The costumes of the women are wonderful, full of complexities; you have to turn them around before you can tell if she is a man or a woman; they wear hats like a coal-carrier in England, pantaloons, an apron, and--well! the Countess had a woman brought to the _schloss_ and undressed, so that we could see how she was dressed. I ought to send a photograph, because I can never describe her. There is a bodice of black satin, short in the back, over a plastron of pasteboard of the same, and a huge black-satin cravat sticking out on both sides of her cheeks, a wadded skirt of blue alpaca, and pink leg-of-mutton sleeves. I can make nothing of this description when I read it. I hope you can! Count Metternich entertained us all the afternoon talking about himself. He has fought with the Emperor Maximilian in Mexico, and when he speaks of him the tears roll down his bronzed cheeks. He has fought in all Don Carlos's battles, and is a strong partisan of the Carlist party. His description of Don Carlos makes one quite like him (I mean Don Carlos). He said that Don Carlos goes about in a simple black uniform and _béret_ (the red cap of the Pyrenees), with the gold tassels and the Order of the Golden Fleece on his neck (I call that fantastic, don't you?). During his campaign he suddenly swoops down upon people, no matter what their condition is, and immediately there is a sentinel placed before the door. The _consigne_ is not strict: any one can come and go as he pleases: photographers, autographers, reporters, without hindrance, and there is a general invitation to tea at headquarters. He has an army of volunteers, of whom the Count is one. The rations are one-half pound of meat, one-half pound of bread, and three-quarters liter of Navarre wine, which the Count says is more fit to eat than to drink, "it is so fat." Navarre furnishes the wine gratis, and promises to furnish twenty-four thousand rations daily as long as the war lasts. The artillery is "not good," Count Metternich added, but the officers are "colossal," a word in German that expresses everything. Count Metternich is the greatest gentleman jockey in the world; he has not got a whole bone in his body. They call him _der Mexicano_, as he is so bronzed and dark-skinned and has been in Mexico. But he cannot rival Count Westphal, who, in his time, was not only the greatest gentleman jockey, but a hero. At a famous race, where he was to ride the horse of Count Fürstenberg, he fell, breaking his collar-bone and his left arm; he picked himself up and managed to remount his horse. He held the reins in his mouth, and with the unbroken arm walloped the horse, got in first, and then fainted away.