Blanche says that the Vicomte took it quite coolly; he declared he always knew the automobile would end like that, and he should compel the company in Paris to give him another, as they had guaranteed it to run without accident for a year. The Marquise fainted, and when Blanche left her she was in hysterics in the Pension Thorvaldsen; it all happened so quickly, that Blanche said it was all over before she could realise the danger. She was not even shaken. {_Maréchale de Vichy-Pontoise_} At lunch the _maître d'hôtel_ made a mistake and put some Germans at the table occupied by the Maréchale de Vichy-Pontoise, and when she hobbled in, leaning on her cane, and followed by Bijou, her pug, there was no place for her to sit. She was in a towering rage, and shook her stick at the _maître d'hôtel_, and Bijou looked as if he contemplated making his lunch off the waiter's leg. A seat was eventually found for her at our table, and another for Bijou, who finished his chop in the Maréchale's lap. She glared at us several times as if she thought it was an impertinence for us to sit at the same table with her, and she frightened the waiters out of their wits and found fault with everything. I am sure she is horribly old, for Sir Charles says she was no chicken in the last year of the Empire, when her salon was the most _suivi_ in Paris. Her _coiffure_ is jet black, and her eyebrows are bald and pencilled in arches. She is awfully badly made up, but, as Blanche says, it would take tons of rouge to hide the gutters on her face which is lined like a railway-map. All her clothes are made in the fashion of 1870; she is covered at all times with jewels and wears a daguerreotype brooch of the late Maréchal. But, of course, she is _très grande dame_, and everyone tries to mollify her, and they wait on her and Bijou hand and foot, and the Duchesse de Vaudricourt, who hates her because the Maréchale asked her before the Vicomte and Mr. Vanduzen if she remembered a certain ball at the Tuileries in '68, calls her "Ma chère maréchale." {_Time to Retire_} Thérèse has rapped twice to ask if I am ready to retire, so unless she should pull my hair out by the roots to spite me for keeping her up so late I must say good-night.--Your dearest Mamma. LETTER XIII HOTEL NATIONAL, LUCERNE 30th August DARLING ELIZABETH: {_The Sonnenburgs_} I never told you of the garden party at Schloss Sonnenburg the other day, and as it will give quite another aspect of Lucerne life from that of the National and Schloss Gessler, I will try to remember what happened. It is rather difficult, for so much transpires in the course of the day that I am apt to forget what I did the day before. {_A Disagreeable Drive_}