ould not reason with herself, and asked the
next morning to have something less magnificent and more modern.

In all the bedrooms the dressing-tables were covered with dentelle de
Binche[15] of the epoch, and all the mirrors and various little boxes
for powder, rouge, patches, and the hundred accessories for a fine
lady's toilette in those days, were in Vernis Martin absolutely
intact. The drawing-rooms still had their old silk hangings--a white
ground covered with wreaths of flowers and birds with wonderful bright
plumage--hand-painted--framed in wood of two shades of light green.

[15] Binche, name of a village in Belgium where the lace is made.

The big drawing-room was entirely panelled in wood of the same light
green, most beautifully and delicately carved. These old boiseries were
all removed when the chateau was sold. After the death of the Duchesse
de Tourzel the chateau went to her niece, the Duchesse des Cars--who
left it to her niece, the Duchesse de Vallambrosa, a very rare instance,
in France, of a property descending directly through several generations
in the female line.

It was sold by the Vallambrosas. The old wood panels are in the Paris
house of a member of that family. The park was very large and
beautifully laid out, with the fine trees one sees all over Normandy.

Twenty years ago a salle de spectacle "en verdure" still existed in the
park--the seats were all in grass; the coulisses (side scenes) made in
the trees of the park--their boughs cut and trained into shape, to
represent green walls, a marble group of allegorical figures at the
back. It was most carefully preserved--the seats of the amphitheatre
looked like green velvet and the trees were always cut in the same
curious shapes. It seemed quite a fitting part of the fine old place,
with its memories of past fetes and splendours, before the whirlwind of
liberty and equality swept over the country.

Many of the chateaux are changing hands. The majorat (entail) doesn't
exist in France, and as the fortunes must always be divided among the
children, it becomes more and more difficult to keep up the large
places. Life gets dearer every day--fortunes don't increase--very few
young Frenchmen of the upper classes do anything. The only way of
keeping up the big places is by making a rich marriage--the daughter of
a rich banker or industrial, or an American.

* * * * *

Our cousins, Comte and Comtesse d'Y----,