'the Brasseys and Samuelson to the Cherbourg banquet, [Footnote: This banquet was the occasion of Gambetta's famous Cherbourg speech, a passage from which is inscribed on his monument in Paris.] which was to be given to the President of the Republic and the Presidents of the two Chambers (that is, Grévy, Gambetta, and Léon Say). Brassey asked me to go with him in the _Sunbeam_. Although I should like to have gone, I was under engagements in London; and I spent the Sunday dismally ... instead of at Cherbourg with Gambetta.' But he sent him messages by Mr. Bernhard Samuelson [Footnote: M.P. for Banbury; afterwards Sir Bernhard Samuelson.] which were quickly effective. Also, although public opinion in Austria favoured Greece, Sir Charles had ground for believing that Italian Ministers kept the Turks perfectly informed, and that even while advising concession upon Montenegro, they did so with the suggestion that the Greek claims might be the more easily resisted. Austria's concern was, of course, with the northern part of the Illyrian coast; Italy's with the southern. As he noted later in the year, 'the European Concert was about as easy to manage as six horses to drive tandem.' Nevertheless, by the first week in August, 1880, he was able to write: 'A collective note had now been presented by the Powers to the Porte, so that we had carried the Powers with us as fully in our Montenegrin policy, represented by the collective note, as in our Greek policy, represented by the previous Identic note--a most considerable success, contrasting strongly with the failure which our foreign policy met with two or three years later.' These impressions were shared by Lord Ripon, who followed European and domestic affairs keenly, from India. He wrote on August 17th: "I rejoice to see that the F.O. seems to be distancing all competitors in the race of success, ... which" (he added) "in regard to some parliamentary proceedings is not very high praise, you will be perhaps inclined to say." II. Even after the collective note had been presented, the European situation remained delicate and difficult through the mutual distrust of the Powers. On August 9th Lord Granville, who through all these negotiations was exerting his greatest diplomatic skill in keeping Germany in the Concert, expressed to Sir Charles his conviction that 'Bismarck had spies in the Queen's household, and knew everything that went on.' On the side of France matters improved. [Footnote: See _Life of Granville_, vol. ii., chapter vi.]