The new lady-in-waiting, Frau von Sturmfeder, a widow who seems to be about fifty years old, with pleasant manners, took me to the Duchess. I found her very feverish, but no less talkative than usual; very exasperated by her invalid state, and nearly as much by the arrival of Duke Bernard of Saxe-Weimar, who was paying her an unexpected visit. After half an hour Princess Marie took me to dinner. The large assembly room and the dining-room are in a separate building, a hundred yards away from the castle; nothing could be more inconvenient; after rain and without goloshes it would be impossible to get there.
I already knew Umkirch. I did not care for it in past times, nor does it please me any better now. The main residence is small and the rooms are low; mine, however, which is on the first floor, has a fine view of the mountains.
At dinner all the guests were assembled--that is to say, Princess Marie; Duke Bernard, with his _aide-de-camp_, old Madame de Walsh, who is here on a visit, though her days of official service are over; her son and daughter-in-law, the Baroness von Sturmfeder; Herr von Schreckenstein; Fräulein Bilz, a little hunchbacked music-mistress; and M. Mathieu, the French painter, who is giving lessons to Princess Marie. After dinner I went back to the invalid, and stayed with her until tea-time. She seems delighted to see me. She continues very anxious to see her daughter married, and has just had an offer from Prince Hohenlohe; he, however, was thought to be not sufficiently distinguished, and his request has been refused; the old Count of Darmstadt would also be ready to marry her, but he is thought to be too old and too ugly. There is an idea that Prince Frederick of Prussia, the Prince of Düsseldorf, exhausted and wearied by the extravagance of his wife, will procure a divorce, and will then turn his thoughts to Princess Marie, who would be quite ready to take him. Such is the desire at this moment. They would like me to send a good account of the Princess to Berlin.
Very little interest is shown in Louis Bonaparte, whom they would like to see confined in a fortress.
Madame de Walsh, who is a friend of the Abbé Bautain, told me that he had just been summoned to Paris by M. Cousin and by the new Archbishop; there is apparently a proposal to form a faculty for advanced theological study, with M. Bautain at the head of it. He is certainly an intelligent and talented man, but not entirely reconciled to Rome. Hot-headed and ambitious, his relations with his bishop have long been strained; he has not that readiness to submit upon points of doctrine which is inherent in Catholicism and the foundation of its permanency. His appointment will therefore arouse some mistrust among the clergy, and not without reason. I shall hear the truth of the whole matter at Paris from the Abbé Dupanloup.