There is a short item in this morning's Gil Blas which says: — A grand costume ball is announced at a mansion in the neighbourhood of the Parc Monceau which the foreign colony has nicknamed "the house of crime." It is said that for the cotillon a figure is being arranged specially conceived for this occasion and called "la danse des poissons."^fn1

Le Gaulois had announced yesterday a costume ball at our house. Is that reason to believe the item refers to us? Yes. It is absurd enough not to worry too much about it, but it leaves me crushed. You know that my aunt's family brought a lawsuit against her lasting ten years to prove that her husband was of unsound mind when he bequeathed his fortune to her. They knew we would end by winning, and took all the more pains to use every means of defamation. They spread the rumour that M. Romanoff had been poisoned — [Crossed out: but] without daring to raise it officially in the trial. You know that something always sticks from a slander, and that all men are rather pleased to repeat infamies.

I need not say how innocent these poor women are — I was twelve years old at the time and I remember everything and understood everything. Had there been the shadow of a possibility of attaching this suspicion to the trial, they would have done so... They could only say it in the air... As you know, that is enough. It was repeated at Nice — Mme Tutcheff, others. Now in Paris, it was heard, vaguely, from a distance, distorted; it was said that it was Mlle Bashkirtseff who had poisoned her father...

That I do not complain of — it made everyone laugh, and will rather do us good by giving the other stupid infamies an air of impossibility.

[Written across the page: The Maréchale Canrobert came with her daughter (who worked with me at Julian's), but she only came into the studio where I remained with them.]

You will tell me that it is our parties that bring us this beginning of a bad press, and I would answer that if we lived shut away they would invent mysteries and atrocities... There is nothing to be done — there are people like that, destined for sorrows and sadness. Without Mme de Bailleul I would never have thought to recognize ourselves in this filth, but since she announced articles against us I have been watching every morning this ignoble paper which every morning publishes half a dozen atrocities and filth about a crowd of people I do not know and who no doubt recognize themselves, poor creatures. Many scandalous anecdotes are invented, I wager, to please readers who demand from the Gil Blas as much sensational content as possible. But what does danse des poissons mean?

One doesn't have the pretension to make people believe we entertain pimps... And then what connection with the rest? Things too improbable do no harm, and almost no one will recognize us... Only those who had it printed will certainly exploit it and put it under the nose of those who didn't understand...

No matter — I am extremely disturbed, the more so as there is nothing to be done.

The Maréchale Canrobert came with her daughter (who works at Julian's) to see my studio; little Brisbane was with them.