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One of the worst of the number was L'Age d'Aimer, by M. Pierre Wolff, a piece so cynically immoral, and written with such an air of truth, that it might well cause some of us to shrink in horror from the idea of an entente cordiale with a people which, if truly represented by its fashionable dramatists, has no concept of cleanliness of life.
The count received me with an easy and cordiale manner, which seemed to say that he renounced all the dignities of his rank. He thanked Don Diego for introducing me, and talked a good deal about Colonel Royas. He asked me if I had seen the English girl he was keeping at Saragossa, and on my replying in the affirmative, he told me in a whisper that he had slept with her.
After the dancing began, Nais was unable to accept all the invitations which the elegant young lions vied with one another in pressing upon her; in fact, she grew sadly confused as to the number and order of her engagements, a circumstance which very nearly led, in spite of the entente cordiale, to an open rupture between France and perfidious Albion.
And, in fine, Dore must be regarded as an anticipator of the Entente cordiale. "Gustave Dore," his compatriots would say, "he is half an Englishman!" Forty years ago our popular favourite might indeed have believed in the fulfilment of his dream. The Thorwaldsen Gallery of Copenhagen had ever dazzled his imagination.
The old column was gone, with its lions. Nelson had not been found advantageous to the Entente Cordiale, nor the lions to the new art; and in their place stretched a wide pavement broken by slopes of steps that led up to the National Gallery. Overhead the roofs showed crowded friezes of heads against the blue summer sky.
"Forgive me as a stranger in speaking to you," went on the Count, "but I felt I must. Never haf I seen such a feat of skill, and I cannot be silent. I take advantage of the Entente Cordiale. I bear a German name, but I am from Alsace, and my heart beats warm to you and your country," then with another bow he walked away. "Who is that old buffer?" asked Dick.
The colonel's wife had greeted her and her lovely sister with charming grace on their arrival two days previous to the stirring event of the dinner, and every one was looking forward to a probable series of pleasant entertainments by the two households, even while wondering how long the entente cordiale would last, when the colonel's invitation to Mr. Hayne brought on an immediate crisis.
Peace was proclaimed, and peace was reigning; and the proper British feeling of contempt for snivelly Frenchmen, which produces the entente cordiale, had replaced the wholesome dread of them. Not that Springhaven had ever known fear, but still it was glad to leave off terrifying the enemy. Lightness of heart and good-will prevailed, and every man's sixpence was going to be a shilling.
To express a belief in democratic liberty would cause a silence to fall upon a group of them as though some obscenity beyond the limits allowed in an officers' mess-room had been uttered by a man without manners. Their attitude to French officers was, in the beginning of the war, calculated to put a little strain upon the Entente Cordiale. It was an attitude of polite but haughty condescension.
Community of interests in the Far East, as well as the need of protection against the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria, and Italy produced the entente cordiale between France and Russia in 1890. Fortunately, the dangerous questions between them and Great Britain were settled by diplomacy, assisted by the alliance between Great Britain and Japan.
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