nd had altogether a perfect
visit. I have made many visits and have been the guest of many
hostesses, most of them charming ones, hence it is no discourtesy to
them and but a higher compliment to the Marquise when I assert that
she is one of the most perfect hostesses I ever met.

A thorough woman of the world, having been presented at three courts
and speaking five languages, yet her heart is as untouched by the
taint of worldliness, her nature as unembittered by her sorrows, as if
she were a child just opening her eyes to society. One of the
cleverest of women, she is both humorous and witty, with a gift of
mimicry which would have made her a fortune on the stage.

Her servants idolize her, manage the chateau to suit themselves, which
fortunately means to perfection, and look upon her as a beloved child
who must be protected from all the minor trials of life. She has
rescued the most of them from some sort of discomfort, and their
gratitude is boundless. Like the majority of the nobility, the
peasants of France are royalists. The middle class, the _bourgeoisie_,
are the backbone of the republic.

The servants are stanch Catholics and long for a monarchy again. The
Marquise apologized to them for our being heretics, and told them that
while we were not Christians (Catholics), yet we tried to be good, and
in the main turned out a fair article, but she entreated their
clemency and their prayers for her guests. So we had the satisfaction
of being ardently prayed for all the time we were there, and of being
complimented occasionally by her maid, Marie, an old Normandie peasant
seventy years old, for an act on our part now and then which savored
of real Christianity. And once when we had private theatricals, and I
dressed as a nun, Marie never found out for half the evening that I
was not one of the Sisters who frequently came to the chateau, but
kept crossing herself whenever she saw me; and when she discovered me
she told me, with tears in her eyes, it really was a thousand pities
that I would not renounce the world and become a Christian, because I
looked so much like a "religieuse."

We went in oftenest to Chinon--always on market day; some of us on
horseback, some on wheels, while the rest drove. Chinon is the
fortress chateau where Jeanne d'Arc came to see Charles VII. to try to
interest him in her plans. Its ruins stand high up on a bluff
overlooking the town, and beneath it in an open square is the very
finest