the high-road at Aigueperse. Six or eight pairs of oxen were harnessed
to the carriage, and Auvergnats in their costumes and broad-brimmed hats
(there were still costumes there, in those days), with goads in their
hands, drove the team, the carriage swinging backwards and forwards on
the muddy roads, up hill and down dale; it was hard work getting there,
but we did get there at last. The great entertainment of the visit was
to go and see Madame la Dauphine, who went through a cure at Vichy every
year.

It was far pleasanter to stay at Eu. The old castle of the Guises was a
mere tumbledown barrack at the time I speak of. The passages had waves
in them like the sea. When there was a storm the whole house shook, and
the smaller children used to feel quite frightened, when, after
listening to Anatole de Montesquiou's ghost stories, of an evening, they
had to go through the Guise Gallery, with all its dreadful portraits
which seemed to step out of their frames to the dreary whistle of the
sea-wind. But all the same we loved the old place. It was quite out of
the common run. Just as we used to go and see Madame la Dauphine at
Vichy from Randan, we used to go from Eu to see Madame la Duchesse de
Berri, at Dieppe, which she had made her summer residence. We
accompanied her once to the lighthouse at Ailly under the escort of her
guard of honour, a squadron of Cauchoise women on horseback. In illo
tempore--those days; all Norman women, and those of the Caux district
especially, did their errands and their marketing on horseback. There
were very few vehicles to be seen. The prettiest of the peasant girls
had been selected; and it was really a pleasure to see them prancing, to
the number of forty, round the Duchess's carriage, with their captain
and lieutenant riding at each door, all dressed alike, in white, in the
full Cauchoise costume, chignon and cap with lace lappets, each on her
pacing hack, which she managed to perfection. When a halt was made, the