A REPUBLICAN VICTORY AND A NEW MINISTRY
The elections took place in October-November, 1877, and gave at once a great Republican majority. W. and his two colleagues, Count de St. Vallier and Henri Martin, had an easy victory, but a great many of their personal friends, moderates, were beaten. The centres were decidedly weaker in the new Chambers. There was not much hope left of uniting the two centres, Droite et Gauche, in the famous "fusion" which had been a dream of the moderate men.
The new Chambers assembled at Versailles in November. The Broglie cabinet was out, but a new ministry of the Right faced the new Parliament. Their life was very short and stormy; they were really dead before they began to exist and in December the marshal sent for M. Dufaure and charged him to form a Ministère de Gauche. None of his personal friends, except General Borel at the War Office, was in the new combination. W. was named to the Foreign Office. I was rather disappointed when he came home and told me he had accepted that portfolio. I thought his old ministry, Public Instruction, suited him so well, the work interested him, was entirely to his taste. He knew all the literary and educational world, not only in France but everywhere else—England, of course, where he had kept up with many of his Cambridge comrades, and Germany, where he also had literary connections. However, that wide acquaintance and his perfect knowledge of English and English people helped him very much at once, not only at the Quai d'Orsay, but in all the years he was in England as ambassador.
The new ministry, with Dufaure as President of the Council, Léon Say at the Finances, M. de Freycinet at Public Works, and W. at the Foreign Office was announced the 14th of December, 1877. The preliminaries had been long and difficult—the marshal and his friends on one side—the Republicans and Gambetta on the other—the moderates trying to keep things together. Personally, I was rather sorry W. had agreed to be a member of the cabinet; I was not very keen about official life and foresaw a great deal that would be disagreeable. Politics played such a part in social life. All the "society," the Faubourg St. Germain (which represents the old names and titles of France), was violently opposed to the Republic. I was astonished the first years of my married life in France, to see people of certain position and standing give the cold shoulder to men they had known all their lives because they were Republicans, knowing them quite well to be honourable, independent gentlemen, wanting nothing from the Republic—merely trying to do their best for the country. I only realised by degrees that people held off a little from me sometimes, as the wife of a Republican deputy. I didn't care particularly, as I had never lived in France, and knew very few people, but it didn't make social relations very pleasant, and I should have been better pleased if W. had taken no active part. However, that feeling was only temporary. I soon became keenly interested in politics (I suppose it is in the blood—all the men in my family in America were politicians) and in the discussion of the various questions which were rapidly changing France into something quite different. Whether the change has been for the better it would be hard to say even now, after more than thirty-five years of the Republic.
Freycinet was a great strength. He was absolutely Republican, but moderate—very clever and energetic, a great friend of Gambetta's—and a beautiful speaker. I have heard men say who didn't care about him particularly, and who were not at all of his way of thinking, that they would rather not discuss with him. He was sure to win them over to his cause with his wonderful, clear persuasive arguments.
[Illustration: Palace of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paris.]
The first days were very busy ones. W. had to see all his staff (a very large one) of the Foreign Office, and organise his own cabinet. He was out all day, until late in the evening, at the Quai d'Orsay; used to go over there about ten or ten-thirty, breakfast there, and get back for a very late dinner, and always had a director or secretary working with him at our own house after dinner. I went over three or four times to inspect the ministry, as I had a presentiment we should end by living there. The house is large and handsome, with a fine staircase and large high rooms. The furniture of course was "ministerial"—stiff and heavy—gold-backed chairs and sofas standing in rows against the walls. There were some good pictures, among others the "Congrès de Paris," which occupies a prominent place in one of the salons, and splendid tapestries. The most attractive thing was a fine large garden at the back, but, as the living-rooms were up-stairs, we didn't use it very much. The lower rooms, which opened on the gardens, were only used as reception-rooms. The minister's cabinet was also down-stairs, communicating by a small staircase with his bedroom, just overhead. The front of the house looks on the Seine; we had always a charming view from the windows, at night particularly, when all the little steamers (mouches) were passing with their lights. I had of course to make acquaintance with all the diplomatic corps. I knew all the ambassadors and most of the ministers, but there were some representatives of the smaller powers and South American Republics with whom I had never come in contact. Again I paid a formal official visit to the Maréchale de MacMahon as soon as the ministry was announced. She was perfectly polite and correct, but one felt at once she hadn't the slightest sympathy for anything Republican, and we never got to know each other any better all the months we were thrown together. We remained for several weeks at our own house, and then most reluctantly determined to install ourselves at the ministry. W. worked always very late after dinner, and he felt it was not possible to ask his directors, all important men of a certain age, to come up to the Quartier de l'Etoile at ten o'clock and keep them busy until midnight. W.'s new chef de cabinet, Comte de Pontécoulant, was very anxious that we should move, thought everything would be simplified if W. were living over there. I had never known Pontécoulant until W. chose him as his chef de cabinet. He was a diplomatist with some years of service behind him, and was perfectly au courant of all the routine and habits of the Foreign Office. He paid me a short formal visit soon after he had accepted the post; we exchanged a few remarks about the situation, I hoped we would faire bon ménage, and had no particular impression of him except that he was very French and stiff; I didn't suppose I should see much of him. It seems curious now to look back upon that first interview. We all became so fond of him, he was a loyal, faithful friend, was