He knew
everybody, French and foreign, and gave me most amusing and useful
little sketches of all the celebrities. It was he who told me of old
Prince Gortschakoff's famous phrase when he heard of Thiers's death--(he
died at St. Germain in 1877)--"Encore une lumiere eteinte quand il y en
a si peu qui voient clair,"--(still another light extinguished, when
there are so few who see clearly). Many have gone of that
group,--Casimir Perier, Leon Say, Jules Ferry, St. Vallier, Comte Paul
de Segur, Barthelemy St. Hilaire,--but others remain, younger men who
were then beginning their political careers and were eager to drink in
lessons and warnings from the old statesman, who fought gallantly to
the last.
I found the first winter in Paris as the wife of a French deputy rather
trying, so different from the easy, pleasant life in Rome. That has
changed, too, of course, with United Italy and Rome the capital, but it
was a small Rome in our days, most informal. I don't ever remember
having written an invitation all the years we lived in Rome. Everybody
led the same life and we saw each other all day, hunting, riding,
driving, in the villas in the afternoon, generally finishing at the
Pincio, where there was music.
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