My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876 to 1879 - Mary King Waddington
Another rumour, from the extreme Left this time, was that a large armed
force under the command of a well-known general, very high up in his
career, was to assemble in the north at Lille, a strong contingent of
Republicans were to join them to be ready to act. I remember quite well
two of W.'s friends coming in one morning, full of enthusiasm for this
plan. I don't think they quite knew what they were going to do with
their army. W. certainly did not. He listened to all the details of the
plan; they gave him the name of the general, supposed to have very
Republican sympathies (not generally the case with officers), the number
of regiments, etc., who would march at a given signal, but when he said,
"It is possible, you might get a certain number of men together, but
what would you do with them?" they were rather nonplussed. They hadn't
got any further than a grand patriotic demonstration, with the military,
drums beating, flags flying, and the Marseillaise being howled by an
excited crowd. No such extreme measures, however, were ever carried
out. From the first moment it was evident that a large Republican
majority would be returned; almost all the former deputies were
re-elected and a number of new ones, more advanced in their opinion. In
the country it was the only topic of conversation.
Parliament was dissolved in June, 1877, but we remained in town until
the end of July. It wasn't very warm and many people remained until the
end of the session. The big schools too only break up on the 15th of
July, and many parents remain in Paris. The Republican campaign had
already begun, and there were numerous little dinners and meetings when
plans and possibilities were discussed. W. got back usually very late
from Versailles. When he knew the sitting would be very late he sent me
word and I used to go and dine with mother, but sometimes he was kept on
there from hour to hour. I had some long waits before we could dine, and
Hubert, the coachman, used to spend hours in the courtyard of the Gare
St. Lazare waiting for his master. We had a big bay mare, a very fast
trotter, which always did the train service, and the two were stationed
there sometimes from six-thirty to nine-thirty, but they never seemed
the worse for it. W., though a very considerate man for his servants
generally, never worried at all about keeping his coachmen and horses
waiting. He said the coachmen were the most warmly dressed men in Paris,
always took care to be well covered, and we never had fancy,
high-stepping horses, but ordinary strong ones, which could wait
patiently. W. said the talk in the Chambers and in the lobbies was quite
wild--every sort of extravagant proposition was made. There were many
conferences with the Duc d'Audiffret-Pasquier, Duc de Broglie--with
Casimir Perier, Leon Say, Gambetta, Jules Ferry, and Freycinet--where
the best men on both sides tried hard to come to an agreement. W. went
several times in August to see M. Thiers, who was settled at St.
Germain. The old statesman was as keen as ever, receiving every day all
sorts of deputations, advising, warning, encouraging, and quite
confident as to the result of the elections. People were looking to him
as the next President, despite his great age. However, he was not
destined to see the triumph of his ideas. He died suddenly at St.
Germain on the 3d of September. W. said his funeral was a remarkable
sight--thousands of people followed the cortege--all Paris showing a
last respect to the liberateur du territoire (though there were still
clubs where he was spoken of as le sinistre vieillard). In August W.
