XD2/4196
LETTER: Marie Vernet, 2 rue des Ecuries d’Artois, Paris to Viscountess [Hill, née Wynn]. She says that her long silence must have made her (V.H.) think that she has given up her play and forgotten the noble and dignified family of her heroine but this is not the case and that she has been very ill. She says she is very anxious to take up again her "great work" and she has promptly requested an audience with the new Minister for Arts, M. Faye, but she has not had a reply. She says that this is the first minister who has reacted thus, all the others having the politeness to see her at least. She says he is an opportunist-Orléanist. She says that the cabinet is a provisional one and after it, there will be something more radical which she awaits with impatience. She mentions General Boulanger and his difficult position viz. a certain action of the government. She says that everyone tells her that Maria Stella will be staged when the theatres are reopened next autumn. She says that the Ministers are a little afraid of being dethroned by General B.; she says that she is not astonished that they are trying to find a thousand pretexts for exiling him. She does not think he will be an exile for as long as the threat of war would effect his recall quickly. She gives an anecdote relating to the General and a visit he made incognito to the famous Doctor Charcot, who does experiments with hypnotism when she asked about her play. She says that a campaign had been instituted to bring back the Duke of ?Aunale but had not succeeded. She says that, happily, the Boulangists are present and if the d’Orléans re-enter Paris, more than ten socialists would look for them in order to assassinate them. She mentions General B. again, saying that she hopes for much from him later but everything must be done secretly because he is surrounded by spies and his correspondence is tampered with. French. [N.L.W. Bodfean 76/27.]
Cyngor Gwynedd