Chapter 12

The diplomatic appointments, the embassies particularly, were a difficulty. Admiral Pothnau went to London. He was a very gallant officer and had served with the English in the Crimea--had the order of the Bath, and exactly that stand-off, pompous manner which suits English people. General Chanzy went to St. Petersburg. It has been the tradition almost always to send a soldier to Russia. There is so little intercourse between the Russian Emperor and any foreigner, even an ambassador, that an ordinary diplomatist, no matter how intelligent or experienced he might be, would have very few opportunities to talk to the Emperor; whereas an officer, with the various reviews and manoeuvres that are always going on in Russia, would surely approach him more easily. I was so struck when we were in Russia with the immense distance that separated the princes from the ordinary mortals. They seem like demigods on a different plane (in Russia I mean; of course when they come to Paris their godlike attributes disappear, unfortunately for themselves).

Chanzy was very happy in Russia, where he was extremely well received. He dined with us one night, when he was at home on leave, and was most enthusiastic about everything in Russia--their finances, their army--the women of all classes so intelligent, so patriotic. He was evidently quite sous le charme. When he had gone, M. Desprey, then Directeur de la Politique, a very clever man, who had seen many ambassadors come and go from all the capitals of Europe, said:

"It is curious how all the ambassadors who go to Russia have that same impression. I have never known it to fail. It is the Russian policy to be delightful to the ambassadors--make life very easy for them--show them all that is brilliant and interesting--open all doors (society, etc.) and keep all sordid and ugly questions in the background."

St. Vallier remained at Berlin. His name had been mentioned for Foreign Minister when Dufaure was making his cabinet, but he hadn't the health for it--and I think preferred being in Berlin. He knew Germany well and had a good many friends in Berlin.

W. of course had a great many men's dinners, from which I was excluded. I dined often with some of my friends, not of the official world, and I used to ask myself sometimes if the Quai d'Orsay and these houses could be in the same country. It was an entirely different world, every point of view different, not only politics--that one would expect, as the whole of society was anti-Republican, Royalist, or Bonapartist--but every question discussed wore a different aspect. Once or twice there was a question of Louis XIV and what he would have done in certain cases,--the religious question always a passionate one. That of course I never discussed, being a Protestant, and knowing quite well that the real fervent Catholics think Protestants have no religion.

I was out driving with a friend one morning in Lent (Holy Week), Thursday I think--and said I could not be out late, as I must go to church--perhaps she would drop me at the Protestant Chapel in the Avenue de la Grand Armée. She was so absolutely astonished that it was almost funny, though I was half angry too. "You are going to church on Holy Thursday. I didn't know Protestants ever kept Lent, or Holy Week or any saint's day." "Don't you think we ever go to church?" "Oh, yes, to a conference or sermon on Sundays, but you are not pratiquant like us." I was really put out, and tried another day, when she was sitting with me, to show her our prayerbook, and explained that the Creed and the Lord's Prayer, to say nothing of various other prayers, were just the same as in her livre de Messe, but I didn't make any impression upon her--her only remark being, "I suppose you do believe in God,"--yet she was a clever, well-educated woman--knew her French history well, and must have known what a part the French Protestants played at one time in France, when many of the great nobles were Protestants.

Years afterward, with the same friend, we were discussing the proposed marriage of the Duke of Clarence, eldest son of the late King Edward VII of England, who wanted very much to marry Princess Hélène d'Orléans, daughter of the Comte de Paris, now Duchesse d'Aosta. It was impossible for the English prince, heir to the throne, to marry a Catholic princess--it seemed equally impossible for the French princess to become a Protestant. The Pope was consulted and very strong influence brought to bear on the question, but the Catholic Church was firm. We were in London at the time, and of course heard the question much discussed. It was an interesting case, as the two young people were much in love with each other. I said to my friend:

"If I were in the place of the Princess Hélène I should make myself a Protestant. It is a big bait for the daughter of an exiled prince to be Queen of England."

"But it couldn't be; no Catholic could change her religion or make herself Protestant."

"Yet there is a precedent in your history. Your King Henri IV of beloved memory, a Protestant, didn't hesitate to make himself a Catholic to be King of France."

"Ah, but that is quite different."

"For you perhaps, chère amie, but not for us."

However, the poor young prince died suddenly of pneumonia, so the sacrifice would have been in vain.

