"You shall not have the chance to go away again and say that you have been fed like a coolie in my house," said the Viceroy proudly at the end of the banquet.
"Nevertheless, the very simplicity of your hospitality was what I most appreciated," the I.G. replied. "But if you believe that I could have made any such remark, and if you persist in altering the style of my reception, I shall not come to lunch with you again."
As if the cares of treaty making and Customs supervision, coupled with the responsibility of being unofficial adviser to the Wai-Wu-Pu, were not enough for one man, the I.G., at the request of the Chinese, undertook to supervise China's part in the international exhibitions of Europe. First came the Viennese Exhibition in 1873. He set his various commissioners of ports collecting the products of their provinces--silks, porcelains, lacquers and teas. It sounds so simple, but often what may be told in a dozen words may scarcely be done in as many months, and little less than a year of writing and planning and directing can have elapsed before all details were in order, and his four Commissioners of Customs were driving, like the Marquis of Carabbas, in a glass coach through the streets of Vienna. The Chinese spared neither pains nor expense to make a good showing, and gave a gala performance at the Opera in return for Austrian hospitality.
In 1878 came the Paris Exhibition, and to this he went himself as President of the Chinese Government's Commission. He arrived in Paris just before the Exhibition opened--just in time to be present at the great opening ceremony in fact. This was a very grand affair, but with--for him--a ludicrous climax. Coming away, he and his secretary lost their carriage in the crowd, and had to walk the whole way home, not a cab being obtainable--and this, too, in elaborate and heavy uniforms, and at the risk of being hooted by _gamins_. But by good luck, in those days gold lace and medals were so plentiful that they attracted no embarrassing attention.
Numberless functions, of course, took place in connection with the Exhibition, and scarcely a night passed without some gigantic official reception at which two or three thousand people were present. The Minister of Education, for example, gave a magnificent _soirée_ at which the old dances, the stately minuet and the graceful pavane, were danced in splendid and appropriate costumes. Bernhardt, then at the height of her powers, recited one night at the Élysée; so also did Coquelin. But to Robert Hart these "crushes" were often an ordeal. Conventional entertainments never had a great attraction for him; besides, these gatherings were really too big for any one's comfort or pleasure; conversation was nearly impossible, and nobody felt at home.