A CASTELLO IN PIEDMONT 



full of flying wings. The flutter and the sound of them ! 

 We thought the place all delightful and characteristic,- 

 wonderfully more attractive than the pompous banality of 

 the now renewed mansion, photographs of which we have 

 since had mendaciously to admire. 



Inside it was cool and charming / full of old French fur- 

 niture and irreplaceable family relics. Some of these have 

 recently been sold, to defray, no doubt, part of the cost of 

 the new exterior. 



The sedan chair of Madame laMarechale in pre-Revolution 

 days remains in my memory as a regret/ it was a wonder 

 of old Vernis -Martin. We hope they have kept the great 

 flags that used to hang in the hall. The reigning chatelaine 

 did not really care for any of these old things. Her heart 

 was set on the joys of a Roman appartement, and its con- 

 comitant social gaieties. 



There was a spacious white hall with impossible paintings 

 of a boar hunt on its walls, opening upon an endless series 

 of reception rooms. And through these lofty chambers 

 three little children were running about in little white linen 

 tunics, and nothing on underneath, because of the heat of 

 the weather. Their hair was cut in mediaeval fashion, 

 straight across the forehead and straight again across 

 the shoulders. There was also a most adorable baby of 

 eleven months carried about by a soft-eyed Balia. Out 

 of the mountains she had come, this creature, to cherish 

 another's child ! And a series of misfortunes had fallen 

 upon her little home since her departure : the death of her 

 own nursling followed by the death of the cow ! " Car a 

 moglie," her husband wrote on each occasion, " do not 

 grieve. It is the will of God ! " 



p 225 



