My Memoirs

The Temple was decorated with foliage and flowers, and the floor was strewn with roses. These, I was told later on, were a present from the poor of the neighbourhood, who had wished to give a surprise—and I was not only surprised, but touched—to "her who had for many years helped her father to relieve their misery," and "who after the death of her beloved father, had done her best to continue his work of mercy." Those roses were indeed the most beautiful wedding-present I received.

The young ladies of Beaucourt sang a chorus. The words had been specially written by a local poet, young and full of excellent intentions, and the music composed by my father, years ago. My pastor, M. Bach, was so eloquent that I burst into sobs like every one else; and as we left the Temple, my husband and I were greeted by the strains of a warlike march played by the Beaucourt band, and we shook hands with the forty-five musicians whom for so many years, I had seen at home, at the rehearsals conducted by my father.

A reception followed, and I saw once more all the dear faces I loved, except, alas, that of my grand-papa from Russia... M. Doriand had been unable to leave Moscow, and I never heard from him or saw him again.

In my mother's brougham, my husband and I drove to the station where we entrained for Besançon, and thence we went on to Italy.

I SHALL never forget that arrival in Paris. It was on a Sunday morning, M. Steinheil had warned his sister when to expect us. He talked awhile with the concierge in the lodge, then joined me in the garden, where I was patiently waiting in the pouring rain, and said: "I am extremely sorry. My sister, I hear, has gone to mass, and she has the keys of the house...."

I spent half an hour in the lodge, distressed by the smell of fried onions which came from the kitchen. At last, Mlle. Marguerite Steinheil returned from church. She wore a morning dress which I would not have allowed my maid to wear. It was 9 A.M., and I felt hungry—in spite of the fried onions—but breakfast was not mentioned. I had a painful impression when I entered the house—my home.... The hall was very dusty; there was no carpet, and nothing was ready for the arrival of a young wife. I asked the way to my bedroom, and burst into tears.

Very tenderly, my husband tried to console me. Then he fetched the wedding-presents sent by his friends, dried my tears with his handkerchief, as one does to a crying child, and I partly forgot my sorrow.

Mlle. Steinheil lived with us. She was very affectionate, in her way, but abnormally old-fashioned. My husband was entirely under her domination and under that of all the other members of his family.

Delighted at having arranged the salon to my taste I went and fetched Adolphe to show him what I had done. He was quite upset, and began by telling me: "It is rather awkward, all this furniture you have sent up to my studio, and curiously enough you have taken from the studio the very things I need for my pictures, as backgrounds, as ornaments."

At that moment my sister-in-law entered. She glanced around her, looked at her brother, and then, turning to me: "My dear little girl," she said, with an air of outraged piety, "never, you understand me, never has the furniture in this room been touched since the death of our venerated father." Her tone froze me to the marrow, and somewhat incensed me. At the same time I regretted that I had hurt the feelings of my sister-in-law and upset the backgrounds for my husband's paintings....

I had to put everything back in its place. It was painful. I had succeeded in turning that old, solemn and utterly inhospitable room into a pretty and cosy salon, in which there reigned an attractive harmony of lines and colours. Alas, I had to rehang the paintings by Daubigny, Corot and Meissonier where I had found them, close to the frieze, where it was impossible to enjoy their beauty. I had to replace the pieces of furniture one beside the other along the walls, all in a row, and move back the piano into its dark corner. I had draped it with a marvellous and genuine Doge's gown, made of red velvet, which I had discovered in the studio. I took the gown back to the studio, and had to reinstate in their former places all the horrible things I had triumphantly relegated there. And I had to remove from the salon my pretty Louis XVI. furniture and replace the chairs that had been there, stiff, heavy, ungraceful chairs, with such high seats that one had to climb in order to sit on them, and to jump in order to come down.

I sought a refuge in my room, and my husband followed me there. I begged him to allow me at least to furnish and decorate my own room as I pleased. He gladly consented. He was really grieved by what had taken place. "Be patient," he said; "everything will be all right later on. The main thing is not to be in a hurry."

He was forty; I was twenty. He was quiet, indifferent, easily satisfied, compared life to a disagreeable pill which every one must swallow.... My husband's philosophy did not appeal to me in the least.

And yet I loved him and believed in happiness.... And then, there were my mother's letters. She wrote to me almost every day at that time; and later, and until her tragic end, some twenty years after my marriage, not a week elapsed without my receiving from her, when she was not with me, one of those tenderly maternal letters which strengthen the mind, palliate sorrow, and rekindle the flame of hope in one's soul.

After a few days, when I realised that I had not to deal with deliberate opposition, but that, on the contrary, my husband and his sister were anxious to see me happy, although, being old-fashioned, they were in nature, habits and ideas far removed from me, I thought that with a great deal of affection and persuasion I would succeed in improving my husband. But the problem of Mlle. Steinheil looked to me more difficult.

I asked Adolphe: "How long do you think she will remain with us?"

"She has always lived near me," he replied timidly. "But I hope she will marry some day."

On the very day of her wedding, I celebrated what I called "my victory" by altering everything, not only in the drawing-room, but throughout the house, and turning it at last into the beautiful and comfortable nest I had so long dreamed of.

