On the first occasion of my dining at the President’s table, I was struck with the spaciousness of the White House, and the air of simplicity which everywhere pervaded. Very elaborate alterations were made in the mansion for Mr. Pierce’s successor, but in the day of President and Mrs. Pierce it remained practically as unimposing as in the time of President Monroe.
The most remarkable features in all the mansion, to my then unaccustomed eyes, were the gold spoons which were used invariably at all State dinners. They were said to have been brought from Paris by President Monroe, who had been roundly criticised for introducing into the White House a table accessory so undemocratic! Besides these extraordinary golden implements, there were as remarkable bouquets, made at the government greenhouses. They were stiff and formal things, as big round as a breakfast plate, and invariably composed of a half-dozen wired japonicas ornamented with a pretentious cape of marvellously wrought lace-paper. At every plate, at every State dinner, lay one of these memorable rigid bouquets. This fashion, originating at the White House, was taken up by all Washington. For an entire season the japonica was the only flower seen at the houses of the fashionable or mixing in the toilettes of the belles.
But if, for that, my first winter in Washington, the White House itself was sober, the houses of the rich Senators and citizens of Washington, of the brilliant diplomatic corps, and of some of the Cabinet Ministers, made ample amends for it. In the fifties American hospitality acquired a reputation, and that of the capital was synonymous with an unceasing, an augmenting round of dinners and dances, receptions and balls. A hundred hostesses renowned for their beauty and wit and vivacity vied with each other in evolving novel social relaxations. Notable among these were Mrs. Slidell, Mrs. Jacob Thompson, Miss Belle Cass, and the daughters of Secretary Guthrie; Mrs. Senator Toombs and Mrs. Ogle Tayloe, the Riggses, the Countess de Sartiges and Mrs. Cobb, wife of that jolly Falstaff of President Buchanan’s Cabinet, Howell Cobb. Mrs. Cobb was of the celebrated Lamar family, so famous for its brilliant and brave men, and lovely women. Highly cultured, modest as a wild wood-violet, inclined, moreover, to reserve, she was nevertheless capable of engrossing the attention of the most cultivated minds in the capital, and a conversation with her was ever a thing to be remembered. No more hospitable home was known in Washington than that of the Cobbs. The Secretary was a bon vivant, and his home the rendezvous of the epicurean as well as the witty and the intellectual.
Probably the most brilliant of all the embassies, until the coming of Lord and Lady Napier, was that of France. The Countess de Sartiges, who presided over it, was an unsurpassed hostess, besides being a woman of much manner and personal beauty; and, as did many others of the suite, she entertained on a lavish scale.
Mrs. Slidell, wife of the Senator from Louisiana, whose daughter Mathilde is now the wife of the Parisian banker, Baron Erlanger, became famous in the fifties for her matinée dances at which all the beauties and beaux of Washington thronged. Previous to her marriage with Senator Slidell she was Mlle. des Londes of New Orleans. A leader in all things fashionable, she was also one of the most devout worshippers at St. Aloysius’s church. I remember with what astonishment and admiration I watched her devotions one Sunday morning when, as the guest of Senator Mallory, himself a strict Romanist, I attended that church for the purpose of hearing a mass sung.
I knew Mrs. Slidell as the devotée of fashion, the wearer of unapproachable Parisian gowns, the giver of unsurpassed entertainments, the smiling, tireless hostess; but that Sunday morning as I saw her enter a pew just ahead of Senator Mallory and myself, sink upon her knees, and, with her eyes fixed upon the cross, repeating her prayers with a concentration that proved the sincerity of them, I felt as if another and greater side of her nature were being revealed to me. I never met her thereafter without a remembrance of that morning flitting through my mind.
During the early spring of 1854 I heard much of the imposing ceremonials attending the funeral of Baron Alexandre de Bodisco, Minister from Russia since 1838, the days of Van Buren. His young wife, a native of Georgetown, was one of the first to draw the attention of foreigners to the beauty of American women. The romantic old diplomat had learned to admire his future wife when, as a little girl, upon her daily return from school, he carried her books for her. Her beauty developed with her growth, and, before she was really of an age to appear in society, though already spoken of as the most beautiful woman in Georgetown, Harriet Williams became the Baroness de Bodisco, and was carried abroad for presentation at the Russian Court. Her appearance in that critical circle created a furore, echoes of which preceded her return to America. I have heard it said that this young bride was the first woman to whom was given the title, “the American Rose.”
I remember an amusing incident in which this lovely Baroness, unconsciously to herself, played the part of instructress to me. It was at one of my earliest dinners at the White House, ere I had thoroughly familiarised myself with the gastronomic novelties devised by the Gautiers (then the leading restaurateurs and confectioners of the capital), and the other foreign chefs who vied with them. Scarcely a dinner of consequence but saw some surprise in the way of a heretofore unknown dish. Many a time I have seen some one distinguished for his aplomb look about helplessly as the feast progressed, and gaze questioningly at the preparation before him, as if uncertain as to how it should be manipulated. Whenever I was in doubt as to the proper thing to do at these dignified dinners, I turned, as was natural, to those whose longer experience in the gay world was calculated to establish them as exemplars to the novice.
On the evening of which I write, the courses had proceeded without the appearance of unusual or alarm-inspiring dishes until we had neared the end of the menu, when I saw a waiter approaching with a large salver on which were dozens of mysterious parallelograms of paper, each of which was about five inches long and three broad, and appeared to be full of some novel conserve. Beside them lay a silver trowel. The packages were folded daintily, the gilt edges of their wrapping glittering attractively. What they contained I could not guess, nor could I imagine what we were supposed to do with them.
However, while still struggling to read the mystery of the salver, my eye fell upon Mme. de Bodisco, my vis-à-vis. She was a mountain of lace and jewels, of blonde beauty and composure, for even at this early period her proportions were larger than those which by common consent are accredited to the sylph. I could have no better instructress than this lady of international renown. I watched her; saw her take up the little trowel, deftly remove one of the packages from the salver to her plate, and composedly proceed to empty the paper receptacle of its contents—a delicious glacé. My suspense was at an end. I followed her example, very well satisfied with my good fortune in escaping a pitfall which a moment ago I felt sure yawned before me, for this method of serving creams and ices was the latest of culinary novelties.