8. Bucharest, 1928 (continued)

Vienna to Budapest (Map 5-6)

The promised Hungarian escort evidently did not arrive before Rachel reached Gyor. She was walking beside Le Huppé when she was approached by an insistant photographer who wanted to take their picture. For the first and only time during her long rides through Europe she pulled out her revolver and frightened the man away.

The news had already reached Gyor by the time Rachel and Le Huppé arrived. "When Miss d'Orange was asked... why she had threatened the photographer with her revolver, she replied that she did not want a picture of her to appear in the newspaper in which she was shown walking beside her horse instead of sitting in the saddle."

The photographer was not the only instance of unwelcome attention that she received on her way to Bucharest. Some of it crossed the boundary into sexual harassment.

The crowds along Mariahilferstrasse who cheered her arrival in Vienna included two young louts who "expressed their admiration for the endurance and toughness of that part of Mademoiselle d'Orange's body which, in their opinion, must have been subjected to the greatest strain during the Paris-Bucharest ride. For reasons of delicacy, however, we will not reveal the Viennese vernacular represented by the two hopeful Mariahilfer boys...."

The reporter found the insult amusing enough to broadcast to the readership of the Illustrierte Kronen Zeitung.

The harassment was not limited to anonymous voices in the crowd. On May 25, a week after Rachel left Vienna, Der Morgen published a cartoon in the same vein (left). She would encounter even worse treatment in Bucharest.

Nevertheless, these jarring experiences were isolated incidents in what was an almost uniformly enthusiastic reception to Rachel and Le Huppé during their journey. When she got to Ács on May 23 she was received as a guest by yet another Hungarian noble, Count Ernö Zichy, and spent yet another night in a mansion.

When Rachel reached Piliscsaba, 25 kilometers from Budapest, at 9 a.m. on Friday, May 25 the Budapest equestrians were already waiting to escort her into the city. At 5 p.m. she was checked into a two-room suite on the main floor of the Royal Hotel and barely an hour later, after she had had a bath, the reporters trooped in one at a time and began asking the now familiar questions about her adventures and her wardrobe.

"We are expecting a muscular amazon dressed in buckskin and who is probably waiting for her guests in breeches. On the other hand, we find a girl who looks like she is twenty years old. Later it turns out that she is not quite twenty yet. She is not wearing anything like an amazon. She is wearing a black evening dress. Her arms and neck are snow-white, but her face and ears are all dark brown, obviously from the sun...."

Rachel was dressed to go to a Schubert concert performed by the Hungarian National Conservatory that evening.

"That is why she put on an evening gown, silk stockings, and gold shoes. The evening gown – a Poiret Model – looks very elegant on Miss D'Orange....

Paul Poiret had been one of the foremost fashion designers of Paris before World War I, though in the 1920s he was increasingly eclipsed by younger designers like Coco Chanel. In 1928, however, his designs were still being celebrated in Vogue Magazine.

"She sits in a comfortable armchair in the crosshairs of curious eyes, energetically crossing her legs and smilingly waiting for questions.... It's strange, but when she sits like that, no one would believe that she's been riding a thousand kilometers.

"In the meantime, journalists introduce themselves one after another, and Miss D'Orange welcomes the new visitors with visible joy. When she explains the route, she takes out her notebook, in which it is noted in each row where she stopped for a rest or accommodation. It contains the seal of every inn and a host of signatures from associations and private individuals...."

"Not quite twenty yet" suggests that Rachel was shaving nearly ten years off her age, and what's more, looked young enough to get away with it. She was now actually 29.