CHAPTER XVI

A FEW PROMINENT PARISIAN HOSTESSES

Among the great ladies who began to receive society in their ancestral houses during the presidency of Marshal MacMahon can be mentioned the Duchesse de Rohan, at that time still Princesse de Léon; the Duchesse de Galliera, of whom I have already spoken; and a crowd of hostesses of minor standing within the social horizon, who hastened with more or less alacrity to follow their example. The Comtesse Mélanie de Pourtalès opened once more the doors of her hotel in the Rue Tronchet, as did the Baroness Alphonse de Rothschild her magnificent palace in the Rue St. Florentin, whilst Madame Edouard André very soon contrived, thanks to her husband’s enormous fortune and her own great talent as a painter, to introduce herself into the most select circles of Paris society, and to have all its celebrities at her receptions given in her splendid dwelling on the Boulevard Haussmann.

Little by little social life began to re-establish itself, though on an entirely different scale than formerly, and, strange to say, society became ever so much less exclusive than when a distinct line of separation existed between the Monde des Tuileries, as it was called, and the other coteries which abounded in the capital.

Madame de Galliera was one of the last representatives of the _grandes dames_ of the time of Louis Philippe, when even great ladies got imbued with a certain tinge of middle-class leanings, which were the distinctive feature of that middle-class Court over which Queen Marie Amélie presided, where it was not considered as against etiquette to appear before the Sovereigns with an umbrella, and where the King did not hesitate to peel a fruit with a penknife. Madame de Galliera was polite and amiable, very correct in everything she did, and very much convinced of the exceptional importance which her numerous millions gave her in the world where she moved with more ease than pleasure. She belonged to a coterie composed of widely differing elements, and where rigid dames could be found together with some who posed as such, though with the heavy burden of a well-filled past upon their shoulders. Such, for instance, as the Duchesse de Dino, who in her young days had been a friend of Madame de Galliera, though considerably older than the latter.

At the time I am talking about, that descendant of the Genoese Doges and daughter of the ancient house of Brignole-Sale was affecting the most considerable devotion to the Orleans family, and had put her sumptuous house at the disposal of the Comte de Paris, who inhabited it until the decree of expulsion was enforced against him. He held there the reception on the occasion of the wedding of his daughter, the Princess Amélie, with the heir to the throne of Portugal. This reception, brought him bad luck in general, because it was the cause of a quarrel between him and his capricious hostess, who, instead of leaving him her vast fortune as she had intended, willed a considerable portion of it to the Empress Frederick of Germany, with whom she had struck up a violent friendship at the time the Emperor was struggling with the horrors of his last illness at San Remo. She left her house in Paris to the Austrian Emperor, whose Embassy has been located in it ever since.

Madame de Galliera was a very considerable personality in Paris society, but no one liked her, and not a few stood in fear of her because she could be terribly rude when she liked, and had a peculiar way of entirely crushing those she did not care for, or against whom she thought she had a grudge. Her relations with her only son were peculiar, and for reasons it is not for me to discuss he refused to accept the slightest portion of her enormous wealth, or to be known by any of the numerous titles that belonged to her, calling himself plain M. Ferrari, and preferring to earn his own living rather than enjoy millions to which he felt he had no moral right. His strong principles rebelled against compromises, about which no one else would have been troubled.

The present Duchesse de Rohan, at that time still Princesse de Léon, was a very different person from Madame de Galliera. Mademoiselle de Verteillac by birth, she brought an immense dowry to the Prince de Léon when she married him; it restored to the house of Rohan some of its past splendours. With her money she rebuilt the old castle of Josselin, and made it one of the landmarks of Brittany. The receptions she held in her house on the Boulevard des Invalides were exceedingly sumptuous and numerous; some of the fancy balls that took place there, indeed, are still talked of. She was hospitable, kind, clever in her way, but rather inclined to vulgarity, perhaps on account of her stoutness, and partly because her whole manner was too good-natured to be distinguished. Looking at her, one might have thought her to be anything but a Duchesse de Rohan, but she was and is still very much liked, because she has always shown herself generous, indulgent for others, and absolutely devoid of snobbishness. Madame de Rohan has pretensions to be considered a literary person, and has written a few books, which her title and position in society have helped to make popular. She is now an old woman, who has known the sorrows of life, having lost a charming daughter, the Comtesse de Périgord, who was snatched away from her in the flower of her youth and beauty; but the Duchesse has kept her pleasant smile and kind welcome, and is decidedly a popular personage in Parisian society.

