We saw always a great deal of him, as his daughter married the Comte de F., who was for some time in W.'s cabinet at the Quai d'Orsay, and afterward with us the ten years we were at the London Embassy, where they were quite part of the family. They were both perfectly fitted for diplomatic life, particularly in England. Both spoke English well, knew everybody, and remembered all the faces and all the names, no easy thing in England, where the names and titles change so often. I know several Englishwomen who have had four different names. Lady Holland was also a friend of "Oncle Alphonse" and dined there often. She was delicate-looking, rather quiet in general conversation, though she spoke French easily, but was interesting when she was talking to one or two people. We went often to her beautiful house in London, the first years we were at the embassy, and always met interesting people. Her salon was very cosmopolitan—every one who came to London wanted to go to Holland House, which was a museum filled with beautiful things.
Another lady who was often at my uncle's was quite a different type, Mademoiselle A., an old pupil of the Conservatoire, who had made a short career at the Comédie Française many years before. She was really charming, and her stories of the coulisses and the jalousies between the authors and the actors, particularly the stars (who hardly accepted the slightest observation from the writer of the play), were most amusing. Once the piece was accepted it passed into the domain of the theatre, and the actors felt at liberty to interpret the rôles according to their ideas and traditions. She had a perfect diction; it was a delight to hear her. She recited one night one of Alphonse Daudet's little contes, "Lettres de Mon Moulin," I think, beginning—"Qui n'a pas vu Avignon du temps des Papes n'a rien vu." One couldn't hear anything more charming, in a perfectly trained voice, and so easily and naturally said.
I suppose no one would listen to it in these days. Bridge has suppressed all conversation or music or artistic enjoyment of any kind. It must come to an end some day like all crazes, but at the present moment it has destroyed society. It has been a godsend to many people of no particular importance or position who have used it as a stepping-stone to get into society. If people play a good game of bridge, they are welcome guests in a great many houses which formerly would have been closed to them, and it is a great resource to ladies no longer very young, widows and spinsters, who find their days long and don't know what to do with their lives.
Notwithstanding his preoccupations, W. managed to get a few days' shooting in November. He shot several times at Rambouillet with Grévy, who was an excellent shot, and his shooting breakfasts were very pleasant. There was plenty of game, everything very well organised, and the company agreeable. He always asked the ministers, ambassadors, and many of the leading political men and very often some of his old friends, lawyers and men of various professions whom W. was delighted to meet. Their ideas didn't run in grooves like most of the men he lived with, and it was a pleasure to hear talk that wasn't political nor personal. The vicious attacks upon persons were so trying those first days of the Republic. Every man who was a little more prominent than his neighbour seemed a target for every kind of insinuation and criticism.
We went for two days to "Pout," Casimir Périer's fine place in the département de l'Aube, where we had capital shooting. It was already extremely cold for the season—the big pond in the court was frozen hard, and the wind whistled about our ears when we drove in an open carriage to join the shooters at breakfast. Even I, who don't usually feel the cold, was thankful to be well wrapped up in furs. The Pavillon d'Hiver looked very inviting as we drove up—an immense fire was blazing in the chimney, another just outside, where the soup and ragout for the army of beaters were being prepared. We all had nice little foot-warmers under our chairs, and were as comfortable as possible. It was too warm in fact when the shooters came in and we sat down to breakfast. We were obliged to open the door. The talk was entirely "shop" at breakfast, every man telling what he had killed, or missed, and the minute they had finished breakfast, they started off again. We followed one or two battues (pheasants), but it was really too cold, and we were glad to walk home to get warm.
The dinner and evening were pleasant—everybody talking—most of them criticising the Government freely. W. didn't mind, they were all friends. He defended himself sometimes, merely asking what they would have done in his place—he was quite ready to receive any suggestions—but nothing practical ever came out of the discussions. I think the most delightful political position in the world must be "leader of the opposition"—you have no responsibilities, can concentrate all your energies in pointing out the weak spots in your adversary's armour, and have always your work cut out for you, for as soon as one ministry falls, you can set to work to demolish its successor, which seems the most interesting occupation possible.
