United Kingdom. We
then all went to Paris for a fortnight, on our way to the Riviera. I
well remember leaving London at 7 a.m. on a January morning, in the
densest of fogs. So thick was the fog that the footman had to lead the
horses all the way to Charing Cross Station. Ten hours later I found
myself in a fairy city of clean white stone houses, literally blazing
with light. I had never imagined such a beautiful, attractive place,
and indeed the contrast between the dismal London of the "sixties" and
this brilliant, glittering town was unbelievable. Paris certainly
deserved the title of "La Ville Lumiere" in a literal sense. I like the
French expression, "une ville ruisselante de lumiere," "a city dripping
with light." That is an apt description of the Paris of the Second
Empire, for it was hardly a manufacturing city then, and the great rim
of outlying factories that now besmirch the white stone of its house
fronts had not come into existence, the atmosphere being as clear as in
the country. A naturally retentive memory is apt to store up perfectly
useless items of information. What possible object can there be to my
remembering that the engine which hauled us from Calais to Paris in
1865 was built by J. Cail of Paris, on the "Crampton" system; that is,
that the axle of the big single driving-wheels did not run under the
frame of the engine, but passed through the "cab" immediately under the
pressure-gauge?--nor can any useful purpose be served in recalling that
we crossed the Channel in the little steamer La France.

In those days people of a certain class in England maintained far
closer social relations with people of the corresponding class in
France than is the custom now, and this was mutual. Society in both
capitals was far smaller. My father and mother had many friends in
Paris, and amongst the oldest of them were the Comte and Comtesse de
Flahault. General de Flahault had been the personal aide-de-camp and
trusted friend of Napoleon I. Some people, indeed, declared that his
connection with Napoleon III. was of a far closer nature, for his great
friendship with Queen Hortense was a matter of common knowledge. For
some reason or another the old General took a fancy to me, and finding
that I could talk French fluently, he used to take me to his room,
stuff me with chocolate, and tell me about Napoleon's Russian campaign
in 1812, in which he had taken part, I was then seven years old, and
the old Comte must have b