told her that he would give her a gown worth five hundred francs if she could find three handsome women. The lady tried, but was obliged to acknowledge that she could not. The French women have not good figures: the old women are very fat, and the others are as flat as two boards.[18] Many of the ladies were attended by _bonnes_, some of whom were dressed more neatly than the French women generally are:--with light cotton gowns, muslin handkerchiefs, and caps trimmed with lace over blue or pink paper. The children that were with them were queer-looking little things. The French children are old-fashioned, dull, grave, and ugly: like little old women in their appearance. The babies are wrapt up in swaddling-clothes like mummies, and they wear queer little cotton hats. The nurses carry them very carefully hanging on their arms; they say that nursing them, or tossing them about, makes them mad. Some of the children have long hair hanging down their backs and little hats stuck on the tops of their heads and little ridicules in their hands. We stayed in the gardens this evening later than usual looking at the waters, which from the terrace had a very pretty effect. [Illustration: A BONNE AND CHILDREN] COLD _June 4th._--Our long-expected and much-dreaded hot weather has never arrived, but instead of it cold, wet weather. The French said it was an unusually bad season; they were quite _en colère_. It was this day quite a storm; from the quantity of rain which had fallen there was a little canal before the door; and as the dining-room was across the yard, we could hardly get to it in wet weather without getting our feet wet. I never felt anything so cold as it was in France. We used to sit shivering, wrapt up in shawls to try and keep ourselves warm. There were no grates; the fire was lighted on the hearth between two dogs, and we used to sit round it blowing the wood to try and make it burn: to make matters worse there were two holes, one on each side of the fireplace, apparently made to let the smoke into the room; these we were obliged to stuff with paper. It was as bad in bed, and though we had sent repeatedly, we could not get any quilts and only one cotton blanket to each bed. There were no carpets in the rooms; only bare stone floors, from which, besides being very cold, all the red came off on to our gowns. We were most of us sufficiently tired of France. I would have given anything in the world to get back to England, but we thought there was no chance of that for a long time. Every person was dismal: one got the rheumatism, another had a cold, another was ill, another had chilblains, and another was melancholy; and all said they would not grumble if they did not see other people grumble. I went from room to room, and could get no consolation. In spite of their spectacles and processions, there was a dulness in the streets and a want of life in the people: everything seemed to be creeping along and looking like oysters.