Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Wednesday, 5 February 1873

The day of the Var races. The greatest day of the season for me.
In the morning, about ten horses passed before the villa, led by jockeys. My God, what is more beautiful than a racehorse?
At one in the afternoon, here I am at the races. An enormous crowd, very elegant.
I walked about for a while, then at the grandstand I spoke with the Howards, with Gagarine; I bet and lost a box of bonbons.
The Duke is race commissioner, yet I did not see him. I was in the grandstand with the finest society of Nice.
I saw Boreel; he was very well dressed, but he is less handsome than the Duke. He is decidedly too stout.
And yet, the Duke is stouter than him — but I love him, that’s all there is to it!
Ah! if only he would abandon that woman! I saw her in black, in a closed carriage, alone; she did not come to the races. Where is she?
And I did not see the Duke today. Grant that I may see him tomorrow at the pigeon shooting.

Notes

One of the stewards who ran the race meeting. ↩
Tir aux pigeons: live-pigeon shooting, a fashionable sport of the Riviera season. Probably the international meeting at Monte Carlo, where shooting on a ground behind the casino began in 1872 and was timed to coincide with the Nice races (Journal de Monaco, February 1872; Wikipedia, “Pigeon shooting”). ↩