We went to see a first function at the Elysee some time in February, two Cardinals were to be named and Grevy was to deliver the birettas.  Mollard asked to see me one morning, telling me that the two ablegates with their suite had arrived, and wished to pay their respects to me.  One of them was Monsignor Cataldi, whom we had known well in Rome when we were living there.  He was a friend of my brother (General Rufus King, the last United States minister to the Vatican under Pia Nono), and came often to the house.  He was much excited when he found out that Madame Waddington was the Mary King he had known so well in Rome.  He had with him an English priest, whose name, curiously enough, was English.  They appeared about tea-time and were quite charming, Cataldi just as fat and cheerful and talkative as I remembered him in the old days in Rome.  We plunged at once into all sorts of memories of old times—­the good old times when Rome was small and black and interesting—­something quite apart and different from any other place in the world.  Monsignor English was much younger and more reserved, the Anglo-Saxon type—­a contrast to the exuberant Southerners.  We asked them to dine the next night and were able to get a few interesting people to meet them, Comte et Comtesse de Sartiges, and one or two deputies—­bien-pensants.  Sartiges was formerly French ambassador in Rome to the Vatican, and a very clever diplomatist.  He was very autocratic, did exactly what he liked.  I remember quite well some of his small dances at the embassy.  The invitations were from ten to twelve, and at twelve precisely the musicians stopped playing—­no matter who was dancing, the ball was over.  His wife was an American, from Boston, Miss Thorndike, who always retained the simple, natural manner of the well-born American.  Their son, the Vicomte de Sartiges, has followed in his father’s footsteps, and is one of the most serious and intelligent of the young diplomatists.

Cataldi made himself very agreeable, spoke French perfectly well, though with a strong Italian accent.  He confided to me after dinner that he would have liked to see some of the more advanced political men, instead of the very conservative Catholics we had invited to meet them.  “I know what these gentlemen think; I would like to talk to some of the others, those who think ‘le clericalism c’est l’ennemi,’ and who are firmly convinced that the soutane serves as a cloak for all sorts of underhand and unpatriotic dealings; I can only see them abroad, never in Rome.”  He would have talked to them quite easily.  Italians have so much natural tact, in discussing difficult questions, never irritate people unnecessarily.

W. enjoyed his evening.  He had never been in Rome, nor known many Romans, and it amused him to see how skilfully Cataldi (who was a devoted admirer of Leo XIII) avoided all cross-currents and difficult questions, saying only what he intended to say, and appreciating all that was said to him.