The years that have sat rather heavily on the Duchesse de Léon have spared the lovely Countess Mélanie de Pourtalès, who, although a great-grandmother at present, is just as lovely an old woman as she was a splendid young one. The smile, the eyes, the expression, have retained their former charm and the soft melodious voice its youthful ring. One cannot call Madame de Pourtalès a great lady, in the sense which the French attach to this expression of _grande dame_, which has no equal in any other language; but she was essentially the _femme charmante_ of the time in which she was born, pleasant, simple, with no shred of affectation about her a thoughtful hostess, and a faithful friend to those to whom she had attached herself; moreover, of no mean intelligence, of perfect tact, and with a wonderful knowledge of the world. She saw at her feet all the men of her own generation, and went on gathering the admiration of those who belonged to a later one. Her receptions were select, in the sense that at them one only met social stars; they were not exclusive--bankers and financial magnates elbowed young beauties in their prime, or authors, whether of repute or simply fashionable for the moment. When she passes away she will not be forgotten, and her name will always remain associated with the fate of the Second Empire and with the Third Republic.

I have spoken of Madame Edouard André; before her marriage she had been known as Mademoiselle Nelly Jacquemard, a painter of wonderful talent, whose portraits of M. Thiers and M. Dufaure will rank among the most remarkable works of art of the end of the nineteenth century in France. She had fascinated M. André, the son of a banker, blessed with a considerable number of millions, who had been one of the most fashionable men of the Société des Tuileries towards the end of the reign of Napoleon III. M. André, already old and nearly paralysed, had fallen in love with the artist at the time she was painting his picture, and finding that their tastes in many things harmonised he had married her. Mlle. Jacquemard proved herself grateful, and made an excellent wife to the tired, weary man, who found in her what he had wished--a companion and a nurse. When he died he left her all his riches, together with his wonderful house and the numerous works of art that it contained, and to which she considerably added.

Madame André was an amusing little woman, absolutely vulgar in appearance and manners, but who moved in the best society, and whose entertainments, absolutely devoid of stiffness, were as amusing as large receptions can be. She was made very much of by the Orleans family, who flattered her in the secret hope that she would be induced to make a will in their favour, but that hope was to prove a barren one, because Madame André left all that she possessed to the Institut de France, with injunctions to transform her palace into a museum. She is supposed to have said, not without a certain malice, that in doing so she was following the example given to her by the Duc d’Aumale, and that consequently she believed the way she had disposed of her property would meet the approval of the latter’s numerous nephews and nieces.

By an extraordinary freak of her rather peculiar character Madame André, after her marriage, entirely neglected the art to which she had owed her former celebrity. She absolutely refused to take again a brush or a pencil in her hand, and was even angry when anyone made an allusion to her wonderful talent in that line. It seemed as if she was ashamed of Nelly Jacquemard, and yet it was to Nelly Jacquemard she had owed the conquest that she had made of M. Edouard André and his many millions.

The Rothschild family, who perhaps had been more powerful during the reign of Louis Philippe than later on, at least as regards the political influence and power which they wielded, had acquired a far greater social position during the Second Empire, and one which became even stronger after its fall, when for one brief moment they transferred their allegiance to the Comte de Paris and to the whole Orleans family. The Baron Alphonse was a very great personage indeed, and one of whom even kings and countries stood in awe. He had married one of his cousins, the daughter of the London Rothschild, and the grace, beauty, and intelligence of his wife won them many friends among Parisian society. The couple entertained on a large scale, and their balls, dinners, and shooting parties at their lovely castle of Férrières were celebrated for the luxury displayed at them and for the discriminating choice of the guests invited. It was at Férrières that the Princess Amélie, the daughter of the Comte de Paris, made her début in society, and later on, especially during the Exhibition of 1878, the Rothschilds opened their doors widely to the best French and foreign society. The death of their eldest daughter, Bettina, married to her cousin, Baron Albert Rothschild of Vienna, put an end to those brilliant festivities. The Baroness Alphonse hardly ever went out after that, and contented herself with seeing a few intimate friends at her own house. The only other great function at the hotel in the Rue St. Florentin was the reception given in honour of the marriage of Edouard, the only son of Baron and Baroness Alphonse de Rothschild, with the lovely Mademoiselle Halphen, an event which was very shortly followed by the death of the old Baron.

