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A NOTE FROM MASSENET 248 FÉLIX FAURE WHEN PRESIDENT OF FRANCE 252 LINES FROM "LA PRINCESSE LOINTAINE" WITH ROSTAND'S AUTOGRAPH 260 BJÖRNSON 270 THE EMPRESS OF GERMANY ON HER FAVORITE MOUNT 280 EMPEROR WILLIAM IN THE UNIFORM OF THE GUARDS 280 TWO VIEWS OF ROYALTY 282 THE THRONE-ROOM OF THE ROYAL PALACE, BERLIN 290 QUEEN LOUISE OF DENMARK 296 THE ROYAL PALACE AND LUSTGARTEN, BERLIN 306 COUNT HATZFELDT 326 THE EMPEROR IN 1905 332

 

NOTE

MADAME DE HEGERMANN-LINDENCRONE, the writer of these letters, is the wife of the recently retired Danish Minister to Germany. She was formerly Miss Lillie Greenough, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she lived with her grandfather, Judge Fay, in the fine old Fay mansion, now the property of Radcliffe College.

As a child Miss Greenough developed the remarkable voice which later was to make her well known, and when only fifteen years of age her mother took her to London to study under Garcia. Two years later Miss Greenough became the wife of Charles Moulton, the son of a well-known American banker, who had been a resident in Paris since the days of Louis Philippe. As Madame Charles Moulton the charming American became an appreciated guest at the court of Napoleon III. Upon the fall of the Empire Mrs. Moulton returned to America, where Mr. Moulton died, and a few years afterward she married M. de Hegermann-Lindencrone, at that time Danish Minister to the United States, and later periods his country's representative at Stockholm, Rome, Paris, Washington and Berlin.

 

THE ALPHABET OF A DIPLOMAT

Ambassador	A man, just a little below God.
Attaché	The lowest rung of the ladder.
Blunder	How absurd! Why, never!...
Chancellery	The barn-yard where he is plucked.
Chief	The cock of the walk.
Colleagues	A question merely of time and place.
Court	Where one learns to make courtesies.
Decorations	The balm for all woes.
Dinners	The surest road to success.
Disponsibility	The Styx, whence no one returns.
Esprit (de corps)	The corps is there, but where is the esprit?
Etiquette	The Ten Commandments.
Finesse	A narrow lane where two can walk abreast.
Friendships	Ships that pass in the night.
Gotha (almanack)	The Bible of a Diplomat.
Highness	His, Her, make a deep courtesy.
Ignoramus	A person who does not agree with you.
Innuendo	An obscure side-light of truth.
Joke	Something beneath the dignity of a diplomat to notice.
Knowledge (private)	News which every one already knows.
Legation	Apartments to let.
Letters (de créance)	The first impression.
Letters (de rappel)	The last illusion.
Majesté (lèse)	Too awful to think of.
Majesties	Human beings with royal faults.
Nobodies	People to be avoided like poison.
Opulence	When in service.
Pension	Too small to be seen with the naked eye.
Poverty	When out of service.
Quo (status)	Diplomatic expression, meaning in French, Une jambe en l'air.
Ruse	A carefully disguised thought as transparent as a soap-bubble.
Secretary	Furniture easily moved.
Traditions	A door always open for refuge.
Traités (de paix)	A series of dinners paid for by a lavish government.
Uniform	A bestarred and beribboned livery.
Visits	The most important duty of a diplomat.
Wisdom	Good to have, but easily dispensed with.
Xpectations	A tree which seldom bears fruit.
Yawn	What a diplomat does over his rapports.