W. of course had a great many men’s dinners, from which I was excluded.  I dined often with some of my friends, not of the official world, and I used to ask myself sometimes if the Quai d’Orsay and these houses could be in the same country.  It was an entirely different world, every point of view different, not only politics—­that one would expect, as the whole of society was anti-Republican, Royalist, or Bonapartist—­but every question discussed wore a different aspect.  Once or twice there was a question of Louis XIV and what he would have done in certain cases,—­the religious question always a passionate one.  That of course I never discussed, being a Protestant, and knowing quite well that the real fervent Catholics think Protestants have no religion.

I was out driving with a friend one morning in Lent (Holy Week), Thursday I think—­and said I could not be out late, as I must go to church—­perhaps she would drop me at the Protestant Chapel in the Avenue de la Grand Armee.  She was so absolutely astonished that it was almost funny, though I was half angry too.  “You are going to church on Holy Thursday.  I didn’t know Protestants ever kept Lent, or Holy Week or any saint’s day.”  “Don’t you think we ever go to church?” “Oh, yes, to a conference or sermon on Sundays, but you are not pratiquant like us.”  I was really put out, and tried another day, when she was sitting with me, to show her our prayerbook, and explained that the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer, to say nothing of various other prayers, were just the same as in her livre de Messe, but I didn’t make any impression upon her—­her only remark being, “I suppose you do believe in God,”—­yet she was a clever, well-educated woman—­knew her French history well, and must have known what a part the French Protestants played at one time in France, when many of the great nobles were Protestants.

Years afterward, with the same friend, we were discussing the proposed marriage of the Duke of Clarence, eldest son of the late King Edward VII of England, who wanted very much to marry Princess Helene d’Orleans, daughter of the Comte de Paris, now Duchesse d’Aosta.  It was impossible for the English prince, heir to the throne, to marry a Catholic princess—­it seemed equally impossible for the French princess to become a Protestant.  The Pope was consulted and very strong influence brought to bear on the question, but the Catholic Church was firm.  We were in London at the time, and of course heard the question much discussed.  It was an interesting case, as the two young people were much in love with each other.  I said to my friend: 

“If I were in the place of the Princess Helene I should make myself a Protestant.  It is a big bait for the daughter of an exiled prince to be Queen of England.”

“But it couldn’t be; no Catholic could change her religion or make herself Protestant.”

“Yet there is a precedent in your history.  Your King Henri IV of beloved memory, a Protestant, didn’t hesitate to make himself a Catholic to be King of France.”