Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Monday, 8 April 1878

Multedo has something of the brute in his nose. During the atelier breaks I am reading Le lys dans la vallée. I am halfway through the book and I do not like it. When Mme de Mortsauf speaks of her aunt I want to laugh.
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The by-elections are a complete debacle! Republicans elected along the entire line. M. Gent is elected. That gives you a good picture of the country's disintegration. And in the Gers at Auch they have elected some David or other instead of M. Peyrusse, for whose candidature that idiot Cassagnac — who had gone expressly to the Gers — squandered a great many speeches, all in vain!
Oh! If I had been there. If I were a man — and even without being a man, if only I had been there! But there it is — no one knows how to make use of
me! Those fools, if they only knew! Come now, is it not pitiable!
This Paul de Cassagnac who makes a journey and "sweeps the people along with his ardent eloquence." Oh yes indeed, oh yes indeed.
Berthe dines with us.
Today from three to six the first anatomy lesson took place at the atelier. In an old clumsy green hat, covered in a long coat of green, blue, and black checks, looking for all the world like a genuine Swiss woman, I went for a walk in the Palais Royal with Breslau, while waiting for the model.
It is the Swede who consoles Cassagnac, who must by now be back from his glorious campaign. This David — or this Goliath — had a majority of more than two thousand votes.