Shortly before midnight I stepped from a fiacre and ascended the broad steps of the Elysée. Tired as I was of the ceaseless whirl of the City of Pleasure, it nevertheless amused me to fix the physiognomy of the great official fêtes. They are inevitably banales, of course; but there is always a piquancy of detail and of contrast that is interesting.
If one wishes to see what a mixed crowd is like, there is no better illustration than the flocks of guests at the Elysée balls. Ah! what a crowd it was that night! What dresses! What a public! I know, of course, that it can never be otherwise under the present democratic régime. One man, who came on foot and whose boots were muddy, forgot to turn down the tucked-up ends of his trousers. People were walking about with their hands in their pockets, jostling each other without a word of excuse. Many were touching the furniture, and feeling the curtains and tapestry with that sans-gêne which so disgusted Gambetta with his former friends. You could see that they were determined not to appear astonished at anything, and that, after all, they were at home in the Elysée. They were of the detestable breed of café politicians, of loud-voiced orators at party meetings, of successful carpet-baggers, who render the ideas of equality and fraternity at times insufferable.
Before the buffet these fellows displayed themselves as goujats—cads—plain and simple. They grabbed for sandwiches, for biscuits, for glasses of champagne across the shoulders of ladies in front of them, or even elbowed them aside to get to the front row—and stop there. In the smoking-room the boxes of cigars were gone in the twinkling of an eye. One man struck his match on the wall. With these odd guests about it is not surprising that the Budget writes off a certain sum every year for articles that have disappeared from the buffets.
Whew! the heat there was insufferable!
In my search for Sibyl I passed through the antechamber. The footmen wore new livery. I saw none of those restaurant waiters who used, in the time of ce pauvre Monsieur Faure, to be employed at twenty francs the evening, supper included. Yes, things had slightly improved, but the crush was terrific. I made my way to the Salon des Aides-de-Camp, that historic chamber where, in the armchairs still furnishing the room, on the night of the coup d’état, sat, a prey to mortal anxiety, Morny, Persigny, Saint Arnaud, Piétri, Rouher, King Jérôme, and the Prince President.
The Japanese military attaché, walking before me, mixed himself up somehow with his sabre, and fell. This contretemps was greeted, as at a theatre, with laughter. Someone cried, “Oh, la la!” as if the stumble were a very clever bit of clowning indeed. The unhappy Japanese looked as if he wished the floor would swallow him.
I struggled up and paid my respects to the President, who was standing in the centre of the salon. Smiling, affable, displaying a simplicity that was real and unaffected, and yet devoid of mere familiarity, his bow and hand-shake were perfect. He struck the right note. I was impressed, moreover, by his sense of proportion. A little more cordiality, and he would cease to be Chief of the State. A little more solemnity, and he would be stilted. It is a little hard to convey the distinction; but imagine, on the one hand, a host who wants to make you forget his official position, and on the other a President of the Republic who is determined to be a good host. For well-bred people there is always a well-defined shade of difference between these two; and the President was the latter.
While turning away I suddenly came face to face with Monsieur Mollard, the chef-adjoint of the Protocol, who greeted me affably and commenced to tell me the latest story of General de Galliffet, Minister of War.
“It is amusing,” he laughed. “You must hear it, M’sieur Ingram. The General arrived at his club, the Union, last night, and for some reason or another his former friends were more than usually cold in their treatment of him. After saying a bonjour to one and the other of them, and receiving a curt reply here and a snub there, the Minister of War realised this. But he took their coolness coolly. With his back to the fireplace he said quietly, by way of bringing home to his friends the absurdity of their attitude: ‘You may come near me. Je ne sens pas mauvais—I don’t smell bad. You see, there was no Cabinet to-day!’ Is it not excellent?”
I smiled. It was a purely French joke. Mollard was always full of droll stories. Every diplomatist in Paris knew him as the keeper of the Elysée traditions, as guardian of its unwritten law by inheritance, his father having been, under other presidencies, the official known as introducteur des ambassadeurs. When a question of precedence puzzled the plebeian bigwigs at the Quai d’Orsay—the Foreign Office—it was Monsieur Mollard who would run to the archives to look it up. Nature had not, however, endowed him with a demeanour befitting his office, for he wore his uniform as awkwardly as a middle-aged volunteer officer, and looked more like a clerk than a chamberlain. But when he spoke he dragged on the mute syllables as French actors are taught to do in delivering Racine. He put three “l’s” in “Excellence” and four “r’s” in “Protocol.” For the rest, he was a good fellow, much liked in the diplomatic circle, although many jokes had from time to time been played at his expense. Presently, after we had been talking for a few moments, I inquired whether he had seen Sibyl.