llage about ten miles off. It is a very
celebrated _Foire_, and in the last century every one went from
Versailles, and even now lots of people who spend the summer there
attend. You go in the evening after dinner, and there are no horrid
cows and things with horns rushing about, or tipsy people. Godmamma
looked awfully severe when she heard of the invitation; but since the
row, when they had to cajole me, she has been more civil, so she said I
might go if Heloise would really look after me, although if I was
Victorine she would not have permitted it for a moment.

[Sidenote: _On a Motor Car_]

We left here about six, and then picked up the party at Tournelle. They
all went--the old Baron, and every one, except the Marquis's mother. We
dropped the brougham there, and went on with them in a huge motor car
(that is another fad of the Baron's). It is lovely motor-carring; you
get quite used to the noise and smell, and you fly along so, it takes
your breath away; even with your hat tied on with a big veil, you have
rather the feeling you have got to screw up your eyebrows to keep it
from blowing away. We seemed to be no time doing the ten miles. The
Baronne and Heloise hate it, and never go in it except under protest.
The _Foire_ is just one very long street, with booths and
merry-go-rounds, and _Montagnes Russes_, and all sorts of amusing
things down each side. There are rows of poplar trees behind them, and
evidently on ordinary occasions it is just the usual French road, but
with all the lights and people it was gay.

We stopped at the village inn, the "_Toison d'Or_" which is famous for
its restaurant and its landlady. In the season the Duc de Cressy's
coach comes here from Paris every Thursday. Hippolyte was there
already; he had been sent on to secure a table for us. We had no sooner
sat down under the awning than the Vicomte and "Antoine" and two other
officers turned up. They had ridden from Versailles, which is near.
Such extraordinary people sat at some of the tables! Families of almost
peasants at one, and then at the next perhaps two or three lovely
ladies, with very smart dresses and big hats, and lots of pearls, and
some young men in evening dress. And then some respectable _bourgeois_,
and so on. I could hardly pay attention to what the Marquis, who sat
next me, was saying, the sight was so new and entertaining.

The tables had cloths without any starch in them, and the longest bread
rolls I have ever see