Another lady who was often at my uncle’s was quite a different type, Mademoiselle A., an old pupil of the Conservatoire, who had made a short career at the Comedie Francaise many years before.  She was really charming, and her stories of the coulisses and the jalousies between the authors and the actors, particularly the stars (who hardly accepted the slightest observation from the writer of the play), were most amusing.  Once the piece was accepted it passed into the domain of the theatre, and the actors felt at liberty to interpret the roles according to their ideas and traditions.  She had a perfect diction; it was a delight to hear her.  She recited one night one of Alphonse Daudet’s little contes, “Lettres de Mon Moulin,” I think, beginning—­“Qui n’a pas vu Avignon du temps des Papes n’a rien vu.”  One couldn’t hear anything more charming, in a perfectly trained voice, and so easily and naturally said.

I suppose no one would listen to it in these days.  Bridge has suppressed all conversation or music or artistic enjoyment of any kind.  It must come to an end some day like all crazes, but at the present moment it has destroyed society.  It has been a godsend to many people of no particular importance or position who have used it as a stepping-stone to get into society.  If people play a good game of bridge, they are welcome guests in a great many houses which formerly would have been closed to them, and it is a great resource to ladies no longer very young, widows and spinsters, who find their days long and don’t know what to do with their lives.

Notwithstanding his preoccupations, W. managed to get a few days’ shooting in November.  He shot several times at Rambouillet with Grevy, who was an excellent shot, and his shooting breakfasts were very pleasant.  There was plenty of game, everything very well organised, and the company agreeable.  He always asked the ministers, ambassadors, and many of the leading political men and very often some of his old friends, lawyers and men of various professions whom W. was delighted to meet.  Their ideas didn’t run in grooves like most of the men he lived with, and it was a pleasure to hear talk that wasn’t political nor personal.  The vicious attacks upon persons were so trying those first days of the Republic.  Every man who was a little more prominent than his neighbour seemed a target for every kind of insinuation and criticism.

We went for two days to “Pout,” Casimir Perier’s fine place in the departement de l’Aube, where we had capital shooting.  It was already extremely cold for the season—­the big pond in the court was frozen hard, and the wind whistled about our ears when we drove in an open carriage to join the shooters at breakfast.  Even I, who don’t usually feel the cold, was thankful to be well wrapped up in furs.  The Pavillon d’Hiver looked very inviting as we drove up—­an immense fire was blazing in the chimney, another just outside, where the soup and ragout for the army of beaters