'On Sunday, March 10th, in coming back from the Grosvenor Gallery, I passed a great mob, who were going to howl at Mr. Gladstone--at this time the ordinary Sunday afternoon diversion of the London rough.' Schouvalof, the Russian Ambassador, had on March 4th summed up the situation in an epigram: "England has challenged Russia to a duel, and has chosen for her weapon swords at fifteen paces" (_l'épée à quinze pas_). But the preparations for this combat were menacing. 'On March 29th the Eastern Question blazed up again with Lord Derby's resignation, the discussion of which enlivened a party at Lady Waldegrave's, there being before us a Queen's Message alleging the existence of imminent national danger and great emergency as a reason for calling out the reserves. On Saturday the 30th Trevelyan ... informed me of a resolution which had been prepared by Lubbock on behalf of those Whigs who had not gone with Gladstone, but wished to make some movement of their own. Later in the evening I saw Childers, who proposed a better motion in the form of an addition to the Message in the sense of a strong desire for peace. The object of both suggestions, of course, was by a moderate middle course to prevent a division for and against the Message in which Gladstone and Bright and eighty others would vote No, while eighty would follow Hartington in voting Yes, and the majority of the party run away, thus destroying the Liberal party, as it was destroyed in the time of Pitt and the war with France. Later, again, in the evening I saw Montgélas (who told me that Russia had held different language to Austria and to England, and that she had drawn back and did not mean war) [Footnote: 'On February 9th I went to a party at the Austrian Embassy "to meet the Archduke Rudolf." Beust was gone away and Montgélas was host. ... On February 12th I met again the Crown Prince of Austria.'] and Randolph Churchill, who made an appointment to come to me on Sunday about the papers, which he agreed with me in thinking damaging to the Government, and full of evidence of their total isolation. When he came, we decided only that the Government ought to be asked for further papers.' This demand Sir Charles accordingly made on April 1st. His position was at this point extremely difficult. He was not prepared to acquiesce in the aggrandisement of Russia, and therefore could not go with his habitual associates, who had formed a Committee upon the Eastern Question. On the other hand, he was determined to join with them in opposing the calling out of the reserves, because this step implied that England would go to war alone, and he did not believe either that England was likely to do so, or that she ought, as a member of the European Concert, to take such a step.