The conversation having turned toward politics, he spoke much of Bismarck and Moltke, pronouncing the name of the latter in one syllable. He said that Bismarck was very kind personally to Thiers during the terrible negotiations; that if Bismarck could have had his way he would have asked a larger indemnity,—say, seven milliards,—and would have left Alsace-Lorraine to France; that France would gladly have paid a much larger sum than five milliards if she could have retained Alsace- Lorraine; that Bismarck would have made concessions; but that ``Molkt'' would not. He added that Bismarck told ``Molkt'' that he—the latter—had, by insisting on territory, made peace too difficult. Saint-Hilaire dwelt long on the fearful legacy of standing armies left by the policy which Germany finally adopted, and evidently considered a great international war as approaching.[16]
[16] December, 1880.
Dining afterward at the Foreign Office with my old friend Millet, who was second in command there, I met various interesting Frenchmen, but was most of all pleased with M. Ribot. Having distinguished himself by philosophical studies and made a high reputation in the French parliament, he was naturally on his way to the commanding post in the ministry which he afterward obtained. His wife, an American, was especially attractive.
It is a thousand pities that a country possessing such men is so widely known to the world, not by these, but by novelists and dramatists largely retailing filth, journalists largely given to the invention of sensational lies, politicians largely obeying either atheistic demagogues or clerical intriguers; and all together acting like a swarm of obscene, tricky, mangy monkeys chattering, squealing, and tweaking one another's tails in a cage. Some of these monkeys I saw performing their antics in the National Assembly then sitting at Versailles; and it saddened me to see the nobler element in that assemblage thwarted by such featherbrained creatures.[16]
[16] December, 1880.
Another man of note, next whom I found myself at a dinner-party, was M. de Lesseps. I still believe him to have been a great and true man, despite the cloud of fraud which the misdeeds of others drew over his latter days. Among sundry comments on our country, he said that he had visited Salt Lake City, and thought a policy of force against the Mormons a mistake. In this I feel sure that he was right. Years ago I was convinced by Bishop Tuttle of the Protestant Episcopal Church, who had been stationed for some years at Salt Lake City, that a waiting policy, in which proper civilization can be brought to bear upon the Mormons, is the true course.
On the following Sunday I heard P<e!>re Hyacinthe preach, as at several visits before; but the only thing at all memorable was a rather happy application of Voltaire's remark on the Holy Roman Empire, ``Ni Saint, ni Empire, ni Romain.''
At the salon of Madame Edmond Adam, eminent as a writer of review articles and as a hater of everything Teutonic, I was presented to a crowd of literary men who, though at that moment striking the stars with their lofty heads, have since dropped into oblivion. Among these I especially remember <E'>mile de Girardin, editor, spouter, intriguer—the ``Grand <E'>mile,'' who boasted that he invented and presented to the French people a new idea every day. This futile activity of his always seemed to me best expressed in the American simile: ``Busy as a bee in a tar-barrel.'' There was, indeed, one thing to his credit: he had somehow inspired his former wife, the gifted Delphine Gay, with a belief in his greatness; and a pretty story was current illustrating this. During the revolution of 1848, various men of note, calling on Madame Girardin, expressed alarm at the progress of that most foolish of overturns, when she said, with an air of great solemnity, and pointing upward, ``Gentlemen, there is one above who watches over France. (Il y a un l<a!>-haut qui veille sur la France.)'' All were greatly impressed by this evidence of sublime faith, until the context showed that it was not the Almighty in whom she put her trust, but the great <E'>mile, whose study was just above her parlor.
This reminds me that, during my student days at Paris, I attended the funeral of this gifted lady, and in the crowd of well-known persons present noticed especially Alexandre Dumas. He was very tall and large, with an African head, thick lips, and bushy, crisp hair. He evidently intended to be seen. His good-natured vanity was as undisguised as when his famous son said of him in his presence, ``My father is so vain that he is capable of standing in livery behind his own carriage to make people think he sports a negro footman.''
Going southward, I stopped at Bourges, and was fascinated by the amazing stonework of the crypt. How the mediaeval cathedral-builders were able to accomplish such intricate work with the means at their command is still one of the great mysteries. There is to-day in the United States no group of workmen who could execute anything approaching this work, to say nothing of such pieces as the vaulting of Henry VII's Chapel at Westminster or of King's College Chapel at Cambridge.