The next summer (the Mingrelian family had gone off to the German watering-places again) we betook ourselves to the Duprez country estate, to continue the instruction there, it being interrupted in the school at Paris. In October we went back to the city, and the Mingrelian family too moved into the Hôtel du Louvre again. The old life of the preceding year was repeated: artistic interests and enjoyments in the Rue Laval, social interests and enjoyments with my Asiatic friends. One day toward the end of the winter I received from Princess Salomé a dispatch: “Enjoy my good fortune with me; I have just become engaged to Prince Achille Murat.” On the same day she had sent me a card by mail, which I received a few hours later than the telegram. The little yellowed forty-year-old card is still among my old papers. I reproduce it in full: Princesse Salomé Dadiani de Mingrélie Ma bien bonne Contesco, venez demain à deux heures précises—vous passerez la journée avec nous. J’ai une foule de choses très pressées à faire et je m’adresse à vous comme à _mon amie_ dévouée, pour vous demander votre aide. Ne m’oubliez pas auprès de Mme. votre mère. Soyez bien exacte. I joyously obeyed the summons—there is nothing in the world more interesting to young girls than an engagement—and found the whole house in happy excitement. I was told how it all came about. The affair, contemplated during the preceding winter by the Empress Eugénie and the Princess Ekaterina, had been brought to a satisfactory conclusion the week before. The Emperor undertook to provide his nephew with an allowance of fifty thousand francs a year, which excellently comported with the bride’s similar income; he also agreed to pay the young man’s debts.—Well, yes, debts—it was known to the whole town that he was one of the most extravagant high-livers in Paris. Among the diamonds of the then so celebrated “belle Hélène,” Hortense Schneider, were many jewels which Prince Achille Murat had laid at her feet. The prince was regarded as one of the handsomest of the young people in high society. The son of Prince Lucien and an American woman, he very much reminded one of an Englishman in his manner, in his accent, and in the blond type of his face. All this I knew from hearsay before the news of the betrothal came to me.