CHAPTER XXXIII
A Few Foreign Diplomats
During the quarter of a century that I lived in Paris I was fated to see many changes among the Diplomatic Corps, first at the Court of Napoleon III., and afterwards at the Elysée. I must say that in all the diplomatic circle I seldom found unpleasant or rude colleagues, but that, on the contrary, I have met most charming men and women whom it was a privilege and an honour to know. It is impossible to speak of them all, but there are a few figures which have left such a vivid remembrance in my mind that I must mention them.
I think I have spoken of Prince and Princess Metternich; they were great favourites with the Empress Eugénie, and another Ambassador who shared her affections was Count Nigra, one of the ablest diplomats Italy could ever boast. A faithful servant and pupil of the great Cavour, he watched on his behalf everything that was going on in France, and helped the unfortunate Empress in her flight, or rather did not help her, because his intervention, together with that of his Austrian colleague, consisted in advising her to run away, and perhaps even in obliging her to do so, from a feeling that later on it would be easier to get a revolutionary government to shut its eyes to the advance of the Italian troops on Rome, and their conquest of the Eternal City.
Count Nigra was a charming man. It was said that one could never believe anything he said, or rely upon anything he promised. But apart from this he was the pleasantest colleague one could have, and contrived to remain on good terms with all those he knew, even when in diplomacy he had cheated them of something or other. After he left Paris, I met him in Vienna and in St. Petersburg, and was always delighted to have those opportunities.
Lord Lyons spent long years in Paris, and represented the government of Queen Victoria with great dignity. He was a gentleman and also a most able diplomat, and whilst he stayed at the Faubourg St. Honoré, Anglo-French relations remained excellent in spite of the many attempts made to spoil them. His successors also left excellent memories behind them when their term of office came to an end; and Lord Lytton especially had contrived to make for himself many friends among French society, which at that time did not look upon foreigners with the same enthusiasm it professes to-day. Lord Lytton was a scholar, a writer and also a statesman, a combination one does not meet frequently in our age of mediocrities. He was a great friend, and, I think, also a distant relation, of Lord Salisbury, who had firm confidence in his abilities; he enjoyed greater latitude than other Ambassadors had done or did later on.
I will say nothing about Count Arnim. We were never intimate or even on friendly terms with each other. He was extremely stiff, and had a considerable amount of the morgue prussienne in his ways, so that very few people sympathised with him or with his opinions. Nevertheless, his trial, and the long war which Prince Bismarck waged against him, aroused an interest in his fate which would not have existed under different circumstances. But, all the same, one was not sorry when Prince Hohenlohe succeeded him. The Prince was received with a certain amount of kind feeling such as could not have been expected under ordinary conditions.
Prince Hohenlohe was one of the greatest among the grand seigneurs in Germany. He was related to the Royal Family of Prussia and to almost all the crowned heads in Europe. He had been President of the Bavarian ministry, and as such had shown great devotion to the cause of German unity. His character had always been above reproach, his tact was exquisite, and his straightforwardness was recognised even among the enemies of his political ideas and opinions. He was essentially a man of duty, and he never failed in its fulfilment, no matter how painful this might be. All those who knew him respected him, and when he was sent to Paris as Ambassador, it was felt among the diplomatic circles of Europe that his presence there would help to do away with many prejudices and misunderstandings.
I was a frequent visitor at the house of Prince Clovis, as we called him familiarly, and whenever I left him it was with admiration for his shrewd intelligence and the logic displayed in all his reasonings and appreciations of men and of events. He had very few illusions, but at the same time an excessive kindness in all his judgments of other people. Ill-nature was unknown to him, and he was always ready to find excuses for the mistakes he could not help noticing in his neighbours. Prince Hohenlohe was infinitely above all his contemporaries in everything, both as a private and as a public man, and in all the high offices which he held he won for himself the esteem and the affection of all who had to do with him.
He made himself liked, too, in Paris in those first years which followed upon the war, in spite of the natural prejudice which existed against everything German. He had some relatives in the Faubourg St. Germain, where both he and his wife were received with more cordiality than in official circles, and he felt more or less at home among them. This fact made him cling to his Paris mission, where it was felt at the time that it would be difficult to replace him, and where, later on, his appointment as Chancellor of the German Empire was received with a certain amount of sympathy.
Princess Hohenlohe was a fitting wife for that distinguished man. She was also a grande dame, highly born and highly connected, with some of the bluest blood in Europe flowing in her veins. She admirably filled her position as Ambassadress, and she made for herself in France, as everywhere else, a considerable number of friends.