"Thank you," said Marthe quietly, but nevertheless refused to be kissed.
Félix Faure admired the drawing-room and the "winter-garden," examined closely as a connoisseur a few pieces of antique furniture, and then stopping near the piano: "Ah! It is no fun to be a President," he sighed. "I am deprived of music.... Of course the band of the Republican Guard plays at the dinner-parties at the Elysée, and there is the Opera, and... the Marseillaise, wherever I go, but I seldom, if ever, hear the music I love, chamber music, or a simple song, sung at the piano!"
He told me that he had heard about the musical parties at my house, and that his friend Massenet was also my friend, and finally asked whether I would sing, just for once, at the Elysée.
"No, M. le President," I replied. "I don't believe I could sing there.... It seems to me that everything official is necessarily inartistic, and I should not care to sing in surroundings that were uncongenial."
He walked to my husband's studio. The President was delighted with the picture.
"Do you know," he asked me, "that they are singing a song on the boulevards about the white béret I wore at the Alpine manœuvres?"
"I suppose they are comparing it to Henri IV.'s famous white plume, M. le President," a young officer suggested.
"No,... I wish they did.... There's nothing historical about the song. Still, it is an advertisement, and even Presidents need réclame.... It is a very caustic but still very jolly song."
Marthe exclaimed: "Please sing it to me!"