e extensive than it is at present. The son of this
courtier dying without issue, in 1726, the estate was purchased by M.
Dupre, one of the judges of France.

With this magistrate commences, I believe, the connexion of the
ancestors of the Lafayettes with the property. The only daughter married
M. d'Aguesseau; and her daughter, again, married the Duc de
Noailles-d'Ayen, [29] carrying with her, as a marriage portion, the lands
of Fontenay, Lagrange, etc. etc., or, in other words, the ancient
possessions of M. de Lafeuillade. The Marquis de Lafayette married one
of the Mesdemoiselles de Noailles, while he was still a youth, and when
the estate, after a short sequestration, was restored to the family,
General Lafayette received the chateau of Lagrange, with some six or
eight hundred acres of land around it, as his wife's portion.

[Footnote 29: Mr. Adams, in his Eulogy on Lafayette, has called the Duc
de Noailles, the first peer of France. The fact is of no great moment,
but accuracy is always better than error. I believe the Duc de Noailles
was the youngest of the old _ducs et pairs_ of France. The Duc d'Uzes, I
have always understood, was the oldest.]

Although the house is not very spacious for a chateau of the region in
which it stands, it is a considerable edifice, and one of the most
picturesque I have seen in this country. The buildings stand on three
sides of an irregular square. The fourth side must have been either a
high wall or a range of low offices formerly, to complete the court and
the defences, but every vestige of them has long since been removed. The
ditch, too, which originally encircled the whole castle, has been filled
in, on two sides, though still remaining on the two others, and greatly
contributing to the beauty of the place, as the water is living, and is
made to serve the purposes of a fishpond. We had carp from it, for
breakfast, the day after our arrival.

Lagrange is constructed of hewn stone, of a good greyish colour, and in
parts of it there are some respectable pretensions to architecture. I
think it probable that one of its fronts has been rebuilt, the style
being so much better than the rest of the structure. There are five
towers, all of which are round, and have the plain, high, pyramidal
roof, so common in France. They are without cornices, battlements of any
sort, or, indeed, any relief to the circular masonry. One, however, has
a roof of a square form, though the exterior of the l