Frank Mason and his wife--"the Masons," they were commonly called, for Mrs. Mason made a wondrous second to her husband--were from Cleveland, Ohio, she a daughter of Judge Birchard--Jennie Birchard--he a rising young journalist caught in the late seventies by the glitter of a foreign appointment. They ran the gamut of the consular service, beginning with Basel and Marseilles and ending with Frankfurt, Berlin and Paris. Wherever they were their house was a very home--a kind of Yankee shrine--of visiting Americans and militant Americanism.
Years before he was made consul general--in point of fact when he was plain consul at Marseilles--he ran over to Paris for a lark. One day he said to me, "A rich old hayseed uncle of mine has come to town. He has money to burn and he wants to meet you. I have arranged for us to dine with him at the Anglaise to-night and we are to order the dinner--carte blanche." The rich old uncle to whom I was presented did not have the appearance of a hayseed. On the contrary he was a most distinguished-looking old gentleman. The dinner we ordered was "stunning"--especially the wines. When the bill was presented our host scanned it carefully, scrutinizing each item and making his own addition, altogether "like a thoroughbred." Frank and I watched him not without a bit of anxiety mixed with contrition. When he had paid the score he said with a smile: "That was rather a steep bill, but we have had rather a good dinner, and now, if you boys know of as good a dance hall we'll go there and I'll buy the outfit."
First and last I have lived much in the erstwhile gay capital of France. It was gayest when the Duke de Morny flourished as King of the Bourse. He was reputed the Emperor's natural half-brother. The breakdown of the Mexican adventure, which was mostly his, contributed not a little to the final Napoleonic fall. He died of dissipation and disappointment, and under the pseudonym of the Duke de Morra, Daudet celebrated him in "The Nabob."
De Morny did not live to see the tumble of the house of cards he had built. Next after I saw Paris it was a pitiful wreck indeed; the Hotel de Ville and the Tuileries in flames; the Column gone from the Place Vendôme; but later the rise of the Third Republic saw the revival of the unquenchable spirit of the irrepressible French.