As we could do nothing there, we went back to the ministry.  No telegrams had come, but Kruft, our faithful and efficient chef du materiel, was waiting for me for last instructions about a Christmas tree.  Some days before I had decided to have a Christmas tree, about the end of the month.  W. then thought the ministry would last over the holidays, the treve des confiseurs, and was quite willing I should have a Christmas party as a last entertainment.  He had been too occupied the last days to think about any such trifles, and Kruft, not having had any contrary instructions, had ordered the presents and decorations.  He was rather depressed, because W. had told him that morning that we surely would not be at the Quai d’Orsay on the 29th, the day we had chosen for our party.  However, I reassured him, and told him we would have the Christmas tree all the same, only at my house instead of at the ministry.  We went to look at his presents, which were all spread out on a big table in one of the drawing-rooms.  He really was a wonderful man, never forgot anything, and had remembered that at the last tree, the year before, one or two nurses had had no presents, and several who had were not pleased with what was given to them.  He had made a very good selection for those ladies,—­lace scarfs and rabats and little tours de cou of fur,—­really very pretty.  I believe they were satisfied this time.  The young men of the Chancery sent me up two telegrams:  “rien de nouveau,”—­“ministere debout.”

[Illustration:  M. de Freyeinet.  After a photograph by M. Nadaz, Paris]

W. came home late, very tired and much disgusted with politics in general and his party in particular.  The cabinet still lived, but merely to give Grevy time to make another.  W. had been to the Elysee and had a long conversation with Grevy.  He found him very preoccupied, very unwilling to make a change, and he again urged W. very much to keep the Foreign Office, if Freycinet should succeed in making a ministry.  That W. would not agree to—­he was sick of the whole thing.  He told Grevy he was quite right to send for Freycinet—­if any man could save the situation he could.  We had one or two friends, political men, to dinner, and they discussed the situation from every point of view, always ending with the same conclusion, that W. was right to go.  His policy wasn’t the policy of the Chamber (I don’t say of the country, for I think the country knew little and cared less about what was going on in Parliament), hardly the policy of all his own colleagues.  There was really no use to continue worrying himself to death and doing no good.  W. said his conversation with Grevy was interesting, but he was much more concerned with home politics and the sweeping changes the Republicans wanted to make in all the administrations than with foreign policy.  He said Europe was quiet and France’s first duty was to establish herself firmly, which would only be done by peace and prosperity at home.