We visited, in company with these same doctors, the Pasteur Institute, young M. Pasteur accompanying us.  We began at the rooms where they examined hydrophobia in all its developments.  Persons who have been bitten by any animal are kept under observation, and they have to go to the Institute forty times before they are either cured or beyond suspicion.  There are two large rooms adjoining each other, one for the patients and the other for the doctors.  Every morning the unhappy men and women are received and cared for.

May 15, 1898.

My dear L.,—­We have just come home from bidding our Crown Prince and Princess good-by at the station.

On Thursday Madame Faure and her daughter came to see me.  On bidding them adieu I said I hoped the President had not forgotten the photograph of himself which he had promised me.  Madame Faure answered, “Vous l’aurez ce soir meme, chere Madame.”  That very evening while we were dining with Count and Countess Cornet we heard that Felix Faure had suddenly died.  To-day we learned how he had died.  Not through the papers, but secretly, in an undertone and with a hushed voice.

I think that the French papers ought to take the prize in the art of keeping a secret.  One could never imagine that a whole nation could hold its tongue so completely!  There appeared no sensational articles, no details, and no comments on the President of the French Republic’s departure from this world.  Everything in the way of details was kept secret by the officials.  In our country, and, in fact, in every other country, such discretion would have been impossible; the news in all its details would have been hawked about the streets in half an hour.  Here was simply the news that Felix Faure had died.

A week later the President’s funeral took place at Notre Dame.  Seats were reserved for the Corps Diplomatique by the side of the immense catafalque which stood in the center of the cathedral.  Huge torches were burning around it.  After every one was seated, in came the four officers sent by the German Emperor.  Four giants!  The observed of all observers!  Their presence did not pass unnoticed, as you may imagine.  They seemed more as if they were at a parade than at a funeral.  The music was splendid; The famous organist Guilmant was at the organ, and did “his best.”  I believe Notre Dame never heard finer organ-playing.  I never did.

The streets were full of troops; the large open square in front of the cathedral was lined with a double row of soldiers.  The diplomats followed on foot in the procession from Notre Dame to Pere la Chaise, traversing the whole of Paris.

PARIS, 1899.

My dear Sister,—­You may think what a joy it is to me to have my dear friend Mrs. Bigelow Lawrence staying with me here.  Every day we go to some museums and do a little sight-seeing.  She is interested in everything.