24 NOVEMBER 1944, Page 10

Strange though it may seem, she found Berlin " the

most beautiful town I .ever saw . . . the buildings are quite. magnificent." Lord Burghersh left her to join Allied Headquarters, but the carriage was got out again, and with Madame Legoux and the fat footman she followed hard after him. She had been advised to avoid the vicinity of Leipzig, since the carnage of battle still poisoned the air, and she .drove through Potsdam and Halle, through Naumburg and Weimar until she at length reached Frankfurt. Her road led along the lines of the French retreat, and she instructed the postillions to shout a warning " when we were coming to any dead bodies, so I escaped seeing many. I only saw five which came upon me unawares ; four of them were stripped of all clothing, two nearly skeletons." Andfinally- she reached Frankfurt, where she was welcomed by the Tsar, by Metternich, by the Grand Duchess Catherine, and by Lords Cathcart and Aberdeen. " I never was so disappointed as

in the Emperor Alexander. He is the image of

instead of red, and also very like W. the dentist." This only fair

assuredly have been Mr. Waite, whose name figures frequently in Byron's correspondence. From time to time Lord Burghersh could dash back from the front line for a few hours in her company ; at one moment she meets Castlereagh wearing a fur cap with a gold band, and looking young and very beautiful ; and thus she reaches Chatillon, where she finds the " Corsair " of Lord Byron and " am quite out of my wits with delight." At Langres she is almost cap- tured by a French patrol ; between Troyes and Dijon she has to share a Cossack bivouac ; finally she drives into Paris and all is well.