DEAR MAMA,--This has been a very fatiguing day for me, so you will only
receive a short letter.
Paul [Footnote: Count Hatzfeldt, my brother-in-law.] invited Mrs. Moulton
and me to come to Versailles, and offered us a cup of tea as an
inducement. You know Paul is Count Bismarck's private secretary, having
been with him and the German sovereign during the entire war. He is still
at Versailles, but expects to leave for Berlin one of these first days. He
came to fetch us at the station with the fat ponies and the basket-wagon
(the ponies had escaped the fate of other fat ponies, and they had not
furnished steaks for famished Parisians, but continued to trot
complacently about, as of old). Fortunately they were not too fat to carry
us through the park at a lively pace, and land us at Paul's palatial
residence. It seemed strange to see German officers, in their tight-
fitting uniforms, strolling leisurely about in the park, where before I
had only seen the rather slovenly _pious-pious_ on holidays, when the
fountains played by day and the fireworks by night.
The park looked enchanting in its spring toilette, and made me think of
the last time I was here. Could it have been only last May? It seems years
ago!
Paul had invited some of his German officer friends to take tea with us.
Paul had been with the King of Prussia and Jules Favre and Bismarck at
Ferrières, where they had met, he said, "with no other result than to see
Jules Favre weep."
Paul had been at Versailles when the King was proclaimed Emperor in the
_salle de glaces_--the greatest emotion he had ever experienced, he said.
He had also been witness of the signing of the armistice. The pen with
which it was signed had been given him as a souvenir, and it was lying on
his table.
Paul thought the Emperor Napoleon more to be pitied than blamed. He had
gone into this war without really knowing the true state of things. He was
made to believe that there were four hundred thousand men ready to take
the field, when in reality there were only half that number, and those
certainly not fit to be pitted against the Germans, who had been provided
with better and newer maps than the French, and knew France and its army
more thoroughly than the French themselves. We could have talked on this
subject for hours had not the fat ponies come to take us to the station,
where we bade farewell to Paul and the officers, and returned to Paris for
the modest repast which we dignified by the name of dinner.
_March 17th._
DEAR MAMA,--Such a funny thing happened to-day.
I don't know whether I told you of some Americans, called the O----s, I
met in Dinard fresh from America (_via_ Southampton). When I bade them
good-by, I said, in an offhand way, "When you come to Paris you must come
and see me."
"Oh! that will be nice," gushingly replied Mrs. O----. "Where do you live?"
(Every one of the O----s' phrases commenced with "Oh!")
"I live in the Rue de Courcelles," I answered.
"Oh! Roue de Carrousel," she repeated. "What number?"
"Rue de Courcelles," I replied, correctingly; "twenty-seven."