shown another arm-chair which had the honour of receiving the bulkier weight of Louis Quatorze. The chapel, dug in the solid rock, where Saint Nicaise celebrated the holy mysteries; the cavern beyond, containing the graves of the family, which never opens its solemn gate but to receive the dead; the subterranean gallery, traversed by the light of torches; and the reservoir to which it leads, sunk in the body of the cliff, and containing more than two thousand hogsheads of water-all are objects which must excite the interest of persons capable of abstracting themselves from the world of to-day, in order to plunge into the ages of the past.

La Roche-Guyon was the scene of the assassination of Guy, its lord, in 1122, by his father-in-law-a crime which was avenged by the troops of Louis VI in the terrible spirit of the age. The account of the murder, and of the heroic grief of the lady of the Rock, is nobly translated from the Latin chronicle of Suger, in the Annales Manuscriptes de France.

La Roche-Guyon was frequently visited by Henri Quatre when he resided at Mantes; and it is the scene of that fine reply of the beautiful Duchess of Guercheville to the amorous monarch: "No, sire, never! I am not well enough born to be your wife; but I am too well born to be your mistress!" The château belonged, at an early period, to the house of La Rochefoucauld; and, after changing hands several times, it is now in possession of the head of the same family, the present duke. It is said that the manuscript of some poems by the author of the "Maximes" has been found in the library, and that these pieces are altogether unworthy of his fame.

After winding round the sweep of the Seine, we arrived at Rolleboise, on the direct road; between which and

Bonnieres, the place we last noticed on the highway, there is nothing worthy of observation. Rolleboise stands against a ridge of the hill, down which the steep line of its single street is carried. Some stones of the tower and some dungeon-cells still remain of its château, which, in 1364, sustained gallantly a siege by Bertrand Du Guesclin, although it fell at last under the arms of the hero. A subterranean stair descended from the château through the body of the hill to the banks of the river.

A galiote, or coche d'eau, leaves Rolleboise for Poissy; in which the curious traveller, who condescends to travel in so cheap and tedious a way, may have an opportunity of seeing the manners of the humbler riverains of the Seine. These we shall attempt to describe anon; but, for the present, we pursue the route of terra firma.

The road continues still picturesque, bordered by hills sometimes covered with vines, and ever and anon affording an enchanting view of the valley of the Seine. The village and château of Rosny are the first objects among the works of man which attract the traveller's attention. They are situated in the midst of immense woods, where the wild boar and the wolf still linger in the ancient retreats of their ancestors. The village is perhaps the neatest and cleanest we have as yet met with on the route; and the château, although not more striking in appearance than many gentlemen's houses in England, has yet a certain air of grandeur, the effect of the manifest presence of wealth and power.

The Château de Rosny passed by marriage, in the year 1529, into the family of Bethune, in the person of the grandfather of the famous Marquis de Rosny, Duke de Sully, who was born within its walls. It was near this château that the famous interview took place between Henri Quatre and his faithful minister, after Sully had proved himself to be not

less valiant in the field than skilful in the cabinet. There is no doubt something interesting, nay affecting, in the interview; although we are not disposed to exclaim, with the excellent historian of Mantes, (whose book we shall notice presently with the praise it deserves,) "Il n'y a rien qui approche dans les vies de Plutarque!" On the contrary, whether owing or not to a natural levity of character, we found it impossible to repress a smile at the processional pomp with which the wounded minister approached his sovereign.

Carried on a litter of green branches, which was covered with the black velvet cloaks of his prisoners, embroidered in silver with numberless crowns of Lorraine, Sully descended the heights of Beuron, reclining under his laurels. He was preceded by two grooms leading two of his warhorses and these by two pages leading the grey courser which had carried him into his first battle. This superb animal had his right side and shoulder laid open for three feet by the stroke of a lance, which, at the same time, had carried away the boot of its master, and a portion of the calf of his leg. The pages carried his cuirass, his brassards, the standard taken from the enemy, and his shattered casque supported on the end of his broken spear. On one side of the litter came Maignan, his esquire, with his head bandaged, and his arm in a sling; and, on the other, Moreines, his valet-de-chambre, bearing the orange velvet cloak of the hero, embroidered with silver lace, and the fragments of his sword and of his plume of feathers. Behind marched his three prisoners, and all that the battle had spared of his gendarmes and arquebusiers.

In 1709 the estate of Rosny passed into the family of the Count de Sénozan, in which it descended to a lady who became the wife of the present Duke de Talleyrand.

Her son, the Duke de Dino, sold it, in 1817, to a Parisian merchant, who resold it in the following year to the Duchess de Berri. It is now the property of Mr. Stone, a London banker, whom it cost (as we were told) five million francs.