VARIOUS NOTABLES -1879 -1881 565 



as the Judas had in the miracle-plays of the middle ages ; 

 this was thought due him on account of the injury done 

 to his character by his taking that part." At this the 

 Oberammergau Judas smiled pleasantly, and said: "No; 

 I am content to share equally with the others; but the 

 same feeling toward the Judas still exists"; and he then 

 told me the following story: A few weeks before, while 

 he was working at his carving-bench, the door of his work- 

 shop opened, and a peasant woman from the mountains 

 came in, stood still, and gazed at him intently. On his 

 asking her what she wanted, she replied : " I saw you in the 

 play yesterday ; I wished to look at you again ; you look 

 so like my husband. He is dead. He, too, was a very bad 



man. ' ' 



Occasionally, under leave of absence from the State 

 Department, I was able to make more distant excursions, 

 and first of all into France. The President during one of 

 these visits was M. Grevy. Some years before I had heard 

 him argue a case in court with much ability ; but now, on 

 my presentation to him at the palace of the ^llysee, he 

 dwelt less ably on the relations of the United States with 

 France, and soon fell upon the question of trade, saying, in 

 rather a reproachful way, " Vous nous inondez de vos pro- 

 duits. ' ' To this I could only answer that this inundation of 

 American products would surely be of mutual benefit to 

 both nations, and he rather slowly assented. 



Much more interesting to me was his minister of for- 

 eign affairs, Barthelemy-Saint-Hilaire, a scholar, a states- 

 man, and a man of noble character. We talked first of my 

 intended journey to the south of France ; and on my telling 

 him that I had sent my eldest son to travel there, for the 

 reason that at Orange, Aries, Nimes, and the like, a better 

 idea of Roman power can be obtained than in Italy itself, 

 he launched out on that theme most instructively. 



The conversation having turned toward politics, he 

 spoke much of Bismarck and Moltke, pronouncing the 

 name of the latter in one syllable. He said that Bismarck 

 was very kind personally to Thiers during the terrible 