The great question which was disturbing the Chambers and the country was the general amnesty. That, of course, W. would never agree to. There might be exceptions. Some of the men who took part in the Commune were so young, little more than lads, carried away by the example of their elders and the excitement of the moment, and there were fiery patriotic articles in almost all the Republican papers inviting France to make the beau geste of la mère patrie and open her arms to her misguided children, and various sensible experienced men really thought it would be better to wipe out everything and start again with no dark memories to cast a shadow on the beginnings of the young Republic. How many brilliant, sanguine, impossible theories I heard advanced all those days, and how the few remaining members of the Centre Gauche tried to reason with the most liberal men of the Centre Droit and to persuade them frankly to face the fact that the country had sent a strong Republican majority to Parliament and to make the best of the fait accompli. I suppose it was asking too much of them to go back on the traditions of their lives, but after all they were Frenchmen, their country was just recovering from a terrible disaster, and had need of all her children. During the Franco-Prussian War all party feeling was forgotten. Every man was first a Frenchman in the face of a foreign foe, and if they could have stood firmly together in those first days after the war the strength of the country would have been wonderful. All Europe was astounded at the way in which France paid her milliards,—no one more so than Bismarck, who is supposed to have said that, if he could have dreamed that France could pay that enormous sum so quickly, he would have asked much more.
December was very cold, snow and ice everywhere, and very hard frosts, which didn't give way at all when the sun came out occasionally in the middle of the day. Everybody was skating, not only at the clubs of the Bois de Boulogne, but on the lakes, which happens very rarely, as the water is fairly deep. The Seine was full of large blocks of ice, which got jammed up against the bridges and made a jarring ugly sound as they knocked against each other. The river steamers had stopped running, and there were crowds of flaneurs loitering on the quais and bridges wondering if the cold would last long enough for the river to be quite frozen over.
W. and I went two or three times to the Cercle des Patineurs at the Bois de Boulogne, and had a good skate. The women didn't skate as well then as they do now, but they looked very pretty in their costumes of velvet and sables. It was funny to see them stumbling over the ice with a man supporting them on each side. However, they enjoyed it very much. It was beautiful winter weather, very cold but no wind, and it was very good exercise. All the world was there, and the afternoons passed quickly enough. I had not skated for years, having spent all my winters in Italy, but on the principle that you never forget anything that you know well, I thought I would try, and will say that the first half-hour was absolute suffering. It was in the old days when one still wore a strap over the instep, which naturally was drawn very tight. My feet were like lumps of ice, as heavy as lead, and I didn't seem able to lift them from the ground. I went back to the dressing-room to take my skates off for a few minutes, and when the blood began to circulate again, I could have cried with the pain. A friend of mine, a beginner, who was sitting near waiting to have her skates put on, was rather discouraged, and said to me: "You don't look as if you were enjoying yourself. I don't think I will try." "Oh yes you must,—'les commencements sont toujours difficiles,' and you will learn. I shall be all right as soon as I start again." She looked rather doubtful, but I saw her again later in the day, when I had forgotten all about my sufferings, and she was skating as easily as I did when I was a girl. I think one must learn young. After all, it is more or less a question of balance. When one is young one doesn't mind a fall.
W., who had retired to a corner to practise a little by himself, told me that one of his friends, Comte de Pourtalès, not at all of his way of thinking in politics, an Imperialist, was much pleased with a little jeu d'esprit he had made at his expense. W. caught the top of his skate in a crevice in the ice, and came down rather heavily in a sitting posture. Comte de Pourtalès, who was standing near on the bank, saw the fall and called out instantly, "Est-ce possible que je voie le Président du Conseil par terre?" (Is it possible that the President du Conseil has fallen?) The little joke was quite de bonne guerre and quite appropriate, as the cabinet was tottering and very near its fall. It amused W. quite as much as it did the bystanders.