68 THE LIFE OF RICHARD JEFFERIES 



Hastings partly because the Prince Imperial was there : 

 he sent the Prince some verses on his exile, and believed 

 himself to have brought about the dismissal of some 

 traitorous equerries who called the Empress ' the Spanish 

 cow.' These ' adventures ' excited Jefferies, and he was 

 unwell, but he entered into conversation with everyone 

 approachable — with coastguards who told him something 

 of smuggling, with boatmen, with a retired Indian officer, 

 with a ' gentleman who had been in the diplomatic 

 service,' and with a pamplileteer. Also, he tells his aunt : 

 ' I have had adventures with the ladies which I do not 

 care to write . . . vide lock of hair.' Towards the end 

 of the month he was happy at Brussels, and writes from 

 the Hotel de I'Europe on September 22 a letter which 

 reveals the same delight in holiday humanity as he after- 

 wards took at Brighton and expressed with a blithe and 

 sparkling sensuousness : 



' Brussels delights me. It is beautifully clean, and 

 people say exactly like Paris in miniature. They call it 

 un petit Paris. The ladies are not to be approached by 

 our horrid dowdies in London. From the poorest to the 

 richest all dress admirably. There is a fashion, but no 

 one confines herself to it — each dresses in that style exactly 

 which pleases her best. The ladies are dark-complexioned, 

 with dark sparkling eyes and very black hair ; in fact, I 

 never knew what black hair was before. Nearly all are 

 pleasing, great numbers pretty, and some exceedingly 

 handsome ; tme grande belle dined with us yesterday, a 

 refugee from Paris. Her husband is shut up in Metz, and 

 has not been heard of for six weeks. I never saw a more 

 classic countenance. Almost all fashionable Paris is here. 

 But the ladies. The favourite colour of the dresses is 

 chocolate, or one of its shades, — this suits their com- 

 plexions. Crinolines are abolished, but they have a kind 

 of Grecian bend looped up behind. The flounces are the 

 chief ornament ; they are very rich. The sleeves are 

 often very wide at the wrists. The boots are delicious 

 little things — high heels, very coquettish ; stockings 



