Dear L.,--You ask, "What are you doing?" If you had asked what are
we _not_ doing I would have told you, but what we _are_ doing
covers acres of ground. We are in a whirlwind of duties and
pleasures, dinners, _soirées_, and balls. It would bore you to
death to hear about them. Many of my old friends are still in
Paris; those _you_ knew are Countess Pourtales (just become a
widow); Marquise Gallifet, who is more separated from her husband
than ever. She remains Faubourgeoise St.-Germain, and he favors
the Republic.
I find Christine Nillson here. From Madame Rivière she has become
Countess Casa-Miranda. She has a pretty little hôtel near us,
where she sings not, "neither does she spin." I meet her at dear
old Mrs. Pell's Sunday-afternoon ladies' teas. Nillson and I are
the youngest members of the club. You may imagine what the others
must be in the way of years. Mrs. Pell gives us each (we are
twelve) a gold locket with a teacup engraved on its back, and a
lock of her once brown hair inside, and we assemble and eat
American goodies made in an ultra-superior manner by her _chef_.
Our occupations or amusements depend very much upon whom we are
with. A whole army of doctors has just descended on us, and we are
doing the medical side of Paris. One day we went to see Dr. Doyen,
the celebrated cutter-up of men. He said that operations other
doctors spent an hour over _he_ did in ten minutes. It sounds a
little boastful, but after what I saw I am sure that it is true.
He has a very large hospital where he preaches and practises and
gives cinematographic representations of his most famous
operations. It was very interesting, because at the same time that
we were looking at him in the pictures he was sitting behind us
explaining things. Strange to say that one or two of the doctors
with us fainted away. The ladies did not faint, neither did they
look on. The operation which took the most time was the cutting
apart of the little Indian twins, Radica and Dodica. This last one
(poor little sickly thing) was dying of tuberculosis, and the
question was whether the well one should be separated or die with
her sister. While this was going on the little survivor came to
the door and begged to be let in (she was tired of running up and
down the corridor); therefore we knew that the operation had
succeeded, which helped to make it less painful to witness.
We visited, in company with these same doctors, the Pasteur
Institute, young M. Pasteur accompanying us. We began at the rooms
where they examined hydrophobia in all its developments. Persons
who have been bitten by any animal are kept under observation, and
they have to go to the Institute forty times before they are
either cured or beyond suspicion. There are two large rooms
adjoining each other, one for the patients and the other for the
doctors. Every morning the unhappy men and women are received and
cared for.
_May 15, 1898_.
My dear L.,--We have just come home from bidding our Crown Prince
and Princess good-by at the station.
On Thursday Madame Faure and her daughter came to see me. On
bidding them adieu I said I hoped the President had not forgotten
the photograph of himself which he had promised me. Madame Faure
answered, "_Vous l'aurez ce soir méme, chère Madame_." That very
evening while we were dining with Count and Countess Cornet we
heard that Félix Faure had suddenly died. To-day we learned how he
had died. Not through the papers, but secretly, in an undertone
and with a hushed voice.
I think that the French papers ought to take the prize in the art
of keeping a secret. One could never imagine that a whole nation
could hold its tongue so completely! There appeared no sensational
articles, no details, and no comments on the President of the
French Republic's departure from this world. Everything in the way
of details was kept secret by the officials. In our country, and,
in fact, in every other country, such discretion would have been
impossible; the news in all its details would have been hawked
about the streets in half an hour. Here was simply the news that
Félix Faure had died.
A week later the President's funeral took place at Nôtre Dame.
Seats were reserved for the _Corps Diplomatique_ by the side of
the immense catafalque which stood in the center of the cathedral.
Huge torches were burning around it. After every one was seated,
in came the four officers sent by the German Emperor. Four giants!
The observed of all observers! Their presence did not pass
unnoticed, as you may imagine. They seemed more as if they were at
a parade than at a funeral. The music was splendid; The famous
organist Guilmant was at the organ, and did "his best." I believe
Notre Dame never heard finer organ-playing. I never did.
The streets were full of troops; the large open square in front of
the cathedral was lined with a double row of soldiers. The
diplomats followed on foot in the procession from Notre Dame to
Père la Chaise, traversing the whole of Paris.