Her Majesty's Minister

“I can’t help regarding the affair, Ingram, as something more than a political ballon d’essai. The silence of our friends both in the Boulevard de Courcelles and the Rue de Lille is very ominous.”

Chapter Fourteen

Smart Paris

On the following afternoon, as Lord Barmouth had some business with the Minister of Foreign Affairs over at the Quai d’Orsay, I accompanied Lady Barmouth and Sibyl to a rather queer function. It was a unique opportunity offered to visit in detail one of the most attractive palaces in La Ville Lumière; to while away a few hours very agreeably with a well-chosen variety entertainment presented by some of the most popular artists on the Paris stage; and to aid a philanthropic enterprise, L’Oeuvre Sociale, conceived, I suppose, in a compassionate love of humanity and carried on in a touching spirit of self-abnegation. The palace was that of Prince Roland Bonaparte, in the Avenue d’Jena. Through the galleries, salons, and magnificent library the crush was enormous. The afternoon was hot and the atmosphere stifling; nevertheless, in the cause of charity we of the diplomatic circle must always be en évidence, even though we would rather be away from the crowd in the country or by the sea.

It was evident when we arrived that the visit to the hotel was one of the great attractions of the fête, for many lady visitors, especially the American contingent, examined and admired the handsome staircase, with its green marble columns, its vast collection of pictures, sculpture, bronzes, tapestries, and curiosities, the salons filled with souvenirs of the First Empire and of the Imperial family, and the incomparable library – that of Louis XIV – in exquisitely carved wood.

We mounted to the vestibule on the first floor, where a concert-room had been fitted up, and there with difficulty found seats among the crowded audience.

Aristide Bruant himself was concluding one of his popular songs of the street:

La moral’ de c’tte oraison-là,
C’est qu’ les p’tit’s fill’s qu’a pas d’ papa,
Doiv’nt jamais aller à l’école,
À Batignolles,

and bowed himself off amid thunders of applause. As a Paris singer has not to submit his lines to a paternal County Council, they are frequently a trifle more free than those to which English audiences are in the habit of listening. Nevertheless, it must be remembered that this charity function was a very smart affair, all the best-known people remaining in Paris being present. After Bruant, an outburst of applause greeted the renowned Spanish dancer, La Belle Otero, who danced and sang, followed by pastourelles of the eighteenth century, romances by Florian and Marie Antoinette, and songs by Paulus. Lastly, there bounded upon the stage Eugénie Buffet, the “chanteuse des rues,” together with her troupe. She sang that weird song of Paris life so popular at the cafés, called “À la Villette,” commencing:

Il avait pas encor’ vingt ans,
I’ connaissait pas ses parents,
On l’app’lait Toto Laripette,
À la Villette.
Il était un peu sans façon,
Mais c’était un joli garçon:
C’était l’pus beau, c’était l’pus chouette,
À la Villette.

The audience had heard much of the song, but few of those present had ever ventured into the insignificant café where she sang it nightly. Consequently there was distinct novelty in it. She sang it through, to the accompaniment of her street musicians, until she came to the final verse:

La derniér’ fois que je l’ai vu,
Il avait l’torse à moitié nu,
Et le cou pris dans la lunette,
À la Roquette.

Then, with a sudden outburst of enthusiasm, the whole audience threw hundreds of sous and francs to the singer.

Sibyl, seated beside me, her ladyship having found a seat with the Baronne de Chalencon some distance away, turned to me, saying:

“The air is simply suffocating here. Shall we go?”

“Certainly,” I answered, glad myself to escape from the semi-asphyxiation. We rose and passed out together. On the stairs we met Prince Roland, delighted with the success of the entertainment, ascending, with, as usual, hat on the back of his head and hands in pockets.

“Ah, mon cher Ingram!” he cried, greeting us. “And you are here with mademoiselle?”

Sibyl congratulated him upon his great success, whereupon he answered, with a broad smile:

“It seems, mademoiselle, that my hotel is not large enough for charity.”

And he passed on, leaving us to laugh at his rather witty mot. In Paris everyone knows the Prince, for he is one of the central figures in Society. Below we encountered the Baronne de Nouilles, who with Madame Bornier was sharing the feminine literary honours of Paris at the moment. The Baronne’s poems were well known, especially “Il n’y a plus d’îles bienheureuses.” She greeted us merrily, for Sibyl was her especial favourite. She was still quite young, dark, slim, and distinguished-looking. In addition to much originality and charm in her manner of writing, she possessed an insight into, and a power to judge, human nature in its many varied aspects which had been pronounced by the critics to be remarkable. She was very graceful, with auburn hair and a face such as Burne-Jones loved to paint. Indeed, she had sat for the faces of several of that artist’s more recent pictures.

