irregular square, and is one of the
most picturesque structures in the country. The winding road enters a
thicket of evergreens, crosses a bridge, and passes beneath an arch to
the paved court. Together, Cooper and his host had many walks and drives
thereabouts, and, all in all, the author fell under the spell of
Lafayette's personal charm and his simple integrity of character.
Between Lafayette's richness of years and Talleyrand's old age there was
a gulf,--one had attained nearly everything worth striving for; the
other had lost the same.

[Illustration: HOTEL DESSEIN, CALAIS, FRANCE.]

Cooper and his family entered France July, 1826, and February, 1828,
they thought the time had come to change the scene, and proceeded to
England. "I drove around to the rue d'Anjou to take my leave of General
Lafayette," wrote Cooper. To Calais they had rain and chill and darkness
most of the way. Passing through the gate, they drove to the inn
immortalized by Lawrence Sterne and Beau Brummel, where they found
English comfort with French cooking and French taste. One of February's
fine days they left the Hotel Dessein to embark for England. After a
two-hours' run the cliffs of Dover appeared on each side of that
port,--the nearest to the continent,--making these chalk cliffs seem,
Cooper says, "a magnificent gateway to a great nation." Leaving the
fishing-boats of the French coast, "the lofty canvas of countless ships
and several Indiamen rose from the sea," as they shot towards the
English shore, many "bound to that focus of coal-smoke, London." Quietly
landing at Dover-haven, they went to Wright's tavern, where they missed
the French manner, mirrors, and table-service, but "got in their place a
good deal of solid, unpretending comfort." In due time Mr. Wright put
them and their luggage into a comfortable post-coach, and on the road he
called "quite rotten, sir," to London. To Americans, at that date, the
road proved good, and also the horses that made the sixteen miles to
Canterbury in an hour and a half, where they drove to another Mr.
Wright's; going to four of the name between Dover and London, Cooper
concluded with an apology that "it was literally all Wright on this
road." The visit to Canterbury cathedral was made during "morning
vespers in the choir. It sounded odd to hear our own beautiful service
in our own tongue, in such a place, after the _Latin_ chants of canons;
and we stood listening with reverence without the scree