Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Friday, 21 July 1876

Berthe again! She asks at what time. I tell her at five o'clock, and after a while Chocolat brings back her reply. At five o'clock she is going to Mlle de Toulé's and will only wait for me until half past four — but as I have to call on Valery with my costume from the day before yesterday, I reply that I will see her tomorrow.
At six o'clock, I was ready to go to the Bois, when Chocolat came to announce M. Audiffret. I confess I was astonished, very astonished, and as Audiffret was slow to come in, we went downstairs, and as we got into the carriage I asked Chocolat whether Audiffret had said anything to him.
"Nothing — I saw him in the corridor."
"But then why did you announce him?"
"I saw him in the corridor and thought he was going to your rooms — where else could he have been going?"
Chocolat, you are very logical.
Rice left this evening for Aix-les-Bains.
A new idea!
Georges knows Paul de Cassagnac and offered to introduce him to me. Brute that I am, I said no!
This evening I write to that amiable drunkard to bring me the famous Bonapartist — "for heaven's sake."
Paul de Cassagnac will one of these days be the head of the Emperor's party. I want to know him, to live in Paris and gather the Bonapartists at our house. One need only give Cassagnac a good impression of my intelligence. I am all aflame at this idea. This is my life!
[Written across the page]
Note that at this period I am absolutely ignorant of politics and that this is the first time I have heard the name of Cassagnac pronounced.
I am a Legitimist, I am for Henri V, but Henri V has no heirs — after him the throne would pass to the Orléans, who have been and remain the most ignoble thing in France — after Gambetta. There is therefore nothing but the Empire for decent people and people of sense.

Notes

Paul de Cassagnac (1843–1904): Bonapartist journalist and politician, known for his polemical writing and numerous duels; at this time a leading voice for the Bonapartist cause. ↩
Henri V: Henri, Comte de Chambord (1820–1883), the Legitimist pretender to the French throne, grandson of Charles X. He died childless, ending the senior Bourbon line. ↩
Léon Gambetta (1838–1882): leading republican politician, architect of the Third Republic, whom monarchists and Bonapartists regarded as a dangerous radical. ↩