Hohenlohe was always pleasant and easy.  I think he had a real sympathy for France and did his best on various delicate occasions.  The year of the exposition (1878) we dined out every night and almost always with the same people.  Hohenlohe often fell to me.  He took me in to dinner ten times in succession.  The eleventh time we were each of us in despair as we filed out together, so I said to him:  “Don’t let us even pretend to talk; you can talk to your other neighbour and I will to mine.”  However, we did talk chiffons, curiously enough.  I had waited for a dress, which only came home at the last moment, and when I put it on the corsage was so tight I could hardly bear it.  It was too late to change, and I had nothing else ready, so most uncomfortable I started for my dinner.  I didn’t dare to eat anything, hardly dared move, which Hohenlohe remarked, after seeing three or four dishes pass me untouched, and said to me:  “I am afraid you are ill; you are eating nothing.”  “No, not at all, only very uncomfortable”—­and then I explained the situation to him—­that my dress was so tight I could neither move nor eat.  He was most indignant—­“How could women be so foolish—­why did we want to have abnormally small waists and be slaves to our dressmakers?—­men didn’t like made-up figures.”  “Oh, yes, they do; all men admire a slight, graceful figure.”  “Yes, when it is natural, but no man understands nor cares about a fashionably dressed woman—­women dress for each other” (which is perfectly true).

[Illustration:  Prince Hohenlohe.  After the painting by F.E.  Laszlo.]

However, he was destined to see other ladies very careful about their figures.  The late Empress of Austria, who was a fine rider, spent some time one spring in Paris, and rode every morning in the Bois.  She was very handsome, with a beautiful figure, had handsome horses and attracted great attention.  Prince Hohenlohe often rode with her.  I was riding with a friend one morning when we saw handsome horses waiting at the mounting-block, just inside the gates.  We divined they were the Empress’s horses and waited to see her mount.  She arrived in a coupe, her maid with her, and mounted her horse from the block.  The body of her habit was open.  When she was settled in her saddle, the maid stepped up on the block and buttoned her habit, which I must say fitted beautifully—­as if she were melted into it.

The official receptions were interesting that year, as one still saw a few costumes.  The Chinese, Japanese, Persians, Greeks, and Roumanians wore their national dress—­and much better they look in them than in the ordinary dress coat and white tie of our men.  The Greek dress was very striking, a full white skirt with high embroidered belt, but it was only becoming when the wearer was young, with a good figure.  I remember a pretty Roumanian woman with a white veil spangled with gold, most effective.  Now every one wears the ordinary European dress except the Chinese, who still keep their costume.  One could hardly imagine a Chinese in a frock coat and tall hat.  What would he do with his pigtail?