ntirely new country; but, parts of
Champagne and the Ardennes excepted, a country that proved to be the
most dreary portion of France we had yet been in. While trotting along a
good road, through this naked, stony region, we came to a little valley
in which there was a village that was almost as wild in appearance, as
one of those on the Great St. Bernard. A rivulet flowed through the
village, and meandered by our side, among the half sterile meadows. It
was positively the only agreeable object that we had seen for some
hours. Recollecting the stream at Tuttlingen, A---- desired me to ask
the postilion, if it had a name. "_Monsieur, cette petite riviere
s'appelle la Seine._" We were, then, at the sources of the Seine!
Looking back I perceived, by the formation of the land, that it must
take its rise a short distance beyond the village, among some naked and
dreary-looking hills. A little beyond these, again, the streams flow
towards the tributaries of the Rhone, and we were consequently in the
high region where the waters of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean
divide. Still there were no other signs of our being at such an
elevation, except in the air of sterility that reigned around. It
really seemed as if the river, so notoriously affluent in mud, had taken
down with it all the soil.

LETTER XXVIII.

Miserable Inn.--A French Bed.--Free-Trade.--French Relics.--Cross
Roads.--Arrival at La Grange.--Reception by General Lafayette.--The
Nullification Strife.--Conversation with Lafayette.--His Opinion as to a
Separation of the Union in America.--The Slave Question.--Stability of
the Union.--Style of living at La Grange.--Pap.--French Manners, and the
French Cuisine.--Departure from La Grange.--Return to Paris.

Dear ----,

I have little to say of the next two days' drive, except that ignorance,
and the poetical conceptions of a postilion, led us into the scrape of
passing a night in just the lowest inn we had entered in Europe. We
pushed on after dark to reach this spot, and it was too late to proceed,
as all of the party were excessively fatigued. To be frank with you, it
was an _auberge aux charretiers_. Eating was nearly out of the question;
and yet I had faith to the last, in a French bed. The experience of this
night, however, enables me to say all France does not repose on
excellent wool mattresses, for we were obliged to put up with a good
deal of straw. And yet the people were assiduous, anxious to please,