My First Years as a Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 | Page 2

revanche. The feeling was
very bitter between the two branches of the Royalist party, Legitimists
and Orleanists. One night at a party in the Faubourg St. Germain, I saw
a well-known fashionable woman of the extreme Legitimist party turn
her back on the Comtesse de Paris. The receptions and visits were not
always easy nor pleasant, even though I was a stranger and had no ties
with any former government. I remember one of my first visits to a
well-known Legitimist countess in the Faubourg St. Germain; I went
on her reception day, a thing all young women are most particular
about in Paris. I found her with a circle of ladies sitting around her,
none of whom I knew. They were all very civil, only I was astonished
at the way the mistress of the house mentioned my name every time she
spoke to me: "Madame Waddington, etes-vous allee a l'Opera hier
soir," "Madame Waddington, vous montez a cheval tous les matins, je
crois," "Monsieur Waddington va tous les vendredis a l'Institut, il me
semble," etc. I was rather surprised and said to W. when I got home,
"How curious it is, that way of saying one's name all the time; I
suppose it is an old-fashioned French custom. Madame de B. must have

said 'Waddington' twenty times during my rather short visit." He was
much amused. "Don't you know why? So that all the people might
know who you were and not say awful things about the 'infecte
gouvernement' and the Republic, 'which no gentleman could serve.'"
[Footnote 1: "W.," here and throughout this book, refers to Madame
Waddington's husband, M. William Waddington.]
[Illustration: Monsieur Theirs.]
The position of the German Embassy in Paris was very difficult, and
unfortunately their first ambassador after the war, Count Arnim, didn't
understand (perhaps didn't care to) how difficult it was for a
high-spirited nation, which until then had always ranked as a great
military power, to accept her humiliation and be just to the victorious
adversary. Arnim was an unfortunate appointment--not at all the man
for such a delicate situation. We had known him in Rome in the old
days of Pio Nono's reign, where he had a great position as Prussian
minister to the Vatican. He and the Countess Arnim received a great
deal, and their beautiful rooms in the Palazzo Caffarelli, on the top of
the Capitol Hill (the two great statues of Castor and Pollux standing by
their horses looking as if they were guarding the entrance) were a
brilliant centre for all the Roman and diplomatic world. He was a
thorough man of the world, could make himself charming when he
chose, but he never had a pleasant manner, was curt, arrogant, with a
very strong sense of his own superiority. From the first moment he
came to Paris as ambassador, he put people's backs up. They never
liked him, never trusted him; whenever he had an unpleasant
communication to make, he exaggerated the unpleasantness, never
attenuated, and there is so much in the way things are said. The French
were very hard upon him when he got into trouble, and certainly his
own Government was merciless to him.
One of my first small difficulties after becoming a Frenchwoman was
to eliminate some of my German friends from my salon. I could not run
the risk of their being treated rudely. I remember so well one night at
home, before I was married, seeing two French officers not in uniform
slip quietly out of the room when one of the German Embassy came in,

yet ours was a neutral house. When my engagement was announced
one of my great friends at the German Embassy (Count Arco) said to
me: "This is the end, I suppose, of our friendship; I can never go to see
you when you are the wife of a French deputy." "Oh, yes, you can still
come; not quite so often, perhaps, but I can't give up my friends."
However, we drifted apart without knowing why exactly. It is curious
how long that hostile feeling toward Germany has lasted in France.
Every year there is a great review of the Paris garrison (thirty thousand
men) by the President of the Republic, at Longchamp, on the 14th of
July, the national fete--the day of the storming of the Bastile. It is a
great day in Paris--one of the sights of the year--and falling in
midsummer the day is generally beautiful and very warm. From early
dawn all the chairs and benches along the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne
are crowded with people waiting patiently for hours to see the show.
There is not a seat to be had at Longchamp. Unless one arrives very
early the tribunes are packed, and the President's box very crowded, as
he