When returning home with the children before luncheon, I met a cavalcade of our party riding to view some ruins. Two splendid carriages, magnificently horsed, with Mlle. Blanche, Maria Philipovna, and Polina Alexandrovna in one of them, and the Frenchman, the Englishman, and the General in attendance on horseback! The passersby stopped to stare at them, for the effect was splendid⁠—the General could not have improved upon it. I calculated that, with the 4,000 francs which I had brought with me, added to what my patrons seemed already to have acquired, the party must be in possession of at least 7,000 or 8,000 francs⁠—though that would be none too much for Mlle. Blanche, who, with her mother and the Frenchman, was also lodging in our hotel. The latter gentleman was called by the lackeys “Monsieur le Comte,” and Mlle. Blanche’s mother was dubbed “Madame la Comtesse.” Perhaps in very truth they were “ Comte et Comtesse .”