premier choix_. Then there are the
occupants of "_les petits menages_" to swoop down on your table for
crumbs,--pigeons only,--and in cages a score or more of canary-birds,
and, as a sort of contrast, dogs and cats and fowls of all varieties
of breed.

It sounds rather uncomfortable, but we did not find it so at all,
and, speaking from experience, it is one of the most enticing of the
various "artists' resorts" known.

[Illustration: At a French Inn]

It is but a short six kilometres to L'Isle-Adam, and it was ten the
next morning before we embarked. It is a small town mostly given over
to suburban houses of Paris brokers and merchants. It is an
attractive enough town as a place of residence, but of works of
artistic worth it has practically none, if we except the not very
splendid fifteenth-century church.

The largest of the islands here, just above the lock, was formerly
occupied by the chateau of the Prince de Conti. It was destroyed at
the Revolution but its place has been taken by a modern villa whose
gardens are kept up with remarkable skill and care, albeit it is
nothing but a villa _coquette_ on a large scale. L'Isle-Adam received
its name from the Connetable Adam who first built a chateau here in
1069.

The Foret de l'Isle-Adam is one of those noble woods in which the
north of France abounds. Like the Foret de Ermenonville, Compiegne,
and Chantilly it is beautifully kept, with great roads running
straight and silent through avenues of oaks.

The Chateau de Cassan, but a short distance into the Foret, has a
wonderful formal garden, laid out after the English manner and
ranking with the parks of the Trianon and Ermenonville.

After L'Isle-Adam we did not stop, except for the lock at Rougemont,
till the smoke-stacks and factory-belchings of Creil loomed up before
us thirty kilometres beyond.

Creil is commercial, very commercial, and is a railway junction like
Clapham Junction or South Chicago,--no, not quite; nowhere else, on
top of the green earth, are there quite such atrocious monuments to
man's lack of artistic taste. It is a pity Creil is so banal on close
acquaintance, for it is bejewelled with emerald hills and a tiny belt
of silvery water which, in the savage days of long ago, must have
given it preeminence among similar spots in the neighbourhood.

Just above is Pont St. Maxence, delightfully named and delightfully
placed, with a picture church of the best of Renaissance architecture
and an