# Sunday, 11 December 1876

Sunday, 11 December 1876

I went to church. The weather is so fine that I went for a walk after trying to skate while there was still no one there. On our way out we ran into Princess Souvoroff, who was walking towards us with d’Aspremont.
Further on, Audiffret, Belle-de-jour, etc., to whose greetings I reply by turning away.
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Later, when we were back at the Skating-rink, this celebrated hero was working wonders there with his aides-de-camp.
Maman spoke with Lady Cawper’s husband, whom she had met in Rome; my aunt and Dina were surrounded... by General Bihovetz; and I strolled round them with little Olga, both of us eating galettes, showing myself to Princess Kotchoubey, sister-in-law of the prince I saw in Russia. Her husband recognised Maman and greeted her this morning at church — he knew her when she was as tall as I am.
Meanwhile Girofla glided over to my aunt.
I went up and complimented him on his skating, with a rather disdainful air. Then I walked away without waiting for him to finish thanking me.
You understand — he is an ill-mannered cad, so I am patronising and disdainful.
As for Belle-de-jour, I do not even look at him.
It is time, it seems to me, to become independent and to stop smiling at people who despise you.
We saw Pelikan, the Anitchkoffs, all the people one always sees. And in the evening I went to the Opera. Hair flat in front, falling behind in barely rolled coils on the nape, and brought round again to be fastened with a cluster of curls in front. This flat, full, tousled head is an innovation and gives me an innocent air; it goes with a sort of Russian costume, a fine linen chemisette under a foulard dress... the same one as at the Paris Opera. Pearls at the neck, no gloves. I did not look like myself; I was a real picture. I do not praise my face — I leave that to others — but I do justice to the style of the whole, to its distinction.
La Vigier is opposite with Lady Cawper, who tells her a quantity of things while eyeing me through her lorgnette. Girofla does not appear until the third act and eyes me likewise, as do his acolytes. I was remarkable enough to deserve the honour. No one dresses with as much originality, simplicity, and good taste as I — above all good taste.
Mme Anitchkoff leaves well before the end; I pretend to go out and hide, closing the door again, to see what le Surprenant will do — he only comes near my family when I am not there.
Well — he simply went away. I do not flatter myself it was on my account.
A Masked Ball made me dream of Rome’s masked balls... I cannot bear to look at Lady Cawper because in ten days she goes to Rome — the lucky woman!
Fiouloulou came; I spoke to him in riddles and he left bewildered.
But something rather curious is happening to me. I am beginning to admire Gautier from looking so much at his sisters. They were next to us this evening, and while I was talking to the young lady I saw their brother come into their box — not the one I know, but another, the elder — Michel? Shorter and less handsome than Albert, but as depraved as they come! That debauched air charms me even as it displeases me. This evening he was superb. A matt complexion, the eyes, the family eyes, neat pretty hair... and his whole bearing charming. He brought Larderel and Antonelli back to my mind... they are all of the same breed. He spends his life with the cocottes, which gives him that debauched and interesting air that disgusts and charms me... or rather irritates me and gives me wild ideas.
Since I need to speak of someone, I speak of Michel Gautier — and people laugh at me.
Well, now I ought to sleep instead of turning to stone over this wretched Livy.
I detest myself and I detest my writing this evening.

Monday, 11 December 1876

Every day I grow more passionate about painting. I did not stir all day. I played music, and it went to my head and my heart; it took two hours’ conversation about Russian history with Grandfather to bring me back to myself.
I hate being... sensitive... in a young girl it borders on... a great many things... vulgar.
Grandfather is a living encyclopaedia.
I cannot think without astonishment mixed with anger of my stupidity with Antonelli. I said what I should not have said, and vice versa. I seemed to be afraid, to be trying to... in a word, it was absurd! You have read it yourselves.
Cassagnac could make himself adored for his interruptions in the Chamber.
The atrocious and sometimes amusing Broussais brought me a bouquet with these words:
— Quasimodo to Esmeralda. These flowers are spotless and may be offered to a pure dove such as you. A many-coloured bouquet would be unworthy of you.