As a wedding-gift I presented my sister-in-law with the dear old furniture which she had forbidden me to touch, and I also sent her a collection of rococo-clocks and a group of wax flowers under glass shades, which she held sacred. But, as my father had once told me, "Love is illogical," and my sister-in-law carefully removed the dreary furniture, the elaborate clocks and the wax flowers... to the attic of her new home!

I loved my husband, and although I soon found out that his timidity, which I had taken for a lover's diffidence, was really the key-note of his character—that his restraint was weakness, that he had neither ambition nor courage, and that his ideal was tranquillity—I refused to believe that my love, my energy, my vitality, which every one said was contagious, would not in time conquer all obstacles, and that our married life was doomed and happiness impossible. I set to work and did all that an active wife can do for the husband she loves; and my task was the easier because it was the very essence of my nature to spend and devote myself to the service of others, and also because Adolphe, though he lacked will-power, was endowed with many admirable qualities both of the heart and mind.

I reorganised our home, tried to breathe ambition into my husband, cheered him when he was depressed, surrounded him with comfort and assisted him in his work, made the historical costumes which he needed for his models and sat for him myself. But I failed to rouse him from his apathy or to give him the love of effort.... And yet, to whom is effort more necessary than to the artist?

He often spoke to me about his uncle and master, Meissonier, but had ceased to call on him, after a little family misunderstanding, and Meissonier died without my having seen him.

Certain paintings by my husband looked so much like the work of his celebrated uncle that in America a number of "Steinheils" have been sold as "Meissoniers." Adolphe, like his master, painted miniatures in oil and used much the same kind of "subjects." He told me many anecdotes about his uncle, and here is one of them in his own words; "Meissonier was very small, smaller even than I am, and his diminutive stature was quite a trial to him. He came often to my studios and I believe he liked me chiefly because I am small. He would sit on my stool, examine a picture on which I was working, glance at my model, caress his long white beard and say, 'It's fine... but somehow, I don't see things as you do. There seems to be something wrong with the perspective.... Oh! I have it. I forgot you are so very small. I must stoop in order to see like you. Give me a lower stool....' And he chuckled with glee."

In days gone by Meissonier and Louis Steinheil (my husband's father) had worked and struggled together. Then Geoffrey Dechaume, who was to sculpture so many wonderful statues for Notre-Dame in Paris and the Strasburg Cathedral, joined the two friends, and the trio toiled and lived together in one room. Meissonier married the sister of Louis Steinheil. Louis Steinheil became the father of a large family and devoted his attention chiefly to stained-glass painting, which was then very well paid for—a special branch of art which my husband also took up for a time.

I never met a man quite as naturally and unconsciously conceited, excepting perhaps a certain Orientalist, who was as learned as he was celebrated. I remember meeting him once at the Institut. He wore the green uniform and the sword of a member of the Institut, and on his breast there shone a mass of orders. He pointed one out to me with his parchment-like forefinger, "You see this little thing here," he whispered. "There are but three Europeans who have the right to wear it—one emperor, one king and—myself.... I don't attach the slightest importance to it." And, leaving me, he went off to tell exactly the same thing to all who stopped to listen to him.

I met Gounod, who came several times to the Impasse Ronsin, and I sang with the old composer a duet of his of which he was very fond, entitled "D'un cœur qui t'aime." Once he played to me many pages of his "Rédemption," the sacred trilogy which he had dedicated to Queen Victoria. I did not know him very long, for he died in 1893 at Saint Cloud, where, two years later, another great man, Pasteur, was to die.

I also met Ferdinand de Lesseps, le grand Français. He was eighty-seven then and very weak. I never knew a man whose kindness and modesty equalled that of this giant, who had given the world the Suez Canal.

Notwithstanding the separation, I continued to do all that I could for my husband. I looked after the house and assisted him in his work just as I had done before. But need I say that my dream of love and happiness was hopelessly shattered, and that had it not been for my little Marthe my life would have been almost unbearable.

Without clearly realising what was taking place in me and in my home, my friends instinctively showed me renewed sympathy, especially M. B., the Attorney-General. He called almost every day, read to me, filled my mind with new ideas, introduced all kinds of interesting people to me, and created around me an atmosphere which, although artificial, had a wonderful fascination, and made me almost forget all that I wanted so much to forget.

My husband and I often spent evenings in his salon, where scores of magistrates and famous barristers gathered. It was there that I met an extremely beautiful and elegant woman, surrounded by an eager circle of admirers, and her husband, who paid me many commonplace compliments. I afterwards met them in many drawing-rooms. The man was M. Trouard Riolle, and was to be, years afterwards, the Public Prosecutor at my trial. He struck me as an extremely well-groomed and boring poseur, who seemed to think that every woman at once fell in love with him, and that directly he was introduced any glance or remark of his would fascinate her. I soon saw that he was an ambitious and scheming man. His wife, the daughter of the head of the Havas Agency, was as wealthy as she was beautiful.

From one drawing-room I went to another, and very soon I knew what is usually called le Tout-Paris.

I entertained a great deal, gave parties, concerts, dinners. I held a reception once a week, and between two and seven three to four hundred persons would pass through the salons of the villa in the Impasse Ronsin. There came statesmen and diplomatists, famous authors and famous composers, generals and admirals, scientists and officials, business magnates and great financiers, State-councillors, explorers, men with historic names, men who were making names for themselves, and judges, a whole body of judges....

