THE YPRES TIMES
227
I recollect my first dinner at the Antoine. Each nationality had its own table but
the British alone was still graced by feminine society, Lady Villiers having elected
to remain notwithstanding the Zeppelin raids which had driven away the rest of her
sex and with her Miss Marjorie Villiers, a handsome girl of 17. There was also the
Russian Minister, Prince Koudashef, whose own entourage had deserted him, full of
information about the progress of the Russian steam-roller progress so irresistible
that one felt the war might fizzle out at any moment. A charming fellow, Koudashef,"
I remember Sir Francis remarking, It's a pity one can't believe a word of it."
[By kind permission of Captain G. Spencer Pryse and courtesy of the Leicester Galleries
From a lithograph made by Captain G. Spencer Pryse at a cross-road near Soissons on August 30th,
1914. Captain Spencer Pryse was in France before the Belgium period dealt with in this article.
Only six proofs are in existence of the original lithograph from which our reproduction is taken.
One is in the possession of H.M. The Queen Dowager of Belgium and another in the Metropolitan
Museum in New York.
In addition to officials and diplomats, a few others were to be found at the Antoine,
the oddest assemblage when one thinks of it. A retired major, incapable of putting
together two words in any language except English, who had arrived with a string of
much-needed ambulance cars and remained to pick up a collection of Prussian spiked
helmets from the battlefields. And Mr. Walter Savage Landor preparing to write a
history of the European War and determined to see something of the fighting before it
ended, and along with him his cousin the Due de Morny, whose presence did not appear
to serve any purpose whatever. Then there was Gibson, First Secretary to the American
Legation, an occasional visitor whose comings and goings invariably caused a stir