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twg_000000032900 | total stranger whom I had only seen twice in my life. It took me about a week to get really settled. I went over every day, returning to my own house to eat and sleep. Kruft did wonders; the place was quite transformed when I finally moved over. The rooms looked very bright and comfortable when we arrived in the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032901 | afternoon of the 31st of December (New Year's eve). The little end salon, which I made my boudoir, was hung with blue satin; my piano, screens, and little things were very well placed--plenty of palms and flowers, bright fires everywhere--the bedrooms, nursery, and lingeries clean and bright. My bedroom opened on a large salon, where I received usually, keeping my | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032902 | boudoir for ourselves and our intimate friends. My special huissier, Grard, who sat all day outside of the salon door, was presented to me, and instantly became a most useful and important member of the household--never forgot a name or a face, remembered what cards and notes I had received, whether the notes were answered, or the bills paid, knew | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032903 | almost all my wardrobe, would bring me down a coat or a wrap if I wanted one suddenly down-stairs. I had frequent consultations with Pontcoulant and Kruft to regulate all the details of the various services before we were quite settled. We took over all our own servants and found many others who were on the permanent staff of the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032904 | ministry, footmen, huissiers, and odd men who attended to all the fires, opened and shut all the doors, windows, and shutters. It was rather difficult to organise the regular working service, there was such rivalry between our own personal servants and the men who belonged to the house, but after a little while things went pretty smoothly. W. dined out | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032905 | the first night we slept at the Quai d'Orsay, and about an hour after we had arrived, while I was still walking about in my hat and coat, feeling very strange in the big, high rooms, I was told that the lampiste was waiting my orders (a few lamps had been lit in some of the rooms). I didn't quite | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032906 | know what orders to give, hadn't mastered yet the number that would be required; but I sent for him, said I should be alone for dinner, perhaps one or two lamps in the dining-room and small salon would be enough. He evidently thought that was not at all sufficient, wanted something more precise, so I said to light as he | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032907 | had been accustomed to when the Duc Dcazes and his family were dining alone (which I don't suppose they ever did, nor we either when we once took up our life). Such a blaze of light met my eyes when I went to dinner that I was quite bewildered--boudoir, billiard-room, dining-room (very large, the small round table for one person | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032908 | hardly perceptible), and corridors all lighted " giorno." However, it looked very cheerful and kept me from feeling too dreadfully homesick for my own house and familiar surroundings. The rooms were so high up that we didn't hear the noise of the street, but the river looked alive and friendly with the lights on the bridges, and a few boats | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032909 | still running. We had much more receiving and entertaining to do at the Quai d'Orsay than at any other ministry, and were obliged to go out much more ourselves. The season in the official world begins with a reception at the President's on New Year's day. The diplomatic corps and presidents of the Senate and Chamber go in state to | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032910 | the Elyse to pay their respects to the chief of state--the ambassadors with all their staff in uniform in gala carriages. It is a pretty sight, and there are always a good many people waiting in the Faubourg St. Honor to see the carriages. The English carriage is always the best; they understand all the details of harness and livery | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032911 | so much better than any one else. The marshal and his family were established at the Elyse. It wasn't possible for him to remain at Versailles--he couldn't be so far from Paris, where all sorts of questions were coming up every day, and he was obliged to receive deputations and reports, and see people of all kinds. They were already | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032912 | agitating the question of the Parliament coming back to Paris. The deputies generally were complaining of the loss of time and the discomfort of the daily journey even in the parliamentary train. The Right generally was very much opposed to having the Chambers back in Paris. I never could understand why. I suppose they were afraid that a stormy sitting | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032913 | might lead to disturbances. In the streets of a big city there is always a floating population ready to espouse violently any cause. At Versailles one was away from any such danger, and, except immediately around the palace, there was nobody in the long, deserted avenues. They often cited the United States, how no statesman after the signing of the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032914 | Declaration of Independence (in Philadelphia) would have ventured to