Madame Mohl, Her Salon and Her Friends: Fourth Paper

IT is curious that Madame Mohl’s salon should have attained such notoriety and become such a distinguished intellectual centre without having had any particular ideas or crotchets, religious, political, or literary, to propagate. It differed in this, as in so many other notable points, from the salons of the eighteenth century, which, one and all, were tribunes or schools, leading, or trying to lead, the intellectual movement of the day. Indeed, this pretension did not vanish with the century. From Madame de Rambouillet down even to Madame du Cayla, there was a canapé doctrinaire, on which the lady of the house sat: one while legislating with the puristes and deciding the gender of a noun; another while “ making philosophy ” with the encyclopædists, playing at diplomacy, giving an impulse to religion or unbelief, directing the political current towards revolution or restoration. No such vexing problems or ambitious aims troubled the tenor of Madame Mohl’s pleasant way. She had no doctrines of any sort to preach. Opinions she had, and she “ stuck to them ” like grim death, but she never attempted to force them on others. All her friends render this testimony to her.

The Duc de Broglie, than whom there are few more experienced and competent judges on the point, gives me the following sympathetic appreciation of Madame Mohl and her salon : “ It. presented a most original character ; one which, I fear, no other will ever reproduce. If she succeeded in bringing together without collision, and even without gêne, persons who did not habitually seek one another, and that nothing drew naturally together, it was no doubt because she did not attempt to impose any systematic opinions on them. I don’t believe that her mind had formed any definite ideas on any subject; but her true instincts and generous sentiments, expressed in a most piquant manner, gave to her conversation, whatever turn it took, a charm peculiarly her own. What might have wounded, coming from another, pleased and amused in her. Her extreme kindliness, her total absence of pretension, a forgetfulness of herself that was visible even in the neglect of her personal appearance, made it impossible to take amiss anything she said. It is exceedingly difficult to appreciate Madame Mohl’s peculiar kind of merit without having known her, and it is still more difficult to describe it.”

The foreign element which formed a distinct attraction in this interesting salon was one of the conspicuous reasons for its being regarded as neutral ground, where enemies met under a flag of truce. Frenchmen whom, as the Duc de Broglie observes, nothing drew naturally together, and who would never have gone to meet one another, went without scruple or reluctance to meet Tourguenieff, Ranke, Dean Stanley, and other remarkable men of various nationalities. Dean Stanley was Madame Mohl’s chief friend in England. They first met in a thunderstorm on the Lake of Como, where M. and Madame Mohl were staying with the Marquis d’Areonati. The Dean and Mrs. Stanley, his mother, sought refuge at the hospitable Italian villa, and were there introduced to the Mohls. Madame Mohl used to say that it was a case of love at first sight between her and the Dean. It was a faithful love, on both sides, at any rate. Later, Mrs. Stanley was passing through Paris, and wrote to a friend, inviting her to come and spend the evening, “ to meet ” — so ran the note — “a most amusing woman, whom I am going to trot out this season in London.” This amusing woman was Madame Mohl, and on this occasion she fully justified the designation. M. de Tocqueville, an old friend of hers, was there, and these two kept up a fire of wit and repartee that was almost bewildering from its brilliancy.

In the year 1856, as far as I can ascertain, Madame Mohl went to London, on her first visit to the Stanleys. The “ trotting out ” proved a great success. The popularity of the chaperon and the position her family occupied in London society must have secured a gracious reception to any one she presented ; but this in itself would not have made Madame Mohl personally popular, nor created for her the warm and admiring friends whom she then gained, and ever afterwards kept, in the Stanleys’ circle.

Some years later,¹ Madame Mohl had the good fortune to be the medium of a service to the Dean which, as he was ever ready to remind her, made the happiness of his life.

Lady Elgin had been a very dear friend of Mary Clarke’s, in olden times, and Madame Mohl continued this friendship towards her daughters, whom she regarded with a sort of maternal affection. Lady Augusta Bruce was her special favorite, and used to stay with her often in Paris. Dean Stanley met Lady Augusta for the first time at dinner at the Rue du Bac, and was so charmed with her that he said afterward, “If I were in a mind to marry, I have seen the woman that would suit me.” This meeting was not the result of any sinister design against the Dean’s peace of heart on Madame Mohl’s side ; but she was as proud of the sequel as if she had plotted and planned to bring it about. She always spoke of the marriage as having been made by her; but, in truth, the marriage made itself, growing naturally out of that first meeting. Both the Dean and Lady Augusta were, however, quite willing to let her take the glory of it, and always said they owed their happiness to her. This marriage strengthened the friendship between them, and henceforth a month’s visit at the Deanery was a yearly episode that Madame Mohl and they looked forward to with enjoyment. She soon became the delight of the eclectic circle that centred in the hospitable cloisters of Westminster. “ Madame Mohl was so amusing and original,” says one of Lady Augusta’s old friends, “ her sayings were so good and her ways so funny, that she was a constant source of entertainment to us all, and we looked forward to her coming every year with impatience.”

