dled around the outworks of the colossal castle,
almost as closely as are the climbing streets and the terraced houses of
St.-Michel around the martial monastery; and each of these two places
is, in its own kind, unique.

I had been strongly recommended to pass the night when I visited the
chateau, not in the little city itself, though it boasts a 'Hotel des
Ruines,' but at a little wayside inn, rather indeed a restaurant and a
baiting-place for travellers by the highway than an inn, which stands at
the foot of the hill of Coucy. I took the advice, and had no cause to
repent it. The walk up the hill, of some two miles, to the tower and the
castle was simply delightful on a fine afternoon in June. Opposite my
little inn is a small and rather dilapidated chateau of the eighteenth
century, which originally must have been a very pleasant residence; and
in the extensive meadows about it were grazing a number of fine cattle,
the property of M. de Vaublanche. 'He is the only man hereabouts who
takes any trouble with his beasts,' said my cheery, athletic young
host, and leading the way for me into the meadows, he pointed out the
princes of the herd, all of them really fine animals of the best French
breeds, with as much pride as if he had been the owner. 'It gives more
pleasure to see these--does it not, sir?--than to look at yonder dead
chimney,' he said, pointing to some extensive sugarworks, all closed and
deserted, on the other side of the road. The sugar crisis has been very
sharp here, as in other parts of France, and many smokeless chimneys are
to be seen here as in other departments.

An embattled gateway of the thirteenth century welcomes the traveller
now with its open arch as he approaches the town of Coucy, and the best
views of the chateau are to be got from the road as you climb up the
long ascent.

In the quaint little town the house is still carefully preserved, and
the chamber itself religiously kept in order, in which, on June 7, 1594,
Gabrielle d'Estrees gave birth to a son destined afterwards to make his
mark in the military annals of France as Cesar, Duc de Vendome. An
inscription on a tablet in the wall thus commemorates his advent into
the world: 'In this chamber was born, and in the chamber above was
baptized, the legitimised son of France, de Vendome, a prince of very
good hopes, the child of the most Christian, most magnanimous, most
invincible, and most clement King of France and of Navarre, Henry I