proverbial for their excellence. I spent a very
agreeable day with mine hosts. Their house is large and pleasantly
situated, and the view of Paris from thence is rather picturesque. But I
was most struck with the conversation and conduct of Madame Treuttel. She
is a thoroughly good woman. She has raised, at her own expense, an
alms-house in the village for twelve poor men; and built a national school
for the instruction of the poor and ignorant of both sexes. She is herself
a Lutheran Protestant; as are her husband and her son-in-law M. Wuertz. At
first, she had some difficulties to encounter respecting the _school_; and
sundry conferences with the village Cure, and some of the head clergy of
Paris, were in consequence held. At length all difficulties were surmounted
by the promise given, on the part of Madame Treuttel, to introduce only the
French version of the Bible by _De Sacy_. Hence the school was built, and
the children of the village flocked in numbers to it for instruction. I
visited both the alms-house and the school, and could not withhold my
tribute of hearty commendation at the generosity, and thoroughly Christian
spirit, of the foundress of such establishments. There is more good sense
and more private and public virtue, in the application of superfluous
wealth in this manner, than in the erection of a hundred palaces like that
at _Versailles!_[126]

A different, and a more touching object presented itself to my view in the
garden. Walking with Madame, we came, through various detours, into a
retired and wooded part: where, on opening a sort of wicket gate, I found
myself in a small square space, with hillocks in the shape of _tumuli_
before me. A bench was at the extremity. It was a resting place for the
living, and a depository of the dead. Flowers, now a good deal faded, were
growing upon these little mounds--beneath which the dead seemed to sleep in
peace. "What might this mean?" "Sir," replied Madame Treuttel, "this is
consecrated ground. My son-in-law sleeps here--and his only and beloved
child lies by the side of him. You will meet my daughter, his wife, at
dinner. She, with myself, visit this spot at stated seasons--when we renew
and indulge our sorrows on the recollection of those who sleep beneath.
These are losses which the world can never repair. We all mean to be
interred within the same little fenced space.[127] I have obtained a long
lease of it--for some fifty years: at the expiration of whi