Wednesday, 3 January 1883

Reading the newspapers full of Gambetta grips my head like an iron band — the patriotic tirades, the resonant words: patriot, great citizen, a national mourning... I cannot work; I tried; I wanted to force myself — and it is even this false composure of the first hours that made me commit the irreparable and never regrettable stupidity of staying in Paris instead of rushing to Ville d’Avray¹ the moment the news came — to see the room and even make a sketch... I shall always never be an opportunist...

In any case... You will see from the papers that Bastien did not leave Ville d’Avray or the Palais-Bourbon for an instant. We go to the Opéra this evening — the Casa-Riera box, as usual. The Gavinis, Géry, Nervo, Lahirle, the Marquis and Marquise de Villeneuve. The Marquise is the daughter of Prince Pierre Bonaparte,² and married to her little marquis of a husband thanks to the million given by Prince Roland her brother — who married and was widowed by Mlle Blanc, of Monaco.³ There. I am covered in roses and white gauzes, with a plait wound round my head — this crown of hair has something ravishing about it. The Marquis de Casa-Riera⁴ is there too. He is the nephew of the old man who died and from whom he inherited sixty millions. He is fifty and unmarried.