Madame Mohl was fond of relating an incident that occurred during one of her visits to the Deanery. It was at the time when there was great apprehension of a war breaking out between England and Germany on account of the Danish question. Madame Mohl was sitting in the drawing-room, one morning, reading the Times, which contained the good news that this apprehension was at an end. The leader enlarging upon this termination of public anxiety put her in high good-humor, and just as she had finished it the door was thrown open and the servant announced “ The Queen ! ” An ordinary mortal would have been a little fluttered by this unexpected presence ; but Madame Mohl stood up, and exclaimed triumphantly, “ Well, your majesty, we are to have no war! ”

“ No, thank God ! we are to have no war ! ” was the Queen’s hearty rejoinder, and holding out both hands, she sat down beside Madame Mohl, and entered into conversation.

Lady Augusta, meantime, who was dressing, hurried with her toilet, rather anxious as to how Madame Mohl would behave to the sovereign. She found them both chatting away in the most friendly manner, the old lady giving her opinion on the politics of Europe as freely as if her companion had been a mere fellow-creature. Unfortunately, we do not know what impression Madame Mohl produced on the Queen, but no one was left in ignorance of the impression her majesty produced on Madame Mohl. She always spoke of her as “ that dear woman, the Queen.” If she had not found the Queen a dear woman, she would not have said it. She was extremely loyal, but her incapacity for being influenced by mere rank would have made it simply impossible for her to recognize in the crowned majesty of England anything but a woman, when it came to meeting her mind to mind and talking to her. Not all the virtue of all the martyrs, nor all the blood of all the Howards, could have propitiated her into liking any one who lacked esprit and a certain charm. If she had not found these in the sovereign, she would have relegated her amongst other less exalted personages, of whom she said, “ Excellent, my dear, I have no doubt, — excellent ; but I never want to see them again.” She often wished to see the Queen again.

Mrs. Ritchie (née Thackeray) tells me of another meeting with royalty at the Deanery : “ Prince Leopold, then a boy, was brought in to be introduced to Madame Mohl. Most of the people present were bowing and scraping, but she put out her hand, and said, ‘ I am an old woman, my dear, so I can’t get up, but I am very glad to know you ; 5 and she went on talking to him most charmingly.”

There was no want of respect in this sans gêne, as the young prince apparently understood. Nobody ever took offense at her odd ways ; and they were sometimes exceedingly odd. “ I remember,” Mrs. Ritchie relates, “ two of my cousins going to see her in Paris, and on coming back describing her as sitting like a little old fairy on the mantelpiece of her drawing-room chimney, and entertaining them quite composedly.” She never sat on the mantelpiece at the Deanery, though she was as much at home there as in any house but her own.

The Stanleys generally paid the Mohls a little visit every year at the Rue du Bac, occupying that upper room, above their hosts’ own apartment, which was placed so constantly at the disposal of English friends. Lady Augusta was extremely popular in French society; few Englishwomen were ever more so. Those who knew her at the Rue du Bac still speak of her with kindly warmth : “ Lady Augusta Stanley, la plus aimable des femmes, la grâce et la bonté mêmes.”

The Stanleys’ last visit to the Mohls was in 1875, when Lady Augusta fell ill, and was detained two months under their roof. Madame Mohl was too inexperienced a nurse to be very helpful in a sick-room, and her excitability and outspoken dismay at this prolonged illness in the house were misleading to many who did not know how to discount her exaggerated manner of expressing herself under strong feeling of any kind. But Dean Stanley always took the right measure of it, and ever retained the liveliest sense of gratitude for her genuine affection and kindness during that trying time. He used to relate with great humor how, one day, as the doctor was going down from Lady Augusta, Madame Mohl ran out and called after him : “ Doctor, if you have anything to say, mind you say it to me ; it is no use telling the Dean, for the Dean is a fool.” Both he and Lady Augusta laughed heartily over this characteristic testimony of Madame Mohl to his practical intelligence.

It was said of Madame Mohl that she was more popular in England than in France. She certainly was more consistently amiable there. Her friends used to say that she was on her best behavior in England. There is no doubt that, though she admired and enjoyed so many things essential to French life and character, she loved England and the English best. She took no account of nationality in her friends, but, as a people, the English had the first place in her heart. The Germans she admired and respected individually, rather than liked as a nation.

M. Jules Simon, in giving me some interesting recollections of Madame Mohl, says : —

“ Speaking one day of the three nations and their characteristics, she said to me that she had learned very quickly to discern a gentleman, un homme distingué, in France or in England ; she never made a mistake, but recognized one at a glance ; whereas the distinguishing lines long escaped her with regard to Germans, and even after long habit and observation it sometimes happened that she made mistakes.”

