— When there is love, one has no need of money.
Our usual circle, and Madame Gavini, with whom I take a turn in the Bois. Tchoumakoff the painter came to fetch his daughter, who is a beauty, but we...
Berthe lunched with us.
Madame Gorpintchenko, my aunt, writes to ask me to allow her to lodge two of her dogs at the villa. Of course I agree, with the best grace.
Messieurs de Morgan and Turquan.
Collignon helps me sort through a work on costumes; I need it now for my compositions.
As little to say as.
I am very busy and very content. I used to torment myself because I had leisure; I can see that now. For twenty days or three weeks I have been...
If only this fury of work could last, I would declare myself entirely happy. I adore drawing and painting and composition and sketching, pencil and...
My poor childhood saw proofs of love in the interest I took in reading stories of cardinals in the days of Antonelli! Today I read stories of...
My painting is not bad, and the tone not unpleasant. As for the composition, Julian found it very good in terms of expression, grouping, and...
I wake in a wild good humour and go to church with Maman to set a good example to the common people. Exceptionally, I have been looking very pretty...
I am pretty, happy, and gay. We go to the Salon with de Daillens, and then we talk of everything, for we encountered Béraud the painter — whom we had...
Amélie's canvases — a study of old Fusco, painted at the same time as I made my first painting at the studio. An ordinary study. And an execrable...
Instead of going to the Salon I worked on my sketch: the Death of Orpheus. I believe composition gives me no more difficulty than drawing; I have...
The Baronne de Wykerslooth, born de Ballorre, has come here several times; today we go to her house and to her sister's, the Comtesse Souza. They are...
Gavini is back from his trip to Corsica; we meet again at the Salon, where all high society is gathered. Princess Mathilde was very gracious to the...
I did not want to show my painting, but the great Tony asked to see it, observing that he would be of no use to me if I did not show him a...
We called on Collignon and I was greatly struck by her poor, dilapidated home. Her parents keep a sort of furnished lodging house in the Passage...
I went into Julian's confessional to ask him to change the composition model — Saturday afternoons at four do not suit me; and I would have taken...
Rehabilitate *myself* — because *he* has been vile and contemptible?
We are keeping our afternoon model for a fortnight in order to paint a figure study.
There are more intrigues for this monster... The police are on the point of expelling him, and I believe my mother is going to intercede. No comment,...
So yesterday I went and listened at the door to what my respectable family was saying. And I believe that this time I shall preserve no more...
This evening's *Le Pays* is weak — the article is poor; the man has diminished.
That beast Oelsnitz — how I detest looking at her when I think she made me miss Arnaud. [One line cancelled: Jeanne, Berthe, Chaudordy, the Gavinis...
I was working quietly when Dina came to tell me there was an invitation to the Waddingtons'. They receive every Monday at the Foreign Ministry.
The Coubés are here; they lunched with us. And I dined with the Lacons and we went to see *La dame de Monsoreau*, which amused me even more than the...
To the Coubés at the Hôtel Continental, and then a good conversation that recalls the youthful pranks of Soden.
So here it is: I went to the Lesseps' with the Lacons.
To the Salon with the Gavinis, and Madame Gavini declared to my mothers that they absolutely must go out with me and that I must dance, and that at...
Yesterday I sent Madame de Lesseps a calling card with these words: "with a thousand thanks for the kindness Madame de Lesseps showed yesterday to...
De Daillens and I make plans for our trip around the world. We want to take Blanc and Audiffret.
Young Gavini brought the tickets in the evening.
A major session at Versailles.
Jeanne posed, and then we went together to Madame de Souza's, who receives on Thursdays.
The painting goes sluggishly — I work little, owing to the portrait of Jeanne, on whom one cannot rely as a model, and all this makes me lose time.
Madame de Lesseps sent us all her seven children with three nurses.
The Grand Prix. I am sad, though dressed in white — elegant, charming, with a hat that becomes me well. A straw hat with a white satin bow. A dress...
It is no doubt the hot and heavy weather that makes me good for nothing. I have worked the whole day besides... I am quite resolved now no longer to...
The excellent Karageorgevitches dined with us and until ten o'clock in the evening we stayed in my room admiring my drawings, studies, skeleton, etc....
We go with the Gavinis [Words blacked out: to see Notre-Dame de] Paris.
Monsieur and Madame Gavini and Messieurs de Morgan, Filippini, Multedo, and Gavini (the nephew) dine with us. The dinner was good, but afterwards...
