Another agreeable dinner at the French Legation last night. Maurice Raoul Duval[34] and his English-American wife recently arrived, struck a charming note of the great and far world. He is a very tall, very good-looking Frenchman, a polo-player and sportsman of note, hoping to remake, with interests here, a lost fortune.
An atmosphere of recent married happiness hung about them, with the romantic adventure of Mexico as background.
His wife was handsome and sparkling in a white-throated way, wearing a very good black dress and wedding jewels. It was quite a treat to see something new, we are all sick of one another's things. I am sure if she had worn the waistband outside one would have seen the word "Worth." They are to be here some time, and will contribute to the gaiety of the nations assembled in the vale of Anahuac.
Count du Boisrouvray[35] took me out. He is here to look after the large estates of his wife, who is now in France, and whose mother, née De la Torre, is Mexican. Madame Lefaivre tells me she is very beautiful and gifted, the mother of many little children. Monsieur du B. is musical—plays the violoncello like an artist. A day or two ago, when I dropped into Madame Simon's late in the afternoon, they were playing Mozart beautifully. The clever Frenchman's clever eye is on the Mexican situation, and finds nothing encouraging, "plutôt le commencement de la fin." Though the French may line every subject, conversationally, with the agreeable color of some theory, their minds are so constructed that they can't reject facts.
February 7th.
Until the small, wee hours last night I was reading a relation of the foundation of the bishoprics of Tlaxcala, Michoacan, and Oaxaca in the sixteenth century, printed from the manuscripts in the collection of Don Joaquin García Icazbalceta, and published a few years ago by his son, Don Luis García Pimentel, possessed of the finest Hispano-American library in Mexico.
The story of difficulties surmounted, the dangers overcome, the founding and building of the various churches and schools and hospitals, is enthralling, and made me think a little of the Livre des Fondations of Saint Theresa, that we read at Wörishofen with so much pleasure. The account of the baptism of the four chiefs of Tlaxcala, who had such distinguished godfathers as Cortés, Pedro de Alvarado, Gonzalo de Sandoval, and Cristóbal de Olid, make a page of the realistic school of to-day seem like a record of tawdry dreams.
The faces of these early bishops and priests of Mexico are extraordinary. The life is concentrated in and between the eyes, the foreheads are those of thinkers, the lines about the mouths, compassionate, yet unflinching, are those of workers, and, however different the actual structure of the faces, the expression is the same. I found a couple of old engravings the other day, one of Las Casas, and one of Ripalda, yellowed, stained, evidently torn out of some old book. The tale of labors and difficulties overcome is stamped upon their faces. Their watchword was "Al rey infinitas tierras, y a Dios infinitas almas,"[36] and I can't but think that our political slogans seem a bit shabby in comparison. Our Monroe doctrine, which controls their destinies, our dollar diplomacy, and all the rest, make but a poor figure.
Evening.
Under the impression of the foundations of the Bishops of Tlaxcala, etc., I strayed into the Biblioteca Nacional on my way home after some errands. It is what once was one of the most beautiful churches in Mexico, San Agustin, built at the end of the seventeenth century.