The Indiscretions of a Lady's Maid

A lady's maid sees everything: the letters, the jewels, the men on the back stairs, the countess who cannot pay her dressmaker. Le Queux — who wrote invasion scares that helped talk Britain into founding its Secret Service, and claimed a spy network of his own — here plays the gossip of Europe's hotels for all it is worth. Fifty-eight plates, from Constable's Hampstead Heath to Boldini's portraits of the countesses and courtesans whose secrets Mariette carried, match picture to gossip across a century of European vanity.