliances between various Powers were constantly advocated, he declared his belief that "the time for permanent alliances is past"; [Footnote: Speech at Chelsea to his constituents, January 24th, 1876.] but his observations in these years made him through life the steady friend of France, the constant upholder of her value to Europe, the advocate of fellowship between her free greatness and that of his own free country. "France," said he, "has in England no stronger friend than I." He lectured and spoke more than once upon the great war and its results, and the passage which ends a Recess speech of 1875 was delivered after one of the critical moments when Germany had shown a disposition to renew attack on France. Someone had spoken of Germany "as the most 'moral' among the nations." Sir Charles replied: