Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Tuesday, 6 April 1880

We sell fancy goods, a heap of small items, cigars, cigarettes, etc. My framed painting dominates the booth. We know only the Duchess de Fitz-James and the Baroness Reille, and then Mme Sickels, a beauty we met at the last ball. I am in black velvet, tired, sad. We know no one; we are alone; it is tedious.
Opposite is the booth of the Countess de Montebello; Mme d'Hervey has not yet come.
I only become animated when I sell four portrait vouchers the size of the painting, at a hundred francs each. Mmes de Fitz-James and Reille find this idea of vouchers divine.
The Tchoumakoffs come to buy for a few francs. Morgan sent ten francs. Mme Pernety ten francs.
In the evening at the Italiens, Rigoletto. Patti is adorable; I spent a truly pleasant evening. In Rigoletto she is even better than in Lucia. The conservative newspapers and Le Pays savage my Prince. Self-interested slander that in no way destroys the value of the letter and the wisdom of his policy. There is only one phrase that catches me: "to annihilate the State and put it at the feet of theocracy."
Well... one could say "putting it at the feet," etc., but let us move on. The Republican newspapers are worried without appearing to be, and Le Gaulois is very wise.