He had made his way with the help of a good deal of luck, and perhaps more determination than is generally met with. There was one moment in his life when he nearly became one of the victims of the Panama scandal, but he succeeded in emerging quite unharmed. As a financier, he very nearly approached genius, and when he left office almost all the large banks in France entreated him to join their board. He became director of a large financial establishment, which he managed with the intelligence and knowledge that he brought into everything which he attempted. But although he had many partisans and more friends than could have been expected in a man who had held the difficult posts which he had successfully occupied; though he was in a certain sense a sort of small king, feared by most of the politicians who ruled France or aspired to do so, he always regretted that he had been obliged to retire from the government of his country. When he died, he was about to put forward his candidature to the Presidency of the Republic, in opposition to that of M. Poincaré or any other of the probable successors of M. Fallières at the end of the latter’s septenary.
M. Rouvier had been twice married. His first wife was the famous sculptor known as Claude Vignon, whose first husband was l’Abbé Constant, an unfrocked priest, who was later on to be so well known by the name of Eliphas Lévy, and who was considered to be the greatest master in occult sciences that the world possessed. I met Eliphas Lévy more than once, and I was always extremely interested in him. He had a most venerable appearance, with his long white beard, and of all the indulgent men I have ever met he was the one who practised that virtue to the largest extent. He lived absorbed in his studies of high magic, but would always carefully avoid talking on the subject, save with his most intimate friends. He was called uncanny, I don’t know why, because he certainly had the most peaceful countenance possible, but a certain prejudice used to cling to him or rather existed against him at the time I knew him; probably because the fact of a priest having given up his profession appeared still to be something quite dreadful in France.
Madame Constant, or Claude Vignon as she was generally called, had greatly contributed to the unfrocking of her husband, but though he had loved her passionately, she had very soon tired of him, and the couple separated, never to meet again so long as they lived. She married Rouvier, to whom she brought the very large fortune she possessed, but died not long after, leaving one son, with whom his father never could get along, and whom one never met at his house.
The second Madame Rouvier was a small, slight woman, with golden curls, a most pleasant manner, and a charming conversationalist. She aided her husband quite admirably, interested herself in his political career and successes, and was perhaps even more ambitious than he. The couple lived in a splendid establishment which they possessed at Neuilly, on the outskirts of the Bois de Boulogne, where they often entertained, and where generally the latest news of the day was to be heard. No political man would have dared to ignore M. Rouvier and his wife, and their salon has been more than once called the “succursale du Sénat,” of which he was a member. Diplomats also were to be met in their house; and it was, indeed, frequented by almost everybody of note in Paris.
CHAPTER XXIX
The Present Tone of Paris Society
I have seen many changes take place in Paris during the twenty-five years of my sojourn in the gay city. I cannot say that all these changes have been congenial; the good manners for which Frenchmen were famous, certainly disappeared simultaneously with the crinoline. A laisser aller has replaced the stiffness which at one time made the select Parisian houses so difficult of access to the foreigner. At present the American and Jewish elements have entirely invaded French society, and imported into it not only their easy ways but also an independence of speech and action which would have horrified dowagers of olden times. Sport also, which was formerly unknown, has absorbed the thoughts of people who would not have dreamed of it a few years ago. Life in hotels has done away with the intimacy of the home, and whereas formerly one only invited to dine at a restaurant people one would not have cared to entertain in one’s own house, now it is the reverse, and those whom it is desired to honour are asked to lunch or to supper at the Ritz or the Meurice, or some other fashionable place of the same kind. The refinement that was so essentially a French characteristic has entirely disappeared. Women have grown loud, and men have become coarse, girls have lost their modesty, and boys are impertinent. An altogether new world has superseded that of the Second Empire.
The advent of American millionaires has aroused the desire to be able to emulate their luxury, and the introduction of Jews into the best French society, in spite of all the efforts of Drumont and other anti-Semites, has done away with the prejudice which existed against them. Indeed, Jewish heiresses are sought as wives by bearers of some of the oldest and most aristocratic names in France; Mlle. Ephrussi has become Princess de Lucinge; the Marquise de la Ferté Meun was Mlle. Porgès; the Princess Murat, the wife of the head of that house, is the granddaughter of old Madame Heine, herself the only child of the banker Furtado; and the present Princesse de Monaco, whose first husband was the Duc de Richelieu, is the daughter of another Heine, also a banker, whose many millions she inherited.
These new elements entering society have necessarily transformed it. Paris is now a vast hotel where are met all kinds of people, and no one feels the necessity to observe etiquette or restraint. It is a place where the man who pays can obtain everything he wants. Excepting in a few houses, as of old was that of Madame Aimery de la Rochefoucauld, one can meet everywhere the representatives of Hebrew banking houses, or great tradesmen, whom Parisian hostesses are but too eager to invite to their balls or receptions, feeling sure that it will bring them some profit in one shape or another. Money is the only thing that counts nowadays. It is so everywhere unfortunately, but in France it seems to be more potent than anywhere else.
In consequence, society is perhaps smarter than it has ever been, but it is a great question whether it is so distinguished, and it is certain that it is no longer so good-mannered.