There are many small bedrooms, very nicely decorated, for use of the suite or for visitors. The floors are polished, and the staircase is so slippery that people are cautioned to take great care in descending, the steps not being carpeted. It was melancholy to think it was no longer possible for poor Eugenie to occupy this delightful residence.[47] Perhaps it is the only place in France where the Imperial arms remain, and one sees upon it also the touching monogram ƎNE, which reads up or down. The place would to our Queen be objectionable as being so close to a town; but to a French lady this, no doubt, would give it additional attraction, and it must be recollected that Biarritz in reality largely owes its existence to the Empress having built her villa there. For this the French people should be grateful, although it looks a little unlike it, because in the grounds two pillars in front of a small unfinished chapel for the Imperial family use have been much broken. This, however, may merely have been the result of accident. * * * * * It is a pleasant drive to Bayonne, which lies about five miles off. Like many other roads in France, such as at Pau, the road proceeds a long way in a straight line, flanked by regimental rows of trees, which, affording shade from the sun, have a peculiarly stiff effect. Here, as elsewhere, too, contrary to the Roman beau–ideal of a road that it should be level, this one, though straight, yields to the inequalities of the ground, and is alternately in hollows and on elevations. But people ought to be thankful the road is so good, for, speaking of a time about forty years ago or more, Dr. Taylor (_Climate of Pau_) says:— ‘There was no carriage road from Bayonne to Biarritz, the only conveyance being _en cacolet_, which contrivance consisted of a pair of panniers laid on the back of a horse or mule, into each of which a traveller of equal weight, if possible, had to perch himself at the same instant with his fellow, and to preserve their position as best they could. In the event of one being lighter than the other, there was a make–weight of stones put along with him in the pannier to adjust the equilibrium.’ Judging from the specimens of comfortable Spanish ladies we saw at Biarritz, I should pity the horse or the mule which had to carry two of them.