went to his Conseil-General at Laon, and I went down to my
brother-in-law's place at St. Leger near Rouen. We were a very happy
cosmopolitan family-party. My mother-in-law was born a Scotch-woman
(Chisholm). She was a fine type of the old-fashioned cultivated lady,
with a charming polite manner, keenly interested in all that was going
on in the world. She was an old lady when I married, and had outlived
almost all her contemporaries, but she had a beautiful old age,
surrounded by children and grandchildren. She had lived through many
vicissitudes from the time of her marriage, when she arrived at the
Chateau of St. Remy in the Department of Eure-et-Loire (where my
husband, her eldest son, was born), passing through triumphal arches
erected in honour of the young bride, to the last days when the fortunes
of the family were diminished by revolutions and political and business
crises in France. They moved from St. Remy, selling the chateau, and
built a house on the top of a green hill near Rouen, quite shut in by
big trees, and with a lovely view from the Rond Point--the highest part
of the garden, over Rouen--with the spires of the cathedral in the
distance. I used to find her every morning when I went to her room,
sitting at the window, her books and knitting on a table near--looking
down on the lawn and the steep winding path that came up from the
garden,--where she had seen three generations of her dear ones pass
every day--first her husband, then her sons--now her grandsons. My
sister-in-law, R.'s wife, was also an Englishwoman; the daughter of the
house had married her cousin, de Bunsen, who had been a German
diplomatist, and who had made nearly all his career in Italy, at the
most interesting period of her history, when she was struggling for
emancipation from the Austrian rule and independence. I was an American,
quite a new element in the family circle. We had many and most animated
discussions over all sorts of subjects, in two or three languages, at
the tea-table under the big tree on the lawn. French and English were
always going, and often German, as de Bunsen always spoke to his
daughter in German. My mother-in-law, who knew three or four languages,
did not at all approve of the careless habit we had all got into of
mixing our languages and using French or Italian words when we were
speaking English--if they came more easily. She made a rule that we
should use only one language at meals--she didn't care which one, but we
must keep to it. My brother-in-law was standing for the deputation. We
didn't see much of him in the daytime--his electors and his visits and
speeches and banquets de pompiers took up all his time. The beginning
of his career had been very different. He was educated in England--Rugby
and Woolwich--and served several years in the Royal Artillery in the
British army. His military training was very useful to him during the
Franco-Prussian War, when he equipped and commanded a field battery,
making all the campaign. His English brother officers always remembered
him. Many times when we were living in England at the embassy, I was
asked about him. A curious thing happened in the House of Lords one day,
showing the wonderful memory of princes for faces. R. was staying with
us for a few days, when the annual debate over the bill for marriage of
a deceased wife's sister came up. The Prince of Wales (late King Edward)
and all the other princes were present in the House. R. was there too,
standing where all the strangers do, at the entrance of the lobby. When
the debate was over, the Prince of Wales left. As he passed along, he
shook hands with several gentlemen also standing near the lobby,
including R. He stopped a moment in front of him, saying: "I think this
is Mr. Waddington. The last time I saw you, you wore Her Majesty's
uniform." He hadn't seen him for twenty-five or thirty years. I asked
the prince afterward how he recognised him. He said he didn't know; it
was perhaps noticing an unfamiliar face in the group of men standing
there,--and something recalled his brother, the ambassador.
In September we went down to Bourneville and settled ourselves there for
the autumn. W. was standing for the Senate with the Count de St. Vallier
and Henri Martin. They all preferred being named in their department,
where everybody knew them and their personal influence could make itself
more easily felt. W.'s campaign was not very arduous. All the people
knew him and liked him--knew that he would do whatever he promised.
Their programme was absolutely Republican, but moderate, and he only
made a few speeches and went about the country a little. I often went
with him when he rode, and some of our visits to the farmers and local
authorities were amusing if not encouraging. We were always very well
received, but it wasn't easy to find out what they really thought (if
they did think about it at all) of the state of affairs. The small
landowners particularly, the men who had one field and a garden, were
very reserved. They listened attentively enough to all W. had to say. He
was never long, never personal, and never abused his adversaries, but
they rarely expressed an opinion. They almost always turned the
conversation upon some local matter or petty grievance. It didn't seem
to me that they took the slightest interest in the extraordinary changes
that were going on in France. A great many people came to see W. and
there would be a curious collection sometimes in his library at the end
of the day. The doctor (who always had precise information--country
doctors always have--they see a great many people and I fancy the women
talk to them and tell them what their men are doing), one or two
farmers, some schoolmasters, the mayors of the nearest villages, the
captains of the firemen and of the archers (they still shoot with bow
and arrow in our part of the country; every Sunday the men practise
shooting at a target)--the gendarmes, very useful these too to bring
news--the notary, and occasionally a sous-prefet, but then he was a
personage, representing the Government, and was treated with more
ceremony than the other visitors. It was evident from all these sources
that the Republicans were coming to the front en masse.
