Part 9

At two o'clock we presented ourselves at the door of the said salon, which was immediately opened on our showing the jetons, and we found ourselves, as I thought we should, in the salon where their Majesties were to sup. There were already many people assembled: the Metternichs, the Persignys, the Gallifets, the Count and Countess Pourtales, etc.--I should say, twenty-five in all. There was a magnificent display of flowers and fruit on the table. The Emperor came in with the Empress, not looking in the least Cæsar-like, with his hair matted down on his forehead and his mustaches all unwaxed and drooping; but he soon twisted them up into their usual stiffness. I noticed that people looked at me persistently, and I fancied all sorts of awful things, and felt dreadfully embarrassed.

After supper the Empress came up to me and said, "Where can one buy such lovely curls as you have, chère Madame?" I understood the reason now for the notice I was attracting. They had thought that the curls were false. I answered, hoping it would sound amusing, "Au Magasin du Bon-Dieu."

The Empress smiled and replied; "Nous voudrions toutes acheter dans ce magasin-là; but tell me, are your curls real or false? You won't mind telling me (and she hesitated a little). Some people have made bets about it. How can we know," she said, "unless you tell us?" "My hair is all my own, your Majesty, and, if you wish to make sure, I am perfectly willing that you should see for yourself." And, removing my helmet, I took out the comb and let my hair down. Every one crowded around me, and felt and pulled my hair about until I had to beg for mercy. The Emperor, looking on, cried out, "Bravo, Madame!" and, gathering some flowers off the table, handed them to me, saying: "Votre succès tenait à un cheveu, n'est-ce pas?"

Supposing the curls had been false, how I should have felt!

I put on my head-dress again with the flowing tinsel threads, and, some one sending for a brush, I completed this exhibition by showing them how I curled my hair around my fingers and made this coiffure. I inclose the article about this supper which came out in the Figaro (copied into a New York paper).

The Emperor and Empress not unfrequently take a great liking to persons accidentally presented to them, invite them to their most select parties, make much of them, and sometimes rousing a little jealousy by so doing among the persons belonging to the Court. Of the ladies officially foremost, the reigning favorites are Princess Metternich, extremely clever and piquante, who invents the oddest toilettes, dances the oddest dances, and says the oddest things; the Marquise de Gallifet, whose past life is a romance, not altogether according to the French proverb (fitting school-girl reading), but who is very handsome, brilliant, merry, and audacious; and two others, the handsome and dashing wives of men high in the employment of the Emperor. These ladies spend enormous sums on their toilette, and are perpetually inventing some merry and brilliant nonsense for the amusement of the Empress. Among the persons from the "outside" most in favor just now, in the inner circle of the court, is a very handsome and accomplished American lady, the youthful wife of a millionaire, possessing a magnificent voice, a very amiable temper, and wonderfully splendid hair. After a very small and very merry party in the Empress's private apartments a few nights ago, the Imperial hosts and their guests sat down to an exquisite "little supper," this lady being one of the party. During the supper one of the Empress's ladies began playfully to tease Mrs. ---- about her hair, declaring that no human head could grow such a luxuriant mass of lustrous hair, and inviting her to confess to sporting certain skilfully contrived additions to the locks of nature's bestowing. Mrs. ---- modestly protested that her hair, such as it was, was really and truly her own; in right of growth, and not of purchase. All present speedily took part in the laughing dispute; some declaring for the opinion of the Lady of Honor, the others for that of Mrs. ----. The Emperor and Empress, greatly amused at the dispute, professed a strong desire to know the facts of the case; and the Emperor, declaring that it was clearly impossible to get at the truth in any other way, invited Mrs. M---- to settle the controversy by letting down her hair, and giving ocular demonstration of its being her own. The lady, whereupon, drew out the comb and the hairpins that held up her hair, and shook its heavy and shining masses all over her shoulders, thus giving conclusive proof of the tenure by which she held it. As Frenchwomen seldom have good heads of hair, it is probable that some little disappointment may have been caused to some of the ladies by this magnificent torrent of hair, displayed by Mrs. M----, but the gentlemen were all in raptures at the really beautiful spectacle, the lady's husband, who worships her, being as proud of her triumph as though his wife's luxuriant locks were his own creation.