“What!” she cried, “you, too, find the crush too great? And I also. I am returning home. Come with me, both of you, and have a quiet cup of tea. I will explain to her ladyship;” and walking quickly across to where Sibyl’s mother was standing, she uttered a few words to the Ambassador’s wife. Then we all three entered her landau and drove to her house.

The Baronne was, as all Paris knows, in every way an artist, wealthy, chic, and philanthropic to a degree. Her house was, I found, a dream of exquisite taste.

When we entered, Sibyl turned to me, saying:

“These white carpets and delicate hangings make one tremble at the thought of dirty feet or smutty fingers!”

And they certainly did. The effects everywhere were highly artistic – more striking, I think, than I had ever seen in any private house. Her refined taste and rare turn of – mind were shown in every corner of that delightful house, so delicate and restful in every detail. The salon in which tea was served was all white – soft white velvet hangings, white carpet, white wood furniture, and a little gallery also in white. Along the dado-line, in white wood, were painted butterflies in pale opal shades, frail symbols of the flitting gaieties of life.

We had been chatting some little time, and the conversation between the Ambassador’s daughter and the poetess had turned upon frocks, as it so often does between women devoted to La mode. They were discussing the toilette of Madame de Yturbe, one of the prettiest women in Paris, and the tendency of late towards the Empire and Directoire periods in dress, when I asked a question to which I had often failed to get a satisfactory answer.

“Who is really the smartest – the Parisienne, or the American woman, in Paris?”

“Ah, m’sieur!” cried the merry little Baronne, holding up her hands, “the Americans run us so very close in the matter of dress nowadays that I really do not know. Indeed, many Americans are in my opinion more chic than the vraie Parisienne.”

“Well,” observed Sibyl rather philosophically, “there is, I think, more independence and individuality in the American woman’s manner of putting on her clothes. The French woman – forgive me, Baronne – accepts her frock just as it comes from the dressmaker, and looks more or less as though she has just stepped out of a bandbox. But the American knows better what suits her in the first place, and in putting on her clothes adapts them, by a judicious touch here and there, to her own particular style and taste.”

“I thoroughly agree,” observed the Baronne. “We have been actually beaten on our own ground by the Americans. It is curious, but nevertheless true, that we French women are being left behind in the mode, as we have been left behind in the laws. Here, in France, we are twenty years or so behind the age in regard to the laws affecting women.”

“I don’t understand,” observed Sibyl.

“Well, in brief, our modern intellectual young man in Paris is all for woman’s rights. In England you have long been aware that to educate and gradually emancipate the women-folk is one of the most important points in modern progress; but though the Feministe movement in France has been actively pushed by a small minority during the last few years, we in Paris have only just heard of your so-called New Woman.”

“And do you believe, Baronne, that the movement will progress?” I inquired.

“Ah! it is difficult to say, m’sieur,” she answered, with a slight shrug of her well-formed shoulders. “When the reformers’ ideal has once been placed in the category of practical politics it will probably be accorded a welcome and given a deferential attention which has scarcely been vouchsafed to it on your side of the Pas de Calais. At present, as you know, a married woman in France has no right to her own earnings. They belong to the husband. A man can actually imprison his wife for two years if discovered with a lover; while a woman who has been wronged is not allowed the recherche de la paternité. In short, you English respect your womenkind, and are a free and enlightened people in comparison with us. Here, ‘Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité,’ are words which apply solely to the masculine sex.”

We both laughed, but the Baronne was quite serious, and from her subsequent observations it was patent that I had accidentally touched upon one of her pet subjects. To confess the truth, I became rather bored by her violent arguments in favour of the emancipation of women, for when a voluble Frenchwoman argues, it is difficult to get in a word edgewise.

Presently she exclaimed:

“A couple of days ago I had a visit from an old friend who inquired whether I knew you – the Comtesse de Foville. She has left Paris.”

“Yes,” I said, “I think she has. Her visit has been only a brief one. They have gone for their cure at Marienbad, I believe.”

“Very brief. She wrote telling me that she and Yolande would remain in Paris at least a month, and yet they’ve not been here a week!”

“Is this the same Yolande whom you knew in Brussels?” asked Sibyl, turning to me with a glance of surprise.

“Yes,” I answered in a hard voice. Why, I wondered, had this woman brought up a subject so distasteful to me?

“You were her cavalier in Brussels, so I’ve heard,” observed the Ambassador’s daughter. “I was still at college in those days, I suppose. But is it really true that your flirtations were something dreadful?”

“Who told you so?” I inquired, in a tone which affected to scout such an idea.

“Mother said so the other day. She told me that everyone in Brussels knew you had fallen violently in love with her, and prophesied marriage, until one day you suddenly applied for a change of post, and left her. They whispered that it was owing to a quarrel.”