The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1919-01-03
BARONESS CHARETTE
ENTERTAINS THE
TENNESSEE BOYS
France.

! from you few days ago dated Ocob-
er 4, and YVES certainly glad to hear
from you once more.
/ had a wonderful time during my
seven days leave of absence (fur-
lough). Yves really gone two weeks,
as the time it takes travelling does
not count on the seven days. st.
Malo is a wonderful town of about
$4,000 inhabitants and is located on
the coast brittany Coast) or North
western Coast of France. l was
really stationed at Dinard across the
bay from st. Malo, and l think that
it is a great deal prottier than the
last named town. If we had been at
Dinard about a month earlier we
would have had lots of bathing, as
the beach is some pretty and it is a
summer resort of the British and
French people. Many individual
bathing houses are located on this
beach. AS it was we passed away
some of our time in the morning by
playing baseball, football and basket
ball on the beach and we generally
had good weather for same. We
really had warm weather as O gulf
stream passes this coast, and every
thing was green and fresh. 1t is
some pretty place and l could never
have expected any better time. The
Y. M. C. A. carried on some interest
ing trips around this town and
went on several of them. We had
lunch with the Baroness de Charette,
who formerly lived in Nashville,
Tenn, and Is a second cousin OF
President James X. Polk. So you see
she is a native Tennessean. On every
Wednesday this lady invited as many
soldiers as wished to come out and
take lunch with her, so there was al
ways large crowd to make this trip.
There were about three hundred who
made the trip the same time as did,.
This madam had been sick for sew
eral weeks and was unable therefore
to meet all of the fellows, SO she
asked for the Tennessears to come up
to her room to talk with her. There
were not but two of us, and l con-
slider that it was some honor to make
this lady's acquaintance. She has
lived in this part of the world for
55 years, ten years of which were
spent in Rome, italy and has not
been in the United States in eleven
years. She also has about forty
relatives on this side of the water in
he American army and has seen only
)ne of them. Believe me, she was an
talker and l spent en-
lour conversing with her.
On another trip we crossed over
he river by motor boat to st. Malo,
hen took a train especially prepared
or us and rode sixty miles to Mont
st. Michel which is located in Nor
mandy. This is some historical place
md is one of the pridcs of France,
is the British were never able to
AXE this place in the French Eng
ish war. An old abbey is also To-
ated on the highest point of this
,lace and we went all thru it. Saw
dungeons, all kinds of skeletons,
wooden images, etc. This is beau
iful abbey, and every style of archi-
ecture was used in it's construction
nd the pillars of support are i'm
nense. There io an interesting mu-
cum at Mont st. Michel, with all of
he old kinds of guns swords, he'll
nets, etc.
We had some danfes at Dinard on !
tuesdays and Saturdays from $3.50
i'll II p. m. English, French, Bel I
ian and American ladies were pres
Mt at these dances. However, there 6
rere so many soldiers so anxious to {
ance that there was n OF much s
leasure to be hadsat the dances. And '
he French music was not Jazzy I
nough to suit any of Us. And the '
iris, with the exception of the
mericans, did not know our style Q
dancing. Howey the girls had Q
ancing classes each morning at IL t
nd were learning real fast. The f
Y" man had to 'stand guard with '
whistle in his mouth and blew this g
histle for a signal to change part a
ears so that everyone would have a
q opportunity of dancing. 1t was [
,al comical to see the soldiers d
'ramble for girl. looked as tho 7
ley were tackling football game d
i'd q fellow did not get time enough h
get back into practice as the t
histle would be blown very often. v
course I had several dances and b
I'd quite a bit of fun. lc