CHAPTER IX
THE FRIENDSHIP OF CHRIST
One night a little card was placed on the table d'hôte of the Hôtel Meurice, in the Rue de Rivoli, intimating to the guests that the Maréchale would speak at an informal meeting in the salon after dinner. Among those who came to see and hear her was a little Russian lady with deep and thoughtful hazel eyes. She was the celebrated Princess Nancy (properly Anastasia) Malzoff of the Russian court. One of the Czarinas died in her arms. She was a friend of King Edward VII, and her brilliant wit made her a welcome figure in every court of Europe. She spoke eight languages.
She was now well advanced in life, and thought she had known everybody worth knowing and seen everything worth seeing in the world. But that evening was the beginning of a new life of peace and joy such as she had never dreamed of. From the moment the Maréchale opened her lips, she was fascinated, first by the speaker, and then still more by the message. Next morning she came in her carriage to the Villette. The Maréchale was scarcely well enough to receive her, but she would not take a "No." When she entered the Maréchale's room, she threw herself by the bedside and exclaimed, "Oh! tell me, how did you get to know Him?"
This was the commencement of a seven years' friendship, and during all that time she was never out of reach without writing the Maréchale every second day.
The Princess was a member of the orthodox Greek Church. Her mother had married her off at sixteen, and she had eleven children by the time she was twenty-eight. When she found that her husband had become unfaithful, she dismissed him with an emphatic "C'est fini!" and for more than a quarter of a century she had never seen him.
The Maréchale listened with deep sympathy to the story of her life, and then said, "You must forgive him, if you would be forgiven."
"Never, never!"
"Yes, if you want Christ, forgive him. Never mind what he has done, you must forgive him."
The Princess could not. A struggle went on in her mind for six weeks. She began to come to the meetings at the Rue Auber, but she had no peace. The Maréchale opened the question again.