My First Years as a Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 | Page 7

avenues, followed by a brilliant suite of ladies and ecuyers,--and the echoes of the cor de chasse in the distance. The alleys are always there, and fairly well kept, but very few people or carriages pass. The park is deserted. I don't think the cor de chasse would awaken an echo or a regret even, so entirely has the Empire and its glories become a thing of the past. A rendezvous de chasse was a very pretty sight.
We went once to Compiegne before I was married, about three years before the war. We went out and breakfasted at Compiegne with a great friend of ours, M. de St. M., a chamberlain or equerry of the Emperor. We breakfasted in a funny old-fashioned little hotel (with a very good cuisine) and drove in a big open break to the forest. There were a great many people riding, driving, and walking, officers of the garrison in uniform, members of the hunt in green and gold, and a fair sprinkling of red coats. The Empress looked charming, dressed always in the uniform of the hunt, green with gold braid, and a tricorne on her head,--all her ladies with the same dress, which was very becoming. One of the most striking-looking of her ladies was the Princess Anna Murat, the present Duchesse de Mouchy, who looked very handsome in the tricorne and beautifully fitting habit. I didn't see the Empress on her horse, as we lost sight of them very soon. She and her ladies arrived on the field in an open break. I saw the Emperor quite distinctly as he rode up and gave some orders. He was very well mounted (there were some beautiful horses) but stooped slightly, and had rather a sad face. I never saw him again, and the Empress only long years after at Cowes, when everything had gone out of her life.
The President, Marshal MacMahon, was living at the Prefecture at Versailles and received every Thursday evening. We went there several times--it was my first introduction to the official world. The first two or three times we drove out, but it was long (quite an hour and a quarter) over bad roads--a good deal of pavement. One didn't care to drive through the Park of St. Cloud at night--it was very lonely and dark. We should have been quite helpless if we had fallen upon any enterprising tramps, who could easily have stopped the carriage and helped themselves to any money or jewels they could lay their hands on. One evening the Seine had overflowed and we were obliged to walk a long distance--all around Sevres--and got to Versailles very late and quite exhausted with the jolting and general discomfort. After that we went out by train--which put us at the Prefecture at ten o'clock. It wasn't very convenient as there was a great rush for carriages when we arrived at Versailles, still everybody did it. We generally wore black or dark dresses with a lace veil tied over our heads, and of course only went when it was fine. The evening was pleasant enough--one saw all the political men, the marshal's personal friends of the droite went to him in the first days of his presidency,--(they rather fell off later)--the Government and Republicans naturally and all the diplomatic corps. There were not many women, as it really was rather an effort to put one's self into a low-necked dress and start off directly after dinner to the Gare St. Lazare, and have rather a rush for places. We were always late, and just had time to scramble into the last carriage.
I felt very strange--an outsider--all the first months, but my husband's friends were very nice to me and after a certain time I was astonished to find how much politics interested me. I learned a great deal from merely listening while the men talked at dinner. I suppose I should have understood much more if I had read the papers regularly, but I didn't begin to do that until W. had been minister for some time, and then worked myself into a nervous fever at all the opposition papers said about him. However, all told, the attacks were never very vicious. He had never been in public life until after the war when he was named deputy and joined the Assemblee Nationale at Bordeaux--which was an immense advantage to him. He had never served any other government, and was therefore perfectly independent and was bound by no family traditions or old friendships--didn't mind the opposition papers at all--not even the caricatures. Some of them were very funny. There was one very like him, sitting quite straight and correct on the box of a brougham, "John Cocher Anglais n'a jamais verse, ni accroche" (English coachman who has never