ds,
where, however, we were bidden to unbelievably succulent repasts, very
different to the plain fare to which we were accustomed at home. Both
my brother and myself were, I think, unconscious as to whether we were
speaking English or French; we could express ourselves with equal
facility in either language. When I first went to school, I could speak
French as well as English, and it is a wonderful tribute to the
efficient methods of teaching foreign languages practised in our
English schools, that at the end of nine years of French lessons, both
at a preparatory school and at Harrow, I had not forgotten much more
than seventy-five per cent. of the French I knew when I went there. In
the same way, after learning German at Harrow for two-and-a-half years,
my linguistic attainments in that language were limited to two words,
ja and nein. It is true that, for some mysterious reason, German was
taught us at Harrow by a Frenchman who had merely a bowing
acquaintanceship with the tongue.

In 1865 the fastest train from Paris to the Riviera took twenty-six
hours to accomplish the journey, and then was limited to first-class
passengers. There were, of course, neither dining-cars nor sleeping
cars, no heating, and no toilet accommodation. Eight people were jammed
into a first-class compartment, faintly lit by the dim flicker of an
oil-lamp, and there they remained. I remember that all the French
ladies took off their bonnets or hats, and replaced them with thick
knitted woollen hoods and capes combined, which they fastened tightly
round their heads. They also drew on knitted woollen over-boots; these,
I suppose, were remnants of the times, not very far distant then, when
all-night journeys had frequently to be made in the diligence.

The Riviera of 1865 was not the garish, flamboyant rendezvous of
cosmopolitan finance, of ostentatious newly acquired wealth, and of
highly decorative ladies which it has since become. Cannes, in
particular, was a quiet little place of surpassing beauty, frequented
by a few French and English people, most of whom were there on account
of some delicate member of their families. We went there solely because
my sister, Lady Mount Edgcumbe, had already been attacked by
lung-disease, and to prolong her life it was absolutely necessary for
her to winter in a warm climate. Lord Brougham, the ex-Lord Chancellor,
had virtually created Cannes, as far as English people were concerned,
and the few hotels the