It was a notion of Madame Mohl’s that one should take the predominant point in the national character, and use it as a handle in dealing with the people. Once in a London drawing-room I heard her deliver herself of the following sentiments, apropos of the race of cabmen : “ In London, I always appeal to their sense of duty ; that is the best pump-handle to take hold of in this country. In Paris, I flatter the cocher de fiacre; you must always flatter that class in France, if you do not want them to be insolent. Vanity is the predominant characteristic of the French, and that is what you must work with.”

A trait that she dearly appreciated in English character was the prevailing kindness to animals. She was very tender-hearted to our dumb fellow-servants, and this feeling was a source of constant distress to her in Paris, where, in spite of the improvement which of late years has taken place in the relations between man and his beast, the sight of carters goading and beating the patient horses, that strain and pant under heavy loads, is still too often seen. She loved people who loved animals. “ Do, pray,” she writes to Madame Scherer, “ find out who wrote the article in the Temps (January 19, 1869) about the dog, and also about the cat, and tell me, that I may love him by his name. I think it must be the same who often writes about animals. Mr. Mohl and I have a great tendresse for him.”

She never took a cab when she could possibly avoid it, it so distressed her to see the cabmen (in Paris) beating their horses; but she always rode in omnibuses with satisfaction, because “ those dear men never beat their animals.” Madame Mohl was one of the early members of the Victoria Street Society for the protection of animals, and her name was one of the first on the list when the Anti-Vivisection Society was established in Paris.

The only household pet she ever had was a large Persian cat. Pussy was an important member of the family. She had her supper every evening in the drawing-room, but sometimes on Friday evenings she was forgotten, or kept waiting ; she would then take it, uninvited, out of the milk-jug. One evening a lady, who was not accustomed to the ways of the house, exclaimed to M. Mold, “Oh, see! The cat is lapping up the milk!” “Yes, she is making a good little supper,” said the kindly old savant complacently; and he went on with the conversation.

Homely and comical touches like these— the cat free of the tea-tray, the kettle boiling on the hearth — contributed, no doubt, to invest Madame Mohl’s salon with that original character which the Duc de Broglie fears we shall never see reproduced in any other. The humorous eccentricity that reigned there, while adding in one way to the charm which made itself felt by all, young and old, the grand seigneur and the student, perhaps explains also why this brilliant centre was said never to “ inspire ” those who frequented it. Undoubtedly, it did not. Madame Mohl did not aim at inspiring people. The clever men who enjoyed her conversation did not carry away from it a speech ready made for Parliament, or the material for a new book, or a stinging pamphlet, as they used to do from Madame de Staël, for instance. Madame Mohl wrought none of these wonders. Hers was not the electric touch that stirred to utterance what was deepest and best in others. People did not go to her for inspiration, as they did to the author of Corinne, nor to have their wounds bound up and the elixir of life poured out to them, as they did to Madame Swetchine; they went simply to be amused and delighted, and in this they were seldom disappointed. Madame Mohl gave them what they came for, and sent them away pleased with the consciousness of having been seen at their best, and of having thoroughly enjoyed themselves, — that expressive phrase that is so strangely misapplied in its general use.

Yet, though she never imposed her opinions, it would not be quite true to say that she never tried to exert influence. There was one select province where she did strive, and very vigorously, to exercise it. This was the Academy. Every election to a vacant chair amongst the Forty was a signal for a general moving of the forces in the Rue du Bac. Many a droll story might be told of these recurring contests.

When the fièvre verte, the longing to get into the green coat of the Immortals, seized upon any of her friends, Madame Mohl was among the first to detect symptoms of the malady, and, if the case looked hopeful, no one was more zealous in promoting the cure. But this was a critical time for the rest of her friends. They were, of course, expected to favor her candidate, and it required no mean skill to shirk doing this and to avoid quarreling with her. Even so able a diplomatist as Guizot sometimes found it difficult to perform the feat. He was, however, peculiarly circumstanced. Among his dearest friends was a lady who also took a lively interest in academical elections, and whose salon, though less prominent and cosmopolitan than Madame Mohl’s, was in its special way a charming and distinguished centre. It seemed a law of nature, so regularly did the coincidence present itself, that these two ladies protected rival candidates. M. Guizot could not side with both, and the diplomatic skill he displayed in navigating between the Scylla and Charybdis of these stormy waters was a source of boundless admiration to those who were looking on at the match.

The following letter to Ampère shows what an active canvasser Madame Mohl was, and how expert in pulling the wires of the academical coterie.

“ April 5, 1859.

