diplomatic corps, but the German ambassadress impressed her and she knew her always. The princess was not very mondaine, didn't care about society and life in a city--preferred the country, with riding and shooting and any sort of sport. We had a very handsome dinner at the German embassy the winter of 1878--given to the Marshal and Madame de MacMahon. After dinner, with coffee, a bear made its appearance in the drawing-room, a "baby bear" they said, but I didn't think it looked very small. The princess patted it, and talked to it just as if it were a dog, and I must say the little animal was perfectly quiet, and kept close to her. I think the lights and the quantity of people frightened it. It growled once or twice, and we all had a feeling of relief when it was taken away. I asked the Maréchale afterward if she were afraid. "Oui, j'avais très peur, mais je ne voulais pas le montrer devant ces allemands." (Yes, I was very frightened, but I would not show it before those Germans.) They had eventually to send the bear away, back to Germany. It grew wilder as it grew older, and became quite unmanageable--they couldn't keep it in the embassy. Hohenlohe was always pleasant and easy. I think he had a real sympathy for France and did his best on various delicate occasions. The year of the exposition (1878) we dined out every night and almost always with the same people. Hohenlohe often fell to me. He took me in to dinner ten times in succession. The eleventh time we were each of us in despair as we filed out together, so I said to him: "Don't let us even pretend to talk; you can talk to your other neighbour and I will to mine." However, we _did_ talk chiffons, curiously enough. I had waited for a dress, which only came home at the last moment, and when I put it on the corsage was so tight I could hardly bear it. It was too late to change, and I had nothing else ready, so most uncomfortable I started for my dinner. I didn't dare to eat anything, hardly dared move, which Hohenlohe remarked, after seeing three or four dishes pass me untouched, and said to me: "I am afraid you are ill; you are eating nothing." "No, not at all, only very uncomfortable"--and then I explained the situation to him--that my dress was so tight I could neither move nor eat. He was most indignant--"How could women be so foolish--why did we want to have abnormally small waists and be slaves to our dressmakers?--men didn't like made-up figures." "Oh, yes, they do; all men admire a slight, graceful figure." "Yes, when it is natural, but no man understands nor cares about a fashionably dressed woman--women dress for each other" (which is perfectly true). [Illustration: Prince Hohenlohe. After the painting by F.E. Laszlo.]