Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Thursday, 12 May 1881

M. Gavini came, and then la Bailleul, the Princess, and Alexis for dinner. The Gambetta marriage is denied, and I sing "on dit que l'on te marie" to guitar. One is so comfortable at my home — the corner of the divan bounded on the right by the books and on the left shaded by a palm beneath which stands the large armchair so soft and so convenient that it is rare one does not doze a little in it. Mysterious light — but... nobody. Alexis is a little nothing at all.
When I think that when we received Cassagnac we did not even give him a good dinner — and our drawing rooms were far from the artistic coquettishness of my own apartment. Here he would be at ease, I am sure.
La Bailleul wants to find me a husband... I am willing. A title and a hundred thousand francs of income, or else a Balandard with two or three hundred thousand francs. I'd rather have a Balandard with republican and official connections. Those are my conditions. As for marquises and comtes who are embassy secretaries with twenty thousand francs of income — I refuse them obstinately.
A Balandard with three hundred thousand francs of income — that is the dream. One must have a spectacular revenge, or die.

Notes

Léon Gambetta (1838–1882): the dominant figure of the Third Republic, at this time recently left the Presidency of the Chamber. His rumoured engagement to a Mlle Durand had been circulating in the press — Marie denies (correctly, as it turned out) that the marriage would take place. ↩
"On dit que l'on te marie": a popular French song — "They say you are going to be married" — a staple of drawing-room guitar repertoire. ↩
"Balandard": a period colloquial term for a solid, wealthy bourgeois without title — a common, respectable name evocative of the French commercial upper-middle class. Marie is saying she would rather marry new money with good connections than an impoverished aristocrat. ↩