propose that the Parliament should sit in New York or Philadelphia, but the reason there was very different; they were obliged to make a neutral zone, something between the North and the South. The District of Columbia is a thing apart, belonging to neither side. It has certainly worked very well | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032915 | in America. Washington is a fine city, with its splendid old trees and broad avenues. It has a cachet of its own, is unlike any other city I know in the world. The marshal received at the Elyse every Thursday evening--he and his staff in uniform, also all the officers who came, which made a brilliant gathering. Their big dinners | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032916 | and receptions were always extremely well done. Except a few of their personal friends, not many people of society were present--the diplomatic corps usually very well represented, the Government and their wives, and a certain number of liberal deputies--a great many officers. We received every fifteen days, beginning with a big dinner. It was an open reception, announced in the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032917 | papers. The diplomats always mustered very strong, also the Parliament--not many women. Many of the deputies remained in the country, taking rooms merely while the Chambers were sitting, and their wives never appeared in Paris. "Society" didn't come to us much either, except on certain occasions when we had a royal prince or some very distinguished foreigners. Besides the big | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032918 | official receptions, we often had small dinners up-stairs during the week. Some of these I look back to with much pleasure. I was generally the only lady with eight or ten men, and the talk was often brilliant. Some of our habitus were the late Lord Houghton, a delightful talker; Lord Dufferin, then ambassador in St. Petersburg; Sir Henry Layard, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032919 | British ambassador in Spain, an interesting man who had been everywhere and seen and known everybody worth knowing in the world; Count Schouvaloff, Russian ambassador in London, a polished courtier, extremely intelligent; he and W. were colleagues afterward at the Congrs de Berlin, and W. has often told me how brilliantly he defended his cause; General Ignatieff, Prince Orloff, the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032920 | nunzio Monsignor Czascki, quite charming, the type of the prlat mondain, very large (though very Catholic) in his ideas, but never aggressive or disagreeable about the Republic, as so many of the clergy were. He was very fond of music, and went with me sometimes to the Conservatoire on Sunday; he had a great admiration for the way they played | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032921 | classical music; used to lean back in his chair in a corner (would never sit in front of the box) and drink in every sound. We sometimes had informal music in my little blue salon. Baron de Zuylen, Dutch minister, was an excellent musician, also Comte de Beust, the Austrian ambassador. He was a composer. I remember his playing me | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032922 | one day a wedding march he had composed for the marriage of one of the archdukes. It was very descriptive, with bells, cannon, hurrahs, and a nuptial hymn--rather difficult to render on a piano--but there was a certain amount of imagination in the composition. The two came often with me to the Conservatoire. Comte de Beust brought Liszt to me | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032923 | one day. I wanted so much to see that complex character, made up of enthusiasms of all kinds, patriotic, religious, musical. He was dressed in the ordinary black priestly garb, looked like an ascetic with pale, thin face, which lighted up very much when discussing any subject that interested him. He didn't say a word about music, either then or | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032924 | on a subsequent occasion when I lunched with him at the house of a great friend and admirer, who was a beautiful musician. I hoped he would play after luncheon. He was a very old man, and played rarely in those days, but one would have liked to hear him. Madame M. thought he would perhaps for her, if the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032925 | party were not too large, and the guests "sympathetic" to him. I have heard so many artists say it made all the difference to them when they felt the public was with them--if there were one unsympathetic or criticising face in the mass of people, it was the only face they could distinguish, and it affected them very much. The | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032926 | piano was engagingly open and music littered about, but he apparently didn't see it. He talked politics, and a good deal about pictures with some artists who were present. [Illustration: Franz Liszt.] I did hear him play many years later in London. We were again lunching together, at the house of a mutual friend, who was not at all musical. