Nothing would have disturbed our meditation, but for a cat, an enormous black cat, which, after prowling behind the pillars, suddenly came up to the royal chair unperceived and jumped most disrespectfully into Her Majesty's lap! Picture the excitement! We drove it away. It returned. We tried to drive it away again. But it was stubborn in its affections and returned once more. Thereupon the Queen, who was more surprised than annoyed, resigned herself and accepted the curious adventure. She stroked the animal and kept it with her until the end of the recital. 6. When Princess Henry of Battenberg did not accompany her mother on her drives--which happened very rarely--she liked going to the Empress Eugénie, who treated her as a daughter and who, as everybody knows, was the godmother of Queen Victoria Eugénie of Spain. The princess would sometimes spend the whole afternoon at the villa of Napoleon III's widow; one year indeed, she and Princess Ena stayed there all through the winter. Now, on this occasion, I happened to find myself placed in a very delicate position. What occurred was this: the princess sent word to me, one day, with the Empress's consent, inviting me to dinner at the Villa Cyrnos. I was at first a little perplexed. It seemed to me a rather ticklish matter, considering my official situation, to figure at the table of the ex-Empress of the French. On the other hand, to refuse the invitation seemed tantamount to insulting the daughter of the Queen of England, to whom I was accredited. At last, I resolved to swallow my scruples and accepted. That evening, after dinner, when thanking the Empress for her kindness, I could not help saying: "I suppose, Madame, that there are very few officials of the Republic who would have dared to sit down at Your Majesty's table." "To be equally frank with you," the Empress at once replied, laughing, "I will ask you to believe, my dear M. Paoli, that there are also very few officials of the Republic whom I should have cared to see seated there like yourself!" 7. I must not close the story of the periods which I spent with the royal family at Nice without recalling that, on some of those occasions, I also met the Marchioness of Lorne, now Duchess of Argyll, and the Duke of Connaught; but, to tell the truth, I only caught glimpses of them, because of the shortness of their visits.