The marshal received at the Elysee every Thursday evening—­he and his staff in uniform, also all the officers who came, which made a brilliant gathering.  Their big dinners and receptions were always extremely well done.  Except a few of their personal friends, not many people of society were present—­the diplomatic corps usually very well represented, the Government and their wives, and a certain number of liberal deputies—­a great many officers.  We received every fifteen days, beginning with a big dinner.  It was an open reception, announced in the papers.  The diplomats always mustered very strong, also the Parliament—­not many women.  Many of the deputies remained in the country, taking rooms merely while the Chambers were sitting, and their wives never appeared in Paris.  “Society” didn’t come to us much either, except on certain occasions when we had a royal prince or some very distinguished foreigners.  Besides the big official receptions, we often had small dinners up-stairs during the week.  Some of these I look back to with much pleasure.  I was generally the only lady with eight or ten men, and the talk was often brilliant.  Some of our habitues were the late Lord Houghton, a delightful talker; Lord Dufferin, then ambassador in St. Petersburg; Sir Henry Layard, British ambassador in Spain, an interesting man who had been everywhere and seen and known everybody worth knowing in the world; Count Schouvaloff, Russian ambassador in London, a polished courtier, extremely intelligent; he and W. were colleagues afterward at the Congres de Berlin, and W. has often told me how brilliantly he defended his cause; General Ignatieff, Prince Orloff, the nunzio Monsignor Czascki, quite charming, the type of the prelat mondain, very large (though very Catholic) in his ideas, but never aggressive or disagreeable about the Republic, as so many of the clergy were.  He was very fond of music, and went with me sometimes to the Conservatoire on Sunday; he had a great admiration for the way they played classical music; used to lean back in his chair in a corner (would never sit in front of the box) and drink in every sound.

We sometimes had informal music in my little blue salon.  Baron de Zuylen, Dutch minister, was an excellent musician, also Comte de Beust, the Austrian ambassador.  He was a composer.  I remember his playing me one day a wedding march he had composed for the marriage of one of the archdukes.  It was very descriptive, with bells, cannon, hurrahs, and a nuptial hymn—­rather difficult to render on a piano—­but there was a certain amount of imagination in the composition.  The two came often with me to the Conservatoire.  Comte de Beust brought Liszt to me one day.  I wanted so much to see that complex character, made up of enthusiasms of all kinds, patriotic, religious, musical.  He was dressed in the ordinary black priestly garb, looked like an ascetic with pale, thin face, which lighted up very much when discussing any subject that interested him.  He didn’t