March, 1864.

DEAR M.,--Auber, on hearing that the Empress had asked me to sing in the chapel of the Tuileries, offered to compose a Benedictus for me. The orchestra of the Conservatoire was to accompany me, and Jules Cohen was to play the organ. I had several rehearsals with Auber and one on the preceding Saturday with the orchestra. The flute and I have a little ramble together which is very pretty. The loft where the organ is, and where I stood, was so high up that I could only see the people by straining my neck over the edge of it, and even then only saw the black veils of the ladies and the frequent bald heads of the gentlemen. The Empress remained on her knees during the whole mass. The Emperor seemed attentive; but stroked and pulled his mustaches all the time.

My Benedictus went off very well. The chapel was very sonorous and I was in good voice. I was a little nervous at first, but after the first phrase I recovered confidence and did all that was expected of me. The Duke de Bassano came up to the loft and begged me to come down into the gallery, as their Majesties wished me and Charles to stay for breakfast. I was sorry Auber was not invited. We found every one assembled in the gallery outside the chapel. The Empress came straight toward me, thanked me, and said many gracious things, as did the Emperor. There were very, very few people at breakfast--only the household. I sat between the Emperor and the little Prince, who said, "I told mama I knew when you sang, for you said 'Benedictus'; we say benedicteus."

The Princess Metternich receives after midnight every evening. If one is in the theater or at a soirée it is all right, but to sit up till twelve o'clock to go to her is very tiresome, though when you are once there you do not regret having gone. It is something to see her smoking her enormous cigars. The other night Richard Wagner, who had been to the theater with the Metternichs, was there. I was glad to see him, though he is so dreadfully severe, solemn, and satirical. He found fault with everything; he thought the theaters in Paris horribly dirty, mal soignés, bad style, bad actors, orchestra second-rate, singers worse, public ignorant, etc. He smiled once with such a conscious look and scanned people's faces, as if to say, "I, Richard Wagner, have smiled!" But he can very well put on airs, for he is a genius. At Les Italiens, Patti, Mario, Alboni, and Delle Sedie are singing "Rigoletto." They are all splendid. Alboni is immensely fat and round as a barrel--but what a voice! It simply rolls out in billows of melody. The "quartette" was magnificent, and was encored. Patti and Mario are at daggers drawn, and hate each other like poison, so their love-making is reduced to a minimum, and they make as little as possible. In their fondest embraces they hold each other at arm's length and glare into each other's eyes. Mario is such a splendid actor one would think he could conquer his dislike for her and play the lover better. The Barbier de Séville is, I think, his best role; he acts with so much humor and sings so exquisitely and with such refinement. Even in the tipsy scene he is the fine gentleman. Patti sings in the singing lesson Venzano's waltz and "Il Bacio." Her execution is wonderful, faultless, and brilliant.

We went to a soirée given by the Marquise de Boissy, better known as Byron's Countess Guiccioli, who inspired so many of his beautiful poems; but when you see her dyed and painted you wonder how the blasé Byron could have been all fire and flame for her. Fagnani, the painter, who did that awful simpering portrait of me, painted her, it being stipulated that he should make her look ten years younger than she is. He had a hard time of it! But now, being old and married to the senator, Marquis de Boissy, she has lost all claim to celebrity, and is reduced to giving forlorn soirées with a meager buffet.

Beaumont is a charming painter, and a friend of Henry's. When he comes here, as he does very often, he puts us all in a good-humor; even my father-in-law forgets to grumble at the reduced price of stocks and the increased rate of exchange. His picture of Circé charming the pigs is very pretty. Helen and I are both in it; he wanted her ear and hair and my eyes and hair. I am not Circé; I only stand in the background admiring a pig. To reward us he painted a fan for each: mine has arrows, doves, my initials, "Beware," and cherubim all mixed up, making a lovely fan.