Here are the newspapers. [Missing]
The young Karageorgevitches are very pleasant children; they come often and are not at all tiresome.
I had not intended to go, but we obtained tickets through a certain Bichinsky — a Pole naturalised as French, employed at the War Ministry; we met...
It is nearly thirty-six hours that I have scarcely ceased weeping. I went to bed exhausted yesterday. We had two Russians to dinner — Obidine and...
I read *Le Figaro* on waking — it made me weep again to the point of having a damp pillow and dishevelled hair [if you will, but I am sad and enraged...
I am still under the painful impression of this atrocious event. The public, having somewhat recovered from its stupor, asks by what criminal...
Last Saturday I showed the painted figure study to Tony, and he told me to paint more of them. Accordingly we are painting figure studies.
I urge you to read all these newspapers attentively — this is current history. Monsieur de Carbonnel's letter is superb.
The whole of Thursday is lost for work, as we go to the mass at Saint-Augustin, of which you will find exact descriptions in the newspapers.
It draws tears from me. I believe people will subscribe in great numbers. Ah! if only one could subscribe to bring him back to life — then there...
We are prevented from going to Madame Gavini's — she came yesterday — by the Gerbel family, who come to show us Count Schulenberg, Mademoiselle...
The Princesse has returned from Dieppe and sends me a little pocket mirror. We take a turn in the Bois after the studio, and in the evening I am too...
As a great many newspapers are dated the following day, and this would confuse you, I warn you that these are: *Le Gaulois*, *L'Estafette*, *Le Pays*.
Having read more depositions from English soldiers, I arrived at the studio so disturbed that I had to scrape off my painting and leave — I could...
I dreamed of Prince Jérôme Napoléon. He will have to make up his mind. The cowardly English!
These infamous English — executioners of Napoleon the Great, France's age-old enemies — and to think it was to England that Napoleon I fled! What...
My diary and my life during all these days are told to you by the newspapers. Madame de Bailleul is a charming woman; we read together and grow...
I wrote in Maman's name to the Prefect of Police, for the Captain Carey of our family came and made a disturbance. And when Madame my mother saw me...
Now I should very much like to paint Prince Napoléon with his two sons, as they appear in Nadar's photograph. I shall try to scheme my way to...
There is a comic correspondence with Bojidar. I write to him signing as Mother Couvelet and he replies to Mother Arnaud.
Yesterday a scene so disgusting took place that I did not even want to write. Yet you must know all of this.
Today's newspapers are heartbreaking. Gambetta is giving a party. On the occasion of this party I wrote to the Princesse to ask her to come and take...
Read the newspapers.
I went to show the portrait of Dina to Tony, who paid me compliments. But it does not succeed in lifting this drowsiness, this sadness, this...
I am extraordinarily weary. They say typhoid fever begins like this. I am having bad dreams. What if I were to die. And I am quite astonished to find...
I called on the Gavinis on leaving the studio. I found them both and we talked gaily and peacefully.
Tony is fairly pleased with me; there is company — Mother Gavini and others, Madame Randouin, Berthe. And at dinner the Mouzays, who are leaving. I...
I stayed three hours at the Gavinis', where Messieurs Galloni d'Istria, de Vallon, de Chaudordy, de Châteaurenard, de Pressac, Géry, etc. etc. came...
And Géry — whom I was introduced to at the Exhibition — is an intimate of the Prince. I listened with Gavini, after which Géry, seeing Madame...
I went to see the [competition] for the Prix de Rome at the École with Mademoiselle de Villevielle — a young lady who comes to the studio but is very...
I dreamed of a funeral...
Yesterday Madame Gavini took me to the hippodrome, where I was bored.
I retouched the portrait of Dina.
The cold gives way suddenly to heat. I prefer cold for working.
We have a visit from Blanc! We had encountered him several times and he would approach us as if nothing had happened. Now here he comes to call. It...
Madame de Lesseps came to invite us to her house this evening. Monsieur de Lesseps has returned to dine in Paris and will leave tomorrow to give a...
It is so hot that I was not able to work.
Yesterday we were in a front-facing box — my aunt, Dina, I, and Monsieur Gavini. Very much on display and much observed.
I could not fall asleep. I kept seeing before my eyes that poor little foolish dog, who had run away frightened by the concierge and did not know...
Again: promenading, shops, passing before the terrace of the Cercle where twenty to twenty-five connoisseurs sit from four to six. Then the Bois, and...
I go with Berthe and her husband to the wedding of Cochery — the minister's son — to Mademoiselle Hunebelle.