MY drawing-room was a room about 60 feet by 80, and 18 feet high. One entered it from the verandah by doors which, when folded back, made one room of the two. At the far end there was a monumental and ancient chimney-piece of carved wood; on either side of it were cabinets filled with cameos, rare china and silver. The furniture was chiefly Louis XV. and XVI. On the left stood an organ and various stringed instruments, and on the right a grand piano. On the walls hung huge seventeenth-century Gobelins illustrating the story of Judith, Ashuerus and Holofernes, and framed with the classic fruit-and-flower border. I need hardly say that palms and flowers were everywhere in evidence. The salon communicated with the dining-room by a wide opening, so that several hundred persons could easily be entertained.

The Parisian life, brilliant and exhausting, strenuous and artificial, was above all intoxicating, and I needed such intoxication.... The wit, the culture, the taste, the flights of fancy of so many men and women around me, their enthusiasms, their sympathy, their conversations, their qualities, and even their defects, became necessary to me.

Life could not be dull with these companions, whatever their ideas and their habits or their hobbies.

"The Père Lachaise," he exclaimed, "possesses the tombs of Musset, Balzac, Chopin, La Fontaine, Bizet, of your 'friends' Cuvier and Thiers, and others, but it is too fashionable, too showy.... In Montmartre there is more intimacy: one seems to recall, to see the dear dead better. We have Mürger and Offenbach here, Renan and Gautier, Lannes—which means Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland—and Berlioz and Greuze, Madame, the exquisite Greuze who had a wretched wife, but how beautiful she was!... And they represent what is best in France, those men—heroism and wit, subtle art, deep thought and clear language, logic and method, inspiration and recklessness.... And that is typically French, Madame, or I am an old fool!"

M. H. had known intimately Victor Hugo and Berlioz, "the Victor Hugo of music." But whom had he not known, this artistic and lettered old man! He had met Madame Récamier, a year or two before her death. "She was ill, old, and wagged her head. The Vicomte de Chateaubriand—who had only a few weeks more to live—sat near her in an arm-chair, his knees wrapped in a huge rug. He talked to her about himself. That was ever his favourite topic of conversation. He was, at the same time, wearied of everything and almost of himself. Madame Récamier was still good to look upon and had a noble bearing. The oval of her face was pure and her shoulders had retained their beautiful curve. I was twenty then; she was seventy and nearly blind, and although she spoke very little, I could have loved to spend long hours in the company of this woman who had once held the sceptre of perfect loveliness."

There had been many strange romances in M.H.'s adventurous career, but he had remained an optimist and fondly hugged all his memories; and as he sometimes put it, in his flowery language, after a good dinner: "I have gathered as many roses as possible, Madame, in the gardens of Cypris."

There was the Comte de B. who, like M.H., loved life, but thought that France had lost the secret of the art of living. He had been young in the days of Napoleon the Third and was never tired of describing the dazzling days of the Second Empire. He had known them all: the Duke de Morny, the Duchess de Talleyrand, the Princesse de Metternich, Lafitte the banker, Marie Sasse the opera singer, D'Orsay the dandy, La Païva and other ladies fair and frail. He described fantastic parties, games at lansquenet when fortunes were made, and lost, the expedition to Rome, the Italian campaign, the war in Mexico; and he would rhapsodise delightfully on the beauty of the Empress Eugénie, the fascinations of her Court, and the unparalleled festivities at Saint Cloud and at the "Château," as the Tuileries were then called.

Among the people I received there were frivolous and worthless men who were at the same time witty, refined, and highly cultivated. Paris is the home of paradox. There were, for instance, M.X., an apparently sedate and worthy Minister of State, not without ability, who did not hesitate to disguise himself, even donning wigs and false moustaches, on his nocturnal expeditions to cheap haunts of so-called pleasure; M.T., a famous banker, who had his house so built that he could entertain fifty friends to a bacchanalian orgy without his wife knowing, although she was only on the other side of the wall.

There were women who were fascinating without being either beautiful or clever, and able women whose superior nature, talent, or even genius, it took weeks to realise.

Among the hosts of women I knew, there were many whose sole ambition seemed to be of becoming a queen of colifichets, as though their ideal model was Pauline Borghese. I knew two ladies, for instance, one the elderly wife of an eminent magistrate, and the other a wealthy society belle, who spent at least ten out of the fourteen hours during which they were awake in enhancing their beauty... and yet both were indeed beautiful!

A remarkable number of those who came to my house unburdened their hearts to me, whether I wished it or not. I heard dreadful secrets from excited ladies, and also confessions that were merely laughable, although the fair sinners thought otherwise, and seemed to enjoy the artificial atmosphere of danger, adventure, and terror into which they thought they had plunged with sublime recklessness, in order to satisfy their craving for new sensations.

A man of fifty, otherwise sane, clever, and reasonable, once spent three months in besieging my drawing-room, in the hope of finding me alone. At length he asked me, with the greatest secrecy... what he should do in order to become a member of the Cercle de l'Union, the aristocratic club which in former days had been adorned by the presence of the great Talleyrand. I confessed to him in the same trusted and secret tones that I did not move in exalted and exclusive circles! He had no sense of humour, at the time, and proceeded to ask me whether I thought he had any chances of being made a member of the "Jockey." And he kindly informed me that de Morny, Napoleon III.'s "right-hand" man, had belonged to that club.... He left my drawing-room in despair, and a few weeks later, I heard he had become a member of the Nouveau Cercle, the favourite haunt of the jeunesse dorée, and of the Automobile Club de France. Perhaps he thought that two accessible clubs were as good as one exclusive club.

