The Prince de Sagan was considered the leader of everything that was fashionable in Paris. It was he who organised the racecourse of Auteuil, and who helped greatly to popularise Americans among Parisian society, where, for a handsome consideration, so at least it was rumoured, he introduced them into his particular set, where every word he uttered was law, which, like those of the Medes and Persians, altered not. One used to see him often at the Opera in the box belonging to the Jockey Club, with his inevitable eyeglass hanging on a broad black ribbon, a fashion he was the first to introduce. He occupied two small rooms at the club of the Union, not being possessed of enough means and having too many creditors to be able to indulge in the luxury of a private apartment, and it was there that he was stricken with paralysis, from which he never recovered, and which deprived him both of his speech and of his mental faculties. It was at this juncture that Madame de Sagan behaved with great generosity and a singular power of forgiveness for past injuries. As soon as she heard of the lamentable condition to which her husband had been reduced, she drove to the club, and had him removed to her own house, where she nursed him with the utmost devotion; thereafter the large receptions and garden parties which she regularly gave in spring and which constituted a feature of the Paris season, became a thing of the past, and the hospitable gates of the hotel in the Rue St. Dominique were closed for ever.
The Princesse de Sagan, who in the meanwhile, through the death of her father-in-law, had become the Duchesse de Talleyrand, was not rewarded for her self-sacrifice. She died quite suddenly, before the Duc, who was left alone and infirm to the mercies of his two sons and of hired servants. The old man dragged out an existence for something like ten years or so, and at last died in poverty and solitude, expiating his formerly brilliant life more cruelly and more bitterly than he perhaps deserved.
One of his sons, the present Duc de Talleyrand, to whom I shall refer again, is married to the American heiress, Miss Anna Gould, whose divorce from the Comte de Castellane made such a sensation a few years ago, but the hotel in the Rue St. Dominique has been sold, and already half the magnificent garden in which it stood has been built upon with huge houses, whilst the inside of the palace is turned into an antiquary’s shop; bric-à-brac of all kinds encumbers the lofty rooms where kings and queens moved with stately grace; it dishonours the famous staircase at the top of which the Princesse de Sagan, dressed in the costume of a Persian Empress covered with priceless jewels and with a little negro boy holding a sunshade over her head, received her guests at one of the most famous of her many famous fancy balls.
There was one salon in Paris which was not by any means so brilliant as that of the Comtesse de Pourtalès, the Princesse de Sagan, and the Duchesse de Bisaccia, but which enjoyed a popularity that has never been equalled. I am thinking of that of the Duchesse de Maillé, that stately old lady with the many charming daughters who, without any affectation of pomp and without the least shade of stiffness, welcomed almost every evening her many friends with her bright smile and kind words. Madame de Maillé was one of those women that are but seldom met with, who combine the dignity of the grande dame with the indulgence and the abandon, if one can use such a word, of the perfect woman of the world. She was clever, and she appreciated cleverness in others; she could talk well, and listen even better still; she knew how to bring into evidence all the perfections and qualities of her friends, and she always found reasons to excuse their faults or their imperfections. She was discreet, and never made use of the many confidences that were constantly poured into her ear; she had always ready some good advice to give to those who required it, and she liked to see people happy around her, to watch young people amuse themselves, and though excessively strict in everything that was connected with appearances, so very polite that somehow in her presence no one dreamed of breaking the code established by society in that respect. Madame de Maillé loved politics, and enjoyed exceedingly the conversation of literary people. Almost all the celebrities that Paris could boast of were the habitués of her salon. She used to receive them seated by her fireside, in her plain black gown, with a lace cap over her silvery hair and her everlasting knitting in her hands. She at once put them at their ease, and found out the most appropriate things to tell them. Her house was restful in our age of restlessness, and though there was not the least shade of hauteur about the old Duchesse, the last representative of the ancient family of the Marquis d’Osmond, yet one felt at once, on seeing her, that one stood in the presence of a really great lady.
Now this hospitable salon is also a thing of the past. The Duchesse de Maillé has been dead these last ten years or so, and all her children have settled in houses of their own. Her daughters, Madame de Nadaillac, the Marquise de Ganay, and Madame de Fleury, though all distinguished and amiable women, perhaps because they are still too young, have not acquired that inimitable charm, ease in their manners, and dignity in their bearing which belonged exclusively to their charming mother.
