Every one was perfectly respectful to the duke, but the extreme
Legitimists went away at once.

We went quite often to Monsieur and Madame Thiers, who received every
evening in their big gloomy house in the Place St. Georges. It was a
political centre,--all the Republican party went there, and many of his
old friends, Orleanists, who admired his great intelligence, while
disapproving his politics,--literary men, journalists, all the
diplomatists and distinguished strangers. He had people at dinner every
night and a small reception afterward,--Madame Thiers and her sister,
Mademoiselle Dosne, doing the honours for him. I believe both ladies
were very intelligent, but I can't truthfully say they had any charm of
manner. They never looked pleased to see any one, and each took
comfortable little naps in their armchairs after dinner--the first
comers had sometimes rather embarrassing entrances,--but I am told they
held very much to their receptions. Thiers was wonderful; he was a very
old man when I knew him, but his eyes were very bright and keen, his
voice strong, and he would talk all the evening without any appearance
of fatigue. He slept every afternoon for two hours, and was quite rested
and alert by dinner time. It was an interesting group of men that stood
around the little figure in the drawing-room after dinner. He himself
stood almost always leaning against the mantelpiece. Prince Orloff,
Russian ambassador, was one of the habitues of the salon, and I was
always delighted when he would slip away from the group of men and join
the ladies in Madame Thiers's salon, which was less interesting. 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