y8 A Visit to Ferrieres [1892 



' 16th Oct. (Sunday) — An excursion to Ferrieres. We drove over 

 all of us in a private omnibus, changing horses on the road. Castle- 

 town and I on the top, the ladies inside. I find Castletown a well- 

 informed man, more interesting that I had at first imagined. He saw 

 a great deal of the war of 1870-71, being with the Prussians at the 

 battle of Champigny in this neighbourhood, ' when,' he says, ' if Ducros 

 had only pushed on another two hours he would have broken the Prus- 

 sian lines and effected his sortie.' Castletown was with the Prussian 

 headquarters staff and knew how anxious they were. He was also with 

 Chanzy in the south, running great risks of being shot as a spy. We 

 talked, too, of Ireland and Egypt. He is a strong Unionist, but a 

 fair one in his reasoning, and would be a Nationalist if there was hope 

 of a complete separation. 



' Ferrieres (which is the principal country seat of the Rothschilds 

 in France) stands in splendid woods through which we drove for some 

 two miles before reaching the chateau. The house itself is disappoint- 

 ing, ' unc commode renversee ' as Bismark called it when he slept there 

 during the Prussian occupation. It is surrounded with grounds 

 a VAnglaisc, a fashion which I like less than the old French gardens. 

 Inside it is like a monstrous Pall Mall Club decorated in the most out- 

 rageous Louis Philippe taste, a huge hall lit with a skylight and horribly 

 overdone in its furnishing and upholstery. In the midst, a pathetic 

 little old woman in black, Madame Alphonse Rothschild, in perpetual 

 mourning for her departed beauty. It grieved me to remember her in 

 the days of her glory; and when she picked some carnations from a 

 vase and gave us each one, I asked for a red one and reminded her 

 of how I had seen just such another in her hair nearly thirty years 

 ago (it was in 1863) when I saw her for the first time being dressed 

 in a mantilla for a bull-fight at Madrid. A faint smile illumined her 

 gray face an instant but evidently without recognition of me, and she 

 relapsed into her little old woman's talk about her dogs and birds. 

 Presently we were joined by a pretty little young woman, her daughter, 

 Madame Effrusi, also in black, a very attractive little creature who 

 showed us round the grounds, with the aviaries and menageries, and 

 entertained us with pleasant talk. This gave colour to a rather colour- 

 less afternoon and in spite of its architectural monstrosities I have car- 

 ried away a pretty recollection of Ferrieres and the two little quite 

 diminutive gentlewomen living there. 



" ijth Oct.— -To-day we made another expedition, there being no 

 shooting, to the Chateau of Vaux le Vicomte. We drove to Brunois, 

 thence by train to Melun, where we lunched at the Grand Monarque, 

 and on in a fly to Vaux. Vaux is without exception the most splendid 

 dwelling-house it has been my lot to visit. There is nothing in Eng- 

 land to compare with it, not Blenheim, not Castle Howard, hardly 



