face maybe. The link between the living dead brings the past home to you with sud that for the time, as it were, you live in and realise it. The daub in its simple pathos has you more than many books. The stately, a homes of England, with all their antiqu splendour, convey no such feeling of an things long dead and buried, because their have kept step with the age, and, mixing with the outer world, have ever remained mony with it. There is no break as yet social history of the country. Class division we have-nowhere perhaps are they more marked-but caste feeling is happily u The spirit of caste, on the contrary, always supreme in France, and though driven ou open field and ruinously vanquished, still holds its own in French private life. Thu the narrow precincts of their mutilated pa crushed descendants of the proudest and mo noblesse of Europe live simply and inexp but with as much of the outward form a mony-nay, even of the well-bred impertin their ancestors as they can possibly maintain tutoyer their few domestics, keep up a able etiquette, deny themselves to all so such as they deem sufficiently well born minded, and exact great deference from approach them. In fact, if they never 1 faded homes they might well dream tha

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that the times are hard and money scarce, nothing is changed; that the king reigns at Versailles, and France is still St. Louis' and the Holy Virgin's.

But once outside their gates and all is reversed. Not so much as a cap is lifted to Monsieur le Marquis, or Monsieur le Comte, as he tools his four-in-hand in perfect style over the narrow bridge and through the village street. The group of blue blouses drinking at the door of the Cheval Blanc defiantly puff their pipes and look moodily on while the smart team clatters past; and Jean Pierre, fresh from Paris, raises a guffaw among his pot-companions when he mutters something ominous of what may yet be in store for the sacrés aristos. Monsieur le Curé, indeed, gives a paternal salute from the tiny plot of garden in front of his vicarage, and two or three giddy young creatures giggle and blush as the whip is lowered to them in token of admiration, but then women and the Church are ever on the side of tradition and sentiment. C'est déjà beaucoup !

Not far from Pontchartrain is Montfort l'Amaury, and under the shadow of the crumbling tower whence sprang the mighty Leicester there resided at this time a velvet-eyed Italian widow whom we saw a great deal of. Pleasant musical evenings with her and Périer, and drives all over the quiet, luxuriant country-side, filled up these few brilliant August days. I left Pontchartrain with sincere regret, and am sorry to think that the fine old place has since unaccountably passed away from the d'Osmonds and

into the hands of a demi-monde celebrity who purchased it out of the spoils of Count Henckel von Donnersmarck.

The end of August saw me again in my old haunts at Baden, where I found the usual family gathering further increased by my Aunt Arabin, who had left Nice and joined her sister after the admiral's death. At this time we first became vaguely aware of the difficulties of Monsieur de Delmar's position caused by heavy losses on his Ceylon property. These led to his determining, early in September, to go to Berlin, whither he had never returned since the loss of his eyesight. I was about to go back to my post, and it was arranged that I should accompany him and my aunt on my way there. During the week I spent with him at Meinhart's Hotel, Unter den Linden, the Prussian royal family showed the blind old man great kindness. The Regent came to see him, and my aunt was asked to dine en famille at Charlottenburg. Most important of all was the success of a negotiation by which, on the royal guarantee, a large advance was obtained from the Seehandlungsgesellschaft.

CHAPTER XIII

VIENNA AND RAGUSA: MONTENEGRIN

COMPLICATIONS, 1857-1858

I WAS back again in my lodgings at Vienna the last week in September. And this reminds me that I have as yet said nothing about them. The house was in the Löwelgasse, at the corner of the Kreuzgasse, close to the Minoritenplatz. From my sitting-room on the third floor I had a perfect view over the bastion (the Löwel Bastei) to the glacis beyond, and, in fine weather, with open windows, could hear the music in the Volksgarten and watch the white battalions manoeuvring in the early morning. It was a charming apartment, but decidedly expensive, and, being too large for me, I underlet part of it, first to Morier and then to Gould. Here I lived happily for upwards of two years; my rooms, which I had made fairly comfortable, being much resorted to on off evenings, after the theatre, by a small set composed of some of the junior diplomates and a few of the young Austrians whom we of our Legation - which has always been a favourite with Vienna society-saw most of at this time. Count Franz Deym, then quite a youth, and his elder brother Ferdinand; Prince Adolf Schwar

zenberg, shortly afterwards married to one of the Liechtenstein princesses; Baron Otto Walterskirchen, of the Imperial Foreign Office; Prince Hermann of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, and Count Franz Hohenstein - the two latter both serving in the Emperor's Bodyguard, or Garde Gendarmerie as it then was called-are those I remember best at these gatherings, where, between music and Morier's sallies and somewhat racy anecdotes, the hours sped on their way cheerily and all too fast.

It is interesting at this distance of time to take count of the subsequent fate of those I have mentioned. Count Deym, after a distinguished diplomatic career, has become the most popular of Ambassadors in London; his brother, as member of the Reichsrath, was an influential leader of the moderate Constitutional party in that Chamber; Prince Schwarzenberg has long succeeded his father as one of the greatest Austrian territorial magnates; Baron Walterskirchen was many years after one of my most valued colleagues as Minister at The Hague; while Prince Hohenlohe (a nephew of her late Majesty) is now Statthalter of AlsaceLorraine. Count Franz Hohenstein -destined to become Duke of Teck, to marry one of the most accomplished and charming of our princesses, and to be the father of the Princess of Wales-has almost alone of these passed beyond this world

1 Count Ferdinand Deym died, very generally regretted, at Vienna in 1898.