Countess Florian had written to ask if we might come, so she was under arms.  She was a little nervous at first, talked a great deal, very fast, but when she got accustomed to us it went more easily, and she showed us the house with much pride.  There was some good furniture and one beautiful coverlet of old lace and embroidery, which she had found somewhere upstairs in an old chest of drawers.  They have no children—­such a pity, as they are improving and beautifying the place all the time.  The drive home was delightful, facing the sunset.  I was amused with the Florians’ old coachman.  He is a curiosity—­knows everybody in the country.  He was much interested in our visit and asked if we had seen “la patronne”—­said he knew her well, had often seen her on a market day at Valognes, sitting in her little cart in the midst of her cheeses and butter; said she was a brave femme.  How strange it must seem to people like that, just out of their hard-working peasant life—­and it is hard work in France—­to find themselves owners of a splendid chateau and estate, receiving the great people of the country.  I dare say in ten or twelve years they will be like any one else, and if there were sons or daughters the young men would get into parliament or the diplomatic career, the daughters would marry some impoverished scion of a noble family, and cheeses and butter would be forgotten.

We had one delightful day at Cherbourg.  The Prefet Maritime invited us to breakfast with him at his hotel.  We went by rail to Cherbourg, about half an hour, and found the admiral’s carriage waiting for us.  The prefecture is a nice, old-fashioned house, in the centre of the town, with a big garden.  We took off our coats in a large, handsome room upstairs.  The walls were covered with red damask and there were pictures of Queen Victoria and Louis Napoleon.  It seems the Queen slept in that room one night when she came over to France to make her visit to Louis Philippe at the Chateau d’Eu.  We found quite a party assembled—­all the men in uniform and the women generally in white.  We breakfasted in a large dining-room with glass doors opening into the garden, which was charming, a blaze of bright summer flowers.  We adjourned there for coffee after breakfast.  The trees were big, made a good shade, and the little groups, seated about in the various bosquets, looked pretty and gay.  When coffee and liqueurs were finished we drove down to the quay, where the admiral’s launch was waiting, and had a delightful afternoon steaming about the harbour.  It is enormous, long jetties and breakwaters stretching far out, almost closing it in.  There was every description of craft—­big Atlantic liners, yachts, fishing boats, ironclads, torpedoes, and once we very nearly ran over a curious dark object floating on the surface of the water, which they told us was a submarine.  It did not look comfortable as a means of transportation, but the young officers told us it was delightful.