A white-haired English lady once explained to me, somewhat severely, the meaning of "talking shop." She was bewildered when I ventured to remark that I liked people to talk about what they knew and to keep as much as possible from generalities and commonplace topics. A young attaché of the British Embassy who had introduced the lady to me remarked: "You would hold other views if you lived in England, Madame. The atmosphere there is so different." Just to tease him, and in order to change the conversation, I begged him to give me a definition of that handy expression, "atmosphere." He remained silent, and I thought he acknowledged his defeat. But he cleverly proved to me that I was mistaken and that Englishmen do not give in so readily. While his lady-friend and I were examining some Bartolozzi prints, he glanced at the contents of my music cabinet, found an album of songs which had been sent to me by a friend in London and begged me to play one of them, which he chose himself.

He asked with such charming insistence that I gladly consented to play while he hummed the words. When it was over, he quietly said: "There is a great deal of the atmosphere of England in that song, Madame. You see it often takes a poet and a musician to give certain definitions...."

There came to my house unknown geniuses and famous mediocrities, and I gently urged the former to make use of the latter; there came people who were aggressively biassed and prejudiced, and I gently waged war on them, declaring that impartiality was blindness or weakness, or both; and to those who were hopelessly impartial, I hinted discreetly that a person who has no opinion must lead a very tedious existence.

I knew a sportsman who, having been crossed in love, devoted his life to the study of certain minerals, and a gentleman, otherwise sane, who decorated his house from roof to cellar, with the shells of the oysters he had eaten and the corks of the champagne bottles he had emptied, after having scrupulously inscribed on these gastronomic mementoes the dates of the merry feasts they recalled to him!

Three men stand out from this mixed crowd of acquaintances as my faithful and trusted friends—three men wonderfully gifted and yet wonderfully modest, three men with golden hearts and lofty minds: Bonnat, the painter; Massenet, the composer; and Coppée, the poet.

Bonnat—above all a portrait painter—had a curious way of working. He hardly worked at his model—directly. He preferred to watch him, or her, in a round hand-mirror which he held in his left hand—the hand which also held the palette. At the back of the studio stood a small cheval-glass, placed in such a position that it reflected the portrait. He watched both images, and... worked. Another curious method of his was to turn the canvas when he retouched this or that detail.

Bonnat worked in silence. He did not think it necessary to make his model talk so as to get at his, or her, "psychology," but was satisfied with painting what he saw. In this, he reminded me of Rodin, the greatest sculptor since Michel-Angelo, whom I once heard say: "The artist cannot improve upon nature, and Life is Beauty."

Bonnat, energetic and wiry, believed in work, work, work—which, by the way, is also Rodin's motto—and achieved wonderful portraits, although I am aware that the pointillists, the cubists, the post-impressionists, and the post-post-impressionists hold other views!

He had "his" arm-chair in my drawing-room, and would sit there for hours, listening to the music or watching my guests, and rarely opening his lips. He was fond of Marthe, always had his pockets full of "surprises" for her, and often took her to his studio, where she loved to gaze at his beautiful collection of butterflies, with which she held long, mysterious conversations.

Alas, Bonnat persisted in perfecting his work. Then he found that the canvas was not large enough.... Marthe was "cut" across the middle of her skirt.... There was too much "air" above the head, and too little at the sides.... He would have the canvas enlarged.

But when it was returned to him, he did not like the seams, and precipitately painted out the picture.

I came with my mother and Marthe to see my child's masterful portrait and to sit for mine. When we found that the picture had been destroyed, my mother cried with rage; I shed tears of disappointment. And when I told my old friend that he might have kept the bust only, and cut the picture in a suitable oval, he was as sorry as we all were. That day I had not the heart to sit, nor did Bonnat have the heart to paint!

I spent many delightful hours in that studio. Bonnat asked me to decorate and arrange it to my taste, for he knew full well the intense joy I had in handling beautiful or rare things, and how keen was my love of proportion, harmony, and colour-schemes....

The painter, who was my husband's friend as well as mine, was one of the few men aware that we were not as happy as we appeared or pretended to be. He knew that often in Society, masks, more or less transparent, are worn by husbands and wives, and he did his best to give us those joys and interests which add so much to life, especially when the mainspring is broken and the machine has to be kept going as best it can.

Bonnat was kind to all, especially to poor artists. I once spoke to him about a young and unsuccessful painter who believed in his genius and, what is worse, had made another share his delusions; a poor little girl to whom he gave his unknown name and who gave him her love and—several children. I did my utmost to relieve their misery, and then wrote and asked Bonnat to examine the young man's work.

"Well, what is it like?" I asked.

"Nothing in it so far," Bonnat replied. "Why on earth does the fellow paint? The only way of saving him is to make him give up Art and adopt some other profession. Will you send him to me one of these days?"

"He's downstairs, waiting...." And I ran away before my old friend could exclaim his usual "Just like you!"