“ I dined yesterday at the Princess Belgiojoso’s, and M. Mignet was quite beside himself on account of a nomination to his Academy. M. Baude, who was free,² gave in his resignation in order to become a candidate. Mignet, if he did not exhort him to do it, at least approved and egged him on. They had the promise of twenty-five votes, when lo and behold, a certain Magne (a minister) comes forward, and notre monsieur helps him and gets all the votes he can for him. The nomination comes off in a fortnight. We are all in despair not to have M. de Tocqueville and M. de Beaumont here, for one or two votes would save us; and everybody has expressed such a desire that you should go and see M. de Tocqueville, in order that the other might come, that I take it on myself to entreat you to do so.

“ M. de Corcelles was there, and said that if you went to Cannes Beaumont would come, but not otherwise. As to Mignet, it made one ill to see him. With his calm, honest nature, he was reproaching himself, and, though he tried to contain himself, he let out that if Baude were not elected he would resign his place of secretary; and he seems capable of it. The princess is in a frantic state about it, for this is all he has to live on ! I, who have seen M. Fauriel in a similar case, — I know what these calm natures are capable of. My dear M. Ampeèe, if you could take this little trip to Cannes, you would, in the first place, give immense pleasure to M. de Tocqueville. I know that another friendship detains you, but you travel about so readily that you would not mind absenting yourself for a week or two. Think about it. You may, perhaps, regret if you don’t consent. Your friend in Rome has father, mother, and husband. You can return to her; she is young, and Madame de Tocqueville is in a sad state of health.

“ I venture to speak to you as an old, a very old friend. If you do this, I am certain you will be glad of it later, and your friends here will be eternally grateful to you.”

It was too late for M. de Tocqueville to move in the matter. He was dying at the time. He never left Cannes, but died there on the 16th of April, eleven days after this letter was written. In spite of his absence and the powerful protection of “ notre monsieur,” as Madame Mohl calls the Emperor, Baron Baude’s election was carried ; the Imperial favor did not prove strong enough to force the minister of finance on the reluctant Academy.

The excitement of an election has a sweetness known only to those who have tasted it; few were more fitted to enjoy this than Madame Mohl. Her special genius found here a fine field of operation. While the contest lasted, the salon of the Rue du Bac was like the headquarters of an army before the engagement. All day long there were comings and goings in hot haste, notes were being sent to and fro, and the air was full of the smell of battle. And what rejoicings there were when the right man won !³

Many remember the delight Madame Mohl showed when Père Lacordaire was named one of the Forty. It was a personal joy to her that her valued friend, the noble and sympathetic De Tocqueville, should be replaced by the great Dominican orator, and that the latter should be welcomed to the vacant chair by another dear friend, Guizot. She was greatly excited by this election on all accounts. “ What a wonderful thing it is,” she kept saying, “ to see Guizot, a Protestant, receiving a monk into the Academy! What will he say to him? Many were asking the same question. The event was calculated to excite a deeper interest than any stirred by personal or party feeling, evoking, as it did, memories of the long past, and of more recent but bitter strife between the causes which these two champions represented. Guizot gave utterance to the general feeling in the opening words of his discourse, when, pointing to the majestic figure in the Dominican cowl, he exclaimed, “ Monsieur,⁴ what should we two have had to say to one another six hundred years ago ? ”

One incident occurred on this memorable occasion which marred Madame Mohl’s satisfaction. The Empress, as a daughter of the house of Guzman, which honors St. Dominick as its purest glory, and as a mark of respect for the cause represented by Père Lacordaire, chose to be present at his reception. The great Dominican had not spoken since his stupendous sermon at St. Roch, after the coup d’état, which drew on him the Imperial displeasure and a sentence condemning him to silence. The present opportunity for breaking the silence was not one that was congenial to him; neither the place, the audience, nor the circumstance was calculated to inspire him. His hand was accustomed to strike deeper chords than any he might awaken in the academical precincts. He was eloquent, inevitably, but it was not the eloquence that had called out the echoes of Notre Dame and shaken souls to their centre; he was out of his element. Guizot, on the contrary, was in his natural place and sphere, and shone out at his best. On leaving the tribune, the Empress, who had never heard either of the speakers before, is said to have remarked, “J’y laisse une illusion et un préjugé.”

Madame’s Mohl’s detestation of the Empire and all connected with it was marked by her habitual exaggeration in loving and hating. Anything that exposed the iniquities of the régime and its 44 suppots de Satan,” — her generic term for every functionary in the Imperial service, from the prime minister down to the exciseman, — anything that threw odium or ridicule on “ Celui-ci, ” was welcome to her as flowers in May.