All the autumn of '79 was very agitated. We were obliged to curtail our stay at Bourneville, our country home. Even though the Chambers were not sitting, every description of political intrigue was going on. Every day W. had an immense courrier and every second day a secretary came down from the Quai d'Orsay with despatches and papers to sign. Telegrams came all day long. W. had one or two shooting breakfasts and the long tramps in the woods rested him. The guests were generally the notabilities of the small towns and villages of his circumscription,--mayors, farmers, and small landowners. They all talked politics and W. was surprised to see how in this quiet agricultural district the fever of democracy had mounted. Usually the well-to-do farmer is very conservative, looks askance at the very advanced opinions of the young radicals, but a complete change had come over them. They seemed to think the Republic, founded at last upon a solid basis, supported by honest Republicans, would bring untold prosperity not only to the country, but to each individual, and many very modest, unpretending citizens of the small towns saw themselves conseilleurs généraux, deputies, perhaps even ministers. It was a curious change. However, on the whole, the people in our part of the world were reasonable. I was sorry to go back to town. I liked the last beautiful days of September in the country. The trees were just beginning to turn, and the rides in the woods were delightful, the roads so soft and springy. The horses seemed to like the brisk canter as much as we did. We disturbed all the forest life as we galloped along--hares and rabbits scuttled away--we saw their white tails disappearing into holes, and when we crossed a bit of plain, partridges a long distance off would rise and take their crooked flight across the fields. It was so still, always is in the woods, that the horses' feet could be heard a long way off. It was getting colder (all the country folk predicted a very cold winter) and the wood-fire looked very cheerful and comfortable in my little salon when we came in.

However, everything must end, and W. had to go back to the fight, which promised to be lively. In Paris we found people wearing furs and preparing for a cold winter. The house of the Quai d'Orsay was comfortable, well warmed, calorifères and big fires in all the rooms, and whenever there was any sun it poured into the rooms from the garden. I didn't take up my official afternoon receptions. The session had not begun, and, as it seemed extremely unlikely that the coming year would see us still at the Quai d'Orsay, it was not worth while to embark upon that dreary function. I was at home every afternoon after five--had tea in my little blue salon, and always had two or three people to keep me company. Prince Hohenlohe came often, settled himself in an armchair with his cup of tea, and talked easily and charmingly about everything. He was just back from Germany and reported Bismarck and the Emperor (I should have said, perhaps, the Emperor and Bismarck) as rather worried over the rapid strides France was making in radicalism. He reassured them, told them Grévy was essentially a man of peace, and, as long as moderate men like W., Léon Say, and their friends remained in office, things would go quietly. "Yes, if they remain. I have an idea we shan't stay much longer, and report says Freycinet will be the next premier." He evidently had heard the same report, and spoke warmly of Freycinet,--intelligent, energetic, and such a precise mind. If W. were obliged to resign, which he personally would regret, he thought Freycinet was the coming man--unless Gambetta wanted to be premier. He didn't think he did, was not quite ready yet, but his hand might be forced by his friends, and of course if he wanted it, he would be the next Président du Conseil. He also told me a great many things that Blowitz had said to him--he had a great opinion of him--said he was so marvellously well-informed of all that was going on. It was curious to see how a keen, clever man like Prince Hohenlohe attached so much importance to anything that Blowitz said. The nuncio, Monseigneur Czaski, came too sometimes at tea-time. He was a charming talker, but I always felt as if he were saying exactly what he meant to and what he wanted me to repeat to W. I am never quite sure with Italians. There is always a certain reticence under their extremely natural, rather exuberant manner. Monseigneur Czaski was not an Italian by birth--a Pole, but I don't know that they inspire much more confidence.

X

PARLIAMENT BACK IN PARIS

The question of the return of the Parliament to Paris had at last been solved after endless discussions. All the Republicans were in favour of it, and they were masters of the situation. The President, Grévy, too wanted it very much. If the Chambers continued to sit at Versailles, he would be obliged to establish himself there, which he didn't want to do. Many people were very unwilling to make the change, were honestly nervous about possible disturbances in the streets, and, though they grumbled too at the loss of time, the draughty carriages of the parliamentary train, etc., they still preferred those discomforts to any possibility of rioting and street fights, and the invasion of the Chamber of Deputies by a Paris mob. W. was very anxious for the change.

He didn't in the least anticipate any trouble--his principal reason for wanting the Parliament back was the loss of time, and also to get rid of the conversations in the train, which tired him very much. He never could make himself heard without an effort, as his voice was low, had no "timbre," and he didn't hear his neighbours very well in the noise of the train. He always arrived at the station at the last minute, and got into the last carriage, hoping to be undisturbed, and have a quiet half-hour with his papers, but he was rarely left alone. If any deputy who wanted anything recognised him, he of course got in the same carriage, because he knew he was sure of a half-hour to state his case, as the minister couldn't get away from him. The Chambers met, after a short vacation in November, at last in Paris, and already there were so many interpellations announced on every possible subject, so many criticisms on the policy of the cabinet, and so many people wanting other people's places, that the session promised to be very lively--the Senate at the Palais du Luxembourg, the Deputies at the Palais Bourbon.

