me company.  Prince Hohenlohe came often, settled himself in an armchair with his cup of tea, and talked easily and charmingly about everything.  He was just back from Germany and reported Bismarck and the Emperor (I should have said, perhaps, the Emperor and Bismarck) as rather worried over the rapid strides France was making in radicalism.  He reassured them, told them Grevy was essentially a man of peace, and, as long as moderate men like W., Leon Say, and their friends remained in office, things would go quietly.  “Yes, if they remain.  I have an idea we shan’t stay much longer, and report says Freycinet will be the next premier.”  He evidently had heard the same report, and spoke warmly of Freycinet,—­intelligent, energetic, and such a precise mind.  If W. were obliged to resign, which he personally would regret, he thought Freycinet was the coming man—­unless Gambetta wanted to be premier.  He didn’t think he did, was not quite ready yet, but his hand might be forced by his friends, and of course if he wanted it, he would be the next President du Conseil.  He also told me a great many things that Blowitz had said to him—­he had a great opinion of him—­said he was so marvellously well-informed of all that was going on.  It was curious to see how a keen, clever man like Prince Hohenlohe attached so much importance to anything that Blowitz said.  The nuncio, Monseigneur Czaski, came too sometimes at tea-time.  He was a charming talker, but I always felt as if he were saying exactly what he meant to and what he wanted me to repeat to W. I am never quite sure with Italians.  There is always a certain reticence under their extremely natural, rather exuberant manner.  Monseigneur Czaski was not an Italian by birth—­a Pole, but I don’t know that they inspire much more confidence.

X

PARLIAMENT BACK IN PARIS

The question of the return of the Parliament to Paris had at last been solved after endless discussions.  All the Republicans were in favour of it, and they were masters of the situation.  The President, Grevy, too wanted it very much.  If the Chambers continued to sit at Versailles, he would be obliged to establish himself there, which he didn’t want to do.  Many people were very unwilling to make the change, were honestly nervous about possible disturbances in the streets, and, though they grumbled too at the loss of time, the draughty carriages of the parliamentary train, etc., they still preferred those discomforts to any possibility of rioting and street fights, and the invasion of the Chamber of Deputies by a Paris mob.  W. was very anxious for the change.