One Friday evening, at the Rue du Bac, M. Guizot came in, and related the following story that he had just heard: —

A relation of the Duchesse de Rhad married one of those 14 suppots de Satan,” and had further degraded herself by living under the roof with Celui-ci. The unhappy lady had become from that time forth, naturally, as one dead to her kith and kin in the noble Faubourg. But she was now ill, dying it was believed, and it was a fit occasion for the exercise of mercy. The family therefore resolved to send her to judgment absolved at least by the Faubourg St. Germain. The duchess herself generously voluntered to take this message of pardon to her dying relative. She ordered her carriage, and said to the footman, “ Aux Tuileries ! ” The man stared, but carried the order to the coachman ; whereupon that venerable functionary, who had driven three generations of R-s, got down from his seat, and, presenting himself at the carriage window, said, 44 Madame la Duchesse, I cannot have the honor of conducting your grace to the Tuileries ; my horses do not know the way there.”

Madame Mohl clapped her hands in delight, exclaiming, 44 And the duchess kissed the old coachman?”

44 No,” said M. Guizot, 44 but she got out of her carriage, and sent for a cab.”

Madame Mohl lived on this story for a week, and so did her friends.

44 The present state of things makes me so sick,” she writes to Madame Scherer, apropos of the Empire, 44 that I can hardly digest my victuals. I should not eat at all if I thought much about it, so I think of something else, and read travels in South America.”

One day a friend was waiting for her in the drawing-room, when she came flying out of M. Mohl’s study, holding up her arms, and crying out, 44 And to think that I don’t know how to shoot! ” This murderous outburst had been provoked by some fresh proof of the wickedness of Celui-ci.

44 If my friend Lady Eastlake is in London, I shall stay a bit with her,” she writes as late as 1880. “I shall see Kinglake, who wrote the Crimean War. I’m fond of the man ; he hated L. Nap. I took great, great interest in that business, but it was ill-managed, and cost us a large quantity of good honest soldiers. May be it mortified the Czar, but I don’t think it did much good besides.”

A common hate to Napoleon III. once gained Madame Mohl an acquaintance that was a source of pride and pleasure to her. In 1856 M. de Montalembert wrote a pamphlet entitled Un Débat sur l’Inde, the subject of which was the institutions of England, her queen, her people, and her liberty. The writer sounded the praises of all these things in a political fugue of impassioned eloquence, the counter-note of which was an overwhelming condemnation of the Empire, its head, its institutions, and its annihilation of liberty. Europe rang with the applause evoked by the brilliant publication. M. de Montalembert was put on his trial for an attempt to excite disaffection toward the Imperial government. It was a splendid spectacle, the knight throwing down the gauntlet to Cæsar, and doing battle single-handed against all the forces of the Empire. While the trial lasted, M. de Montalembert was the cynosure of the nations and the first gentleman in France. Judgment, of course, was given against him. He was condemned to three months’ imprisonment and a fine of three thousand francs. The moment this sentence was delivered it was telegraphed far and wide, and there flashed back in response congratulations to M. de Montalembert, offers to pay the fine, and promises to come and visit him in his prison. The latter were so numerous that it was reported at high quarters that “ if a tithe of them were fulfilled the streets adjoining the prison would be blocked.”

The Emperor, who had been ill-advised enough to allow the trial, was too wise, however, to incur further ridicule by letting the sentence be carried out.

M. de Montalembert presented himself and his three thousand francs, the next morning, at the prison. But the jailer would accept neither.

“ I cannot take your money,” he said, “ and I cannot take you. I have no orders.”

“ But I have been condemned by the Tribunal to this fine and to imprisonment.”

“ Show me your billet d’écrou.”

“ I have not got one.”

“Then I cannot take you in.”

“ But you can see in the Moniteur that I have been condemned.”

“I never read the Moniteur. If you want to get taken in here, you must first get a billet d’écrou; ” and with this, the jailer shut the wicket in the convict’s face.

There was nothing for M. de Montalembert to do but to come away. The story was all over Paris the next day, and added a sort of humorous artistic touch to the whole affair.

Madame Mohl had been intensely wrought up by the incident, by admiration for the eloquent hymn of praise to England, and by the chivalrous bearing of the author during the trial; but this crowning ridicule which the comedy at the prison gate had thrown on Celui-ci so overjoyed her that she put on her bonnet and went off to No. 40 in the same street to make the hero’s acquaintance and wish him joy. In a trice they were friends. Her detestation of Napoleon III. amused M. de Montalembert immensely.

“ The vile villain ! I hate him so that it makes me quite uncomfortable ! ” she protested, with a little stamp of her foot.⁵

Her enthusiasm for the great Catholic champion did not pass away with the event which had so excited it. M. de Montalembert’s visits to the Rue du Bac were red-letter days ever after, and during the long last illness that confined him to his room she was often admitted to see him, and always cheered him by her clever, sympathetic, and original talk.

