“Her Majesty is going to bathe.”
British modesty urged a quiet retreat, but French system being different, we spectators to the number of some hundreds were ranged along the sands in two long lines, with a narrow lane clear between, and grave Gendarmes keeping the ranks in order.
The usual proceedings one sees at French bathing towns were all in action round about us. Ladies dressed to the highest pitch, mingled with others in bathing costume. Gentlemen walking quite composed and dripping wet with ladies just come out of the sea and just going in again. Young girls in canoes boldly paddling, and gaily upsetting the little craft, while they swam alongside. Rafts with men and women, half-floating as they held by the sides, and chattered and basked in the sun. All this difficult interlude on dry-land manners was conducted with perfect decorum, a telling lesson to Britons who bathe.
Perhaps, however, we should not like to see our Royal Family follow the example of what came next. First there marched out of the Imperial Villa a number of tall, liveried footmen, each with a tray or basket piled up high with feminine finery, and this procession wended its way to two pretty little tents hard by the sea.
Next there appeared the Empress and four maids of honour, who came also to the tents, the Empress going alone into one with a tasteful blue and silver drapery round it. See, now the ladies emerge from their disrobing rooms, and walk slowly down to the water between the double line of inquisitive but respectful visitors. Each lady has a coat, vest, and trousers of black silk, with the neatest of little boots, and the most winning of large-brimmed black straw hats—that of the Empress being trimmed with a narrow band of red.
When they reached the water five big fellows approached, all dressed in red flannel. These bathing men each proceeded to tie an empty gourd, like a water-bottle, a sort of life-preserver, round the waist of a lady, and then, first politely bowing, he lifted the lady in his arms, as a nurse catches up a little child, and so with his fair burden he marched into the waves.
When they were at about four feet deep the man allowed the lady to float on her back, and with his arms under her arms he supported her as each wave rose and fell.
All the time of these strange doings there was a large boat close to the merry party, and with several men in it, who kept beating the water with long poles—What is that for? To keep away the sharks. [291] Such is Majesty afloat. Yes, they do these things better in France!
And now, near the end of our voyage alone, came the pleasantest part of it all, because the most useful to others. We had anchored often beside these three ships for boys, and always with more delight:—the ‘Worcester,’ for gentlemen cadets; the ‘Chichester,’ for homeless boys; and the ‘Cornwall,’ for lads sent to her as a Reformatory ship.