The Count Masin is a well-bred man of a certain age, hospitable, and doing with dignity the honours of his house, where plenty and luxury are united. He is proud of his high descent and alliances. He showed me amongst the armorial bearings a stirrup with the motto ‘Ferme toi.’ An ancestor of his in battle lost all his weapons, desperate he took his stirrups and assaulted his antagonist, and his sovereign Lord in honour of the achievement allowed him to take the quartering as an emblem of his courage. In the evening we drove about the alleys; high, clipped hedges on each side defended us from the evening breeze, which in this high spot is more than a _breeze_ generally, but was this evening insufferably hot, more from a stagnation in the air than from the positive degree of heat. The doubts increase about the passage of the St. Bernard; at all events we intend going to Aost. In the evening the letters from Turin arrived. I had a letter from Ld. Henry,[70] and he writes out of spirits; complains of solitude. He dislikes his appointment to Stockholm. A courier saw Mayence in flames on the 27th June; if it has fallen it will facilitate our journey up the Rhine. We retired early to our rooms. My apartment was curious and magnificent. It consisted of a bedroom, a dressing-room, a receiving-room, besides accommodation near for my _valet-de-chambre_ and my maid. The bedroom is a bastion, which makes inside a delightful circular room; a balcony goes round it, and from the spot where I was this minute, from it down to the fosse, is upwards of 100 feet. A private door opens upon a spiral staircase, which carries one to the _porte-de-secours_. I dismissed my maid, and sat me down to write, read, and think. The wind rose and made a most furious noise in my chimney, and in the vaulted rooms beneath. I could not help thinking that if an ancestor of Masin’s were to appear and tell me some horrid tale of his unburied bones rotting in a dungeon in the towers of the castle, a more hideous noise and crash would not usher him in than what I have heard. In the midst of this reflection I perceived upon the large glass on the left of me, and which stands opposite to the doors of a long suite of apartments, all open, a glimmering light, and I heard at the same moment a noise from the rooms. I am no coward with respect to supernatural appearances, but I was out of spirits, and the solitude of my situation apart from the rest of the family contributed at that moment to give me a qualm. I looked at the glass, and perceived the light stronger and some white drapery flowing behind it. _Pour le coup_ I trembled and hid my face. A minute brought Swinburne with a night taper, in his dressing gown, to my sight. I laughed at my fears. He came from Mrs. Trevor, who was ill, to get some camphor julep from me. I locked my door and was courageous enough to go to bed without rousing anybody.