Madame Mohl was, in spite of her dislike of the Emperor and consistent avoidance of all his entourage, on affectionate terms with a lady who was his friend and occasionally his guest. M. Mohl’s father had been, as it has been said, minister of the King of Würtemberg. His daughter, Princess Sophie, now Queen of Holland, had always had a great regard for Julius Mohl, and when he married she extended this kindly feeling to his wife. The King of Holland also liked them both exceedingly, and when staying at the Tuileries would run off to enjoy quiet talks with his learned friend in the Rue du Bac. M. Mohl was as strong an Anti-Imperialist as his wife, though less demonstrative on the subject than she. Once, however, in speaking of Napoleon III. to the King, he called him such very hard names that the King protested. “ Hold, my dear Mohl,” said his majesty. “ There is an esprit de corps amongst our set, too ; and besides, I am his guest. I can’t hear you say these things of him.”

“ Very well, sire,” said M. Mohl. “ Disons canaille, et n’en parlons plus!”

When Queen Sophie came alone to stay at the Tuileries, in 1869, she asked the Emperor if there were still any salons in Paris. “ Yes,” replied his majesty, “ Madame Mohl has one, but she does not do me the honor of inviting me.”

“ She has asked me to dine,” said the Queen, who had been leading up to this, “ but I don’t like to accept the invitation, as I am your guest.”

“ You are not my guest, — you are at home,” said the Emperor ; “ and I beg as a favor that you go to Madame Mohl’s.”

The Queen went. The guests invited to meet her, at her own desire, were MM. Thiers, Barthélemy St. Hilaire, Mignet, Jules Simon, Prévost-Paradol, and Leopold Ranke. The dinner — a déjeûner rather, for it was at twelve o’clock — was less brilliant than might have been expected from the calibre of the guests. They were all strong AntiImperialists, and the fact of the Queen’s being the guest of the Emperor caused a certain gêne which it was impossible to throw off, and this checked the free flow of conversation.

Madame Mohl was, perhaps, the least impressed of all, either by the presence of royalty or by having to entertain a person who was staying at the Pavilion Marsau. When a friend asked her if she was not anxious about the menu, Madame Mohl replied, “ My dear, I will give her a lobster ; my cook does it very well.” A lobster with mayonnaise sauce was to her the ne plus ultra of good things.

The only survivors of those who feasted on this particular lobster are her dear and faithful friends, M. St. Hilaire and M. Jules Simon. The latter recalls with amusement how Mignet, who arrived in full evening dress, white cravat, etc., was in great trouble about getting home, — for it was a holiday and there were no cabs to be had, — and was obliged to walk in his fine clothes at three in the afternoon.

Queen Sophie was telling M. Jules Simon of a tour she had just made in the south of France. They had shown her the Viaduct of Rocamadour, but not the Bridge of the Gard. “ I told her,” he says, “that in that case it was a partie manquée, and that she should return immediately and see the Pont du Gard. She replied, ‘ I can’t return this year, but I will next year; and you must come, too, and you will dine with me in the open air on that Roman bridge.’ She fixed the date, and wrote it down in her pocket-book, and made me do the same. But the next year there was uo question of pleasure trips, at least for me, or for any one in France.”

The Emperor was curious to know how the déjeûner had gone off. He asked many questions, and begged the Queen to invite Madame Mohl and her friends to come and lunch with her at the Tuileries. “ They would not come to me,” he said, “but there is no reason why they should not come to you.” Apparently there was, for no one accepted the invitation.

Soon after this famous déjeûner, her majesty went one morning to pay the customary “ visit of digestion ” at the Rue du Bac. Madame Mohl was in her ordinary morning costume, — a costume once seen, never to be forgotten, — busy dusting the drawing-room, after having counted out the linen that had just come home and was spread out on the diningroom table, visible through the open folding-doors. Suddenly, the Queen and her suite were shown in. The old lady quietly laid down her feather-duster, and, beautifully unconscious of herself and her toilet, went forward to greet her majesty. The company sat down, and Madame Mohl chatted away as pleasantly as usual.

A friend to whom she related the adventure, half an hour after it had occurred, remarked that she must have been terribly embarrassed at being caught in such a plight.

“ Not a bit, my dear,” said Madame Mohl, - “ I did n’t mind it in the least; no more did the Queen. Her lady did, I dare say, and that fine gentleman who walks after her with the keys looked dreadfully disgusted ; but I could see the Queen was laughing at it all in her sleeve.”

Both M. and Madame Mohl were genuinely hospitable, and their hospitality was simple and natural, as they were themselves, and free from the smallest taint of display. The bonne, in her white cap and apron, waited at table, except on extraordinary occasions, when a man was had in. They had a good cook, clever at that old-fashioned cuisine bourgeoise that, like other good things, is disappearing gradually from the face of the land. There was no attempt at fine dishes, but everything was excellent, and there was plenty of it; “ enough, even, for a hungry schoolboy,” says a venerable Academician, who from youth to age was an honored guest at that hospitable board, “and you felt heartily welcome.”

