otwithstanding the swiftness of the
vision, the headlong rush of the railway carriages, which seem
determined at every curve to plunge madly into the Rhone, the chateau
is so huge, extends so far along the neighboring slope, that it seems
to follow the wild race of the train and fixes in your eyes forever the
memory of its flights of steps, its balcony-rails, its Italian
architecture, two rather low stones surmounted by a terrace with little
pillars, flanked by two wings with slated roofs, and overlooking the
sloping banks, where the water from the cascades rushes down to the
river, the network of gravelled paths, the vista formed by hedges of
great height with a white statue at the end sharply outlined against
the blue sky as against the luminous background of a stained-glass
window. Far up, among the vast lawns whose brilliant verdure defies the
blazing climate, a gigantic cedar rears, terrace-like, its masses of
green foliage, with its swaying dark shadows,--an exotic figure, which
makes one think, as he stands before that sometime abode of a
farmer-general of the epoch of Louis XIV., of a tall negro carrying a
courtier's umbrella.

From Valence to Marseille, throughout the valley of the Rhone,
Saint-Romans de Bellaigue is as famous as a fairy palace; and a genuine
fairyland in those regions, scorched by the mistral, is that oasis of
verdure and of lovely, gushing water.

"When I am rich, mamma," Jansoulet, when he was a mere urchin, used to
say to his mother whom he adored, "I'll give you Saint-Romans de
Bellaigue."

And as that man's life seemed the realization of a tale of the
_Thousand and One Nights_, as all his wishes were gratified, even
the most unconscionable, as his wildest chimeras took definite shape
before him, and licked his hands like docile pet spaniels, he had
purchased Saint-Romans in order to present it to his mother, newly
furnished and gorgeously restored. Although ten years had passed since
then, the good woman was not yet accustomed to that magnificent
establishment. "Why, you have given me Queen Jeanne's palace, my dear
Bernard," she wrote to her son; "I shall never dare to live in it." As
a matter of fact she never had lived in it, having installed herself in
the steward's house, a wing of modern construction at the end of the
main buildings, conveniently situated for overlooking the servants'
quarters and the farm, the sheepfolds and the oil-presses, with their
rustic outlook of grain in