The Duc de R. took me out. He is small, with clever, unhappy eyes and the world-manner, with a hint of introversion, most interesting. I found, when I came to talk with him, that he was possessed of immense knowledge, rendered living and _actuel_ by his personality, and his mentality is of that crystal type equally lucid in the discussion of facts or ideas. He has just returned from a trip through Oaxaca, where he has large mining and railway interests, and is _en route_ for Paris, _via_ New York. He walked home with us afterward, telling us about that southern country, which he knows as only one knows a country gone through on horseback, and, of course, he was turning the international flashlight on it all. Mr. de Gheest sat on my other side. He has come on a brief business visit with his handsome very _jeunesse dorée_ son, Henri.[32] I had never met them before, but his charming wife and I have listened to Wagner cycles together in Munich. They were married strangely enough, in Mexico, and lived here for a while afterward. M. de G. is trained and brilliant in discussion of international affairs, witty, _risqué_, and unsparing. They come for lunch to-morrow. I must say I was what one would call extremely well placed at table! _January 27th._ Most amusing lunch here to-day, the Gallic sparks flying in all directions! The De Gheests, De Chambrun, the Lefaivres, Allart--and our Anglo-Saxon selves as listeners. De G. was very amusing about some business rendezvous with Mexican banking associates. One important meeting fell through because the banker's little granddaughter was having a birthday. The second came to grief because another luminary's wife's aunt's sister-in-law, or some sort of remote relation, had died, and, of course, it's a rather far journey from Paris to Mexico to find oneself tripping over family occurrences.... Then we got on to the eternal land question. There's a lot said about the 80 per cent. speaking out and asking for land, but _vox populi_ here bears very little resemblance to _vox dei_, and it's only confusing when a few (generally oppressors, not oppressed) do begin to mutter. Madero walked to the presidency on the plank of the distribution of land, which he promptly and inevitably kicked from under him--it didn't, couldn't hold. It appears that he bought from one of the computed two hundred and thirty-two members of the family a large tract of land in Tamaulipas, but when it was parceled out it came so high that no Indian could buy it, and wouldn't have known what to do with it had he bought it.