Bonnat questioned the young painter about his parents and heard that they were farmers. In his entertaining way he spoke of Nature, country-life, the simple life.... "And do you really think," he exclaimed in conclusion, "that if it were not for the Institute, the Council of the Légion d'Honneur, the Ecole des Beaux Arts, of which I am the director, and a score of other Societies and Committees to which I belong, I would remain here one single hour longer. No, sir! And you should consider yourself as a lucky dog. If I were free, as you are, I would go and live in my dear Saint-Jean-de-Luz, near the sea and near the Pyrenees, and breathe, and work.... As for painting, it is a wonderful thing, fascinating, ideal, sublime and all that, and I am rather fond of it myself, but there's no living in it unless you made a name for yourself forty years ago, as I did, for people liked good and beautiful things in those days, and paid for them.... If I were you, I'd paint what I pleased—in my leisure, and adopt some simple profession to earn my living. Ask your father to let you help him on his farm, and if you send me a picture every year and it's good enough, I'll try to get it accepted at the Salon.... By the way, do you care for a good cigar?"

"Rather," said the young painter, who although born in the country had spent several years in Montmartre.

"Well, then, my lad, take this box with you." And Bonnat dismissed him in the blunt manner which he assumed whenever he did a good action.

"How shall I thank M. Bonnat," he kept repeating, after I had filled him with tea and cakes so that he might recover.

"I'll tell you," I replied. "By, not thanking him at all. He loathes gratitude."

Massenet, the composer of Manon, Thaïs, Sapho, Werther, and so many other delightful operas, did me, for many years, the great honour of calling himself my "respectful, obedient, and faithful accompanist." I always found him whimsical, enthusiastic, mischievous, and fond of jokes. As he entered my salon, at some crowded reception, he would wave aside the valet about to announce his name, and shout in a stentorian voice: "Massenet!"... Once, he added, "Grand officer of the legion of honour, author of a score of operas, member of several academies!" And as soon as he had greeted me and shaken hands with a few friends, he started his favourite sport: pun-making. He had a knack of ending the most serious arguments, even about music, with a bon mot, and I sincerely believe that he enjoyed the successes of his witticisms quite as much as the success of his operas. He said himself: "I am a composer, that's true and I can't help it, but at the same time I love fun and youth, and boys of sixty are incorrigible."

Once, some foreigners called on me, and Massenet begged me to mumble his name when I should introduce him. A little later, he was talking music to the newcomers, and in time mentioned Massenet, whose music he lightly disparaged, with the result that they agreed with him, as he seemed to know all about music, and even went further and declared Massenet's music quite unbearable. Thereupon the composer sat at the piano and played some of his own music as he alone could play it, and Massenet's critics went into ecstasies. "Ah, that's what one may call real music," they said. "Who wrote it?"

"It's perfectly sweet. You ought to have your music printed."

"I occasionally do."

"Really! Would you mind repeating your name, we didn't quite catch it!"

"Massenet," and with infinite good grace the composer handed his card, and left the room in order to have his laugh outside.

His letters were most amusing. They were interspersed with bars of music and "sketches" to emphasise or illustrate his meaning. And they invariably contained some welcome remark about his work: "I have just left the Opera Comique. I am quite done up, but the interpretation at this rehearsal was splendid; singers, orchestra, everything. And Calvé! She's divine.... Ah! The fourth act, you will see what she makes of it!..." But long before his letters reached me, Massenet came himself, although "done up," and played to me that fourth act, and made me sing it... under the eyes of my mother and of Marthe, wrapped in ecstasy! Massenet worshipped my daughter and always perched the darling on the top of the piano, where he played.

In order that Marthe might accompany me, he had the charming idea of composing a few songs for me, the accompaniments of which were very simple and easy and without octaves, which were as yet beyond her reach. On the day when she played the first of these "Do not give thy heart," Massenet indulged in an orgy of puns and jokes, which was a sign of perfect contentment.

François Coppée, an old comrade of my husband's and one of my "faithful," as he called himself, lived close to us and often came in to have a chat, to look at the flowers in my "winter garden" or to listen to music.

Reyer decreed: "It is quite as difficult to frame a melody as to frame a sonnet." But Coppée refused to believe it, and going to the piano, he struck a note mightily. "That's a war-cry," he exclaimed; then touched the same note gently, "And that's melancholy," and playing it once more as softly as possible, "And that's reverie: Music is above all wonderful because it is so simple!" It was a mere sally on his part, and Reyer laughed heartily.

Coppée was kind, tender-hearted, and sociable, the very type of the popular and sentimental Parnassien. He spoke in an artless manner, as much like a Christian as a poet, and the modesty of this Academicien, this "immortal" loaded with honours, was delightful.

He found me one evening reading some verses of Heredia. "You are unfaithful to me, dear friend," he said.

"I like all good poets," I replied, "and this one opens wide horizons to me. He seems very far...."

"You are right. I merely try to see what is near me," said Coppée with a smile.

Little Marthe was very proud of the poet, but this did not prevent her from making use of him. She made him gather shells for her, one summer, on a small beach in Normandy, and told him to store them in his large felt hat. It was there that he once took us to a huge rock in a secret hole of which he showed me a large box of cigarettes.

