e l'abbesse, d'ou, quand cette
maison a ete reunie ou Prieure de Champ Benoit a Provins, il a passe
dans le cabinet des antiques et curiosites de l'abbaye de St. Genevieve
du Mont a Paris, ou il est encore. On lit au bas de ce portrait, ces
mots, Religieuse de Moret." Such are the words of the extract relative
to this singular person.

The Hotel de Poste, (as it chooses to style itself) at Fossard, is a
dismal pot-house; and the people possess none of that good humour and
alacrity which cover a multitude of faults. Having swallowed some of
their gritty coffee, which might have been very delectable to the palate
of a Turk, we walked about a mile and a half to the bridge[1] of
Montereau-sur-Yonne, on which John Duke of Burgundy was murdered by
Tannegui de Chastel, in the presence, and probably with the connivance
of the Dauphin, afterwards Charles VII. Near this spot we remarked a
small mass of ruins, the only remains of the once magnificent Chateau
Varennes. Its former owner, the Duke de Chatelet, as we were informed by
some market-people, resided for six months in the year at this seat,
maintaining or employing most of the poor within his reach, and
entertaining his peasantry with a weekly dance at the Chateau. Like many
others, he fell a victim to the guillotine during the reign of terror;
his lands, with the exception of a portion recovered by his heirs, were
alienated, and the fragment which we observed was the only part of his
residence left standing. From the tone and manner in which the French
peasantry appear to speak of these very common occurrences, I should
judge that the effects of the revolution have not yet eradicated that
"subordination of the heart," which is natural among a simple and
industrious people, and which nothing but very gross neglect or
misconduct on the part of their superiors, or the unchecked licence of
political quacks, can destroy. Most of the ravages in question might no
doubt be traced to bands of plunderers, organized from the most
desperate and notorious characters in many different parishes, and
sufficiently countenanced by the revolutionary tribunals to overawe the
peaceable and unarmed mass of the population, whom it would be hardly
fair to confound with them. Let us fancy for a moment, how quickly,
under similar political circumstances, a moveable Spencean brigade
might be collected in any district of England from poachers,
sheep-stealers, gypsies, incendiaries, and those whose la