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032927 | There wasn't even a piano in the house, but she had one brought in for the occasion. When I arrived rather early, the day of the party, I found the mistress of the house, aided by Count Hatzfeldt, then German ambassador to England, busily engaged in transforming her drawing-room. The grand piano, which had been standing well out toward the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032928 | middle of the room, open, with music on it (I dare say some of Liszt's own--but I didn't have time to examine), was being pushed back into a corner, all the music hidden away, and the instrument covered with photographs, vases of flowers, statuettes, heavy books, all the things one doesn't habitually put on pianos. I was quite puzzled, but | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032929 | Hatzfeldt, who was a great friend of Liszt's and knew all his peculiarities, when consulted by Madame A. as to what she could do to induce Liszt to play, had answered: "Begin by putting the piano in the furthest, darkest corner of the room, and put all sorts of heavy things on it. Then he won't think you have asked | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032930 | him in the hope of hearing him play, and perhaps we can persuade him." The arrangements were just finished as the rest of the company arrived. We were not a large party, and the talk was pleasant enough. Liszt looked much older, so colourless, his skin like ivory, but he seemed just as animated and interested in everything. After luncheon, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032931 | when they were smoking (all of us together, no one went into the smoking-room), he and Hatzfeldt began talking about the Empire and the beautiful ftes at Compigne, where anybody of any distinction in any branch of art or literature was invited. Hatzfeldt led the conversation to some evenings when Strauss played his waltzes with an entrain, a sentiment that | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032932 | no one else has ever attained, and to Offenbach and his melodies--one evening particularly when he had improvised a song for the Empress--he couldn't quite remember it. If there were a piano--he looked about. There was none apparently. "Oh, yes, in a corner, but so many things upon it, it was evidently never meant to be opened." He moved toward | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032933 | it, Liszt following, asking Comtesse A. if it could be opened. The things were quickly removed. Hatzfeldt sat down and played a few bars in rather a halting fashion. After a moment Liszt said: "No, no, it is not quite that." Hatzfeldt got up. Liszt seated himself at the piano, played two or three bits of songs, or waltzes, then, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032934 | always talking to Hatzfeldt, let his fingers wander over the keys and by degrees broke into a nocturne and a wild Hungarian march. It was very curious; his fingers looked as if they were made of yellow ivory, so thin and long, and of course there wasn't any strength or execution in his playing--it was the touch of an old | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032935 | man, but a master--quite unlike anything I have ever heard. When he got up, he said: "Oh, well, I didn't think the old fingers had any music left in them." We tried to thank him, but he wouldn't listen to us, immediately talked about something else. When he had gone we complimented the ambassador on the way in which he | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032936 | had managed the thing. Hatzfeldt was a charming colleague, very clever, very musical, a thorough man of the world. I was always pleased when he was next to me at dinner--I was sure of a pleasant hour. He had been many years in Paris during the brilliant days of the Empire, knew everybody there worth knowing. He had the reputation, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032937 | notwithstanding his long stay in Paris, of being very anti-French. I could hardly judge of that, as he never talked politics to me. It may very likely have been true, but not more marked with him than with the generality of Anglo-Saxons and Northern races, who rather look down upon the Latins, hardly giving them credit for their splendid dash | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032938 | and pluck--to say nothing of their brains. I have lived in a great many countries, and always think that as a people, I mean the uneducated mass, the French are the most intelligent nation in the world. I have never been thrown with the Japanese--am told they are extraordinarily intelligent. We had a dinner one night for Mr. Gladstone, his | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032939 | wife, and a daughter. Mr. Gladstone made himself quite charming, spoke French fairly well, and knew more about every subject discussed than any one else in the room. He was certainly a wonderful man, such extraordinary versatility and such a memory. It was rather pretty to see Mrs. Gladstone when her husband was talking. She was quite absorbed by him, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032940 | couldn't talk to her neighbours. They wanted very much to go to the Conciergerie to see the prison where the unfortunate Marie Antoinette passed the last days of her unhappy life, and Mr. Gladstone, inspired by the subject, made us a sort of confrence on the French Revolution and the causes which led up to it, culminating in the Terror | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032941 | and the execution of the King and Queen. He spoke in English (we were a little group standing at the door--they were just going), in beautiful academic language, and it was most interesting, graphic, and exact. Even W., who knew him well and admired him immensely, was struck by his brilliant improvisation. [Illustration: William E. Gladstone. From a photograph by | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032942 | Samuel A. Walker, London.] We were often asked for permits by our English and American friends to see all the places of historical interest in Paris, and the