"The doctor strictly forbids me to smoke," he explained, "and my sister (Coppée was a bachelor and lived with his sister, who was the most devoted person one could well conceive) sees to it that the doctor's instructions are carried out. Therefore, I come here secretly to smoke. Life without tobacco, you know...." Then taking me to the other side of the rock, he pointed to the sand which was strewn with hundreds of cigarette ends, and cheerfully exclaimed: "What a cemetery!"

In Paris I often saw Coppée as I passed by the Café des Vosges, his favourite haunt, a few hundred yards away from the Impasse Ronsin. He saluted me, quickly paid the waiter, overtook me, and together we walked to my house, talking of books.

He himself organised a performance at my villa of his Passant, the charming one-act play which had made him famous when he was twenty-seven, and still a clerk in the Ministry of War.

During the Dreyfus affair, in which he took a leading part as one of the founders of the Patrie Française League, I saw him less and less. Meeting him one morning in the gardens of the Luxembourg, I asked him why he neglected me.

"Ah! my friend," he said hesitatingly, "I'd love to call on you as in the past, but the trouble is there are too many Dreyfusards in your salon!"

By an amusing coincidence, Zola called that very day, but he only remained a little while.

"To my great regret, I must go, Madame." And he added in a low, confidential voice: "The fact is there are too many Anti-Dreyfusards here."

The author of the Roujon-Macquarts was manly and brave besides being an able if unsympathetic novelist, but he had, to my knowledge, one little failing: he disliked talent in others, and one weakness: he was a gourmet. Therefore on the two or three occasions when he dined with us, I arranged a menu which Brillat Savarin would have endorsed and took care not to invite any other writer.

I teased him one day: "How is the chase after human documents going on?" I asked.

"Quite well, Madame. I hunt my quarry everywhere, and all day long. Human documents, slices of life, searching character-studies, that is all there is in literature."

"But what of the writer's personality? Is that of no account whatever?"

"It shouldn't be. I try to eliminate my personality from my books...."

"And don't you succeed?" I asked.

"I have the misfortune of being possessed of a temperament which I cannot altogether get rid of, alas!" came the pompous reply.

Another time, after re-reading "La Terre," I told him "You are a pessimist, M. Zola! You see only one side of life, the ugly and animal side; and but one kind of people... the bad kind. And to cap it all, you exaggerate. You believe yourself a 'realist,' but as a matter of fact, you are an idealist... with an ugly ideal!"

It was very evident that Zola was not pleased. Without relenting, however, I went on: "I have lived in the country for many, many years. I assure you that our peasants round Beaucourt and Belfort bear very little likeness to the brutes you describe. I have loved the peasants...."

"And I, Madame," Zola retorted severely, "I have observed them."

That night, after my guest's departure, I did not go on with "La Terre," but refreshed my mind by reading, for the twentieth time, "Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard" and felt extremely thankful to Anatole France.

Zola overheard the remark and smiled. He rightly appreciated that kind of indirect compliment.

I happened to meet Zola on a day following one of his defeats at the election of the French Academy. A young man, pallid and very nervous but full of good intentions, said to the great writer as if to console him: "Maître, what does it matter?... After all, not even Pascal or Molière or Balzac was made a member of the Academy."

Zola did not reply, but a little later, when cups of tea and "petits-fours" were being handed round, he began to describe the Morgue in an even more realistic and harrowing manner than in "Thérèse Raquin"!... And as he spoke, his eyes were riveted on the tactless young man, who turned livid and trembled.

Had Zola taken into account the importance of political influence in the Academical elections—as in everything else in France—he would probably have become an "Immortal." At any rate, few writers were even more worthy of a seat under the Coupole.

I spent pleasant hours at the Institute. I was present at the receptions of Anatole France who obtained the seat of M. de Lesseps and of Edmond Rostand, by M. de Voguë, and at a few more of these ceremonies which play such an important part in the literary and social life of Paris. I have always felt a deep sympathy with the récipiendaires, whatever their degree of literary merit. For even though a man may have written books which the world will hasten to forget, that is no reason why he should be compelled to listen in public, and for an hour, to a colleague's eulogies. What an ordeal and excessive cruelty when the récipiendaire happens really to deserve the panegyric!... It is positively painful to the least sensitive onlooker. The ladies, however, suffer the least, for their attention is naturally divided between the speeches and the display of new frocks and hats... an Academical Reception having long been a recognised occasion for the exhibition of the "latest creations."

Our conversation took place at the wedding of one of my cousins, the bridegroom being a relation of Loti's. The melancholy author of so many evocations, of so many exotic idyls, spoke well, but in a hollow, monotonous voice.

A concert was given after the wedding and a Breton sang several of his pieces: sailor-songs, excessively strong and free.

Loti, the naval officer, and Loti, the author of "Pêcheurs d'Islande," was carried away, and turning to me, he said: "Isn't my friend wonderful! As you listen to him, you can see the swelling ocean, you can feel the sea-breeze in your face...."

"Yes, and you can even taste the brine, smell the musty fish and... feel sea-sick!" I added, for some of the details in the song really gave one qualms.

AMONGST the "faithful," I must not forget to mention Henner, "the great painter of the flesh," as he called himself in one of his rare poetical moments.

Henner was dumpy, coarse-featured, and almost bald; had a shaggy grey beard, and ever-begrimed hands, and wore the shabbiest and greasiest of clothes. And it came as a shock to hear this old man, unspeakably unkempt and slovenly, talk with the worst Alsatian accent about the Beauty of the Nude, and the splendour of woman, which he did in a very matter-of-fact and unpoetical manner. But besides being a great artist, he was kind, honest and simple-hearted, like his old friend Bonnat.

