Hotel National, Lucerne
1st September

Darling Elizabeth:

The invitations are out to a cotillon at Schloss Gessler on the 7th. It is to be a grand affair, the favours are to come from the Maison Bail at Paris, the supper and the music from the National, and the money to pay for it all out of Mr. Wertzelmann's bank account, which it goes without saying is a big one.

Everybody seems to have been invited, and Mr. Wertzelmann told me he intended that it should be remembered as the ball of the season. Old Mrs. Johnson came and sat next to me on the quai this morning, and broke the news that Count Albert has proposed to Rosalie and been accepted. She didn't seem to like it when I said I felt sorry for the girl, because she was too good for Count Albert, who was old enough to be her father, and I advised her to look him up and all his antecedents at Vienna before the marriage ceremony. But she was quite satisfied that he was a real, live Count, because the "Schweitzerhof knew all about him." I shouldn't be surprised, however, that she takes my advice, for she is a shrewd old woman, but just fancy anyone taking a husband on a hotel guarantee!

A very pretty woman—a blonde, with a figure that the Venus de Milo might envy, and dressed, oh! lÀ lÀ! shades of Paquin and Worth!—passed us several times, walking up and down the quai. Everybody turned round to stare at her, and everybody asked who she was, and the Princesse di Spezzia, who was talking to Comte Belladonna, put up her lorgnettes. The Duchesse de Vaudricourt leaned over the arm of her chair and whispered to me:—

"VoilÀ la plus belle courtisane de Florence. C'est une des bijoux de M. le Prince di Spezzia. La fameuse Vittoria Lodi!"

Later on the Prince di Spezzia sauntered out of the National on the arm of the Marquis de Pivart, both dressed faultlessly as usual, À l'Anglais, and they actually stopped and spoke to the demi-mondaine. The Duchesse de Vaudricourt became quite excited over it, and gave me a regular New-York-Herald-Paris-Edition of Monsieur le Prince. He is very English in appearance, but then Poole makes all his clothes, and he could easily pass for an Englishman, which I think would please him immensely. But why—why will these smart foreigners who affect English fashions always wear lavender or buff-coloured French kid gloves? Perhaps you will say, for the same reason that Englishwomen who are for ever talking of Paris fashions wear English corsets. So under all the artificiality of civilisation national traits come out in a pair of gloves or a pair of stays!

The Prince looks as if he would improve on acquaintance, but I think it distinctly rude and bad form of him to stop and talk to such a woman as la belle Lodi within a stone's throw of his wife. The Duchesse says he has been a mauvais sujet since sixteen, when he disguised himself as a priest and confessed dozens of people, and if it hadn't been that his uncle was a Cardinal, he would have got into some very hot water. He drives with the Lodi daily in the Cascine at Florence, and makes her follow him wherever he goes. She has an apartment at the Schweitzerhof. The Princesse doesn't seem to mind; I don't suppose it would make any difference if she did. She is always beautifully dressed, and spends most of her time staring at people through her lorgnettes.

Poor Professor Chzweiczy (you can pronounce this name to suit yourself, for nobody knows what it should be, and Blanche calls it Squeezey) sits every day on the quai; he holds the "Blot on the Brain" close in front of his face as if he were near-sighted. I think he must have a cast in his eyes, for they always seem to be looking over the top of the book at the people passing. I am sure that if it were known that he is one of the greatest medical scientists of the day, he would be besieged like Liane de Pougy; but nobody ever even glances at him; they have got his name spelled wrong in the hotel visitors' list, and wedged in out of sight between some people whose names have a globe-trotting sound and who look like a party of Cook's "Specials."

Liane de Pougy sits now in the garden of the National, for the crowds nearly suffocated her on the quai. She is very beautiful and dresses very quietly; you would never dream that she is as well known in Paris as a monument or a boulevard. A young Frenchman has for the last two days been doing his best to attract her attention by sitting near her, and pretending to read her "L'Insaisissable." I believe that since her arrival there are nearly as many copies of this roman vÉcu, as she calls it, as Baedekers at the National. It is hard to say which is the most interesting—herself or her book. I caught her looking at the old MarÉchale de Vichy-Pontoise yesterday with the most untranslatable expression. I am not quite sure but that in spite of her triumphs she would change places with the MarÉchale if she could, and wear the old harridan's moustache and the daguerreotype brooch of the late MarÉchal and feed Bijou and all. As it is, not a woman at the National would dream of speaking to her, and the MarÉchale would as soon think of strangling Bijou as of sitting down at the same table as the famous Liane.

Blanche has just come in to say that a Count Fosca has arrived at the National, having automobiled all the way from Paris, and that the Vicomte is completely bouleversÉ. She is laughing so over something that ThÉrÈse is telling her that I cannot write any more.

I can only catch the words, "Mrs. Johnson," "Prince di Spezzia," "Ascenseur," "no lights." I leave it to you to make a comedy out of the missing links.—Your dearest Mamma.