Page:Maud, Renée - One year at the Russian court 1904-1905.djvu/23

Rh Europe, being well known both in London and Berlin. Being married at the age of eighteen to my uncle, my grandmother's brother, she had accompanied her husband during his entire diplomatic career—necessarily a somewhat nomadic existence. My aunt welcomed me with much warmth, which touched me profoundly. I had met her for the first time in 1900 on the occasion of her visit to Paris at the time of the Great Exhibition, after which she had come to Normandy, and it was during this visit that I began to form for her that deep admiration and affection which her memory will always invoke in me.

My aunt was altogether charming; tall and very distinguished looking, and extraordinarily refined—in fact a real grande dame to her fingertips. She appeared to be much younger than she was. Her beautiful features had preserved a wonderfully youthful charm, to be seen at their full value when she smiled that sweet smile of hers—so good and so true. I very soon began positively to adore her.

During her youth my aunt had been very pretty, with her dazzling fair hair and fresh pink and white complexion, so much so that at a great Court ball at the Winter Palace one of the Grand Dukes remarked: "She is not a woman, she is a swan!"

Even at the time of my visit she still gave one this impression: she was so graceful in all her movements and as active and supple as any young woman of twenty-five; and, to see her