The painter of "Chaste Susanna," "The Magdalene," and "The Levite of the Tribe of Ephraïm," enjoyed nothing better than a good dinner and old Burgundy.

The tactless surmise happened to be correct. As a matter of fact, M. H. had once called on my husband and abruptly proposed to supply him for life with shirts and collars in exchange for a certain painting which he fancied. I tried not to be angry. "My husband," I said, "wears only the very best shirts...."

"I quite understand that."

"And he gives them away when he has worn them once...."

M. H. saw his mistake and withdrew the offer.

I never knew Henner to be embarrassed. We treated him like a member of the family, and, one day, wishing to make him understand that his nails were really too grimy, I asked him whether he wished to wash his hands before dinner.

He looked at his nails, understood, and quietly said: "I am in mourning for Alsace and Lorraine."

But if he were never embarrassed, he had embarrassing habits, the worst of which was that of examining the shoulders and arms of ladies in décolleté with unperturbed insistence. And not infrequently he would say: "Allow me, just one second; I want to feel the grain, the quality of your skin." And before the victim had time to move he would press down his hairy and grimy forefinger on her bare arm, or even on her neck.

Withdrawing his fingers, he would pass some such remark as this: "It's really wonderful. I never grow tired of feeling flesh.... It is all made of little dots—blue, white, green, pink, purple, yellow... that is what flesh is."

A few days later I met the fair Hungarian Countess.

"How is the portrait?"

"Don't speak about it," she replied. "Your Henner is a wretch. I went to his studio with my husband. Henner said to me quickly: 'Please undress.' Then, as if he were talking to himself, he added: 'Her body stretched on the black velvet of this couch, her hair loose... and a dark background.... It's going to be a masterpiece!' My husband was mad with rage.... At last M. Henner saw his mistake. He had only seen my hair and my complexion, and had not stopped to think whether I were a lady or a model. He apologised profusely, and offered to paint my portrait in any dress I chose, but my husband would not listen to him...."

He made a joke once of which he was very proud. Having been asked who were his favourite composers, he replied: "There are two, and they have the same name. When I want serious music I ask for some Sebastian Bach, and when I want gay music I ask for some Offen-bach!"

Henner adored music. He said so, at least. But music is usually played after dinner, and after dinner, Henner retired to the smoking room in the company of a glass of brandy, and soon went to sleep. The noise of the instruments being tuned woke him up, and he came rushing into the drawing-room shouting: "Bravo, bravo; Ach.... What a nice piece that was." And he added: "And now that I have heard this masterpiece, I must retire. I have had a good dinner, I have heard excellent music, I have met charming people, and I am going away very pleased...." And the dear old man disappeared.

Did he guess who was responsible for this little joke! I could not tell.... All I know is that at Christmas that year he sent Marthe, instead of a doll or a toy, a Sanskrit grammar, and on New Year's day, to me, whom he perhaps thought my daughter's accomplice, instead of flowers or marrons-glacés, his huge work on "The People and the Language of the Medes."

Assyriology leads me to mention M. and Mme. Dieulafoy, well known for their excavations at Suse, and their books. Every one knows that Mme. Dieulafoy is one of the three or four women in France who are authorised to wear men's clothes. This brings back an amusing incident to me.

Mme. Dieulafoy was kindly helping me to dress, one evening, for a theatrical performance in her salons. My maid, a country girl quite new to Paris, was nowhere to be found. When I returned home, I asked her why she had left the Dieulafoys' house when she knew I wanted her. She blushed, spluttered, and finally said: "Forgive me, Madame, but I was late, and when I opened the door of your dressing-room, I saw a gentleman at your feet fastening your costume.... So I ran away, feeling that I was not needed at all!"

I laughed at the incident, just as I had laughed a few years before, when, in the Forest of Fontainebleau, I saw a short, white-haired man, wearing a smock, and painting, whom I congratulated. The "man" was Rosa Bonheur, the celebrated animal painter.

Of Chauchard, the millionaire founder of the Louvre stores, the philanthropist and grand-cross of the Legion of Honour, there is little to say. Camille Groult, on the other hand, was interesting because he had no false pride and really loved his pictures. He had an estate near Paris close to my summer villa, and I often met him. He had made a fortune as a manufacturer of pâtes alimentaires (farinaceous foods) and was proud of it. He was the only man I ever met who could talk romantically of tapioca, rice, spices or sago. I remember how once he told the story of his sago business. It was an epic. He made us—we were a few friends listening to him—travel to Borneo, to Ceram and other isles of the Pacific, described the sago palm and its mature trunks gorged with precious food-starch, the marshy and unhealthy river-banks where the palm grows, the life of the native packers, the price of the gunnybags in which sago travels, the competition between European, Chinese and Eurasian traders and what not.... After that I really did keenly relish Groult's sago-flour and see the romantic side of what I had always considered a prosaic business.

Groult once took my husband and me to his old "hotel" in the Avenue Malakoff, to show us his famous collection, which was quite a favour, for he guarded his pictures jealously and rarely let them be seen.

