Madame de Galliera was a very considerable personality in Paris society, but no one liked her, and not a few stood in fear of her because she could be terribly rude when she liked, and had a peculiar way of entirely crushing those she did not care for, or against whom she thought she had a grudge. Her relations with her only son were peculiar, and for reasons it is not for me to discuss he refused to accept the slightest portion of her enormous wealth, or to be known by any of the numerous titles that belonged to her, calling himself plain M. Ferrari, and preferring to earn his own living rather than enjoy millions to which he felt he had no moral right. His strong principles rebelled against compromises, about which no one else would have been troubled.
The present Duchesse de Rohan, at that time still Princesse de Léon, was a very different person from Madame de Galliera. Mademoiselle de Verteillac by birth, she brought an immense dowry to the Prince de Léon when she married him; it restored to the house of Rohan some of its past splendours. With her money she rebuilt the old castle of Josselin, and made it one of the landmarks of Brittany. The receptions she held in her house on the Boulevard des Invalides were exceedingly sumptuous and numerous; some of the fancy balls that took place there, indeed, are still talked of. She was hospitable, kind, clever in her way, but rather inclined to vulgarity, perhaps on account of her stoutness, and partly because her whole manner was too good-natured to be distinguished. Looking at her, one might have thought her to be anything but a Duchesse de Rohan, but she was and is still very much liked, because she has always shown herself generous, indulgent for others, and absolutely devoid of snobbishness. Madame de Rohan has pretensions to be considered a literary person, and has written a few books, which her title and position in society have helped to make popular. She is now an old woman, who has known the sorrows of life, having lost a charming daughter, the Comtesse de Périgord, who was snatched away from her in the flower of her youth and beauty; but the Duchesse has kept her pleasant smile and kind welcome, and is decidedly a popular personage in Parisian society.
The years that have sat rather heavily on the Duchesse de Léon have spared the lovely Countess Mélanie de Pourtalès, who, although a great-grandmother at present, is just as lovely an old woman as she was a splendid young one. The smile, the eyes, the expression, have retained their former charm and the soft melodious voice its youthful ring. One cannot call Madame de Pourtalès a great lady, in the sense which the French attach to this expression of grande dame, which has no equal in any other language; but she was essentially the femme charmante of the time in which she was born, pleasant, simple, with no shred of affectation about her a thoughtful hostess, and a faithful friend to those to whom she had attached herself; moreover, of no mean intelligence, of perfect tact, and with a wonderful knowledge of the world. She saw at her feet all the men of her own generation, and went on gathering the admiration of those who belonged to a later one. Her receptions were select, in the sense that at them one only met social stars; they were not exclusive—bankers and financial magnates elbowed young beauties in their prime, or authors, whether of repute or simply fashionable for the moment. When she passes away she will not be forgotten, and her name will always remain associated with the fate of the Second Empire and with the Third Republic.
I have spoken of Madame Edouard André; before her marriage she had been known as Mademoiselle Nelly Jacquemard, a painter of wonderful talent, whose portraits of M. Thiers and M. Dufaure will rank among the most remarkable works of art of the end of the nineteenth century in France. She had fascinated M. André, the son of a banker, blessed with a considerable number of millions, who had been one of the most fashionable men of the Société des Tuileries towards the end of the reign of Napoleon III. M. André, already old and nearly paralysed, had fallen in love with the artist at the time she was painting his picture, and finding that their tastes in many things harmonised he had married her. Mlle. Jacquemard proved herself grateful, and made an excellent wife to the tired, weary man, who found in her what he had wished—a companion and a nurse. When he died he left her all his riches, together with his wonderful house and the numerous works of art that it contained, and to which she considerably added.
Madame André was an amusing little woman, absolutely vulgar in appearance and manners, but who moved in the best society, and whose entertainments, absolutely devoid of stiffness, were as amusing as large receptions can be. She was made very much of by the Orleans family, who flattered her in the secret hope that she would be induced to make a will in their favour, but that hope was to prove a barren one, because Madame André left all that she possessed to the Institut de France, with injunctions to transform her palace into a museum. She is supposed to have said, not without a certain malice, that in doing so she was following the example given to her by the Duc d’Aumale, and that consequently she believed the way she had disposed of her property would meet the approval of the latter’s numerous nephews and nieces.
