We dined last night at the Ernesto Maderos' in their handsome house in the Paseo, large enough to lose the six children in. Madame M. has been in mourning (something that seems to happen to women oftener in Mexico than in other places) and now is "out" again.
The official Mexicans spare no expense on the occasions when they open their houses, but it is always with ceremony, without individuality; enfin Mexicans receiving foreigners. The Riedls were there, and the Simons; I have an idea Mr. S. finds his task a big one. He rarely goes out, but this, to the Secretary of the Treasury, was strictly within his orbit. Madame Simon wore a beautiful black pailletté gown, with subtle touches of "point de Venise," recently out from Paris.
She has driven us all nearly crazy, anyway, with the ravishing croquis and échantillons Drecoll and Doeuillet have been sending her, and which lie, temptingly, among the latest French reviews and newest books on her table.
I sat by Lascurain, talking pleasantly of things not political; that ground is volcanic and no place for foreigners, even well-disposed. The new Belgian chargé, Letellier, was on my other side.
A letter to-day from Madame de la G. from Châlons-sur-Marne, where the Marquis is in command of the garrison. She will always be, to me, typical of the grandes dames de France as they have appeared throughout the centuries—those highly born, highly placed, highly cultured women with many natural gifts, whose wit and beauty are the common heritage of us all.
I bear that picture of her in her armchair, so beautifully dressed, especially in that white chiffon gown we liked so much, with a single dusky rose at her slender waist, her dark hair so perfectly coiffé, her charming welcoming smile, with its hint of suffering borne, remote from miseries, yet knowing pain. I can see the background of bookcases; near by her shining tea-table, and the little low table with its vase of flowers and bibelots, and the latest book with a paper-cutter in it, or some consoling volume whose pages were cut by other generations.[56]
MEXICAN NUNS GOING TO MASS
Photograph by Ravell
With a change of costume, change of hours of visits and dinner, she pictures to my imagination Madame de Sévigné writing to Madame de Grignan, Madame de la Fayette talking to La Rochefoucauld—all that flowering of an elegance of mind with its roots of culture, not alone in books, but in the heart. Her mind is receptive, yet so giving, her conversations so sparkling, with its fond of philosophies and politics, its richness of nuance, its elastic impersonality, yet French, though dipped in a thousand dyes and run in a thousand molds.