It sometimes happened that Madame Mohl’s hospitality outran her space, and if a dinner, owing to some particular circumstance, promised to be very interesting she would invite more people than she had room for. But neither they nor she minded this. When all the seats were taken, she would say to the supernumeraries, “ You can sit down, and wait till the others are done, and then you shall have your dinner.” And they were quite content to do so. As M. St. Hilaire says, you never thought about the dinner; you were thinking of the fête d’esprit that was going to be served.

Surely it was to the credit of Parisian society that it was so, and that people were so eager for invitations to a table where the only excess they were likely to indulge in was a gourmandise d’esprit. Were the wits and savants of the eighteenth century more material than those of the nineteenth ? It would almost seem so, if we compare Madame Mohl’s simple, wholesome dinner-parties with the Lucullus-like banquets that Madame Geoffrin and Madame Du Deffand used to spread for the same class of guests. Madame Du Deffand considered that supper was one of the four last ends of man, and, acting on this principle, she took infinite pains to make her petits soupers worthy of their important mission ; while Madame Geoffrin studied the secrets of the Epicureans, in order that modern philosophers might fare as daintily at her table as the Greek poets and sages did in ancient times.

Madame Mohl, beyond ordering a good and abundant meal, gave little thought to the mere material details of her entertainments ; but she took great pains with the intellectual menu. She would give time and thought and personal trouble to provide for each guest intellectually what he would most enjoy, and would carefully consider whether this person would like to meet the other, and to sit next So-and-So. Her great preoccupation was the combining of congenial elements for all in general and particular.

Her dear friend, Ampère, was the most “ invited ” man of his day, and it was, in consequence, difficult to secure him. Samson, the actor, had expressed a great desire to meet him, and Madame Mohl, who had taken a fancy to Samson, determined to procure him this pleasure. After sounding Ampère, she writes to him : —

“ I forgot yesterday to remind you that you told me you would be glad to dine with Samson. Souvent femme varie; but if you, a man, are above this, I should like to know what day would suit you this next week. My dear M. Ampère, do me this pleasure, and the pleasure of giving pleasure to Samson, for whom I have a particular weakness. He is such a galant homme in his literary opinions ; for I maintain that there is a point of honor in literary opinions as in all others. I don’t know his character, à fond ; but all that I hear him say about art, especially about his own, is in such good taste and so noble that I want very much to cultivate him. Now, it will be a first-rate opportunity to have him come and dine with you, who are a true critic. So write me three nice little very legible words, saying you will come.”

Ampère did go, and the dinner was a most delightful one.

Mrs. Gaskell wanted to meet M. de Tocqueville, and Madame Mohl again appealed to Ampère to help her to gratify this wish: —

“ Can you come and dine on Wednesday, to meet Mrs. Gaskell, who adores you ? They tell me (Mr. Senior tells me) that M. de Tocqueville is in Paris without Madame. Will you ask him to come with you ? If Madame is here and would come, I shall be charmed. But I beg of you to arrange this, if it be impossible ; to ask you to do what is possible would be to fall short of my high opinion of you.”

She had a comical habit of taking notes, after each little dinner, of the way her guests had behaved: “ M. Xtook no trouble to make himself agreeable. Madame Ywas grumpy: sha’n’t ask her in a hurry again. M. Zwent away too soon : very rude of him. M. Awas delightful,” and so on.

The sums of money lavished on eating and drinking at dinner-parties excited Madame Mohl’s indignation, both as a vulgar display on the part of the hosts, and as underrating people’s capacity for enjoying worthier things. Some one enlarging, in her presence, on the “ splendid hospitality ” of a very rich family in Paris, she retorted furiously, “Hospitality! Humph! Purse-pride and ostentation, — that’s what it is ! Those people don’t care a button about offering hospitality to their friends ; they are only thinking of showing off their money, and being called stylish. I can’t abide such people ! ” The lamentations of others, who refrained from exercising hospitality according to their means, on the plea that they could not do so properly, were just as peremptorily snubbed. “ Why should not you suppose a friend as ready to eat a good plain dinner at your table as at his own ? ” she asked of one of these grumblers. “ It is vanity and purse-pride that prevent people being hospitable, half the time. Why should we think it necessary to provide our friends with ten times as much to eat and drink as they are in the habit of having at home ? ” Dinner-parties were opportunities for talk, the means, not the end; they were a kind of intellectual picnic, to which every one brought a contribution towards the common meal. Esprit, not eating and drinking, was the bait that lured people to her board.

