Lord Airlie married Henrietta Blanche, the daughter of Lord Stanley of Alderley, a cadet branch of a family so proud that it used to be said of them “The Stanleys do not marry: they contract alliances.” Here again are two pedigrees tracing back to the remotest times of which there is any record. There is no need to search out the family tree of the Stanleys to prove their descent from Charlemagne. It is a matter of common knowledge. It is only in the case of inconspicuous families like our own that it is well to set down for those who come after us that which is so easily lost sight of. When in this year, 1915, the shells are flying in the trenches, it should be a stimulant to a man to think that he has in his veins some of the blood of Charlemagne and of that glorious old Charles Martel, the hammer that at the battle of Poitiers saved Europe from being overrun by hordes of Saracens nearly twelve hundred years ago. CHAPTER II FRANKFORT—PARIS—TROUVILLE I was born on the 24th of February, 1837, in South Audley Street, in a house long since pulled down, which stood at the southern corner of Hill Street. My father had left the Diplomatic Service on his marriage and for some years my parents lived at Exbury, the old family place overlooking the Solent through vistas in the trees, where, sitting in the drawing-room, you could see the great battleships with their bellying sails—men-of-war of the pattern of Nelson’s days—the stately wooden walls of old England, the huge West Indiamen travelling to and from Southampton, “sailing between worlds and worlds with steady wing”—and the dainty little Cowes yachts pertly flitting among them like graceful white gulls. Ships were indeed a thing of beauty in those days, and Exbury was an earthly paradise; but like diamond tiaras and ropes of pearls, it was a costly luxury, unremunerative. My people had to retrench, the lovely home was let, and they went abroad to economize. In this way it happened that I first awoke to life at Frankfort in 1840—that at any rate is my earliest dim recollection. Two years later my father left Germany and took us to live in France. * * * * *