The Republicans (for once) were marvellously disciplined and kept
together. It was really wonderful when one thought of all the different
elements that were represented in the party. There was quite as much
difference between the quiet moderate men of the Left Centre and the
extreme Left as there was between the Legitimists and any faction of the
Republican party. There was a strong feeling among the Liberals that
they were being coerced, that arbitrary measures, perhaps a coup d'etat,
would be sprung upon them, and they were quite determined to resist. I
don't think there was ever any danger of a coup d'etat, at least as long
as Marshal MacMahon was the chief of state. He was a fine honourable,
patriotic soldier, utterly incapable of an illegality of any kind. He
didn't like the Republic, honestly thought it would never succeed with
the Republicans (la Republique sans Republicains was for him its only
chance)--and he certainly had illusions and thought his friends and
advisers would succeed in making and keeping a firm conservative
government. How far that illusion was shared by his entourage it is
difficult to say. They fought their battle well--government pressure
exercised in all ways. Prefets and sous-prefets changed, wonderful
prospects of little work and high pay held out to doubtful electors, and
the same bright illusive promises made to the masses, which all parties
make in all elections and which the people believe each time. The
Republicans were not idle either, and many fiery patriotic speeches
were made or their side. Gambetta always held his public with his
passionate, earnest declamation, and his famous phrase, that the marshal
must "se soumettre ou se demettre," became a password all through
the country.
V
A REPUBLICAN VICTORY AND A NEW MINISTRY
The elections took place in October-November, 1877, and gave at once a
great Republican majority. W. and his two colleagues, Count de St.
Vallier and Henri Martin, had an easy victory, but a great many of their
personal friends, moderates, were beaten. The centres were decidedly
weaker in the new Chambers. There was not much hope left of uniting the
two centres, Droite et Gauche, in the famous "fusion" which had been a
dream of the moderate men.
The new Chambers assembled at Versailles in November. The Broglie
cabinet was out, but a new ministry of the Right faced the new
Parliament. Their life was very short and stormy; they were really dead
before they began to exist and in December the marshal sent for M.
Dufaure and charged him to form a Ministere de Gauche. None of his
personal friends, except General Borel at the War Office, was in the new
combination. W. was named to the Foreign Office. I was rather
disappointed when he came home and told me he had accepted that
portfolio. I thought his old ministry, Public Instruction, suited him so
well, the work interested him, was entirely to his taste. He knew all
the literary and educational world, not only in France but everywhere
else--England, of course, where he had kept up with many of his
Cambridge comrades, and Germany, where he also had literary connections.
However, that wide acquaintance and his perfect knowledge of English and
English people helped him very much at once, not only at the Quai
d'Orsay, but in all the years he was in England as ambassador.
The new ministry, with Dufaure as President of the Council, Leon Say at
the Finances, M. de Freycinet at Public Works, and W. at the Foreign
Office was announced the 14th of December, 1877. The preliminaries had
been long and difficult--the marshal and his friends on one side--the
Republicans and Gambetta on the other--the moderates trying to keep
things together. Personally, I was rather sorry W. had agreed to be a
member of the cabinet; I was not very keen about official life and
foresaw a great deal that would be disagreeable. Politics played such a
part in social life. All the "society," the Faubourg St. Germain (which
represents the old names and titles of France), was violently opposed to
the Republic. I was astonished the first years of my married life in
France, to see people of certain position and standing give the cold
shoulder to men they had known all their lives because they were
Republicans, knowing them quite well to be honourable, independent
gentlemen, wanting nothing from the Republic--merely trying to do their
best for the country. I only realised by degrees that people held off a
little from me sometimes, as the wife of a Republican deputy. I didn't
care particularly, as I had never lived in France, and knew very few
people, but it didn't make social relations very pleasant, and I should
have been better pleased if W. had taken no active part. However, that
feeling was only temporary. I soon became keenly interested in politics
(I suppose it is in the blood--all the men in my family in America were
politicians) and in the discussion of the various questions which were
rapidly changing France into something quite different. Whether the
change has been for the better it would be hard to say even now, after
more than thirty-five years of the Republic.
Freycinet was a great strength. He was absolutely Republican, but
moderate--very clever and energetic, a great friend of Gambetta's--and
a beautiful speaker. I have heard men say who didn't care about him
particularly, and who were not at all of his way of thinking, that they
would rather not discuss with him. He was sure to win them over to his
cause with his wonderful, clear persuasive arguments.
