of graft and corruption, and the protection and encouragement
In the summer of 1894 Richard went to London for a purely social visit, but while he was there President Carnot was assassinated, and he went to Paris to write the "story" of the funeral and of the election of the new President.
I am out here to see the election of the new President. I jumped on the mail coach and came off in a hurry without any breakfast, but I had a pretty drive out, and the guard and I talked of London. The palace is closed and no one is admitted except by card, so I have seen only the outside of it. It is most interesting. There is not a ribbon or a badge; not a banner or a band. The town is as quiet as always, and there are not 200 people gathered at the gate through which the deputies pass. Compared to an election convention in Chicago, it is most interesting. How lively it is inside of the chamber where the thing is going on I cannot say. I shall not wait to hear the result, but will return on the coach.
Nothing could be more curious than the apparent indifference of the people of Paris to the assassination of the President. Two days after he died there was not a single flag at half mast among the private residences. The Government buildings, the hotels and the stores were all that advertised their grief. I shall have an interesting story to write of it for the Parisian series. Dana Gibson and I will wait until after the funeral and then go to Andorra. If he does not go, I may go alone, but perhaps I shall go back to London at once. This has been an interesting time here, but only because it is so different from what one would expect. It reads like a burlesque to note the expressions of condolence from all over the world, and to mark the self-satisfaction of the French at attracting so much sympathy, and their absolute indifference to the death of Carnot. It is most curious. We have an ideal time. Never before have I had such jolly dinners, with such good talk and such amusing companions.
LONDON, July 15, 1894. DEAR MOTHER:
Mr. Irving gave a supper last night to Mme. Bernhardt and Mme. Rejane. There were about twenty people, and we ate in the Beefsteak Room of the Lyceum Theater, which is so called after the old Beefsteak Club which formerly met there. I had a most delightful time, and talked to all the French women and to Miss Terry, who sent her love to Dad. She said, "I did not SEE him this last visit; that is, I saw him but I did not see him." Her daughter is a very sweet girl, and the picture Miss Terry made on her knees looking up at Bernhardt and Rejane when they chattered in French was wonderful. Neither she nor Irving could speak a word of French, and whenever any one else tried, the crowd all stood in a circle and applauded and guyed them. After it was over, at about three in the morning, Miss Terry offered me a lift home in her open carriage, so she and her daughter and I rode through the empty streets in the gray light for miles and miles, as, of course, I did not get out of such company any sooner than I had to do. They had taken Irving's robe of cardinal red and made it into cloaks, and they looked very odd and eerie with their yellow hair and red capes, and talking as fast as they could.
About January 1, 1895, Richard accompanied by his friends Somers Somerset and Lloyd C. Griscom, afterward our minister to Tokio and ambassador to Brazil and Italy, started out on a leisurely trip of South and Central America. With no very definite itinerary, they sailed from New Orleans, bent on having a good time, and as many adventures as possible, which Richard was to describe in a series of articles. These appeared later on in a volume entitled "Three Gringos in Venezuela."
On board Breakwater at anchor. You will be pleased to hear that I am writing this in a fine state of perspiration in spite of the fact that I have light weight flannels, no underclothes and all the windows open. It is going to storm and then it will be cooler. We have had a bully time so far although the tough time is still to come, that will be going from Puerto Cortez to Tegucigalpa. At Belize the Governor treated us charmingly and gave us orderlies and launches and lunches and advice and me a fine subject for a short story. For nothing has struck me as so sad lately as did Sir Anthony Moloney K. C. M. G. watching us go off laughing and joking in his gilded barge to wherever we pleased and leaving him standing alone on his lawn with some papers to sign and then a dinner tete-a-tete with his Secretary and so on to the end of his life. It was pathetic to hear him listen to all the gossip from the outside world and to see how we pleased him when we told him we were getting more bald than he was and that he would make a fine appearance in the Row at his present weight. He had not heard of Trilby!!
We struck a beautiful place today called Livingston where we went ashore and photographed the army in which there was no boy older than eighteen and most of them under ten. It was quite like Africa, the homes were all thatched and the children all naked and the women mostly so. We took lots of photographs and got on most excellently with the natives who thought we were as funny as we thought them. Almost every place we go word has been sent ahead and agents and consuls and custom house chaps come out to meet me and ask what they can do. This is very good and keeps Griscom and Somerset in a proper frame of awe. But seriously I could not ask for better companions, they are both enormously well informed and polite and full of fun. The night the Governor asked Somers to dinner and did not ask us we waited up for him and then hung him out over the side of the boat above the sharks until he swore he would never go away from us again. Griscom is more aggravatingly leisurely but he has a most audacious humor and talks to the natives in a way that fills them with pleasure but which nearly makes Somers and I expose the whole party by laughing. Today we lie here taking in banannas and tomorrow I will see Conrad, Conrad, Conrad!! Send this to the Consul. Lots of love. DICK.