Madame de Gramont had a sister who became the Princesse
de Wagram, and who was also a favourite in Parisian society,
where she won for herself a great position. Unfortunately
she also died young, and with her disappeared one of the last
great ladies in France.
Foreigners form an important contingent in Paris society.
The gay town has always attracted wandering souls eager
to find in strange places what they cannot get at home, and
who have succumbed so well to its charms that they lack the
courage to leave it. A numerous company of Americans and
Russians met in society live in the new district about the Arc
de Triomphe, and they visit all the houses where entertain-
ments are going on. Polish emigrants and Polish aristocracy
have found their headquarters in the He St. Louis at the Hotel
Lambert, where Prince Ladislas Tsartoryski, the husband
of Princess Marguerite of Orleans, opened the doors of his
magnificent residence to them with unbounded hospitality.
Several members of the Radziwill family also settled
by the Seine, after the marriage of one of them with

35i



France from Behind the Veil

the daughter of M. Blanc, the owner of the Monaco gambling
house. He was the father of the present Duchesse de Dou-
deauville. The Counts Branicki and their connections bought
themselves houses in the neighbourhood of the Rue de Pen-
thievre, where the chief of the race had settled. There
hostility to the Russian Government was fanned by every
possible device, and there hatred against Russia was preached
with an energy worthy of a better cause.
