Eight
people were jammed into a first-class compartment, faintly lit by
the dim flicker of an oil-lamp, and there they remained. I
remember that all the French ladies took off their bonnets or
hats, and replaced them with thick knitted woollen hoods and capes
combined, which they fastened tightly round their heads. They also
drew on knitted woollen over-boots; these, I suppose, were
remnants of the times, not very far distant then, when all-night
journeys had frequently to be made in the diligence.
The Riviera of 1865 was not the garish, flamboyant rendezvous of
cosmopolitan finance, of ostentatious newly acquired wealth, and
of highly decorative ladies which it has since become. Cannes, in
particular, was a quiet little place of surpassing beauty,
frequented by a few French and English people, most of whom were
there on account of some delicate member of their families. We
went there solely because my sister, Lady Mount Edgcumbe, had
already been attacked by lung-disease, and to prolong her life it
was absolutely necessary for her to winter in a warm climate.
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