[Illustration: Palace of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paris.]
The first days were very busy ones. W. had to see all his staff (a very
large one) of the Foreign Office, and organise his own cabinet. He was
out all day, until late in the evening, at the Quai d'Orsay; used to go
over there about ten or ten-thirty, breakfast there, and get back for a
very late dinner, and always had a director or secretary working with
him at our own house after dinner. I went over three or four times to
inspect the ministry, as I had a presentiment we should end by living
there. The house is large and handsome, with a fine staircase and large
high rooms. The furniture of course was "ministerial"--stiff and
heavy--gold-backed chairs and sofas standing in rows against the walls.
There were some good pictures, among others the "Congres de Paris,"
which occupies a prominent place in one of the salons, and splendid
tapestries. The most attractive thing was a fine large garden at the
back, but, as the living-rooms were up-stairs, we didn't use it very
much. The lower rooms, which opened on the gardens, were only used as
reception-rooms. The minister's cabinet was also down-stairs,
communicating by a small staircase with his bedroom, just overhead. The
front of the house looks on the Seine; we had always a charming view
from the windows, at night particularly, when all the little steamers
(mouches) were passing with their lights. I had of course to make
acquaintance with all the diplomatic corps. I knew all the ambassadors
and most of the ministers, but there were some representatives of the
smaller powers and South American Republics with whom I had never come
in contact. Again I paid a formal official visit to the Marechale de
MacMahon as soon as the ministry was announced. She was perfectly polite
and correct, but one felt at once she hadn't the slightest sympathy for
anything Republican, and we never got to know each other any better all
the months we were thrown together. We remained for several weeks at our
own house, and then most reluctantly determined to install ourselves at
the ministry. W. worked always very late after dinner, and he felt it
was not possible to ask his directors, all important men of a certain
age, to come up to the Quartier de l'Etoile at ten o'clock and keep them
busy until midnight. W.'s new chef de cabinet, Comte de Pontecoulant,
was very anxious that we should move, thought everything would be
simplified if W. were living over there. I had never known Pontecoulant
until W. chose him as his chef de cabinet. He was a diplomatist with
some years of service behind him, and was perfectly au courant of all
the routine and habits of the Foreign Office. He paid me a short formal
visit soon after he had accepted the post; we exchanged a few remarks
about the situation, I hoped we would faire bon menage, and had no
particular impression of him except that he was very French and stiff; I
didn't suppose I should see much of him. It seems curious now to look
back upon that first interview. We all became so fond of him, he was a
loyal, faithful friend, was always ready to help me in any small
difficulties, and I went to him for everything--visits, servants,
horses, etc. W. had no time for any details or amenities of life. We
moved over just before New Year's day. As the gros mobilier was already
there, we only took over personal things, grand piano, screens, tables,
easy chairs, and small ornaments and bibelots. These were all sent off
in a van early one morning, and after luncheon I went over, having given
rendezvous to Pontecoulant and M. Kruft, chef du materiel, an
excellent, intelligent man, who was most useful and devoted to me the
two years I lived at the ministry. I was very depressed when we drove
into the courtyard. I had never lived on that side of the river, and
felt cut off from all my belongings,--the bridge a terror, so cold in
winter, so hot in summer,--I never got accustomed to it, never crossed
it on foot. The sight of the great empty rooms didn't reassure me. The
reception-rooms of course were very handsome. There were a great many
servants, huissiers, and footmen standing about, and people waiting in
the big drawing-room to speak to W. The living-rooms up-stairs were
ghastly--looked bare and uncomfortable in the highest degree. They were
large and high and looked down upon the garden, though that on a bleak
December day was not very cheerful--but there were possibilities. Kruft
was very sympathetic, understood quite well how I felt, and was ready to
do anything in the way of stoves, baths, wardrobes in the lingerie, new
carpets, and curtains, that I wanted. Pontecoulant too was eminently
practical, and I was quite amused to find myself discussing lingeries
and bathrooms with a total stranger whom I had only seen twice in my
life. It took me about a week to get really settled. I went over every
day, returning to my own house to eat and sleep. Kruft did wonders; the
