NOT ALL VANITY

..... but more than a little pomp and ceremony to this grand tour of the continent, France, England, Russia, Poland which bids a fond farewell to the aristocracy of blood- and wealth. Reared in Paris, in the extravagant '80's, Agnes' marriage to the Baron Sasha de Stoeckl, at the time attached to the Embassy and later the equerry to the Grand Duke Michel, brought her into the orbit of royal and imperial society, led her through the rounds of balls and banquets. With the war, and the revolution, and in spite of her daughter's marriage and the happiness derived from her young family, there followed ten years of ""work or want"", the death of her husband and a grandson, the close friendship with the Duke and Duchess of Kent, ending with diary notes on the last war.... A gone are the days recall, ancien regime at heart and in manner, which has little more than a faded glory.