fashions, but that that was no
reason for my laughing at them. Of course I tried never to smile again
in company. This visit to Carlsruhe took place in '89, just when every
one was full of the events taking place at Paris; and yet at Carlsruhe
French fashions were more talked of than French politics. Madame
Rupprecht, especially, thought a great deal of all French people. And
this again was quite different to us at home. Fritz could hardly bear
the name of a Frenchman; and it had nearly been an obstacle to my visit
to Sophie that her mother preferred being called Madame to her proper
title of Frau.

[Illustration p. 17: Monsieur de la Tourelle.]

One night I was sitting next to Sophie, and longing for the time when we
might have supper and go home, so as to be able to speak together, a
thing forbidden by Madame Rupprecht's rules of etiquette, which strictly
prohibited any but the most necessary conversation passing between
members of the same family when in society. I was sitting, I say,
scarcely keeping back my inclination to yawn, when two gentlemen came
in, one of whom was evidently a stranger to the whole party, from the
formal manner in which the host led him up, and presented him to the
hostess. I thought I had never seen any one so handsome or so elegant.
His hair was powdered, of course, but one could see from his complexion
that it was fair in its natural state. His features were as delicate as
a girl's, and set off by two little "mouches," as we called patches in
those days, one at the left corner of his mouth, the other prolonging,
as it were, the right eye. His dress was blue and silver. I was so lost
in admiration of this beautiful young man, that I was as much surprised
as if the angel Gabriel had spoken to me, when the lady of the house
brought him forward to present him to me. She called him Monsieur de la
Tourelle, and he began to speak to me in French; but though I understood
him perfectly, I dared not trust myself to reply to him in that language.
Then he tried German, speaking it with a kind of soft lisp that I
thought charming. But, before the end of the evening, I became a little
tired of the affected softness and effeminacy of his manners, and the
exaggerated compliments he paid me, which had the effect of making all
the company turn round and look at me. Madame Rupprecht was, however,
pleased with the precise thing that displeased me. She liked either
Sophie or me to create a sensation; of cour