When this man starts joking he is irresistibly funny, but unfortunately his jokes always end in some impropriety — especially at dessert, for this ogre drinks everywhere he goes and goes everywhere he drinks.
Berthe wrote to me and I replied declining the invitation for the 12th — on account of Olga’s portrait, which I wish to finish.
They have described the dress I wore at the Opera the time before last. — “Mlle Bashkirtseff is admired in a gown of matt wool, reminiscent of the antique Roman costume. A band of dull gold in the hair. A toilette of great simplicity.” — It is the first time the Nice papers have understood my dresses.
Do you love Livy as I do? I find him as interesting as Alexandre Dumas. Do not laugh at the comparison... you pedants and confounded ignoramuses.
— If you were to spend your winter in Rome, said Blanc at Mouzay’s, I should feel for you a sentiment close to contempt.
— I should not feel that, said Cassagnac, but I should pity you sincerely.
Well — I am not going, and it is not on account of your words. My ailing throat, Wartel, and the harp lessons — those are what drive me to Paris.
But what will you do for me — you amiable people who have so good an opinion of me?!
I know someone who loves me, who understands me, who pities me, who devotes his whole life to making me happier; someone who will do everything for me and will succeed; someone who will never betray me again, though he did betray me before. And that someone is Myself!
Let us expect nothing from men — from them we shall have only disappointments and sorrows.
But let us believe firmly in God and in our own strength.
And upon my word — since we are ambitious, let us justify our pretensions by something.
Episode drawing room old Gavronzi house, two beds, Woldemar. Nathalie, etc.
220 Nathalie, etc.
Editors’ notenote des éditeurs de Mon Journal sur la pagination du manuscrit
[Marie numbered the manuscript up to p. 271; p. 272 is missing, and the page numbers 273 and 275 are written in a different hand.]
Gazette of the Chamber 4 December. An incident was expected at the opening of the sitting. Saturday’s event, the comments of the newspapers, the position of M. de Marcère — everything pointed to it.
The incident has taken place. It was not long, but it was heated.
It might have been half past two. The deputies, as yet few in number, were milling about in the hemicycle; people talked out loud, came and went. No one was in his seat; nobody paid any attention to the bell M. Grévy was shaking vigorously to draw attention to M. Serph, who occupied the tribune.
It is thus amid the uproar that the speaker, in a distinct voice, lets fall these words:
M. Serph. — “At the last sitting the Minister of the Interior declared that the Government accepted M. Laussedat’s order of the day. The rumour has spread that M. de Marcère spoke without the assent of the Cabinet. I beg the Minister of the Interior to be good enough to explain himself on this point.”
These words are scarcely heard. Those nearest, however, have caught a few of them. “Hush! silence!” they cry to their colleagues. The agitation continues. Suddenly M. de Marcère, with slow step, makes for the tribune. He mounts it somewhat as the condemned man mounts the scaffold. He places both hands on the mahogany ledge and, without raising his eyes, head bowed, with a sheepish air, waits for silence.
Meanwhile the deputies have gone back up to their benches. The hushing redoubles; the agitation subsides. M. Langlois clambers onto his bench. M. Guyot-Montparoux, who is going round with papers, sits down. M. Germain Casse raps on his bench to impose silence. M. de Marcère is still waiting.
Suddenly a ringing voice rises above all the noise:
— Let the accused speak! it cries.
It is M. Paul Cassagnac who has spoken. M. de Marcère turns pale; M. Grévy blanches. The Lefts have risen as one man and are howling: “Order! order!” The din becomes frightful. M. Grévy, by dint of ringing, at last obtains a few minutes’ attention.
M. Grévy. — I invite M. Paul de Cassagnac to withdraw an expression which is insulting.
— Order! repeat the furious Lefts.
M. de Cassagnac comes down from his bench. M. de Marcère withdraws from the tribune and stands on the bottom step of the stair. M. Paul de Cassagnac appears at the tribune.