two places which all wanted to see were the Conciergerie and Napoleon's tomb at the Invalides. When we first came to Paris in , just after the end of the long struggle | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032943 | between the North and South in America, our first visits too were for the Conciergerie, Invalides, and Notre Dame, where my father had not been since he had gone as a very young man with all Paris to see the flags that had been brought back from Austerlitz. They were interesting days, those first ones in Paris, so full of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032944 | memories for father, who had been there a great deal in his young days, first as an lve in the Ecole Polytechnique, later when the Allies were in Paris. He took us one day to the Luxembourg Gardens, to see if he could find any trace of the spot where in during the Restoration Marshal Ney had been shot. He | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032945 | was in Paris at the time, and was in the garden a few hours after the execution--remembered quite well the wall against which the marshal stood--and the comments of the crowd, not very flattering for the Government in executing one of France's bravest and most brilliant soldiers. All the Americans who came to see us at the Quai d'Orsay were | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032946 | much interested in everything relating to Gnral Marquis de Lafayette, who left an undying memory in America, and many pilgrimages were made to the Chteau de la Grange, where the Marquis de Lafayette spent the last years of his life and extended a large and gracious hospitality to all his friends. It is an interesting old place, with a moat | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032947 | all around it and high solid stone walls, where one still sees the hole that was made in the wall by a cannon-ball sent by Marchal de Turenne as he was passing with his troops, as a friendly souvenir to the owner, with whom he was not on good terms. So many Americans and English too are imbued with the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032948 | idea that there are no chteaux, no country life in France, that I am delighted when they can see that there are just as many as in any other country. A very clever American writer, whose books have been much read and admired, says that when travelling in France in the country, he never saw any signs of wealth or | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032949 | gentlemen's property. I think he didn't want to admire anything French, but I wonder in what part of France he has travelled. Besides the well-known historic chteaux of Chaumont, Chenonceaux, Azay-le-Rideau, Maintenon, Dampierre, Josselin, Valenay, and scores of others, there are quantities of small Louis XV chteaux and manoirs, half hidden in a corner of a forest, which the stranger | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032950 | never sees. They are quite charming, built of red brick with white copings, with stiff old-fashioned gardens, and trees cut into all sorts of fantastic shapes. Sometimes the parish church touches the castle on one side, and there is a private entrance for the seigneurs. The interior arrangements in some of the old ones leave much to be desired in | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032951 | the way of comfort and modern improvements,--lighting very bad, neither gas nor electricity, and I should think no baths anywhere, hardly a tub. On the banks of the Seine and the Loire, near the great forests, in all the departments near Paris there are quantities of chteaux--some just on the border of the highroad, separated from it by high iron | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032952 | gates, through which one sees long winding alleys with stone benches and vases with red geraniums planted in them, a sun-dial and stiff formal rows of trees--some less pretentious with merely an ordinary wooden gate, generally open, and always flowers of the simplest kind, geraniums, sunflowers, pinks, dahlias, and chrysanthemums--what we call a jardin de cur, (curate's garden)--but in great | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032953 | abundance. With very rare exceptions the lawns are not well kept--one never sees in this country the smooth green turf that one does in England. Some of the old chteaux are very stately--sometimes one enters by a large quadrangle, quite surrounded by low arcades covered with ivy, a fountain and good-sized basin in the middle of the courtyard, and a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032954 | big clock over the door--sometimes they stand in a moat, one goes over a drawbridge with massive doors, studded with iron nails and strong iron bolts and chains which defend the entrance, making one think of old feudal days, when might was right, and if a man wanted his neighbours property, he simply took it. Even some of the smaller | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032955 | chteaux have moats. I think they are more picturesque than comfortable--an ivy-covered house with a moat around it is a nest for mosquitoes and insects of all kinds, and I fancy the damp from the water must finish by pervading the house. French people of all classes love the country and a garden with bright flowers, and if the poorer | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032956 | ones can combine a rabbit hutch with the flowers they are quite happy. I have heard W. speak sometimes of a fine old chteau in our department--(Aisne) belonging to a deputy, who invited his friends to shoot and breakfast. The cuisine and shooting were