Yacht Sauterelle,

17th August.

[Sidenote:  Yacht “Sauterelle"]

Dearest Mamma,—­I am writing as we float down the Seine, it is too enchanting.  We are a party of ten.  The Comte and Comtesse de Tournelle; her mother, the Baronne de Larnac, and her uncle, the Baron de Fremond, Jean, Heloise, and me; the Marquise de Vermondoise, and two young men, officers in the Cavalry, stationed at Versailles.  One is the Vicomte Gaston de la Tremors, and the other’s name is so long that I can’t get it, so you must know him by “Antoine”—­he is some sort of a relation of Heloise’s.  The Baronne is a delightful person, the remains of extreme good looks and distinction.  She was a beauty under the Empire, and her feet are so small, she is just as soignee as if she was young, and so vain and human.  She lives with her daughter while they are in the country—­it seems the custom here, these huge family parties living together all the summer.

[Sidenote:  A Visit of Ceremony]

The young people have their appartement in the Champs Elysees in Paris, and the old ones go to the family hotel in the Faubourg St. Germain. We did say a lot of polite things when we went to pay our visit yesterday, and although they know one another so well—­as it was a “visit of ceremony” to introduce me—­we all had our best clothes on, and sat in the large salon—­(there are four Louis XVI. arm chairs, sticking out each side of the fireplaces, in all the salons here).  Heloise and the Comtesse de Tournelle are great friends.  The Comte de Tournelle is charming, he is like the people in the last century Memoirs, he ought to have powdered hair, and his manners have a distinction and a wit quite unlike anything in England.  One can see he is descended from people who had their heads cut off for being aristocrats.  Jean says he does not belong to le Sporting, and is fearfully effeminate.  He can’t even put on his own socks without his valet, and he never rides or bicycles or anything, but just does a little motor-carring, and fights a few duels.

The Comtesse de Tournelle is small and young and rather dull; she reads a great deal.  The old boy, the Baron de Fremond (he owns the Sauterelle) is a jolly old soul, and chaffs his sister and niece, and every one, all the time, and thinks it so funny to talk fearful English.  The two young men haven’t looked at me much.  They are in uniform! and they put their heels together and bowed deeply when they were introduced, but we haven’t spoken yet.  The Marquise de Vermondoise is perfectly lovely, so fascinating, with such a queer deep voice, and one tooth at the side of the front missing; and her tongue keeps getting in there when she speaks, which gives her a kind of lisp, and it is awfully attractive.  I think de Tournelle would like to kiss her, by the way he looked at her when she thanked him for handing her on board.