M. Paul de Cassagnac. — I am reproached with having uttered an insulting expression. (Yes! yes!) As I am not in the habit of withdrawing what I say, I maintain it.
This time the fury of the Lefts is at its height. “Order! Censure! Expulsion!” — all of it flies to and fro in the air. M. Grévy rings with all his might. M. Paul de Cassagnac returns to his seat and chats with his neighbours.
M. Grévy calms the angry waters and, after addressing a severe admonition to M. de Cassagnac, calls him to order.
That is not enough for the Lefts, who demand more. But M. de Marcère is at the tribune; he has opened his mouth. Curiosity gets the better of anger; the House falls silent, grows calm, listens.
M. de Marcère, Minister of the Interior. — The note published this morning in the Journal officiel makes clear to the Chamber the duty of particular reserve incumbent on all the members of the ministry who were seated on these benches.
I am asked whether the words I pronounced on Saturday did not give rise to certain rumours which are said to have been reproduced by the press. I do not know. Does the Chamber wish to know whether the words printed in the Journal officiel are accurate? I have no hesitation in saying yes. Allow me simply to add that the thing took place in full view of the whole Chamber. (Yes! yes!)
When the honourable M. Laussedat expressed the views of the committee in his reasoned order of the day, I was at my bench; hardly any of my colleagues were near me; I rose quickly to answer the question whether I accepted the proposed order of the day; having neither the time nor the means to consult my colleagues, I gave the answer which the Journal officiel has reported. (Loud applause on the left and in the centre.)
The Left applauds vigorously. On the Right a few ironical cries are raised. M. Serph reappears and takes note of the Minister’s words. “Had I known the situation,” M. Serph adds, “I should have voted otherwise.”
But the Left, for all its applause, is not satisfied. M. de Marcère strikes it as lukewarm; he seems to prefer his colleagues in the Cabinet to his colleagues in the Chamber; he is making excuses to the other ministers; he is backing down.
M. Guyot-Montpayroux is most particularly indignant at this. He wants a plainer declaration, and mounts the tribune to ask leave to interpellate the Minister of the Interior “on the exact meaning of the declarations made the day before yesterday.”
M. Guyot returns to his seat, where he is met with unanimous protests and reproaches. M. Gambetta wants to mount the tribune, and so does M. de Marcère; but M. Grévy will not allow them to speak. “The question is exhausted,” he says. M. Gambetta, on the bottom step of the tribune, gives a despairing groan. “There is no ministry any more. One cannot interpellate,” he cries. M. de Marcère leaves. M. Guyot-Montpayroux, feeling himself abandoned by everyone, withdraws his interpellation, and the incident is closed. M. de Marcère takes his hat and hurries off to catch the 3.25 train, which carries him back to Paris.
*** The rest of the sitting belongs to the finance budget, the greater part of which was voted.
There was a pause of some moments over the credit relating to the allowance of the President of the Republic; M. Antonin Proust proposed an annual grant of 300,000 francs for the Marshal’s journeys.
M. Léon Say declares that the Marshal declines this grant for the present. When the Government has need of it, it will inform the Chamber.
M. Antonin Proust insists on loading the President of the Republic with his favours. He wishes him to be able to travel through France in state. He entreats the Minister of Finance to persuade the Head of State to accept M. Proust’s generous liberality.
But M. Maigne objects. M. Maigne belongs to the Extreme Left. He declares that the Republic does not love pomp, and that its president ought to lead a simple life and travel third class. “We must have pure and disinterested morals,” says M. Maigne. “The Marshal is paid enough already; he must not be heaped with gold that the budget can put to use.” The speaker concludes by moving the rejection of the proposed credit.
M. Léon Say reappears; he has changed his mind. Since the question has taken the turn M. Maigne has given it, the Minister of Finance begs the Chamber to vote the credit, even if its cancellation must later be sought by way of amendment.
The Chamber obeys and votes M. Proust’s credit by 402 votes to 32.
