Saturday, 7 February 1880

It is today that M. de Miranda presents us to Queen Isabella, in private audience. She is very simple, a very good woman; she extends her hand and seats Maman beside her on the sofa and me opposite. I have for the first time the pleasure of saying: Your Majesty; it is very agreeable. Her Majesty is indignant about an article that appeared in Le Voltaire against King Don Francis of Assisi. "For after all," she says, looking at us and making an ineffable gesture, "he is my husband."
She is also furious about the Grevy ball: "an impossible company and women in day dresses with the sleeves cut off for the occasion." We stay ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, I think. The Queen is not so ugly as they say; she even has very pale blue eyes that are pretty.
In bidding us farewell, she extended her hand to Maman and to me; Maman kissed her hand; I bowed over it very closely. This Miranda wants to marry. As I shall not marry him, he will perhaps be an enemy. But bah! With every trouble that comes to me, my first thought is: I would like to be a fortnight older. Everything fades or becomes bearable.
At our house: Berthe, M. de Rouzat, Mme de Bailleul, Gavini, Dureau and his daughter, the Tchoumakoffs, Turquan, Wodzinsky, Tarente, Soutzo, etc.
Soutzo plays piquet with my aunt in the salon next door, where I had gone to fetch logs; he came to help me, insisted that I wipe my hands on his handkerchief, and then raised it to his lips with a look...
I do not care, and naturally that dog of an archangel does not think of me. Is it stupid that I think of him? But no, it is not stupid; it amuses me, but it is a pity... he cannot be a master, he is a comrade.