to be spoken of.

The park or garden of Montmorency is not a plain, like that of the
Chevrette. It is uneven, mountainous, raised by little hills and
valleys, of which the able artist has taken advantage; and thereby varied
his groves, ornaments, waters, and points of view, and, if I may so
speak, multiplied by art and genius a space in itself rather narrow.
This park is terminated at the top by a terrace and the castle; at bottom
it forms a narrow passage which opens and becomes wider towards the
valley, the angle of which is filled up with a large piece of water.
Between the orangery, which is in this widening, and the piece of water,
the banks of which are agreeably decorated, stands the Little Castle of
which I have spoken. This edifice, and the ground about it, formerly
belonged to the celebrated Le Brun, who amused himself in building and
decorating it in the exquisite taste of architectual ornaments which that
great painter had formed to himself. The castle has since been rebuilt,
but still, according to the plan and design of its first master. It is
little and simple, but elegant. As it stands in a hollow between the
orangery and the large piece of water, and consequently is liable to be
damp, it is open in the middle by a peristyle between two rows of
columns, by which means the air circulating throughout the whole edifice
keeps it dry, notwithstanding its unfavorable situation. When the
building is seen from the opposite elevation, which is a point of view,
it appears absolutely surrounded with water, and we imagine we have
before our eyes an enchanted island, or the most beautiful of the three
Boromeans, called Isola Bella, in the greater lake.

In this solitary edifice I was offered the choice of four complete
apartments it contains, besides the ground floor, consisting of a dancing
room, billiard room and a kitchen. I chose the smallest over the
kitchen, which also I had with it. It was charmingly neat, with blue and
white furniture. In this profound and delicious solitude, in the midst
of the woods, the singing of birds of every kind, and the perfume of
orange flowers, I composed, in a continual ecstasy, the fifth book of
Emilius, the coloring of which I owe in a great measure to the lively
impression I received from the place I inhabited.

With what eagerness did I run every morning at sunrise to respire the
perfumed air in the peristyle! What excellent coffee I took there
tete-a-tete with my