France -- Description and travel; France -- Social life and customs
The first person who appeared was a handsome, compact, well-built,
gentleman-like little man, who was announced as the Duke of Villa
Hermosa, the Spanish ambassador. He was dressed with great simplicity
and beauty, having, however, the breast of his coat covered with stars,
among which I recognized, with historical reverence, that of the Golden
Fleece. He came alone, his wife pleading indisposition for her absence.
The Prussian minister and his wife came next. Then followed Lord and
Lady Granville, the representatives of England. He was a large,
well-looking man, but wanted the perfect command of movement and manner
that so much distinguish his brethren in diplomacy: as for mere physical
stuff, he and our own minister, who stands six feet four in his
stockings, would make material enough for all the rest of the corps. He
wore the star of the Bath. The Austrian ambassador and ambassadress
followed, a couple of singularly high air, and a good tone of manner. He
is a Hungarian, and very handsome; she a Veronese, I believe, and
certainly a woman admirably adapted for her station. They had hardly
made their salutations before M. le Comte et Mad. la Comtesse de Villele
were announced. Here, then, we had the French prime minister. As the
women precede the men into a drawing-room here, knowing how to walk and
to curtsey alone, I did not, at first, perceive the great man, who
followed so close to his wife's skirts as to be nearly hid. But he was
soon flying about the room at large, and betrayed himself immediately to
be a fidget. Instead of remaining stationary, or nearly so as became his
high quality, he took the initiative in compliments, and had nearly
every diplomatic man walking apart in the adjoining room, in a political
aside, in less than twenty minutes. He had a countenance of shrewdness,
and I make little doubt is a better man in a bureau than in a
drawing-room. His colleague, the foreign minister, M. de Damas, and his
wife, came next. He was a large, heavy-looking personage, that I suspect
throws no small part of the diplomacy on the shoulders of the premier;
though he had more the manner of good society than his colleague. He has
already exchanged his office for that of governor of the heir
presumptive, as I have already stated. There was a pause, when a quiet,
even-paced, classical-looking man, in the attire of an ecclesiastic,
appeared in the door, and was announced as "My Lord the Nuncio." He was
then an archbishop, and wore the usual dress of his rank; but I have
since met him at an evening party with a red hat; under his arm, the
Pope having recalled him, and raised him to that dignity. He is now
Cardinal Macchi. He was a priestly and an intellectual-looking
personage, and, externals considered, well suited to his station. He
wore a decoration or two, as well as most of the others.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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