small neat houses flanking the high way, and remarkable, notwithstanding their situation in a great thoroughfare, for an air of simplicity and seclusion. