France

It had been a cold December, quite recalling Christmas holidays at home - when we used to think Christmas without snow wasn't a real Christmas, and half the pleasure of getting the greens to dress the church was gone, if the children hadn't to walk up to their ankles in untrodden snow across the fields to get the long, trailing branches of ivy and bunches of pine. We were just warm enough in the big chateau.

MAREUIL-SUR-OURCQ, April 20th, 1899.

BAGNOLES DE L'ORNE, July-August.

VALOGNES, August.

We never remained all summer at our place. August was a disagreeable month there - the woods were full of horse-flies which made riding impossible. No nets could keep them off the horses who were almost maddened by the sting. They were so persistent that we had to take them off with a sharp stick. They stuck like leeches. We generally went to the sea - almost always to the Norman Coast - establishing ourselves in a villa - sometimes at Deauville, sometimes at Villers, and making excursions all over the country.

One year we were at Boulogne for the summer in a funny little house, in a narrow street just behind the port and close to the Casino and beach. There were a great many people - all the hotels full and quantities of automobiles passing all day. The upper part of the town is just like any other seaside place - rows of hotels and villas facing the sea - some of the houses built into the high green cliff which rises steep and almost menacing behind. Already parts of the cliff have crumbled away in some place and the proprietors of the villas find some difficulty in letting them.

NICE, January 1, 1765.

BOULOGNE, June 13, 1765.

MONTPELLIER, November 5, 1763.

NICE, January 15, 1765.