O Monsieur Maigne! observe how green you have been! Had you not felt the need to show yourself off at the tribune, M. Léon Say would have had the credit thrown out, and you would have been satisfied; but you wanted to speak, and you have handed the Marshal an easy triumph. You have been very green, Monsieur Maigne! very green!
*** Apart from this rather amusing little question, the debate offers no interest. M. de Gasté asked for a tobacco factory to be established at Brest; M. Lockroy spoke of the phylloxera infesting the department of the Bouches-du-Rhône; M. Lelièvre pleads the cause of the inspectors of stamps and registration; M. Rouveure draws attention to the hardships of the rural postmen; — after which, the finance budget, the last of the budgets, having been voted, the Chamber grants itself two days’ holiday and adjourns until Thursday to discuss the revenue budget. Albert Millaud.
Newspaper clippingLe Figaro, sommaire du numéro qui annonce la mort du cardinal Antonelli, novembre 1876
CONTENTS Cardinal Antonelli: Ignotus. Paris Echoes: Le Masque de Fer. Gazette of the Chamber: Albert Millaud. The Senate: Henry [illegible]. From Paris to Versailles: Baron Grimm. A Word of Correction: Hugues [illegible]. Paris Day by Day. Telegrams and Correspondence: Aug. Marcade. — The municipal elections at Marseilles. — The level-crossing disaster at Marquette (Nord). Miscellaneous News: Jean de Paris. — The Butte des Moulins. The Stock Exchange. Theatre Notes: Gustave Lafargue. The Evening at the Theatre: Un Monsieur de l’orchestre. Serial. — Princess Oghérof: Henry Gréville.
CARDINAL ANTONELLI I have already sketched here an Antonelli more intimate than ceremonial. I portrayed him as I saw him at very close quarters. The great statesman is no more. The illustrious dead man has entered into radiant immortality. The statue that lay within the Carrara rock is about to emerge from the block and take on a definite form. It is impossible that Figaro, which was read by the great cardinal — I have had certain proof of it — should not lay upon this tomb that wreath of thornless flowers which it does not, as a rule, care to bestow upon the living. And indeed this glory, which has just been kindled at the fire that burns for ever, lit with a light sometimes violent but always pure the chiaroscuro of this century. It seems to me that this proud soul which has just departed is like a lamp carried out of a drawing room — the brightness is diminished. When Pius departs in his turn, the ideal world will be in darkness. Let us say, then, first of all, that what characterises Cardinal Antonelli is that he belonged to his time. This will seem a paradox only to superficial eyes. Antonelli had a taste for the modern spirit before he fought it. He had a feeling for it even while fighting it. That character, which never broke because it knew how to bend, belongs to the nineteenth century. It is well to remember this against those who will seek to annex him for the Middle Ages. He took his weapons and his language from our age. Having shared all the lofty passions of this time, Antonelli shared all its final and logical disillusionments. Now, one must belong to one’s time to deserve to outlive it. Lastly, this minister had in his department the affairs of the entire world for more than thirty years. His name and his countenance will endure as long as there is a history of mankind in the nineteenth century.
In 1846 Antonelli was among those who sought to baptise Liberty according to the Catholic rite — Liberty, which may perhaps soon die a freethinker and be given a civil burial. 1848 came. It seemed as though all the déclassés of Italy had staked on that number and won a quaterne in the lottery. It was a veritable Bacchanal. Reality shattered Antonelli’s fine dream. Pius IX was driven from Rome by those whose chains he had broken. On his return he changed his royal manner. Antonelli was the chief instigator of that reaction, the responsibility for which the revolutionaries must bear. Revolutions are alone to blame for the death of liberties. In 1846 the new papacy had boldly, or imprudently, set its nest upon the storm-beaten heights; in 1848 it abandoned it, as an eagle never returns to a nest that has been touched.