W. and I went over to the Luxembourg one morning early in October, to see the arrangements that had been made for the Senate. He wanted too to choose his seat. I hadn't been there in the daytime for years--I had dined once or twice at the Petit Palais with various presidents of the Senate, but my only impression was a very long drive (from the Barrière de l'Etoile where we lived) and fine high rooms with heavy gilt furniture and tapestries. The palace was built by Maria de' Medici, wife of Henri IV. After the death of that very chivalrous but very undomestic monarch, she retired to the Luxembourg, and from there as regent (her son Louis XIII was only ten years old when his father died) for some years directed the policy of France under the guidance of her favourite, the Italian Concini, and his wife.

The palace recalls very much the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, with its solid masonry and rather severe heavy architecture. It must have been a gloomy residence, notwithstanding the beautiful gardens with their broad alleys and great open spaces. The gardens are stiff, very Italian, with statues, fountains, and marble balustrades--not many flowers, except immediately around the palace, but they were flooded with sunshine that day, and the old grey pile seemed to rise out of a parterre of bright flowers. The palace has been slightly modernised, but the general architecture remains the same. Many people of all kinds have lived there since it was built--several royal princes, and the Emperor Napoleon when he was First Consul. He went from there to the Tuileries. The Luxembourg Palace has always been associated with the history of France. During the Revolution it was a prison, and many of the curious scenes one reads of at that period took place in those old walls--the grandes dames so careful of their dress and their manners, the grands seigneurs so brave and gallant, striving in every way by their witty conversation and their music (for they sang and played in the prisons all through that awful time) to distract the women and make them forget the terrible doom that was hanging over them. Many well-known people went straight from the palace to the scaffold. It seemed a fitting place for the sittings of the Senate and the deliberations of a chosen body of men, who were supposed to bring a maturer judgment and a wider experience in the discussion of all the burning questions of the day than the ardent young deputies so eager to have done with everything connected with the old régime and start fresh.

After we had inspected the palace we walked about the gardens, which were charming that bright October morning,--the sun really too strong. We found a bench in the shade, and sat there very happy, W. smoking and wondering what the next turn of the wheel would bring us. A great many people were walking about and sitting under the trees. It was quite a different public from what one saw anywhere else, many students of both sexes carrying books, small easels, and campstools,--some of the men such evident Bohemians, with long hair, sweeping moustache, and soft felt hat,--quite the type one sees in the pictures or plays of "La Vie de Bohême." Their girl companions looked very trim and neat, dressed generally in black, their clothes fitting extremely well--most of them bareheaded, but some had hats of the simplest description--none of the flaunting feathers and bright flowers one sees on the boulevards. They are a type apart, the modern grisettes, so quiet and well-behaved as to be almost respectable. One always hears that the Quartier Latin doesn't exist any more--the students are more serious, less turbulent, and that the hardworking little grisette, quite content with her simple life and pleasure, has degenerated into the danseuse of the music-halls and barrière theatres. I don't think so. A certain class of young, impecunious students will always live in that quarter and will always amuse themselves, and they will also always find girls quite ready and happy to enjoy life a little while they are young enough to live in the present, and have no cares for the future. Children were playing about in the alleys and broad, open spaces, and climbing on the fountains when the keepers of the garden were not anywhere near--their nurses sitting in a sunny corner with their work. It was quite another world, neither the Champs-Elysées nor Montmartre. All looked perfectly respectable, and the couples sitting on out-of-the-way benches, in most affectionate attitudes, were too much taken up with each other to heed the passer-by.

I went back there several times afterward, taking Francis with me, and it was curious how out of the world one felt. Paris, our Paris, might have been miles away. I learned to know some of the habitués quite well--a white-haired old gentleman who always brought bread for the birds; they knew him perfectly and would flutter down to the Square as soon as he appeared--a handsome young man with a tragic face, always alone, walking up and down muttering and talking to himself--he may have been an aspirant for the Odéon or some of the theatres in the neighbourhood--a lame man on crutches, a child walking beside him looking wistfully at the children playing about but not daring to leave her charge--groups of students hurrying through the gardens on their way to the Sorbonne, their black leather serviettes under their arms--couples always everywhere. I don't think there were many foreigners or tourists,--I never heard anything but French spoken. Even the most disreputable-looking old beggar at the gate who sold shoe-laces, learned to know us, and would run to open the door of the carriage.

