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Society at Aix-les-Dains,
AIX-LES-DAINS, Sept. 8-There is the usual motley group here of royalties and gamblers, faire rheumatics and sprightly Attires, for the town is full of Greeks. Two delightful royalties have just gone-the Duchess of Connaught, daughter of the Red Prince, and the Princess Louise. The Duchess of Connaught is a tall, slender, graceful woman of six and twenty, with the best, most dignified yet kindly manners in the world. Her husband is Queen Victoria's third son. Their pretty little children were sent on to the Queen the other day, and will, with their gentle mother, go to India in October.
The Princess Louise, looking like a blushrose, is very quiet this summer. She spent an entire afternoon painting the very pretty little daughter of the Countess Gianotti, and succeeded in making an admirable sketch.
Among the other distinguished people here are Mr. and Mrs. Wickham, the daughter of Gladstone; Sir Richard Wallace, the wealthy owner of the finest picture gallery in the world, the heir to the Marquis of Hertford. We also have an Indian Prince here, but I have not seen him. One famous physician, Dr. Beachet, gave us a delightful fete at his old chateau of Gresy last Saturday. We were received in a fine old court-yard under spreading chestnuts, with vineyards all about, and the picturesque peasantry stood in groups about the stables, granaries, wine vaults and pigeon-houses. The Duchess of Connaught presented Dr. Beachet with a gold cigarette-case, with her monogram in diamonds. It is, perhaps, the twenty-fourth jeweled cigarette-case which the popular Doctor owns, but this is by far the most handsome. It would be curious to trace the connection between royalty and tobacco. In the year of grace when Walter Raleigh discovered the fragrant weed he gave royalty a royal present. From that time gold snuff-boxes became the fashion. Elizabeth, James, William, and Mary, Anne, all the Georges gave gold [snuff?]-boxes to those whome they delighted to honor. Now that snuff goes out of fashion royalty gives cigarette-cases.
Many of the frequenters of Aix are vigorous huntsmen. They come here with their dogs and their carefully prepared hunting-dresses and evidently much satisfied with themselves. These gentlemen, who make a profession of journeying into the kingdom of St. Bubert, are of all classes. It is no longer the privilege of the grand seigneur. The hunters, therefore, realize the chimera called equality, Artisans and bankers, clerks and merchants, the bourgeois and the count, all meet at the railway station with dog and gun, to seek the covert of game, made one by commuity of ambition. Now immense flocks of birds are flying south, and in these migrations they are slaughtered indiscriminately. It is the paradise of amateurs in the art of shooting, and I saw a number of photographers carrying on both arts -taking pictures one day and shooting the next.
Of course wild ducks, quail and snipe, weedcock, and what I should call plover abound in the swamps and lakes and rivers of this curious country. The Kind of Italy however, flies at higher game. He is killing the chamels off on the other side of the Alps. Some of our sportsmen have just come from Lorraine and Alsace, the home of the German hunters; others from the plains of Champagne, where the vast forests are rich in game of all sorts - deer, wild bear, rabbits and gray partridges.
We have had some English doctors here who tell me that [Bath?], in England, has a sulphur spring that makes this at Aix a more spurt. That the volumes of boiling water which are utilized at Bath, and which come of their town account out of the ground, are forty times as great as this wonderful geyser at Aix. They have there an etablissement four times as large and twice as clean as ours here, all made of white marble, etc. That they are reviving all the gayety of the days of Beau Nash and of Miss Austin's novels.
"Have you the climate of Aix?" I asked.
"Alas, no!"
Sir William Jenan says a rheumatic wishes to be washed and dried and ironed. He can be washed in England, but when it comes to being dried and ironed he must come to the Continent.
Madame [Valda?], having returned from the United States on La Bretagne, went through Aix the other day on her way to Milan to secure singers for her new departure in America next winter, when she brings out Otello.
Two Russian ladies, Miles. Gortshakow, have lately ascended Mont Blanc. They were twenty hours in reaching the top. These two and one French lady are said to be the only women who have ever scaled that lofty peak.
We are just hearing rumors that Mrs. James Brown Potter refuses to accept Mr. Miner's proposals for her American tour. Punch says this has been a great year for Americans in London, what with the Wild West show and with the dramas - The Shadow of a Great City, written by Jefferson, being the best. I have just seen an article in the Figaro describing an interview with Buffalo Bill, who wishes to take his Indians to Paris, where, I think, he would be received with acclamation. How crazy they will be about "Chemise Rouge," as they call Red Shirt. It does not sound so strong in French, quite.
But "Fashion and Society Notes" can amuse themselves with describing the tollet of these aboriginal beaux and belles for Galignani. The English complain very much that Galignani is losing all its English complexion and becoming very American since Mr. Bennett bought it. - Corr. N. Y. World.
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