place was quite transformed when I finally moved over. The rooms looked
very bright and comfortable when we arrived in the afternoon of the 31st
of December (New Year's eve). The little end salon, which I made my
boudoir, was hung with blue satin; my piano, screens, and little things
were very well placed--plenty of palms and flowers, bright fires
everywhere--the bedrooms, nursery, and lingeries clean and bright. My
bedroom opened on a large salon, where I received usually, keeping my
boudoir for ourselves and our intimate friends. My special huissier,
Gerard, who sat all day outside of the salon door, was presented to me,
and instantly became a most useful and important member of the
household--never forgot a name or a face, remembered what cards and
notes I had received, whether the notes were answered, or the bills
paid, knew almost all my wardrobe, would bring me down a coat or a wrap
if I wanted one suddenly down-stairs. I had frequent consultations with
Pontecoulant and Kruft to regulate all the details of the various
services before we were quite settled. We took over all our own servants
and found many others who were on the permanent staff of the ministry,
footmen, huissiers, and odd men who attended to all the fires, opened
and shut all the doors, windows, and shutters. It was rather difficult
to organise the regular working service, there was such rivalry between
our own personal servants and the men who belonged to the house, but
after a little while things went pretty smoothly. W. dined out the first
night we slept at the Quai d'Orsay, and about an hour after we had
arrived, while I was still walking about in my hat and coat, feeling
very strange in the big, high rooms, I was told that the lampiste was
waiting my orders (a few lamps had been lit in some of the rooms). I
didn't quite know what orders to give, hadn't mastered yet the number
that would be required; but I sent for him, said I should be alone for
dinner, perhaps one or two lamps in the dining-room and small salon
would be enough. He evidently thought that was not at all sufficient,
wanted something more precise, so I said to light as he had been
accustomed to when the Duc Decazes and his family were dining alone
(which I don't suppose they ever did, nor we either when we once took up
our life). Such a blaze of light met my eyes when I went to dinner that
I was quite bewildered--boudoir, billiard-room, dining-room (very large,
the small round table for one person hardly perceptible), and corridors
all lighted "a giorno." However, it looked very cheerful and kept me
from feeling too dreadfully homesick for my own house and familiar
surroundings. The rooms were so high up that we didn't hear the noise of
the street, but the river looked alive and friendly with the lights on
the bridges, and a few boats still running.
We had much more receiving and entertaining to do at the Quai d'Orsay
than at any other ministry, and were obliged to go out much more
ourselves. The season in the official world begins with a reception at
the President's on New Year's day. The diplomatic corps and presidents
of the Senate and Chamber go in state to the Elysee to pay their
respects to the chief of state--the ambassadors with all their staff in
uniform in gala carriages. It is a pretty sight, and there are always a
good many people waiting in the Faubourg St. Honore to see the
carriages. The English carriage is always the best; they understand all
the details of harness and livery so much better than any one else. The
marshal and his family were established at the Elysee. It wasn't
possible for him to remain at Versailles--he couldn't be so far from
Paris, where all sorts of questions were coming up every day, and he was
obliged to receive deputations and reports, and see people of all kinds.
They were already agitating the question of the Parliament coming back
to Paris. The deputies generally were complaining of the loss of time
and the discomfort of the daily journey even in the parliamentary train.
The Right generally was very much opposed to having the Chambers back in
Paris. I never could understand why. I suppose they were afraid that a
stormy sitting might lead to disturbances. In the streets of a big city
there is always a floating population ready to espouse violently any
cause. At Versailles one was away from any such danger, and, except
immediately around the palace, there was nobody in the long, deserted
avenues. They often cited the United States, how no statesman after the
signing of the Declaration of Independence (in Philadelphia) would have
ventured to propose that the Parliament should sit in New York or
Philadelphia, but the reason there was very different; they were obliged
to make a neutral zone, something between the North and the South. The
District of Columbia is a thing apart, belonging to neither side. It has
certainly worked very well in America. Washington is a fine city, with
its splendid old trees and broad avenues. It has a cachet of its own, is
unlike any other city I know in the world.