excellent, but the accommodations fantastic. The neighbours said nothing had been renewed or cleaned since the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032957 | chteau was occupied by the Cossacks under the first Napoleon. We got very little country life during those years at the Foreign Office. Twice a year, in April and August, W. went to Laon for his Conseil-Gnral, over which he presided, but he was rarely able to stay all through the session. He was always present on the opening day, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032958 | and at the prfet's dinner, and took that opportunity to make a short speech, explaining the foreign policy of the Government. I don't think it interested his colleagues as much as all the local questions--roads, schools, etc. It is astonishing how much time is wasted and how much letter-writing is necessitated by the simplest change in a road or railway | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032959 | crossing in France. We had rather a short narrow turning to get into our gate at Bourneville, and W. wanted to have the road enlarged just a little, so as to avoid the sharp angle. It didn't interfere with any one, as we were several yards from the highroad, but it was months, more than a year, before the thing | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032960 | was done. Any one of the workmen on the farm would have finished it in a day's work. At one of our small dinners I had such a characteristic answer from an English diplomatist, who had been ambassador at St. Petersburg. He was really a charming talker, but wouldn't speak French. That was of no consequence as long as he | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032961 | only talked to me, but naturally all the people at the table wanted to talk to him, and when the general conversation languished, at last, I said to him: "I wish you would speak French; none of these gentlemen speak any other language." (It was quite true, the men of my husband's age spoke very rarely any other language but | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032962 | their own; now almost all the younger generation speak German or English or both. Almost all my son's friends speak English perfectly.) "Oh no, I can't," he said; "I haven't enough the habit of speaking French. I don't say the things I want to say, only the things I can say, which is very different." "But what did you do | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032963 | in Russia?" "All the women speak English." "But for affairs, diplomatic negotiations?" "All the women speak English." I have often heard it said that the Russian women were much more clever than the men. He evidently had found it true. VI THE EXPOSITION YEAR The big political dinners were always interesting. On one occasion we had a banquet on the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032964 | 2d of December. My left-hand neighbour, a senator, said to me casually: "This room looks very different from what it did the last time I was in it." "Does it? I should have thought a big official dinner at the Foreign Office would have been precisely the same under any rgime." "A dinner perhaps, but on that occasion we were | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032965 | not precisely dining. I and a number of my friends had just been arrested, and we were waiting here in this room strictly guarded, until it was decided what should be done with us." Then I remembered that it was the 2d of December, the anniversary of Louis Napolon's coup d'tat. He said they were quite unprepared for it, in | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032966 | spite of warnings. He was sent out of the country for a little while, but I don't think his exile was a very terrible one. I got my first lesson in diplomatic politeness from Lord Lyons, then British ambassador in Paris. He was in Paris during the Franco-German War, knew everybody, and had a great position. He gave very handsome | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032967 | dinners, liked his guests to be punctual, was very punctual himself, always arrived on the stroke of eight when he dined with us. We had an Annamite mission to dine one night and had invited almost all the ambassadors and ministers to meet them. There had been a stormy sitting at the Chamber and W. was late. As soon as | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032968 | I was ready I went to his library and waited for him; I couldn't go down and receive a foreign mission without him. We were quite seven or eight minutes late and found all the company assembled (except the Annamites, who were waiting with their interpreter in another room to make their entry in proper style). As I shook hands | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032969 | with Lord Lyons (who was doyen of the diplomatic corps) he said to me: "Ah, Madame Waddington, I see the Republic is becoming very royal; you don't receive your guests any more, merely come into the room when all the company is assembled." He said it quite smilingly, but I understood very well, and of course we ought to have | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032970 | been there when the first guests arrived. He was very amiable all the same and told me a great many useful things--for instance, that I must never invite a cardinal and an ambassador together, as neither of them would yield the precedence and I would find myself in a very awkward position. [Illustration: Lord Lyons.] The Annamites were something awful | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032971 | to see. In their country all the men of a certain standing