miles,
had, ever since Jean Bouvet invented rafts, given full money value to
the forests of Les Aigues, Soulanges, and Ronquerolles, standing on the
crest of the hills between which this charming river flows. The park
of Les Aigues covers the greater part of the valley, between the river
(bordered on both sides by the forest called des Aigues) and the royal
mail road, defined by a line of old elms in the distance along the
slopes of the Avonne mountains, which are in fact the foot-hills of that
magnificent amphitheater called the Morvan.

However vulgar the comparison may be, the park, lying thus at the bottom
of the valley, is like an enormous fish with its head at Conches and
its tail in the village of Blangy; for it widens in the middle to nearly
three hundred acres, while towards Conches it counts less than fifty,
and sixty at Blangy. The position of this estate, between three
villages, and only three miles from the little town of Soulanges, from
which the descent is rapid, may perhaps have led to the strife and
caused the excesses which are the chief interest attaching to the
place. If, when seen from the mail road or from the uplands beyond
Ville-aux-Fayes, the paradise of Les Aigues induces mere passing
travellers to commit the mortal sin of envy, why should the rich
burghers of Soulanges and Ville-aux-Fayes who had it before their eyes
and admired it every day of their lives, have been more virtuous?

This last topographical detail was needed to explain the site, also the
use of the four gates by which alone the park of Les Aigues was entered;
for it was completely surrounded by walls, except where nature had
provided a fine view, and at such points sunk fences or ha-has had been
placed. The four gates, called the gate of Conches, the gate of Avonne,
the gate of Blangy, and the gate of the Avenue, showed the styles of
the different periods at which they were constructed so admirably that a
brief description, in the interest of archaeologists, will presently be
given, as brief as the one Blondet has already written about the gate of
the Avenue.

After eight days of strolling about with the countess, the illustrious
editor of the "Journal des Debats" knew by heart the Chinese kiosk, the
bridges, the isles, the hermitage, the dairy, the ruined temple, the
Babylonian ice-house, and all the other delusions invented by landscape
architects which some nine hundred acres of land can be made to serve.
He now wished to