It was nightmare. Hatred of all this luxury and glare and godlessness flooded me in so physical and overwhelming a fashion that I was near to fainting. I turned from the fleshly men, the hard horrible women: Vanity, Vanity. There was more Resolution in that night's distaste than a thousand sealed envelopes. I pleaded headache, and refused to dance again. Elise was no comfort: she was indifferent tonight, not rebellious like me. "What did I tell you?" was the best she could do.
I could watch them no longer, and suddenly left the ballroom, to wander about the palace rooms, deliberately turning my thoughts to the old history of this place that I might forget the present loathing. Whether or no much reading be a weariness to the flesh, to me it was a resource unfailing: I could take refuge from the day's trouble in reviewing the glory of yesterday. As for the Tuileries Palace, I would wager that no other living English girl could have told herself its tale much more fully: summoned more surely the long procession of its grey and glittering dead....
Catherine de Medici, first builder of the palace, warned by an astrologer that it would end in tragedy and flames. Louis XIV, the Sun King, lording it in Carrousel fêtes. Marie-Antoinette, Austrian woman, brought here with her poor husband from Versailles, brought back again a prisoner after Varennes. June '92, first invasion of the palace by the mob: threats, insults and obscene shouts. September '92, when the vile mob invaded, sent Louis and Marie to Conciergerie prison, came here to yell, steal, sack, blaspheme, and murder, hacking to pieces the old faithful servants of the crown, slashing with knives the dying and the doctors attending to the dying: prostitutes ransacked the Queen's wardrobes and wallowed, loathsomely, in her bed, kicking up their legs in democratic glee. Revolutionaries, Girondins, Mountainists, with Prince Robespierre—mean, savage and pure. The flat-haired Corsican youth. From here he went forth to be crowned, from here the Pope of Rome went forth to crown him. Here reigned the pomp and splendour of the Empire; hither entered Josephine in triumph and hence slunk out in disgrace; hither came Marie-Louise (Austrian woman too) in pomp processional, hence she fled a fugitive. These walls stared at the coming and going of the Hundred Days; at bellied Eighteenth Louis and Charles the Tenth his brother, last king of Ancient France; at Louis-Philippe of pear-shaped head and Brethering umbrella; at the wild mobs of '48 (my birth year), pillaging anew. Phrensy of peoples, folly of Kings: change and change about. Each new monarch had sagely wagged his head: "The others, ha ha!—I know the mistakes they made—I will profit by their example—my sojourn here is eternal—these barns are big, but I will build greater."
With my Emperor permanence had come at last. Him no fears could shake: not by divine right nor mere parliaments nor yet by plebiscite alone had he reached the palace, but by dreams, which alone come true. Here he had entered in a state which mocked his poor predecessors; here on the balcony he had stood, while the crowd in the gardens madly acclaimed him, and the Marshal St. Arnaud proclaimed the Second Empire. Here in a pomp and luxury before unknown he had reigned and gloried. From these doors, at the Depart for Italy, he had sallied forth; to sally forth again to Notre-Dame, for the Te-Deum for Solferino, through roads strewn with flowers and adoration. He had made Paris the capital of capitals, himself the King of Kings, this Palace the centre of the universe....
One morning a letter reached the Countess from Lord Tawborough. He was at an hotel in Paris; might he take the liberty of calling?
My heart beat fast with joyful expectation.
He came, once and again. We went out together, sometimes with the others, oftenmost alone—on long walks in the Paris streets or excursions to Versailles and the environs. He was an oasis in this city-wilderness of evil faces: the sight of this Englishman, the clean-featured noble face, the fairy godfather to whom I owed all the rich experiences of the past year, Rachel's little boy, gave me a peaceful pleasure which after my hectic ambitions and intrigues was like dew after rain. The interest of his conversation, the sense of worth and superiority (to me) he imparted cleared my foolish brain and cooled my insane pride. "You'd call this gush if it were Suzanne who thought it!" whispered Satan. "Yes Sir," I replied, "but Tawborough is not Fouquier"—Everywoman's reply. Intellect, character, kindness, purity, race—it was a banquet of pure delight.
I tried to analyse for myself the reasons for the exhilaration which filled me in his presence, and in no other presence; not in Grandmother's, though I had loved her always: not in Elise's, though I loved her now. I could unravel no reasons, only ponder on the facts: (1) that his was the only face I knew which gave me a positive, physical joy, which filled me with tenderness and wonder. I would have fed on his face unceasingly if I had dared; (2) that in his presence alone the consciousness of self, of omnipresent Mary, left me, and I felt free, unconscious, unburdened, happy: if when he was at hand I stopped suddenly and asked myself "And Eternity?" I could laugh, and flout the bogey; (3) I apprehended that these emotions were reciprocal, and this was the chief delight of all.
Yet, I argued, this was not Love. Love was Robbie. Love was Christmas-Night, one day to be renewed. Still, what lesser word than love could describe the admiration, the gratitude, the fluttering tenderness, the pure exultant affection I felt? So in my diary I called it love (with a small l) and kept the capital for Robbie.