By an extraordinary freak of her rather peculiar character Madame André, after her marriage, entirely neglected the art to which she had owed her former celebrity. She absolutely refused to take again a brush or a pencil in her hand, and was even angry when anyone made an allusion to her wonderful talent in that line. It seemed as if she was ashamed of Nelly Jacquemard, and yet it was to Nelly Jacquemard she had owed the conquest that she had made of M. Edouard André and his many millions.
The Rothschild family, who perhaps had been more powerful during the reign of Louis Philippe than later on, at least as regards the political influence and power which they wielded, had acquired a far greater social position during the Second Empire, and one which became even stronger after its fall, when for one brief moment they transferred their allegiance to the Comte de Paris and to the whole Orleans family. The Baron Alphonse was a very great personage indeed, and one of whom even kings and countries stood in awe. He had married one of his cousins, the daughter of the London Rothschild, and the grace, beauty, and intelligence of his wife won them many friends among Parisian society. The couple entertained on a large scale, and their balls, dinners, and shooting parties at their lovely castle of Férrières were celebrated for the luxury displayed at them and for the discriminating choice of the guests invited. It was at Férrières that the Princess Amélie, the daughter of the Comte de Paris, made her début in society, and later on, especially during the Exhibition of 1878, the Rothschilds opened their doors widely to the best French and foreign society. The death of their eldest daughter, Bettina, married to her cousin, Baron Albert Rothschild of Vienna, put an end to those brilliant festivities. The Baroness Alphonse hardly ever went out after that, and contented herself with seeing a few intimate friends at her own house. The only other great function at the hotel in the Rue St. Florentin was the reception given in honour of the marriage of Edouard, the only son of Baron and Baroness Alphonse de Rothschild, with the lovely Mademoiselle Halphen, an event which was very shortly followed by the death of the old Baron.
His widow only survived him for a short time. She had grown very eccentric towards the last, and suffered from the mania of thinking herself poor and obliged to economise. Madame Edmond de Pourtalès was about the only person whom she cared to see, and the latter remained with her constantly, never leaving her bedside during her last short illness. The hotel in the Rue St. Florentin still remains closed, as its present owners do not seem to care much for society, and it is very much to be doubted whether it will ever witness the sumptuous entertainments that had won for it such fame in past times.
Another house which has passed into other hands, being now occupied by M. Seligmann, a merchant of curiosities, is the Hotel de Sagan, Rue St. Dominique, where the Princesse de Sagan, the daughter of the banker Seillères, used so frequently to entertain from the days when her marriage brought her into the most exclusive set of Paris society. Madame de Sagan was a tall, slight, fair woman, with pleasant manners, who was very much liked by a good many men, but had never been able to get on with her own husband. He was the eldest son of the Duc de Valencay and the grandson of the famous Duchesse de Dino. He spent right and left, and as his father either could not, or would not, give him more, he had been obliged to seek among the daughters of financial houses a companion of his life. He did not care in the least for his wife, though he tried to launch her into society, and to help her in acquiring a great position. The Princess made the best of his advice, but very soon discovered that if she wanted to keep her prestige in the eyes of the world, she had better remove her fortune from the control of her husband. The couple separated after stormy quarrels, that formed the main topic of public conversation for a long time, and the Princess found many people willing to console her in her solitude. From time to time an ugly scandal arose in connection with either her doings or those of the Prince, who very often found need to have recourse to his wife’s purse. He obliged her to pay dearly for his silence concerning things that, if revealed, might have impaired that worldly position for which she cared above everything else.
It is related that once when the heir to one of the thrones of Europe had signified his intention to be present at an entertainment given by Madame de Sagan, some relatives had explained to her that it would be more suitable, especially in view of the fact that the Prince’s wife would also be present, to have a master of the house to play the host, and to receive them together with her. She then began negotiations with the Prince de Sagan, who first of all stipulated he should be given a handsome cheque of not less than four figures, to ensure his presence in his wife’s house, and who consented, after having received it, to make an appearance in his former home, to give a look at all the arrangements made in honour of the occasion, and after having received the royal couple at the bottom of the staircase of the hotel in the Rue St. Dominique, to play the host with the perfection that he always performed his social duties. When the last guest had left, he kissed his wife’s hand with courtly grace, and took leave of her in his turn with a playful remark of some kind or other, and for a long time the couple did not meet again.