The Duchesse de Maillé was an exception among the old ladies of aristocratic Paris. There was no stiffness, such as, for instance, distinguished the old Princesse de Ligne and the Duchesse de Mirepoix, and some others whose names I have already forgotten. I do not think that anything more solemn than the receptions of the Princess de Ligne have ever been invented. She was a Pole by birth, belonging to the old family of Lubomirski, a representative of which, Prince Joseph Lubomirski, was at one time a well-known boulevardier. Anything more formidable in the shape of a dowager could hardly be found in the whole world. One could not dream even of sitting in a chair in her august presence, and generally dropped down meekly on one of the numerous stools which adorned her drawing-room and which reminded one of a church without an altar. She was ill-natured, too, cruel when she liked—and she liked it often; severe in her judgments, and inexorable in her decisions. Her numerous grandchildren were all afraid of her, and when she decided that the head of the house of Ligne was to marry her own granddaughter, Mlle. de La Rochefoucauld Bisaccia, neither one nor the other, to their own future sorrow, dared to say a word in opposition, for never was there a union more ill-assorted. When it ended in a divorce no one felt surprised. At the time this last-mentioned fact took place the Princess Hedwige de Ligne had long been dead.
There were other houses in Paris which, perhaps, were less select, but certainly more amusing and agreeable than those in the high circles I have just mentioned. There existed salons which were truly Bohemian, but which also exercised a considerable influence on the sayings and doings of society. I have mentioned already old Madame Lacroix, whose house saw purely literary receptions, and at whose hospitable hearth all the distinguished foreigners who arrived in Paris used to meet. Then there was the salon of Madame Aubernon de Nerville, where Academicians were usually to be met, that of Madame de Luynes, and last, but not least, the salon of Madame Juliette Adam, who wielded a really regal power among a certain set, and who certainly succeeded in being considered as a political power, especially after Gambetta began to seek her advice in matters pertaining to the affairs of the government. But this last house, as well as its amiable and clever mistress, deserve more than a passing mention; they require a chapter to themselves in order to be duly appreciated.
CHAPTER XVII
Madame Juliette Adam
It will be hardly possible ever to write a history of the Third Republic without mentioning Madame Juliette Adam, the beautiful, clever and attractive woman whose influence at the end of the nineteenth century, not only on some of the most important personalities in France but also on many foreign notabilities, was so considerable. Her efforts and influence had much to do with the development of the events which ultimately led to the consolidation of the French Republic, and which, after having been the object of her most ardent worship, ended by finding her one of its enemies. Some people are born under a lucky star; upon them everything smiles, and they can do nothing that fails to turn out well. Such a being was the lovely Juliette la Messine, who, timid and still unaware of her own personal attractions, appeared on the horizon of Paris society at one of the parties given by the Comtesse d’Agoult. The Countess was “Daniel Stern” in the world of letters, the mother of Cosima Wagner and Madame Emile Ollivier, and the heroine of the most lasting romance in the life of the composer Liszt. Madame d’Agoult, about whom I cannot say much because I have never met her, was in the late ’fifties a very important personage in Parisian society, though her own circle had repudiated her since the scandal of her adventure with Liszt. But though very few women cared to be seen at her house, most men of note, whether in politics or in the world of letters, considered it an honour to be asked to her house. She presided over a salon that dictated the tone in many things, and where she succeeded in grouping together many celebrities who, perhaps, but for her would never have had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with each other.
Juliette la Messine, then in the full bloom of her fair beauty, had just written a book of philosophy and criticism called “Les Idées anti-Proudhoniennes,” which was a reply to an attack made by Proudhon on Georges Sand and on Madame d’Agoult herself. She sent a copy of her book to Daniel Stern, who was very much struck by its virile, lucid composition, and thinking it was the work of a man who, in order to disguise his identity, had assumed a woman’s name, wrote in reply to the author, that she felt surprised at his having taken a feminine pseudonym, while women generally tried to pass off as men in their writings. When she saw Mlle. la Messine she was at once attracted by her peculiar and wonderful charm; a friendship that was only to come to an end with the life of the Comtesse d’Agoult was at once formed between the two women, who had a great deal in common, and who were both enthusiastic, eager to perform noble deeds and to work for the welfare of humanity. It was also at one of the receptions of Daniel Stern that Juliette la Messine met for the first time Edmond Adam, whom she was to marry later on and under whose name she was to reach celebrity.