His widow only survived him for a short time. She had grown very eccentric towards the last, and suffered from the mania of thinking herself poor and obliged to economise. Madame Edmond de Pourtalès was about the only person whom she cared to see, and the latter remained with her constantly, never leaving her bedside during her last short illness. The hotel in the Rue St. Florentin still remains closed, as its present owners do not seem to care much for society, and it is very much to be doubted whether it will ever witness the sumptuous entertainments that had won for it such fame in past times.

Another house which has passed into other hands, being now occupied by M. Seligmann, a merchant of curiosities, is the Hotel de Sagan, Rue St. Dominique, where the Princesse de Sagan, the daughter of the banker Seillères, used so frequently to entertain from the days when her marriage brought her into the most exclusive set of Paris society. Madame de Sagan was a tall, slight, fair woman, with pleasant manners, who was very much liked by a good many men, but had never been able to get on with her own husband. He was the eldest son of the Duc de Valencay and the grandson of the famous Duchesse de Dino. He spent right and left, and as his father either could not, or would not, give him more, he had been obliged to seek among the daughters of financial houses a companion of his life. He did not care in the least for his wife, though he tried to launch her into society, and to help her in acquiring a great position. The Princess made the best of his advice, but very soon discovered that if she wanted to keep her prestige in the eyes of the world, she had better remove her fortune from the control of her husband. The couple separated after stormy quarrels, that formed the main topic of public conversation for a long time, and the Princess found many people willing to console her in her solitude. From time to time an ugly scandal arose in connection with either her doings or those of the Prince, who very often found need to have recourse to his wife’s purse. He obliged her to pay dearly for his silence concerning things that, if revealed, might have impaired that worldly position for which she cared above everything else.

It is related that once when the heir to one of the thrones of Europe had signified his intention to be present at an entertainment given by Madame de Sagan, some relatives had explained to her that it would be more suitable, especially in view of the fact that the Prince’s wife would also be present, to have a master of the house to play the host, and to receive them together with her. She then began negotiations with the Prince de Sagan, who first of all stipulated he should be given a handsome cheque of not less than four figures, to ensure his presence in his wife’s house, and who consented, after having received it, to make an appearance in his former home, to give a look at all the arrangements made in honour of the occasion, and after having received the royal couple at the bottom of the staircase of the hotel in the Rue St. Dominique, to play the host with the perfection that he always performed his social duties. When the last guest had left, he kissed his wife’s hand with courtly grace, and took leave of her in his turn with a playful remark of some kind or other, and for a long time the couple did not meet again.

The Prince de Sagan was considered the leader of everything that was fashionable in Paris. It was he who organised the racecourse of Auteuil, and who helped greatly to popularise Americans among Parisian society, where, for a handsome consideration, so at least it was rumoured, he introduced them into his particular set, where every word he uttered was law, which, like those of the Medes and Persians, altered not. One used to see him often at the Opera in the box belonging to the Jockey Club, with his inevitable eyeglass hanging on a broad black ribbon, a fashion he was the first to introduce. He occupied two small rooms at the club of the Union, not being possessed of enough means and having too many creditors to be able to indulge in the luxury of a private apartment, and it was there that he was stricken with paralysis, from which he never recovered, and which deprived him both of his speech and of his mental faculties. It was at this juncture that Madame de Sagan behaved with great generosity and a singular power of forgiveness for past injuries. As soon as she heard of the lamentable condition to which her husband had been reduced, she drove to the club, and had him removed to her own house, where she nursed him with the utmost devotion; thereafter the large receptions and garden parties which she regularly gave in spring and which constituted a feature of the Paris season, became a thing of the past, and the hospitable gates of the hotel in the Rue St. Dominique were closed for ever.

The Princesse de Sagan, who in the meanwhile, through the death of her father-in-law, had become the Duchesse de Talleyrand, was not rewarded for her self-sacrifice. She died quite suddenly, before the Duc, who was left alone and infirm to the mercies of his two sons and of hired servants. The old man dragged out an existence for something like ten years or so, and at last died in poverty and solitude, expiating his formerly brilliant life more cruelly and more bitterly than he perhaps deserved.

One of his sons, the present Duc de Talleyrand, to whom I shall refer again, is married to the American heiress, Miss Anna Gould, whose divorce from the Comte de Castellane made such a sensation a few years ago, but the hotel in the Rue St. Dominique has been sold, and already half the magnificent garden in which it stood has been built upon with huge houses, whilst the inside of the palace is turned into an antiquary’s shop; bric-à-brac of all kinds encumbers the lofty rooms where kings and queens moved with stately grace; it dishonours the famous staircase at the top of which the Princesse de Sagan, dressed in the costume of a Persian Empress covered with priceless jewels and with a little negro boy holding a sunshade over her head, received her guests at one of the most famous of her many famous fancy balls.

