[Illustration: William E. Gladstone. From a photograph by Samuel A.
Walker, London.]
We were often asked for permits by our English and American friends to see all the places of historical interest in Paris, and the two places which all wanted to see were the Conciergerie and Napoleon's tomb at the Invalides. When we first came to Paris in 1866, just after the end of the long struggle between the North and South in America, our first visits too were for the Conciergerie, Invalides, and Notre Dame, where my father had not been since he had gone as a very young man with all Paris to see the flags that had been brought back from Austerlitz. They were interesting days, those first ones in Paris, so full of memories for father, who had been there a great deal in his young days, first as an élève in the Ecole Polytechnique, later when the Allies were in Paris. He took us one day to the Luxembourg Gardens, to see if he could find any trace of the spot where in 1815 during the Restoration Marshal Ney had been shot. He was in Paris at the time, and was in the garden a few hours after the execution—remembered quite well the wall against which the marshal stood—and the comments of the crowd, not very flattering for the Government in executing one of France's bravest and most brilliant soldiers.
All the Americans who came to see us at the Quai d'Orsay were much interested in everything relating to Général Marquis de Lafayette, who left an undying memory in America, and many pilgrimages were made to the Château de la Grange, where the Marquis de Lafayette spent the last years of his life and extended a large and gracious hospitality to all his friends. It is an interesting old place, with a moat all around it and high solid stone walls, where one still sees the hole that was made in the wall by a cannon-ball sent by Maréchal de Turenne as he was passing with his troops, as a friendly souvenir to the owner, with whom he was not on good terms. So many Americans and English too are imbued with the idea that there are no châteaux, no country life in France, that I am delighted when they can see that there are just as many as in any other country. A very clever American writer, whose books have been much read and admired, says that when travelling in France in the country, he never saw any signs of wealth or gentlemen's property. I think he didn't want to admire anything French, but I wonder in what part of France he has travelled. Besides the well-known historic châteaux of Chaumont, Chenonceaux, Azay-le-Rideau, Maintenon, Dampierre, Josselin, Valençay, and scores of others, there are quantities of small Louis XV châteaux and manoirs, half hidden in a corner of a forest, which the stranger never sees. They are quite charming, built of red brick with white copings, with stiff old-fashioned gardens, and trees cut into all sorts of fantastic shapes. Sometimes the parish church touches the castle on one side, and there is a private entrance for the seigneurs. The interior arrangements in some of the old ones leave much to be desired in the way of comfort and modern improvements,—lighting very bad, neither gas nor electricity, and I should think no baths anywhere, hardly a tub. On the banks of the Seine and the Loire, near the great forests, in all the departments near Paris there are quantities of châteaux—some just on the border of the highroad, separated from it by high iron gates, through which one sees long winding alleys with stone benches and vases with red geraniums planted in them, a sun-dial and stiff formal rows of trees—some less pretentious with merely an ordinary wooden gate, generally open, and always flowers of the simplest kind, geraniums, sunflowers, pinks, dahlias, and chrysanthemums—what we call a jardin de curé, (curate's garden)—but in great abundance. With very rare exceptions the lawns are not well kept—one never sees in this country the smooth green turf that one does in England.
Some of the old châteaux are very stately—sometimes one enters by a large quadrangle, quite surrounded by low arcades covered with ivy, a fountain and good-sized basin in the middle of the courtyard, and a big clock over the door—sometimes they stand in a moat, one goes over a drawbridge with massive doors, studded with iron nails and strong iron bolts and chains which defend the entrance, making one think of old feudal days, when might was right, and if a man wanted his neighbours property, he simply took it. Even some of the smaller châteaux have moats. I think they are more picturesque than comfortable—an ivy-covered house with a moat around it is a nest for mosquitoes and insects of all kinds, and I fancy the damp from the water must finish by pervading the house. French people of all classes love the country and a garden with bright flowers, and if the poorer ones can combine a rabbit hutch with the flowers they are quite happy.
I have heard W. speak sometimes of a fine old château in our department—(Aisne) belonging to a deputy, who invited his friends to shoot and breakfast. The cuisine and shooting were excellent, but the accommodations fantastic. The neighbours said nothing had been renewed or cleaned since the château was occupied by the Cossacks under the first Napoleon.
We got very little country life during those years at the Foreign Office. Twice a year, in April and August, W. went to Laon for his Conseil-Général, over which he presided, but he was rarely able to stay all through the session. He was always present on the opening day, and at the préfet's dinner, and took that opportunity to make a short speech, explaining the foreign policy of the Government. I don't think it interested his colleagues as much as all the local questions—roads, schools, etc. It is astonishing how much time is wasted and how much letter-writing is necessitated by the simplest change in a road or railway crossing in France. We had rather a short narrow turning to get into our gate at Bourneville, and W. wanted to have the road enlarged just a little, so as to avoid the sharp angle. It didn't interfere with any one, as we were several yards from the highroad, but it was months, more than a year, before the thing was done. Any one of the workmen on the farm would have finished it in a day's work.
At one of our small dinners I had such a characteristic answer from an English diplomatist, who had been ambassador at St. Petersburg. He was really a charming talker, but wouldn't speak French. That was of no consequence as long as he only talked to me, but naturally all the people at the table wanted to talk to him, and when the general conversation languished, at last, I said to him: "I wish you would speak French; none of these gentlemen speak any other language." (It was quite true, the men of my husband's age spoke very rarely any other language but their own; now almost all the younger generation speak German or English or both. Almost all my son's friends speak English perfectly.) "Oh no, I can't," he said; "I haven't enough the habit of speaking French. I don't say the things I want to say, only the things I can say, which is very different." "But what did you do in Russia?" "All the women speak English." "But for affairs, diplomatic negotiations?" "All the women speak English." I have often heard it said that the Russian women were much more clever than the men. He evidently had found it true.
VI
THE EXPOSITION YEAR
The big political dinners were always interesting. On one occasion we had a banquet on the 2d of December. My left-hand neighbour, a senator, said to me casually: "This room looks very different from what it did the last time I was in it." "Does it? I should have thought a big official dinner at the Foreign Office would have been precisely the same under any régime." "A dinner perhaps, but on that occasion we were not precisely dining. I and a number of my friends had just been arrested, and we were waiting here in this room strictly guarded, until it was decided what should be done with us." Then I remembered that it was the 2d of December, the anniversary of Louis Napoléon's coup d'état. He said they were quite unprepared for it, in spite of warnings. He was sent out of the country for a little while, but I don't think his exile was a very terrible one.