blacken their teeth, and I suppose the dye makes their teeth fall out, as they hadn't any apparently, and when they opened their mouths the black caverns one saw were terrifying. I had been warned, but notwithstanding it made a most disagreeable impression on me. They were very | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032972 | richly attired, particularly the first three, who were trs grands seigneurs in Annam,--heavily embroidered silk robes, feathers, and jewels, and when they didn't open their mouths they were rather a decorative group,--were tall, powerfully built men. They knew no French nor English--spoke through the interpreter. My intercourse with them was very limited. They were not near me at dinner, but | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032973 | afterward I tried to talk to them a little. They all stood in a group at one end of the room, flanked by an interpreter--the three principal chiefs well in front. I don't know what the interpreter said to them from me, probably embellished my very banal remarks with flowers of rhetoric, but they were very smiling, opening wide their | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032974 | black mouths and made me very low bows--evidently appreciated my intention and effort to be amiable. They brought us presents, carpets, carved and inlaid mother-of-pearl boxes, cabinets, and some curious saddles, also gold-embroidered cushions and slippers. Some Arab horses were announced with great pomp from the Sultan's stables. I was rather interested in them, thought it would be amusing to | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032975 | drive a long-tailed Arab pony in a little cart in the morning. They were brought one morning to the Quai d'Orsay, and W. gave rendezvous to Comte de Pontcoulant and some of the sporting men of the cabinet, in the courtyard. There were also several stablemen, all much interested in the idea of taming the fiery steeds of the desert. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032976 | The first look was disappointing. They were thin, scraggy animals, apparently all legs and manes. Long tails they had, and small heads, but anything so tame and sluggish in their movements could hardly be imagined. One could scarcely get them to canter around the courtyard. We were all rather disgusted, as sometimes one sees pretty little Arab horses in Paris. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032977 | I don't know what became of them; I fancy they were sent to the cavalry stables. Our first great function that winter was the service at the Madeleine for the King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel, who died suddenly in the beginning of January, . France sent a special mission to the funeral--the old Marshal Canrobert, who took with him the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032978 | marshal's son, Fabrice de MacMahon. The Church of the Madeleine was filled with people of all kinds--the diplomatic corps in uniform, a very large representation of senators and deputies. There was a slight hesitation among some of the Left--who were ardent sympathisers with young Italy--but who didn't care to compromise themselves by taking part in a religious ceremony. However, as | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032979 | a rule they went. Some of the ladies of the Right were rather put out at having to go in deep mourning to the service. I said to one of them: "But you are not correct; you have a black dress certainly, but I don't think pearl-grey gloves are proper for such an occasion." "Oh, they express quite sufficiently the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032980 | grief I feel on this occasion." It was curious that the King should have gone before the old Pope, who had been failing for some time. Every day we expected to hear of his death. There were many speculations over the new King of Italy, the Prince Humbert of our day. As we had lived so many years in Rome, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032981 | I was often asked what he was like, but I really had no opinion. One saw him very little. I remember one day in the hunting-field he got a nasty fall. His horse put his foot in a hole and fell with him. It looked a bad accident, as if the horse were going to roll over on him. I, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032982 | with one of my friends, was near, and seeing an accident (I didn't know who it was) naturally stopped to see if our groom could do anything, but an officer rode hurriedly up and begged us to go on, that the Prince would be very much annoyed if any one, particularly a woman, should notice his fall. I saw him | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032983 | later in the day, looking all right on another horse, and no one made any allusion to the accident. About a month after Victor Emmanuel's death the old Pope died, the 8th of February, , quite suddenly at the end. He was buried of course in Rome, and it was very difficult to arrange for his funeral in the Rome | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032984 | of the King of Italy. However, he did lie in state at St. Peter's, the noble garde in their splendid uniforms standing close around the catafalque--long lines of Italian soldiers, the bersaglieri with their waving plumes, on each side of the great aisle. There was a magnificent service for him at Notre Dame. The Chambers raised their sitting as a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032985 | mark of respect to the head of the church, and again there was a great attendance at the cathedral. There were many discussions in the monde (society not