With the contrariety of human nature, some people would say of feminine nature, now that I felt I was not going to live much longer on the rive gauche I was getting quite fond of it. Life was so quiet and restful in those long, narrow streets, some even with grass growing on the pavement--no trams, no omnibuses, very little passing, glimpses occasionally of big houses standing well back from the street, a good-sized courtyard in front and garden at the back--the classic Faubourg St. Germain hotel entre cour et jardin. I went to tea sometimes with a friend who lived in a big, old-fashioned house in the rue de Varenne. She lived on the fourth floor--one went up a broad, bare, cold stone staircase (which always reminded me of some of the staircases in the Roman palaces). Her rooms were large, very high ceilings, very little furniture in them, very little fire in winter, fine old family portraits on the walls, but from the windows one looked down on a lovely garden where the sun shone and the birds sang all day. It was just like being in the country, so extraordinarily quiet. A very respectable man servant in an old-fashioned brown livery, with a great many brass buttons, who looked as old as the house itself and as if he were part of it, always opened the door. Her husband was a literary man who made conférences at the Sorbonne and the Collège de France, and they lived entirely in that quarter--came very rarely to our part of Paris. He was an old friend of W.'s, and they came sometimes to dine with us. He deplored W.'s having gone to the Foreign Office--thought the Public Instruction was so much more to his tastes and habits. She had an English grandmother, knew English quite well, and read English reviews and papers. She had once seen Queen Victoria and was very interested in all that concerned her. Queen Victoria had a great prestige in France. People admired not only the wise sovereign who had weathered successfully so many changes, but the beautiful woman's life as wife and mother. She was always spoken of with the greatest respect, even by people who were not sympathetic to England as a nation.

Another of my haunts was the Convent and Maison de Santé of the Soeurs Augustines du Saint Coeur de Marie in the rue de la Santé. It was curious to turn out of the broad, busy, populous avenue, crowded with trams, omnibuses, and camions, into the narrow, quiet street, which seemed all stone walls and big doors. There was another hospital and a prison in the street, which naturally gave it rather a gloomy aspect, but once inside the courtyard of the Convent there was a complete transformation. One found one's self in a large, square, open court with arcades and buildings all around--the chapel just opposite the entrance. On one side of the court were the rooms for the patients, on the other nice rooms and small apartments which were let to invalids or old ladies, and which opened on a garden, really a park of thirteen or fourteen acres. The doors were always open, and one had a lovely view of green fields and trees. The moment you put your foot inside the court, you felt the atmosphere of peace and cheerfulness, though it was a hospital. The nuns all looked happy and smiling--they always do, and I always wonder why. Life in a cloister seems to me so narrow and monotonous and unsatisfying unless one has been bred in a convent and knows nothing of life but what the teachers tell.

I have a friend who always fills me with astonishment--a very clever, cultivated woman, no longer very young, married to a charming man, accustomed to life in its largest sense. She was utterly wretched when her husband died, but after a time she took up her life again and seemed to find interest and pleasure in the things they had done together. Suddenly she announced her intention of becoming a nun--sold her house and lovely garden, where she had spent so many happy hours with her flowers and her birds, distributed her pretty things among her friends, and accepted all the small trials of strict convent life--no bath, nor mirror, coarse underlinen and sheets--no fire, no lights, no privacy, the regular irksome routine of a nun's life, and is perfectly happy--never misses the intellectual companionship and the refinement and daintiness of her former life,--likes the commonplace routine of the convent--the books they read to each other in "recreation," simple stories one would hardly give to a child of twelve or fourteen,--the fêtes on the "mother's" birthday, when the nuns make a cake and put a wreath of roses on the mother's head.

The Soeurs Augustines are very happy in their lives, but they see a great deal more of the outside world. They always have patients in the hospital, and people in the apartments, which are much in demand. The care and attendance is very good. The ladies are very comfortable and have as many visitors as they like in the afternoon at stated hours, and the rooms are very tempting with white walls and furniture, and scrupulously clean. The cuisine is very good, everything very daintily served. All day one saw black-robed figures moving quietly across the court, carrying all kinds of invalid paraphernalia--cushions, rugs, cups of bouillon--but there was never any noise--no sound of talking or laughing. When they spoke, the voices were low, like people accustomed to a sick-room. No men were allowed in the Convent, except the doctors of course, and visitors at stated hours.

I spent many days there one spring, as C. was there for some weeks for a slight operation. She had a charming room and dressing-room, with windows giving on a garden or rather farmyard, for the soeurs had their cows and chickens. Sometimes in the evening we would see one of the sisters, her black skirt tucked up and a blue apron over it, bringing the cows back to their stables. No man could have a room in the house. F. wanted very much to be with his wife at night, as he was a busy man and away all day, and I tried to get a room for him, but the mother superior, a delightful old lady, wouldn't hear of it. However, the night before-and the night after the operation, he was allowed to remain with her,--no extra bed was put in the room--he slept on the sofa.