To the new right, born of the formula “Equality, Liberty, Fraternity,” it resolutely opposed the old right. History alone will be able to say whether Antonelli lost his illusions too soon. But it will grant him a superior gift of foresight. There was something of the prophet in him. He had sensed the storms of today, like those great birds of the North whom a mysterious instinct makes suddenly forsake certain shores. He had foreseen the enormous conflict of the individual conscience with the lay State. He sought, there and then, to set up an entrenched camp in the religious and political order before the whole army of the Ideal should be destroyed. He sounded the tocsin in men’s hearts before the fire broke out. In those days he was understood as little as he is well understood today. And Antonelli brought to this new role the three essential qualities of the statesman: — perseverance, — knowledge, — courage. When people said to him: “Eminence, the social and anti-religious revolution is crushed; the man of the nineteenth century will not return to the excesses of 1793, which disgust him!” Antonelli would answer: “I tell you that man, like the dog in the Book, will return to his vomit!” And he did not lie.
The role Antonelli played was not of his choosing. He loved “sub lege libertas.” But he had understood the great contemporary truth which our fathers had not even glimpsed; I will explain. Christ cast all truths into the universe, as his Father had cast all the stars into it. Just as the light of some of those stars has taken more than three thousand years to reach the earth, so the truth of which I speak remained in shadow for nearly nineteen centuries. This truth is: — Democracy can do man nothing but harm, and every liberty that comes from below destroys nations. So Antonelli, measuring his resistance to the vigour of the attack, and exaggerating, as all initiators do, the truth they teach, condemned all democracy and all liberty. I am one of those who love the second, if they do not love the first. I am therefore quite at ease in explaining Antonelli’s attitude. He was, however, under no illusion. He did not hide from his intimates that the temporal papacy would be broken. When it was, he admitted that he would not see it reborn in his lifetime. He did not have the ecstasy of Ezekiel, who in the Babylonian captivity saw the Temple rebuilt in a dream. Events were able to overthrow Antonelli; they never surprised or astonished him. Defeat was part of his system. To measure and understand the whole of the cardinal’s system one would have to live a hundred years — for this system takes more account of the future than of the present — one would need to have one’s feet in this century and one’s head in the next. The God in whom Antonelli believed did not guarantee him Today, but Tomorrow!
Antonelli sought, not to kill the Revolution — he could not — but to render it sterile. Above all he sought to extricate the papacy, for a moment compromised, from contemporary adventures. It is true to say that Pius IX had entrusted a kingdom to him, and that Antonelli, in dying, has handed back to Pius IX nothing but a wreck. But that wreck marks the reef. Was this system a good one? Would a system of concessions and temporising have been preferable? I do not think so. But assuredly the spiritual papacy, of which Antonelli was the first servant, is not diminished. One man alone could take up the defence of France against Prussia in 1870, and that man was Pius IX. His cabinet was still, on the eve of his death, like the golden milestone of old from which all the Roman roads set out across the world. The Revolution was able to take the walls of Rome without winning its souls — just as one may conquer mountains without winning their eagles! Antonelli was stronger than Force. Without him no one would have dared to protest against the politics of the accomplished fact and of profit. He is the spiritual against the material. He is thought against the body. He is, in short, the most resounding protest against those two modern powers, the cannon and money. While the Pope’s voice seems to come down from heaven, his seems to rise up from our depths. It is the better understood. Instead of clearing the tree of Liberty of its caterpillars, he preferred to uproot it. That is a little brutal; but it is so much in human nature to take revenge on things for the faults of peoples. And Antonelli was a man. Pius is a saint. Antonelli believed in miracles, but he did not count on them. He looked towards heaven, but also at his feet. His known work is immense. But greater still is his unknown work, the work that will begin tomorrow upon his tomb. It is a book whose pages only the future will turn. On its success Antonelli has staked his life and his glory. Let us hope he wins. But how sorely he will be missed, first of all, by the great conservative party, by civil society as much as by religious society! We shall soon see, when the cardinal lies in his tomb, what an immense abyss his red cassock concealed!
