-English--comforts (low,
wide chairs, writing-table, rugs, cushions, and centre-table covered
with books in all languages, a very rare thing in a French chateau,
picture papers, photographs, etc.) and the straight-backed,
spindle-legged old furniture and stiff, old-fashioned ladies and
gentlemen, looking down from their heavy gold frames, is very
attractive. There is none of the formality and look of not being lived
in which one sees in so many French salons, and yet it is not at all
modern. One never loses for a moment the feeling of being in an old
chateau-fort.

It was so pretty looking out of my bedroom window this morning. It was
a bright, beautiful autumn day, the grass still quite green. Some of
the trees changing a little, the yellow leaves quite golden in the
sun. There are many American trees in the park--a splendid Virginia
Creeper, and a Gloire de Dijon rose-bush, still full of bloom, were
sprawling over the old gray walls. Animals of all kinds were walking
about the court-yard; some swans and a lame duck, which had wandered
up from the moat, standing on the edge and looking about with much
interest; a lively little fox-terrier, making frantic dashes at
nothing; one of the sons starting for a shoot with gaiters and
game-bag, and his gun over his shoulder, his dog at his heels
expectant and eager. Some of the guests were strolling about and from
almost all the windows--wide open to let in the warm morning
sun--there came cheerful greetings.

I went for a walk around the house before breakfast. There are five
large round towers covered with ivy--the walls extraordinarily
thick--the narrow little slits for shooting with arrows and the round
holes for cannon balls tell their own story of rough feudal life. On
one side of the castle there is a large hole in the wall, made by a
cannon ball sent by Turenne. He was passing one day and asked to whom
the chateau belonged. On hearing that the owner was the Marechal de la
Feuillade, one of his political adversaries, he sent a cannon ball as
a souvenir of his passage, and the gap has never been filled up.

I went all over the house later with the Marquis de Lasteyrie. Of
course, what interested me most was Lafayette's private
apartments--bedroom and library--the latter left precisely as it was
during Lafayette's lifetime; bookcases filled with his books in their
old-fashioned bindings, running straight around the walls and a
collection of manuscripts and autograph le