, Dublin, where his brother officers erected a marble tablet to
his memory. He left an only daughter, who was married, in 1826, to M.
G. Benson, Esq., of Lulwyche Hall, Salop. It is through this lady that
we have been permitted to inspect the family papers relating to the
life and death of Captain Riou.

A VISIT TO THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS.

[Illustration: "The country of Felix Neff." (Dauphiny.)]

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

Dauphiny is one of the least visited of all the provinces of France.
It occupies a remote corner of the empire, lying completely out of the
track of ordinary tourists. No great road passes through it into
Italy, the Piedmontese frontier of which it adjoins; and the annual
streams of English and American travellers accordingly enter that
kingdom by other routes. Even to Frenchmen, who travel little in their
own country and still less in others, Dauphiny is very little known;
and M. Joanne, who has written an excellent Itinerary of the South of
France, almost takes the credit of having discovered it.

Yet Dauphiny is a province full of interest. Its scenery almost vies
with that of Switzerland in grandeur, beauty, and wildness. The great
mountain masses of the Alps do not end in Savoy, but extend through
the south-eastern parts of France, almost to the mouths of the Rhone.
Packed closer together than in most parts of Switzerland, the
mountains of Dauphiny are furrowed by deep valleys, each with its
rapid stream or torrent at bottom, in some places overhung by
precipitous rocks, in others hemmed in by green hills, over which are
seen the distant snowy peaks and glaciers of the loftier mountain
ranges. Of these, Mont Pelvoux--whose double pyramid can be seen from
Lyons on a clear day, a hundred miles off--and the Aiguille du Midi,
are among the larger masses, rising to a height little short of Mont
Blanc itself.

From the ramparts of Grenoble the panoramic view is of wonderful
beauty and grandeur, extending along the valleys of the Isere and the
Drac, and across that of the Romanche. The massive heads of the Grand
Chartreuse mountains bound the prospect to the north; and the summits
of the snow-clad Dauphiny Alps on the south and east present a
combination of bold valley and mountain scenery, the like of which is
not to be seen in France, if in Europe.

But it is not the scenery, or the geology, or the flora of the
province, however marvellous these may be, that constitutes the