en you so unceremoniously out of the chateau of Versailles to
put you into the catacombs, that some of the royal residences have not
received the attention I intended. We have visited Compiegne this
summer, including it in a little excursion of about a hundred miles,
that we made in the vicinity of the capital, though it scarcely offered
sufficient matter of interest to be the subject of an especial letter.
We found the forest deserving of its name, and some parts of it almost
as fine as an old American wood of the second class. We rode through it
five or six miles to see a celebrated ruin, called Pierre-fond, which
was one of those baronial holds, out of which noble robbers used to
issue, to plunder on the highway, and commit all sorts of acts of
genteel violence. The castle and the adjacent territory formed one of
the most ancient seigneuries of France. The place was often besieged and
taken. In the time of Henry IV. that monarch, finding the castle had
fallen into the hands of a set of desperadoes, who were ranked with the
Leaguers, sent the Duc d'Epernon against the place; but he was wounded,
and obliged to raise the siege. Marshal Biron was next despatched, with
all the heavy artillery that could be spared; but he met with little
better success. This roused Henry, who finally succeeded in getting
possession of the place. In the reign of his son, Louis XIII, the
robberies and excesses of those who occupied the castle became so
intolerable, that the government seized it again, and ordered it to be
destroyed. Now you will remember that this castle stood in the very
heart of France, within fifty miles of the capital, and but two leagues
from a royal residence, and all so lately as the year 1617; and that it
was found necessary to destroy it, on account of the irregularities of
its owners. What an opinion one is driven to form of the moral
civilization of Europe from a fact like this! Feudal grandeur loses
greatly in a comparison with modern law, and more humble honesty.

It was easier, however, to order the Chateau de Pierre-fond to be
destroyed, than to effect that desirable object. Little more was
achieved than to make cuts into the external parts of the towers and
walls, and to unroof the different buildings; and, although this was
done two hundred years since, time has made little impression on the
ruins. We were shown a place where there had been an attempt to break
into the walls for stones, but which had been aba