There was one salon in Paris which was not by any means so brilliant as that of the Comtesse de Pourtalès, the Princesse de Sagan, and the Duchesse de Bisaccia, but which enjoyed a popularity that has never been equalled. I am thinking of that of the Duchesse de Maillé, that stately old lady with the many charming daughters who, without any affectation of pomp and without the least shade of stiffness, welcomed almost every evening her many friends with her bright smile and kind words. Madame de Maillé was one of those women that are but seldom met with, who combine the dignity of the _grande dame_ with the indulgence and the abandon, if one can use such a word, of the perfect woman of the world. She was clever, and she appreciated cleverness in others; she could talk well, and listen even better still; she knew how to bring into evidence all the perfections and qualities of her friends, and she always found reasons to excuse their faults or their imperfections. She was discreet, and never made use of the many confidences that were constantly poured into her ear; she had always ready some good advice to give to those who required it, and she liked to see people happy around her, to watch young people amuse themselves, and though excessively strict in everything that was connected with appearances, so very polite that somehow in her presence no one dreamed of breaking the code established by society in that respect. Madame de Maillé loved politics, and enjoyed exceedingly the conversation of literary people. Almost all the celebrities that Paris could boast of were the habitués of her salon. She used to receive them seated by her fireside, in her plain black gown, with a lace cap over her silvery hair and her everlasting knitting in her hands. She at once put them at their ease, and found out the most appropriate things to tell them. Her house was restful in our age of restlessness, and though there was not the least shade of hauteur about the old Duchesse, the last representative of the ancient family of the Marquis d’Osmond, yet one felt at once, on seeing her, that one stood in the presence of a really great lady.

Now this hospitable salon is also a thing of the past. The Duchesse de Maillé has been dead these last ten years or so, and all her children have settled in houses of their own. Her daughters, Madame de Nadaillac, the Marquise de Ganay, and Madame de Fleury, though all distinguished and amiable women, perhaps because they are still too young, have not acquired that inimitable charm, ease in their manners, and dignity in their bearing which belonged exclusively to their charming mother.

The Duchesse de Maillé was an exception among the old ladies of aristocratic Paris. There was no stiffness, such as, for instance, distinguished the old Princesse de Ligne and the Duchesse de Mirepoix, and some others whose names I have already forgotten. I do not think that anything more solemn than the receptions of the Princess de Ligne have ever been invented. She was a Pole by birth, belonging to the old family of Lubomirski, a representative of which, Prince Joseph Lubomirski, was at one time a well-known boulevardier. Anything more formidable in the shape of a dowager could hardly be found in the whole world. One could not dream even of sitting in a chair in her august presence, and generally dropped down meekly on one of the numerous stools which adorned her drawing-room and which reminded one of a church without an altar. She was ill-natured, too, cruel when she liked--and she liked it often; severe in her judgments, and inexorable in her decisions. Her numerous grandchildren were all afraid of her, and when she decided that the head of the house of Ligne was to marry her own granddaughter, Mlle. de La Rochefoucauld Bisaccia, neither one nor the other, to their own future sorrow, dared to say a word in opposition, for never was there a union more ill-assorted. When it ended in a divorce no one felt surprised. At the time this last-mentioned fact took place the Princess Hedwige de Ligne had long been dead.

There were other houses in Paris which, perhaps, were less select, but certainly more amusing and agreeable than those in the high circles I have just mentioned. There existed salons which were truly Bohemian, but which also exercised a considerable influence on the sayings and doings of society. I have mentioned already old Madame Lacroix, whose house saw purely literary receptions, and at whose hospitable hearth all the distinguished foreigners who arrived in Paris used to meet. Then there was the salon of Madame Aubernon de Nerville, where Academicians were usually to be met, that of Madame de Luynes, and last, but not least, the salon of Madame Juliette Adam, who wielded a really regal power among a certain set, and who certainly succeeded in being considered as a political power, especially after Gambetta began to seek her advice in matters pertaining to the affairs of the government. But this last house, as well as its amiable and clever mistress, deserve more than a passing mention; they require a chapter to themselves in order to be duly appreciated.