Unfortunately the
difference of opinion as to the form of government made things very
difficult. Some of the young deputies, just fresh from the war and
smarting under a sense of humiliation, were very violent in their abuse
of any Royalist and particularly Bonapartist restoration.
[Illustration: Meeting of officers of the National Assembly, and of
delegates of the new Chambers, in the salon of Hercules, palace of
Versailles. From _L'Illustration_, March 11. 1876.]
IV
THE SOCIAL SIDE OF A MINISTER'S WIFE
My first big dinner at the Ministry of Public Instruction rather
intimidated me. We were fifty people--I the only lady. I went over to
the ministry in the afternoon to see the table, which was very well
arranged with quantities of flowers, beautiful Sevres china, not much
silver--there is very little left in France, it having all been melted
at the time of the Revolution. The official dinners are always well done
in Paris. I suppose the traditions of the Empire have been handed down.
We arrived a few minutes before eight, all the staff and directors
already there, and by ten minutes after eight every one had arrived.
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