ans are still divided on the quality of this act, whether it is
to be considered as a just execution, or as a cowardly assassination.
Considering the necessary falsehood, and breach of faith, under which it
must have been perpetrated, the moralist can have no hesitation to
execrate it as a murder.

We passed from this part of the castle to the tower at the western
extremity, called La Tour de chateau Regnaud, and so called, because a
seigniory of that name, though distant twenty-one miles, is visible from
its summit. The Cardinal of Guise, being seized on the same day in which
his brother was assassinated, was imprisoned in this castle, and after
passing a night in the dungeons, was executed on the day following. The
dungeons are the most horrible holes which it is possible to conceive:
the descent to them entirely indisposed us from going down. Imagine a
dark gloomy room, itself a horrible dungeon, and in the centre of the
floor a round hole of the size and shape of those on the paved footpaths
in the streets in London for shooting coals into the cellars. Such is
the descent to these dungeons: and in such a place did the great and
proud Cardinal of Guise terminate a life of turmoil and ambition.

We next visited the Salle des Etats, or the States-hall, so called
because the States General were there assembled by Henry the Third: it
is a large and lofty room, but the part of it which chiefly attracts the
attention of travellers is the fire-place, where the bodies of the
Guises were reduced to ashes on the day following their murder. It is
not however easy to conceive, why vengeance should be carried so far.

The western front of the castle, which was built by Gaston, Duke of
Orleans, is in every respect worthy of that great prince, and of the
architect employed by him, the illustrious Mansard. This architect
laboured three years upon this front, and having already spent three
hundred and thirty thousand livres, informed the prince, that it would
require one hundred thousand more to render it habitable. The prince,
however eager both to encourage the artist and to have the work
finished, could not muster up the money, which in that age was an
immense sum: the front, therefore, was left in the state in which it now
remains. It is as much to the credit of the Duke as to that of the
architect, that this noble front constituted his pride, and that he felt
the value of this work of Mansard.

The gardens of the castle are w