Paris, April 3, 1843.—Yesterday I called upon Madame de Rambuteau at the Hotel de Ville. She was coming back from service at Notre Dame and had just heard the Abbé de Ravignan preaching against feminine luxury and the want of decency in feminine fashions. He used the word "low-cut" and in speaking of low-cut dresses, he went so far as to say "Where will they stop?" and asserted that excess in this direction was not even pretty. Father de Ravignan is by temperament grave, simple and austere and such expressions were regarded as particularly daring in his mouth. However, his criticism is only too true. Women are far too extravagant: our toilets are complicated by a thousand accessories, which double the expense without producing any better effect, and young women or those who wish to be fashionable, are hardly dressed. My late uncle M. de Talleyrand, when I began to take Pauline into society, advised me most seriously to respect the decencies of dress and said to me on this subject, expressing almost the same ideas as those of M. de Ravignan, "If people show what is pretty, it is indecent, and if they show what is ugly, it is very ugly indeed." He also said of a very thin woman who disdained to wear the lightest gauze, "No one could disclose more and show less."
Paris, April 5, 1843.—Some one who ought to know told me yesterday that at the time of the coalition which discredited M. Guizot so greatly, his constant presence at the house of the Princesse de Lieven displeased and embarrassed the diplomatic body. Eventually Count Pahlen, the Russian ambassador, spoke to the Princess upon the subject in friendly terms and said that he and his colleagues would have to refrain from coming to her house in the evening if they were forced to meet M. Guizot there upon every occasion. She replied that she was so anxious to preserve her good relations with her ambassador that she would limit M. Guizot's visits. As a matter of fact she simply related to him her conversation with Count Pahlen and while assuring him of the value which she placed upon his friendship, she begged him to be less constant in his evening calls: M. Guizot replied with some bitterness, "As you please, madame, it is understood that I will see you no more in the evening until I become Minister of Foreign Affairs, when the diplomatic body will ask to be invited to your house in order that they may meet me." No prophecy could have been more exact.
Paris, April 14, 1843.—The day when General Baudrand, who had been appointed Governor to the Comte de Paris, came to pay his respects to the King, he made some modest observation concerning the weight of his responsibilities: the King interrupted him and said, "Make your mind easy, my dear general; it is understood that the governor of Paris is myself": I think that the Duchesse d'Orléans has been induced to agree to this choice because she too intends some day to say to poor General Baudrand, "I am the governor."
Yesterday evening at the house of Madame de Boigne, where I went with M. and Madame de Castellane, who have returned from Rome, the conversation naturally turned upon Cardinal Consalvi, whom I knew very well. He was kind, keen-sighted, witty and agreeable as a man of the world; there was nothing clerical about him except his dress. The Chancellor[ [85] who was also with Madame de Boigne, related that when the whole weight of governmental responsibility rested upon the Cardinal at Rome, he still took pains to send out theatre tickets and to perform all the politenesses and duties of social life. At the Congress of Vienna where he was instructed to defend the interests of the Holy Chair and to obtain the restoration of the legations if possible, I heard him one day vigorously and cleverly advancing the rights of the Pope. M. de Talleyrand was discussing this question with him: after several arguments for and against, the Cardinal suddenly cried with inimitable Italian gesture and accent, "But why can you not give us a little territory here on earth; we will give you as much as you like in the world above"; with which words he raised his hands and his eyes to Heaven with wonderful energy.
Madame de Boigne, who is generally as reserved as she is restrained, went so far as to quote a somewhat frivolous remark which Pozzo had made to her at the time of the Queen of England's marriage. Madame de Boigne had asked Pozzo whom the Queen of England was to marry and he replied, "Another scion of royalty": thus he designated the Coburgs.
Paris, April 15, 1843.—Yesterday the Abbé Dupanloup preached upon the Agony, at Saint Roch, and showed much cleverness and emotional power, but his voice was somewhat too artificially modulated, he was at times wearisome and repeated himself, and the long passage about the mother's grief felt by the Virgin would have been more effective if it had been shortened by half. As he was almost speaking to the Queen, who was with the Princesses in a pew opposite the pulpit, he should have spared her some of the analysis of maternal grief and its horrors, which renewed the tortures of the poor Queen: she burst into tears, and some of those present had the bad taste to rise in their places in order to see her weep.
The dress which Prince Augustus of Saxe Coburg is to wear upon his marriage day caused some perplexity,[ [86] but the King of Saxony, his cousin, solved the difficulty by at once appointing him a general.
Paris, April 16, 1843.—Dr. Cogny reminded me yesterday of M. de Talleyrand's reply to some one who had said before him that the wise man should live his life in secret: "I see no necessity for secrecy or for ostentation; a man should be simply what he is, without forethought or affectation." M. de Talleyrand was, in fact, so natural in every respect and laid such stress upon the truth in matters of life that I have constantly known him to say, to write and to repeat even by way of exclamation, as if he were replying to his own thoughts, "What a fine thing simplicity is."
M. de Barante, during his embassy at Turin, convinced himself that Matthioli, whom some historians have supposed to be the famous Iron Mask, died at Piedmont, and could not possibly be identified with that celebrated personage. Louis XVIII. was so curious concerning this mystery, the truth of which was ultimately known only to Louis XVI., that upon the very day when he saw his unhappy niece, the Duchesse d'Angoulême at Mitau, he questioned her to learn whether Louis XVI. before his death had entrusted her with this secret. The Princess replied that he had not. Louis XVIII. himself told this to the Duc Decazes. It is an incident which does more honour to his curiosity than to his good feeling. On this subject another point occurs to me which I have often heard related by my late uncle, M. de Talleyrand, who never quoted it without expressing his profound astonishment. When he was Minister of Foreign Affairs a courier came to him one evening bearing news which might have disturbed the equanimity of Louis XVIII.: he therefore postponed the communication of it to the King until the next morning, and coming before the King at an early hour, he said to him, "Sire, as I was afraid of spoiling your Majesty's rest, I postponed bringing these papers until this morning." The King in surprise replied, "Nothing disturbs my sleep, as you may see from this instance: the most dreadful blow of my life was my brother's death; the courier who brought this dreadful news arrived at eight o'clock in the evening; for several hours I was quite overcome, but at midnight I went to bed and slept my usual eight hours."
Paris, April 20, 1843.—The different people in attendance upon the Duchesse d'Orléans yesterday received a letter from the Princess saying that the mourning for the Duc d'Orléans was too serious a matter to be interrupted by any incident, and that consequently no one in her service would be able to suspend his mourning for the marriage of Princesse Clémentine. The letter concluded with these words, "Such is my intention." Some people wish to regard this letter as a decided criticism of the fact that Princesse Clémentine's marriage is to be celebrated before the year of mourning for the Prince has expired. It is not the first instance which has shown a certain divergence between the Duchesse d'Orléans and the Royal Family.