always ready to help me in any small difficulties, and I went to him for everything—visits, servants, horses, etc. W. had no time for any details or amenities of life. We moved over just before New Year's day. As the gros mobilier was already there, we only took over personal things, grand piano, screens, tables, easy chairs, and small ornaments and bibelots. These were all sent off in a van early one morning, and after luncheon I went over, having given rendezvous to Pontécoulant and M. Kruft, chef du matériel, an excellent, intelligent man, who was most useful and devoted to me the two years I lived at the ministry. I was very depressed when we drove into the courtyard. I had never lived on that side of the river, and felt cut off from all my belongings,—the bridge a terror, so cold in winter, so hot in summer,—I never got accustomed to it, never crossed it on foot. The sight of the great empty rooms didn't reassure me. The reception-rooms of course were very handsome. There were a great many servants, huissiers, and footmen standing about, and people waiting in the big drawing-room to speak to W. The living-rooms up-stairs were ghastly—looked bare and uncomfortable in the highest degree. They were large and high and looked down upon the garden, though that on a bleak December day was not very cheerful—but there were possibilities. Kruft was very sympathetic, understood quite well how I felt, and was ready to do anything in the way of stoves, baths, wardrobes in the lingerie, new carpets, and curtains, that I wanted. Pontécoulant too was eminently practical, and I was quite amused to find myself discussing lingeries and bathrooms with a 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 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 boudoir for ourselves and our intimate friends. My special huissier, Gérard, 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 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 Pontécoulant 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 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 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 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 had been accustomed to when the Duc Décazes 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 hardly perceptible), and corridors all lighted "à 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 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 the Elysée 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. Honoré to see the carriages. The English carriage is always the best; they understand all the details of harness and livery so much better than any one else. The marshal and his family were established at the Elysée. 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 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 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 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 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 Elysée every Thursday evening—he and his staff in uniform, also all the officers who came, which made a brilliant gathering. Their big dinners 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 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 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 habitués were the late Lord Houghton, a delightful talker; Lord Dufferin, then ambassador in St. Petersburg; Sir Henry Layard, 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 Congrès de Berlin, and W. has often told me how brilliantly he defended his cause; General Ignatieff, Prince Orloff, the nunzio Monsignor Czascki, quite charming, the type of the prélat 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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, 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 fêtes at Compiègne, 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 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 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, 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 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 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, 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 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 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, 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 conférence on the French Revolution and the causes which led up to it, culminating in the Terror 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 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 1866, just after the end of the long struggle 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 memories for father, who had been there a great deal in his young days, first as an élève 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 1815 during the Restoration Marshal Ney had been shot. He 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 much interested in everything relating to Général Marquis de Lafayette, who left an undying memory in America, and many pilgrimages were made to the Château 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 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 Maréchal 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 idea that there are no châteaux, 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 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 châteaux of Chaumont, Chenonceaux, Azay-le-Rideau, Maintenon, Dampierre, Josselin, Valençay, and scores of others, there are quantities of small Louis XV châteaux and manoirs, half hidden in a corner of a forest, which the stranger 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 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 châteaux—some just on the border of the highroad, separated from it by high iron 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 curé, (curate's garden)—but in great 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 châteaux 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 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 châteaux 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 ones can combine a rabbit hutch with the flowers they are quite happy.
I have heard W. speak sometimes of a fine old château 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 château 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-Général, over which he presided, but he was rarely able to stay all through the session. He was always present on the opening day, and at the préfet'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 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 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 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 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 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.