official) "as to whether one should wear mourning for the Saint Pre." I believe the correct thing is not to wear mourning, but almost all the ladies of the Faubourg St. Germain | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032986 | went about in black garments for some time. One of my friends put it rather graphically: "Si on a un ruban rose dans les cheveux on a tout de suite l'air d'tre la matresse de Rochefort." All Europe was engrossed with the question of the Pope's successor. Intrigues and undercurrents were going on hard in Rome, and the issue of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032987 | the conclave was impatiently awaited. No one could predict any result. The election of Cardinal Pecci, future Leo XIII, seemed satisfactory, at least in the beginning. My winter passed pleasantly enough; I began to feel more at home in my new quarters, and saw many interesting people of all kinds. Every now and then there would be a very lively | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032988 | debate in the Parliament. W. would come home very late, saying things couldn't go on like that, and we would surely be out of office in a few weeks. We always kept our house in the rue Dumont d'Urville, and I went over every week, often thinking that in a few days we should be back there again. One of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032989 | my great trials was a reception day. W. thought I ought to have one, so every Friday I was at home from three until six, and very long afternoons they were. I insisted upon having a tea-table, which was a novelty in those days, but it broke the stiff semicircle of red and gold armchairs carefully arranged at one end | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032990 | of the room. Very few men took tea. It was rather amusing to see some of the deputies who didn't exactly like to refuse a cup of tea offered to them by the minister's wife, holding the cup and saucer most carefully in their hands, making a pretence of sipping the tea and replacing it hastily on the table as | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032991 | soon as it was possible. I had of course a great many people of different nationalities, who generally didn't know each other. The ambassadresses and ministers' wives sat on each side of my sofa--the smaller people lower down. They were all announced, my huissier, Grard, doing it very well, opening the big doors and roaring out the names. Sometimes, at | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032992 | the end of the day, some of my own friends or some of the young men from the chancery would come in, and that would cheer me up a little. There was no conversation, merely an exchange of formal phrases, but I had some funny experiences. One day I had several ladies whom I didn't know at all, wives of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032993 | deputies, or small functionaries at some of the ministries. One of my friends, Comtesse de B., was starting for Italy and Rome for the first time. She had come to ask me all sorts of questions about clothes, hotels, people to see, etc. When she went away in a whirl of preparations and addresses, I turned to one of my | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032994 | neighbours, saying: "Je crois qu'on est trs bien l'Htel de Londres Rome," quite an insignificant and inoffensive remark--merely to say something. She replied haughtily: "Je n'en sais rien, Madame; je n'ai jamais quitt Paris et je m'en vante." I was so astonished that I had nothing to say, but was afterward sorry that I had not continued the conversation and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032995 | asked her why she was so especially proud of never having left Paris. Travelling is usually supposed to enlarge one's ideas. Her answer might have been interesting. W. wouldn't believe it when I told him, but I said I couldn't really have invented it. I used to go into his cabinet at the end of the day always, when he | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032996 | was alone with Pontcoulant, and tell them all my experiences which W. forbid me to mention anywhere else. I had a good many surprises, but soon learned never to be astonished and to take everything as a matter of course. The great interest of the summer was the Exposition Universelle which was to take place at the Trocadro, the new | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032997 | building which had been built on the Champ de Mars. The opening was announced for the 1st of May and was to be performed with great pomp by the marshal. All Europe was represented except Germany, and almost all the great powers were sending princes to represent their country. We went often to see how the works were getting on, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032998 | and I must say it didn't look as if it could possibly be ready for the 1st of May. There were armies of workmen in every direction and carts and camions loaded with cases making their way with difficulty through the mud. Occasionally a light case or bale would fall off, and quantities of small boys who seemed always on | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000032999 | the spot would precipitate themselves, tumbling over each other to pick up what fell, and there would be protestations and explanations in every language under the sun. It was a motley, picturesque crowd--the costumes and uniforms making so much colour in the midst of the very ordinary dark clothes the civilised Western world affects. I felt sorry for the Orientals | 60 | gutenberg |
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