the Vatican. He and the Countess Arnim received a great deal, and their
beautiful rooms in the Palazzo Caffarelli, on the top of the Capitol
Hill (the two great statues of Castor and Pollux standing by their
horses looking as if they were guarding the entrance) were a brilliant
centre for all the Roman and diplomatic world. He was a thorough man of
the world, could make himself charming when he chose, but he never had a
pleasant manner, was curt, arrogant, with a very strong sense of his own
superiority. From the first moment he came to Paris as ambassador, he
put people's backs up. They never liked him, never trusted him; whenever
he had an unpleasant communication to make, he exaggerated the
unpleasantness, never attenuated, and there is so much in the way things
are said. The French were very hard upon him when he got into trouble,
and certainly his own Government was merciless to him.

One of my first small difficulties after becoming a Frenchwoman was to
eliminate some of my German friends from my salon. I could not run the
risk of their being treated rudely. I remember so well one night at
home, before I was married, seeing two French officers not in uniform
slip quietly out of the room when one of the German Embassy came in, yet
ours was a neutral house. When my engagement was announced one of my
great friends at the German Embassy (Count Arco) said to me: "This is
the end, I suppose, of our friendship; I can never go to see you when
you are the wife of a French deputy." "Oh, yes, you can still come; not
quite so often, perhaps, but I can't give up my friends." However, we
drifted apart without knowing why exactly. It is curious how long that
hostile feeling toward Germany has lasted in France.

Every year there is a great review of the Paris garrison (thirty
thousand men) by the President of the Republic, at Longchamp, on the
14th of July, the national fete--the day of the storming of the Bastile.