In closing, I may repeat a few words from my former portrait of the cardinal, which the reader has no doubt forgotten. “Today this magnificent heart is struggling against the fatigue of its half-century’s labour. Three quarters of his hair has fallen out. Hair falls out for less. The face has lengthened and grown, as it were, pallid. But the eye remains black, like that of Pius IX; by turns, according to the impressions of the soul, a dull black or a brilliant one. His pupil has, they say, the elasticity of those that look suddenly at the sun after looking at the night. Indeed, he has seen apotheoses and cataclysms by turns. In short, here would be a great man, if two great men could dwell in the same house — the Vatican. The son of a poor family, he very soon acquired, with his fine supple figure, a lofty patrician air. All these Romans have sucked the milk of one and the same she-wolf of noble breed... While the Pope seems a supernatural figure, Antonelli is one of us. He has our features and our veins. He is not a priest. That half-profane face preserves his individuality beside the quasi-celestial personality of Pius. From that nearness he has kept a religious fragrance — like a golden candlestick that we lend for Corpus Christi and that comes back to us smelling of incense.”
*** What I said there is true. The great cardinal’s personality was somewhat absorbed by the light that surrounds Pius IX like a halo. His silhouette will take on more defined outlines as he leaves the Pope to enter the tomb. His statue can never be made too high. Every man in whom there still remain the instinct for the ideal and a disgust for certain triumphs of brute force will subscribe to that statue. I do not care to treat certain questions of religion, and I have been able to avoid them in this second portrait of Antonelli. Nevertheless I will say that in calling the Catholic religion to battle he necessarily gave it a manly energy which it perhaps lacked in Italy. It seemed to be growing feeble under the homage of a passionate crowd, as the toe of the St Peter in the basilica wears away under the kisses of the faithful. As regards the domain of speculative politics, Antonelli’s influence was enormous. He will have been the genius of the conservative party’s resistance. He will have been the most energetic defender of the principle of authority. Of all this noise that is made two metres above the eternal silence, there will at least remain to the great cardinal the murmur of admiration of souls of every religion who protest against materialist policies, by whatever names they are adorned. First servant of the papacy, he could say that he had always been “standing before men or on his knees before God.” Indeed, his life was like the churches of Rome, where there is nothing to rest on and one must kneel or stand. He kept the oath he had sworn — he never left his master, and, a voluntary prisoner, he never came out of his prison. Dead, he will not come out of it. His body will pass straight from his bed in the Vatican to the vaults of St Peter’s in Rome, the chapel of the papacy.
Pius IX, a white and marble-like figure, will go and kneel on the slab of Antonelli’s tomb — that is worth a mausoleum by Michelangelo!
All the flags of the great causes vanquished in Europe will tie a knot of crape to the staff!! — That is worth a funeral oration by Bossuet. Ignotus.
Cardinal Antonelli died at the Vatican during the night of Sunday to Monday; the news was transmitted to the nunciature by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; yesterday at six in the evening the Pope’s nuncio in Paris had not yet received the official announcement from his government.
The celebrated minister of Pius IX succumbed to an attack of suffocation brought on by gout.
On 3 November, although very ill, he was still in the audience chamber beside the Pope.
During the night of the 5th to the 6th he received the pontifical blessing; a few moments later the last sacraments were administered to him.
Cardinal Jacques Antonelli was born at Sonino, a small village near Terracina, on 1 April 1806; he was consequently seventy years of age.
It is Mgr Vannutelli, Substitute of the Secretariat of State, who is provisionally discharging the functions of Secretary of State.
Cardinal Antonelli has bequeathed to the Vatican his collection of precious stones and objets d’art.
Newspaper clippingcoupure de journal non identifiée
[Pasted press clipping, illegible in the facsimile]

Notes

Cocottes — courtesans, kept women of the demi-monde. ↩
Quasimodo and Esmeralda — characters from Victor Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris (1831); the hunchbacked bellringer who loves in vain the beautiful Gypsy dancer. ↩
Livy — Titus Livius (59 BC–AD 17), Roman historian, author of the Ab Urbe Condita chronicle of Rome from its founding. ↩