ood sense and Queen Victoria--A
region of parks and chateaux--The cradle of the French Monarchy--How
the Revolution robbed France--The rural reign of pillage
and murder--Horrors committed in the provinces during 1789--Arthur
Young and Gouverneur Morris on the general depravation
and lawlessness--The National Assembly a mere noisy 'mob'--The
outbreak of crime which preceded the Terror--The truth
about Madame Roland--Her hatred of Marie Antoinette and her
thirst for blood--The legend of the Gironde--Brissot de Warville
on robbery as a virtuous action--The relations of the French
Revolution to property--France more free before 1789 than after
it--The laws against emigrants--Girls of fourteen condemned to
death--Emigration made a crime, that property might be pillaged--How
Irene de Tencin defended the family estate--The story of
the Saporta family--The Laonnais in the 18th century--Wide-spread
ruin of its churches, convents, and chateaux--Destruction
of accumulated capital--How syndicates of rogues stole bronzes,
brasswork, and monuments--The story of two chateaux--The
bishop's chateau at Anizy--The burghers and the seigneurs in
the 16th century--The local 'directory' in 1790--Wreck, ruin,
and robbery--The Chateau of Pinon--Once the property of a
granddaughter of Edward III. of England--A domain of the Duc
d'Orleans--A tragedy of love and murder--Death of the Marquis
d'Albret--How Pinon passed to the family of De Courvals--The
present owner an American lady--The finest chateau in the
Laonnais--What has the Laonnais gained from the ruin of the
Anizy? 186-225

CHAPTER X.

IN THE AISNE--(_continued_)

Laon--The ruins of Coucy-le-Chateau--A rural inn in France--The
sugar crisis--The birthplace of Cesar de Vendome--The bell
which tolls and is heard by the dying alone--The hanging of boys
for killing rabbits--Game laws, French and English--The true
story of Enguerrand de Coucy--A little feudal city--The finest
donjon in France--An official guardian--A dinner with four
councillors-general--'What France really wants is a man'--Agricultural
philosophers--How a councillor-general tested chemicals--Peasantry
on the highway--A land of gardens--A city set
on a hill--Simple good-natured people--A raging Boulangist at
Laon--What a barber saw in Tonkin--The diamond belt of King
Norodom--Castelin th