With all her tact and her care to draw congenial spirits together, Madame Mohl could not prevent them from occasionally disagreeing; but these little movements generally had no worse result than to exercise her wit and cleverness. One Friday evening, in 1860 (before that memorable one that has been mentioned), Madame Ristori was presented to a lady bearing one of the most illustrious of contemporary Catholic names. They sat down together on a sofa, and one who was present recalls the look of intense admiration which the grande dame bent on the beautiful actress as she conversed with her. They chatted very cordially for a time; then some evil spirit brought the Italian situation on the tapis, and the Comtesse de M-, with the warmth of a loyal Catholic, denounced Garibaldi’s invasion and the wrongs committed against the Holy See. Madame Ristori, whose sympathies on the Liberal side were equally strong, fired up in defense of the United Italy movement, and with that incomparable gesture that had thrilled a larger audience the previous evening, “ Ah, madame,” she exclaimed, “ I admire Pius IX., but I am an Italian before all things ! ”

Every eye was turned on the two ladies, and the excited salon was wondering what was going to happen, when Madame Mohl, like a beneficent fairy, stepped in, and entreated Madame Ristori to fulfill her promise of reciting something. The latter, with equal tact and grace, at once consented, and declaimed a passage from the Paradiso⁶ with admirable power and pathos.

Madame Mohl was known to all the world as a femme d’esprit, but to those who knew her best she was better than this; she was essentially a femme de cœur. She was always a very economical person, and in later years economy had degenerated into something very near avarice, the result in a measure of mental decay ; but only those who were the objects of her kindness knew how much real generosity had always redeemed this tendency, even in the days when her means were limited. One or two instances will illustrate this.

She met at the house of Madame Cheuvreux ⁷ a lady who gained her livelihood by copying manuscripts. Madame Mohl heard that she was very poor, and, being always exceedingly gracious to persons in a dependent or trying position, she asked this lady to come and see her. The lady did, and was very kindly received. Presently Madame Mohl left the room abruptly, and, coming back, stuffed something into her muff. “ Carry this away,” she said, “and say nothing about it. Come soon again to see me; I may have some work for you.” Another visitor was announced, so the lady took leave. On examining the contents of her muff she found a roll of three hundred francs in gold.

Madame Cheuvreux relates another delicate trait of Madame Mohl’s generosity : —

One morning, at eight o’clock, Madame Cheuvreux’s servant, a new footman, came to say that “ there was a poor woman in the hall who desired to see Madame.” The poor woman proved to be Madame Mohl. “ My dear,” she said, “ the sale of -’s atelier takes place to-day at two o’clock, and you must run all over the place and make everybody come to it; they must buy up everything, and pay good prices, for the money is wanted.” Madame Cheuvreux promised to do what she could. Madame Mohl was with difficulty persuaded to take a cup of coffee before hurrying away to beat up other buyers, and she was running all over Paris till the hour of the sale, at which she arrived punctually. When it was over Madame Cheuvreux offered to take her home. She hesitated a moment, but accepted, and was followed to the carriage by two porters bearing boxes and parcels, which were piled up on the vacant seat. “ My dear,” she explained, “ you won’t say anything about it, but I have bought up a few things that I know Madame holds to, and I will send them to her when all this business is over.” Site had spent nearly two thousand francs in this act of kindness to the friend of her youth, the beautiful Louise -, now an aged widow in straitened circumstances. They had come together again after long years of estrangement, the immediate cause of their reconciliation being some injustice committed against Louise’s husband by the government, which aroused Madame Mohl’s bitterest indignation and warmest sympathy.

2 Those who have read J. J. Ampère’s letters, etc., will be familiar with the name of this charming friend of his. It was somewhere about 1855 that Madame Mohl wrote to Ampèere this letter, which, with many others, has been confided to me by Madame Cheuvreux: —

“ You said you would introduce me to Madame Cheuvreux. I now summon you to keep your word. If you are too busy, tell me her day, her hour, and if she will have me I will go and see her. Life is short, and I hate putting off. There is a lady who used to say to her husband, ‘ Or, cela, je veux entrer dans mon avenir tout de suite.’ Her hair is white, and he is always saying to her, ‘We will keep this for our avenir.’ I think that saying of hers ought to become an axiom. I adopt it. I have lots of gray hairs; I won’t pull them out; I won’t be plucked, as I see many ladies are; and I want to do and to have immediately whatever I want to do and to have. I love you. I tell you I do. You are an ingrate. Never mind. One must make the best of the friends one has.”

She did enter immediately into the enjoyment of this future, and found in Madame Cheuvreux a warmth of response which made it easy to do so. The proverbial hospitality of Stars was a source of great pleasure to M. and Madame Mohl in happy days, and a refuge to the survivor when these were past.

Kathleen O’Meara.