He showed us not only his pictures, but also his collection of Gobelins, and the way in which he spoke, for instance, of the Birth of Bacchus—a wonderful tapestry copied from a cartoon by Boucher—was a sheer delight. He possessed exquisite "Aubussons" with the most delicate pastel hues, old Chinese porcelains, a collection of snuff-boxes, unique pieces of antique furniture (which he caressed as one caresses a lover), a series of fans, the folds of which were as light as the wings of the rare butterflies in the cabinet hard by. And the paintings....

Groult's collection of English masters was almost as wonderful. It contained masterpieces by Gainsborough, Reynolds, Hoppner, Raeburn and Lawrence, and a gallery of Turners, though Turner would perhaps have disowned a number of them. Groult's collection of paintings of the British School was well worth seeing, and, as my husband remarked: "One cannot say as much of that possessed by the Louvre, most of the pictures in which could not have been painted by the master to whom they are attributed. Gainsborough, for instance, is represented at the Louvre by two landscapes in the Italian style, the sight of which would have revolted the painter of Mrs. Siddons, the Blue Boy and Little Miss Haverfield if he had seen them."

To deal at length with all the politicians, functionaries and diplomats I have known is beyond the scope of this book of "Memoirs," the essential portion of which must be that devoted to the mystery of the Impasse Ronsin—the events which preceded and followed the crime, my arrest, my life in prison and my trial.

Besides, very few among those holders of important offices really did "matter" or did achieve anything beyond their ambition—which was, of course, money and promotion, till they could reach no higher in their particular sphere of activity, when their only thought became that of "retaining office"!

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I met King Edward VII., then Prince of Wales, several times.

He asked me one day, quite unexpectedly, what I thought of his French. "Your Highness," I replied, "speaks our language unusually well...."

"For one who is not French!"

"For one who is not always in France. But, perhaps, your Highness speaks it too grammatically."

His power of observation and his memory were amazing. He once recalled every detail about the dress which I had worn at a certain performance at the opera, where I had been seated exactly opposite his box, and then proceeded to describe the diadem of a friend of mine who had sat near me at the same gala performance. He explained that he so much admired the original design that he had had a similar one made for a wedding present. He then spoke of music, knowing how I loved music, and further astounded me by naming, during the conversation, nearly all the items of the programme on that night.

He had a charming sense of humour, and I remember his saying: "In France, I enjoy myself, look round and talk; in Germany, I observe and let others talk; in England... I shan't tell you what I do in England. I should be divulging State Secrets!"...

Among those that at one time or other came frequently to my salon, I must mention Admiral Gervais, whose visit to Kronstadt with the French squadron marked the first stage of what was to become the alliance with Russia, that counterpoise against the Triple Alliance; M. Sadi Carnot, son of the President, and great-grandson of the great Lazare Carnot, the "organizer of victory"; M. Dujardin-Beaumetz, the sympathetic, obliging, and apparently inamovible Under-Secretary of State for Fine Arts, who dined at my house only a month before the tragic night, and my old friend Poubelle, Prefect of the Seine and afterwards Ambassador at Rome, who just before he issued the famous and wise regulation which made it compulsory for every householder to have dust-bins, the contents of which are removed every morning by the city scavengers, sent me a mass of orchids in one of these bins which, as he designed them, are called poubelles by the ever-facetious Parisian to this day. My maid was furious and said it was a gross insult to "Madame" to have sent her flowers in a dust-bin!

I had several Dutch friends. The ladies dressed simply, though clearly, and were somewhat narrow-minded; and, apparently, their one great care was to be deftig, that is, comme il faut, "good form" with just a touch of culture. They talked constantly of their homes at the Hague or Amsterdam, with such pride and even fire, that I wondered how they could have left Holland at all. I knew some Swiss folk who talked of Eugène Rambert as of a very great poet, and of Secrétan as the Last Metaphysician. I knew Rou-[I think hyphen should be removed]manians who all talked about oil and wheat, who described Sinaïa, Carmen Sylva's summer residence, as the most beautiful mountain-home in the world, and who acquainted me with their country's songs and popular ballads, which have delightful names: Stellele, Sarutatul, Doina, and which took not only me, but my mother and my little Marthe, right out of the world. I received several Germans, whom I learned to know at once, and many English people whom it took months to make out... but it was often worth it.

As a matter of fact, I never possessed an autograph-book, and that is probably the reason why I have so many letters from great men and "celebrities."

I have been on excellent terms with many Russians, including a young princess, tall, green-eyed, and white-skinned, who had the soft graceful movements of a cat, and smoked cigarettes from morn till night; whose dresses seemed always about to slip off her shoulders and whose favourite poet was Baudelaire... and who, in spite of her many weird and morbid eccentricities, managed to be a most devoted wife, a most loving mother, and a most faithful friend.

What extraordinary people there are amongst the Russians! They seem to have twice as much vitality as the average person, their nerves are always highly strung, and yet never seem to snap; they have a tremendous capacity for work and equally tremendous capacity for wasting time, and are altogether greater "living paradoxes" than the French themselves!

I remember a great Muscovite official, who one evening left the drawing-room to return into the dining-room, where he rapidly emptied not only every bottle and decanter but also the glasses of my forty guests, even those glasses which contained only a few drops of wine. He fell dead drunk, and had to be carried to the garden, where a railway director and the Minister of Public Instruction played the hose on his head.