Baroness Alphonse Rothschild sent me her box for the opera, and I asked the Metternichs and Herr Wagner, the composer, who was dining at the Embassy, to go with me, and they accepted. The Rothschilds' box is one of the largest in the opera-house. The Princess Metternich created a sensation when we entered--she always does--but Herr Wagner passed unnoticed. He sat behind and pretended to go to sleep. He thought everything most mediocre. The opera was "Faust," which I thought was beautifully put on the stage, with Madame Miolan Carvalho as Marguerite and Faure as Mephistopheles. They both sang and acted to perfection; but Wagner pooh-poohed at them and everything else. Abscheulich and grässlich alternated in his condemning sentences. Nothing pleased him.

He fidgeted about and was very cross during the fifth act, where the ballet is danced.

"Why did Gounod insert that idiotic ballet? It is banal and de trop." (France is the only place where this fifth act is performed.)

"You must blame Goethe for that," retorted the Princess Metternich. "Why did he make Faust go to the Champs Élysées if he did not want him to see any dancing?"

"Why, indeed?" grumbled Wagner. "Goethe had much better have let Marguerite die on her straw and not of send her up in clouds of glory like the Madonna to heaven, and with ballet music."

"Well," said the Princess, "I don't see any difference between a ballet in heaven and a ballet in Venusberg."

The Emperor has made a fine coup de popularité. He refused to have the new boulevard named after his mother, and cleverly proposed it to be called Richard Lenoir, the man who led his fellow-workmen in the Revolution.

We were invited to one of Rossini's Saturday evenings. There was a queer mixture of people: some diplomats, and some well-known members of society, but I fancy that the guests were mostly artists; at least they looked so. The most celebrated ones were pointed out to me. There were Saint-Saëns, Prince Poniatowski, Gounod, and others. I wondered that Richard Wagner was not there; but I suppose that there is little sympathy between these two geniuses.

Prince Metternich told me that Rossini had once said to him that he wished people would not always feel obliged to sing his music when they sang at his house. "J'acclamerais avec délice 'Au clair de la lune,' même avec variations," he said, in his comical way. Rossini's wife's name is Olga. Some one called her Vulgar, she is so ordinary and pretentious, and would make Rossini's home and salon very commonplace if it were not that the master glorified all by his presence. I saw Rossini's writing-table, which is a thing never to be forgotten: brushes, combs, toothpicks, nails, and all sorts of rubbish lying about pell-mell; and promiscuous among them was the tube that Rossini uses for his famous macaroni à la Rossini. Prince Metternich said that no power on earth would induce him to touch any food à la Rossini, especially the macaroni, which he said was stuffed with hash and all sorts of remnants of last week's food and piled up on a dish like a log cabin. "J'ai des frissons chaque fois que j'y pense."

Not long ago Baron James Rothschild sent Rossini some splendid grapes from his hothouse. Rossini, in thanking him, wrote, "Bien que vos raisins soient superbes, je n'aime pas mon vin en pillules." This Baron Rothschild read as an invitation to send him some of his celebrated Château-Lafitte, which he proceeded to do, for "the joke of it," he remarked. "It is so amusing to tell the story afterward." Rossini does not dye his hair, but wears the most wiggy of wigs. When he goes to mass he puts one wig on top of the other, and if it is very cold he puts still a third one on, curlier than the others, for the sake of warmth. No coquetry about him!

Rossini asked me to sing.

"I will, with pleasure," I said. "I only wish that I knew what to sing, I know that you do not like people to sing your music when they come to your house."

"Not every one," he said, beaming with a broad smile; "but I have heard that you have an unusually beautiful voice, and I am curious to hear you."

"But," I mischievously answered, "I do not know 'Au clair de la lune,' even with variations."

"Oh! the naughty Prince," said he, shaking his finger across to where Prince Metternich was standing. "He told you that. But tell me, what do you sing of mine?"

Auber had told me to take "Sombre Forêt," of "William Tell," in case I should be asked. Therefore I said that I had brought "Sombre Forêt," and if he liked I would sing that.