But there were bright days in the waning year, when we made expeditions to neighbouring farm-houses, or tramped along the frosty riverside road to the little town of Touques, with its black-and-white timbered houses and the picturesque ruins of the old Norman castle. What a joy it was when I was about eight years old to let my imagination run riot, peopling the old keep with visions of knights and dames and beautiful Jewesses! I was in the middle of reading “Ivanhoe” and here was indeed a setting for the book. I could fancy myself at Torquilstone and conjure up living pictures of the Black Knight, Front de Bœuf, the Templar, Athelstane, and Cedric the Saxon. There was a beautiful peasant girl in her high Norman cap, wandering down below among the now leafless apple orchards; could she be the Lady Rowena? And that sturdy, rather ruffianly vagabond standing in the ancient archway. Surely no other than Gurth the swineherd! Phantoms conjured up by the Wizard of the North. * * * * * In August, 1847, we were once more at Trouville, and it was for the last time. In former years we had been wont to see more of that romantic Norman coast than most people did; for we were not fashionable: we used to arrive in early spring, long before the orchards were brilliant with the bravery of the apple blossoms, and more than once we stayed on long after the last glorious red fruits had been gathered for the cider-vats, when the first frosts had coloured the falling leaves, and the hedges yielded no more blackberries with which to smear our small faces. This year our stay was bounded by the Eton holidays. It was a fateful month—fateful for France—for it was the month in which the Praslin tragedy took place, a tragedy which might perhaps by now have been mercifully forgotten had it not played so important a part in the political history of that time. One beautiful summer day, when all the little world of Trouville was gathered together upon the velvety sands, the terrible news arrived. Two young Irish ladies came running up to my aunts weeping bitterly—almost in hysterics. They were great friends of the Praslin family and had just heard that the poor Duchess had been murdered and the Duke arrested. I remember the thrill of horror with which the news was received on the _plage_, and that thrill throbbed through all France. The Duc de Praslin had driven the first nail in the coffin of the Orleans monarchy.