tion, on the highways of his
estate. Thus, whenever M. le Marquis felt disposed to visit the
chateau, there was a general muster, to enable him and his friends to
reach the house in safety, and to amuse themselves during their
residence; after which the whole again reverted to the control of nature
and accident. To be frank, one sometimes meets with by-roads in this old
country, which are positively as bad as the very worst of our own, in
the newest settlements. Last year I actually travelled post for twenty
miles on one of these trackless ways.

We were more fortunate, however, on the present occasion; the road we
took being what is called a _route departementale_, and little, if any,
inferior to the one we had left. Our drive was through a slightly
undulating country that was prettily wooded, and in very good
agriculture. In all but the wheel-track, the traveller gains by quitting
the great routes in France, for nothing can be more fatiguing to the eye
than their straight undeviating monotony. They are worse than any of our
own air-line turnpikes; for in America the constant recurrence of small
isolated bits of wood greatly relieves the scenery.

We drove through this country some three or four leagues, until we at
length came to an estate of better arrangements than common. On our left
was a wood, and on our right a broad reach of meadow. Passing the wood,
we saw a wide, park-like lawn, that was beautifully shaded by copses,
and in which there were touches of landscape-gardening, in a taste
altogether better than was usual in France. Passing this, another wood
met us, and turning it, we entered a private road--you will remember the
country has neither fence nor hedge, nor yet scarcely a wall--which
wound round its margin, describing an irregular semicircle. Then it ran
in a straight line for a short distance, among a grove of young
evergreens, towards two dark picturesque towers covered with ivy,
crossed a permanent bridge that spanned a ditch, and dashing through a
gateway, in which the grooves of the portcullis are yet visible, we
alighted in the court of La Grange!

It was just nine, and the family was about assembling in the
drawing-room. The "_le General sera charme de vous voir, monsieur_," of
the faithful Bastien, told us we should find his master at home; and on
the great stairs, most of the ladies met us. In short, the patriarch was
under his own roof, surrounded by that family which has so long been the