at Beaucourt daily changes the orthography of
this place. He has now fixed it, by having painted up outside the garden
gate, 'Entree particuliere de la Villa des Moulineaux.' On another gate
a little higher up, he has had painted 'Entree des Ecuries de la Villa
des Moulineaux.' On another gate a little lower down (applicable to one
of the innumerable buildings in the garden), 'Entree du Tom Pouce.' On
the highest gate of the lot, leading to his own house, 'Entree du
Chateau Napoleonienne.' All of which inscriptions you will behold in
black and white when you come. I see little of him now, as, all things
being 'bien arrangees,' he is delicate of appearing. His wife has been
making a trip in the country during the last three weeks, but (as he
mentioned to me with his hat in his hand) it was necessary that he
should remain here, to be continually at the disposition of the tenant
of the Property. (The better to do this, he has had roaring dinner
parties of fifteen daily; and the old woman who milks the cows has been
fainting up the hill under vast burdens of champagne.)

"We went to the theatre last night, to see the _Midsummer Night's
Dream_--of the Opera Comique. It is a beautiful little theatre now, with
a very good company; and the nonsense of the piece was done with a sense
quite confounding in that connexion. Willy Am Shay Kes Peer; Sirzhon
Foll Stayffe; Lor Lattimeer; and that celebrated Maid of Honour to Queen
Elizabeth, Meees Oleeveeir--were the principal characters.

"Outside the old town, an army of workmen are (and have been for a week
or so, already) employed upon an immense building which I supposed might
be a Fort, or a Monastery, or a Barrack, or other something designed to
last for ages. I find it is for the annual fair, which begins on the
fifth of August and lasts a fortnight. Almost every Sunday we have a
fete, where there is dancing in the open air, and where immense men with
prodigious beards revolve on little wooden horses like Italian irons, in
what we islanders call a roundabout, by the hour together. But really
the good humour and cheerfulness are very delightful. Among the other
sights of the place, there is a pig-market every Saturday, perfectly
insupportable in its absurdity. An excited French peasant, male or
female, with a determined young pig, is the most amazing spectacle. I
saw a little Drama enacted yesterday week, the drollery of which was
perfect. _Dram. Pers._ 1. A pretty young woman wi