extensive domain called Chateau-le-Blanc, situated
in the province of Languedoc, on the shore of the Mediterranean. This
estate, which, during some centuries, had belonged to his family,
now descended to him, on the decease of his relative, the Marquis De
Villeroi, who had been latterly a man of reserved manners and austere
character; circumstances, which, together with the duties of his
profession, that often called him into the field, had prevented any
degree of intimacy with his cousin, the Count De Villefort. For many
years, they had known little of each other, and the Count received the
first intelligence of his death, which happened in a distant part of
France, together with the instruments, that gave him possession of the
domain Chateau-le-Blanc; but it was not till the following year, that
he determined to visit that estate, when he designed to pass the autumn
there. The scenes of Chateau-le-Blanc often came to his remembrance,
heightened by the touches, which a warm imagination gives to the
recollection of early pleasures; for, many years before, in the
life-time of the Marchioness, and at that age when the mind is
particularly sensible to impressions of gaiety and delight, he had once
visited this spot, and, though he had passed a long intervening period
amidst the vexations and tumults of public affairs, which too frequently
corrode the heart, and vitiate the taste, the shades of Languedoc and
the grandeur of its distant scenery had never been remembered by him
with indifference.

During many years, the chateau had been abandoned by the late Marquis,
and, being inhabited only by an old steward and his wife, had been
suffered to fall much into decay. To superintend the repairs, that would
be requisite to make it a comfortable residence, had been a principal
motive with the Count for passing the autumnal months in Languedoc; and
neither the remonstrances, or the tears of the Countess, for, on
urgent occasions, she could weep, were powerful enough to overcome his
determination. She prepared, therefore, to obey the command, which she
could not conquer, and to resign the gay assemblies of Paris,--where her
beauty was generally unrivalled and won the applause, to which her
wit had but feeble claim--for the twilight canopy of woods, the lonely
grandeur of mountains and the solemnity of gothic halls and of long,
long galleries, which echoed only the solitary step of a domestic, or
the measured clink, that ascended fr