On our arrival at Mons, I was lodged in his house, and found
there the Countess his wife, and a Court consisting of eighty
or a hundred ladies of the city and country. My reception was
rather that of their sovereign lady than of a foreign princess.
The Flemish ladies are naturally lively, affable, and engaging.
The Comtesse de Lalain is remarkably so, and is, moreover, a woman
of great sense and elevation of mind, in which particular, as well
as in air and countenance, she carries a striking resemblance
to the lady your cousin. We became immediately intimate, and
commenced a firm friendship at our first meeting. When the supper
hour came, we sat down to a banquet, which was succeeded by a
ball; and this rule the Count observed as long as I stayed at
Mons, which was, indeed, longer than I intended. It had been
my intention to stay at Mons one night only, but the Count's
obliging lady prevailed on me to pass a whole week there. I strove
to excuse myself from so long a stay, imagining it might be
inconvenient to them; but whatever I could say availed nothing
with the Count and his lady, and I was under the necessity of
remaining with them eight days. The Countess and I were on so
familiar a footing that she stayed in my bedchamber till a late
hour, and would not have left me then had she not imposed upon
herself a task very rarely performed by persons of her rank,
which, however, placed the goodness of her disposition in the
most amiable light. In fact, she gave suck to her infant son;
and one day at table, sitting next me, whose whole attention was
absorbed in the promotion of my brother's interest,--the table
being the place where, according to the custom of the country,
all are familiar and ceremony is laid aside,--she, dressed out in
the richest manner and blazing with diamonds, gave the breast to
her child without rising from her seat, the infant being brought