The Faubourg Saint-Germain is more irreconcilable than ever. Napoleon had places which he could bestow, estates which he might restore: he could threaten confiscations. There is nothing of that sort nowadays; and so they all sulk with an easy insolence which is quite indescribable. The fact is that if one is not compelled to go there the Court is too mixed to be attractive. I am sorry about it for the sake of the Queen, whom I both love and honour.
It seems that Baron de Werther is much annoyed with Palmerston and the Duc de Broglie. Certainly there is a great deal of ill-humour in the air, but M. de Talleyrand still says that it will not find its outlet in shot and shell.
Paris, December 11, 1833.—Yesterday I dined, along with M. de Talleyrand, at the Thiers'. There was no one but himself, his wife, his father and mother-in-law; Mignet, who talked platitudes about Spain, and Bertin de Veaux, who talked of nothing but the bull-fights he saw at Saint Sebastian.
Madame Thiers, who is only sixteen, looks nineteen. She has a fine colour, pretty hair, a good shape, large eyes which have as yet nothing to express, a disagreeable mouth, an unpleasing smile, and a too prominent forehead. She says nothing herself, hardly answers when she is spoken to, and she seemed thoroughly bored with us all. She has no presence, and no idea of how to behave in society, but no doubt she may acquire all this. Perhaps she will take only too much trouble for other people than her little husband, who is very much in love and very jealous—ashamed of it too, I gather, from what he told me. The looks his young wife bestows on him are very cold; she is not shy, but inclined to be sulky, and not at all inclined to make herself pleasant.
I used to think Madame Dosne had the remains of beauty, but I thought on this occasion that she never could have been good looking. She has an unpleasing laugh, which is ironical without being gay. Her conversation is witty and animated, but her dress was pink and girlish, and affectedly simple to a degree which quite astonished me.
Paris, December 15, 1833.—Yesterday I dined with the King. M. de Talleyrand was dining with the Prince Royal. During dinner the King spoke of nothing but traditions and memories of the past and ancient castles. I was quite at home. First we exhausted the topic of Touraine: he promised stained glass and portraits of Louis XI. and Louis XII. for Amboise. He will buy back the remains of Montrichard, and will prevent the ruin of the Château de Langeais. If he does all this my dinner will not have been in vain! He then told me about the restorations he is having done at Fontainbleau, and ended by explaining to me his great plan for Versailles, which is really great and worthy of a great-grandson of Louis XIV. But will it come to pass? The conversation then turned on the new work which he has had done at the Tuileries themselves. He gave orders for the whole palace to be lit up, and after dinner he took me all through it.
Everything is really fine, very fine; and if the staircase, which is rich and elegant, were only a little broader, it would be quite perfect. This promenade took us from the Pavillon de Flore to the Pavillon de Marsan. Here the King asked me if I would like to pay a visit to his son, and I said, of course, that I would follow the King anywhere. We found the Duc d'Orléans playing whist with M. de Talleyrand, whose friends the Prince had invited to meet him.
The Prince's apartments are too beautifully furnished for a man's; that is the only criticism one can make, for they are full of lovely things found in the Royal garde-meuble, where all the fine pieces of the time of Louis XIV. were placed at the Revolution, and it did not occur to anyone at the time of the Restoration to take them out. The Duc d'Orléans has put a great many of them in his rooms. It is curious how often I have been at the Tuileries without ever suspecting the presence of the interesting things collected there. Thus, on this occasion in the King's room, among other things with which I was unfamiliar, I saw a portrait of Louis XIV. as a baby represented as a sleeping Cupid, and another of Anne of Austria as Minerva. I also saw some allegorical wood-carving of the time of Catherine de Medici, who built the Tuileries.
The King is an admirable guide to his palaces. I wondered during all our conversation how a man could know the traditions of his family so well and be so proud of them, and yet——. However!
I leave the day after to-morrow for London.