John Morley: “Gambetta was autoritaire; I do not feel as if he were a true liberal in the old and best sense.”

He was a soldier of infinite personal courage and daring; of striking military energy, initiative, and resource; a high, pure, and single character, dwelling much in the region of the unseen.

This was a complete falsification of a whole set of our national promises.

What I wish to insist upon is, not that that system was good, but that the statesman who undertook to overthrow it, should have had something to put in its place.

I don't myself believe in artful diplomacy; I have no gift for it.