Amongst Those Of Art And
Literature, Of Whom There Were Many, The Only One Whom I Made
The Acquaintance Of Was Octave Feuillet.
I happened to have
brought his 'Comedies et Proverbes' and another of his books
with me, never expecting to meet him; this so pleased him
that we became allies.
I was surprised to find that he could
not even read English, which I begged him to learn for the
sake of Shakespeare alone.
We did not see their Majesties till dinner-time. When the
guests were assembled, the women and the men were arranged
separately on opposite sides of the room. The Emperor and
Empress then entered, each respectively welcoming those of
their own sex, shaking hands and saying some conventional
word in passing. Me, he asked whether I had brought my guns,
and hoped we should have a good week's sport. To each one a
word. Every night during the week we sat down over a hundred
to dinner. The Army was largely represented. For the first
time I tasted here the national frog, which is neither fish
nor flesh. The wine was, of course, supreme; but after every
dish a different wine was handed round. The evening
entertainments were varied. There was the theatre in the
Palace, and some of the best of the Paris artistes were
requisitioned for the occasion. With them came Dejazet, then
nearly seventy, who had played before Buonaparte.
Almost every night there was dancing. Sometimes the Emperor
would walk through a quadrille, but as a rule he would retire
with one of his ministers, though only to a smaller boudoir
at the end of the suite, where a couple of whist-tables were
ready for the more sedate of the party. Here one evening I
found Prince Metternich showing his Majesty a chess problem,
of which he was the proud inventor. The Emperor asked
whether I was fond of chess. I was very fond of chess, was
one of the regular HABITUES of St. George's Chess Club, and
had made a study of the game for years. The Prince
challenged me to solve his problem in four moves. It was not
a very profound one. I had the hardihood to discover that
three, rather obvious moves, were sufficient. But as I was
not Gil Blas, and the Prince was not the Archbishop of
Grenada, it did not much matter. Like the famous prelate,
his Excellency proffered his felicitations, and doubtless
also wished me 'un peu plus de gout' with the addition of 'un
peu moins de perspicacite.'
One of the evening performances was an exhibition of POSES-
PLASTIQUES, the subjects being chosen from celebrated
pictures in the Louvre. Theatrical costumiers, under the
command of a noted painter, were brought from Paris. The
ladies of the court were carefully rehearsed, and the whole
thing was very perfectly and very beautifully done. All the
English ladies were assigned parts. But, as nearly all these
depended less upon the beauties of drapery than upon those of
nature, the English ladies were more than a little staggered
by the demands of the painter and of the - UNdressers.
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