of fishermen, which dart past like phantoms. In that
profound peace, lulled by the slow and equal motion of the boat, men
and women fall asleep side by side, and the boat leaves nothing in its
wake save the confused murmur of the water and the sound of the
sleepers' breathing.

As we went on our way gardens and villas became more frequent. My
travelling companion showed me a distant steeple, and pointed out the
village of Ryswick, where in 1697 was signed the celebrated treaty of
peace between France, England, Spain, Germany, and Holland. The castle
of the Prince of Orange, where the treaty was signed, is no longer
standing. An obelisk has been erected on its site.

Suddenly the _trekschuit_ emerged from the trees, and I saw before me
an extended plain, a large woodland, and a city crowned with towers
and windmills.

It was the Hague.

The boatman asked me to pay my fare, and received the money in a
leather bag. The driver urged on the horse, and in a few minutes we
were in town. After a quarter of an hour I found myself in a spotless
room in the Hotel du Marechal de Turenne. Who knows? It may have been
the very room in which the celebrated Marshal slept as a young man
when he was in the service of the house of Orange.

The Hague--in Dutch 'SGravenhage or 'SHage--the political capital, the
Washington of Holland, whose New York is Amsterdam--is a city that is
partly Dutch and partly French. It has wide streets without canals,
vast wooded squares, grand houses, splendid hotels, and a population
composed in great part of wealthy citizens, nobles, public officers,
men of letters, and artists; in a word, a much more refined populace
than that of any of the other cities of Holland.

What most impressed me in my first walk round the city were the new
quarters where dwells the flower of the moneyed aristocracy. In no
other city, not even in the Faubourg St. Germain in Paris, had I ever
felt myself such a poor devil as in those streets. They are wide and
straight, with small palaces on either side: these are artistic in
design and harmonious in coloring, with large windows without blinds,
through which one can see the carpets, vases of flowers, and the
sumptuous furniture of the rooms on the ground floor. All the doors
were closed, and not a shop was to be seen, not an advertisement on
the walls, not a stain nor a straw could be found, if one had a
hundred eyes. When I passed through the streets there was a profound
sile