78 ELIZABETH GARY AGASSIZ 



all the servants awake and about is most extraordi- 

 nary. Lincoln's being shot in the theatre seems more 

 possible. I still think we must be the victims of a 

 gigantic street rumor. Here they brought the story 

 with the most singular accessories; it is attributed to 

 the Booths — the brothers Booth, as they call them, 

 and they have got the name of J. Wilkes Booth in full 

 on all the bulletins. This part must be a fabrication. 

 It is in vain I state that Edwin Booth at least is a 

 loyal man — he and Wilkes are in everybody's mouth 

 as rabid secessionists, fanatics, etc. The whole thing 

 seems to me like a bad dream and has a theatrical 

 aspect which makes it the more strange that the 

 Booths should be mixed up in it. 



And now let me freshen up your thoughts and my 

 own by an account of what w^e have been doing. . . . 

 On Tuesday evening (May 9) Agassiz and I went to 

 the Palace together that I might pay my respects to 

 the Empress, which I had not yet done and which 

 seemed to be considered the proper thing to do. The 

 Emperor had appointed this evening for the visit, 

 so we were sure of being received. At the door of the 

 Palace were only one or two men in uniform, and we 

 were shown through a number of long corridors and 

 one or two antechambers where were standing a few 

 groups of gentlemen, — chamberlains, Agassiz said, 

 gentlemen-in-waiting and the like. It looked to me 

 like a dreary kind of business, for there seems to me 

 all the etiquette of a court here and but little of its 

 gaiety or grandeur. One of these gentlemen showed us 

 into a drawing-room where he asked us to take seats. 



