When I did see her she was no
longer young, but a stately, impressive figure, and had still the
beautiful brow one sees in all her pictures. One of our friends, a very
clever woman and great anti-Bonapartist, told us an amusing story of her
little son. The child was sometimes in the drawing-room when his mother
was receiving, and heard her and all her friends inveighing against the
iniquities of the Imperial Court and the frivolity of the Empress. He
saw the Empress walking one day in the Bois de Boulogne. She was
attracted by the group of children, stopped and talked to them. The boy
was delighted and said to his governess: "Elle est bien jolie,
l'Imperatrice, mais il ne faut pas le dire a Maman." (The Empress is
very pretty, but one must not say it to mother.)
VII
THE BERLIN CONGRESS
Seventy-eight was a most important year for us in many ways. Besides the
interest and fatigues of the exposition and the constant receiving and
official festivities of all kinds, a great event was looming before
us--the Berlin Congress. One had felt it coming for some time. There
were all sorts of new delimitations and questions to be settled since
the war in the Balkans, and Europe was getting visibly nervous.
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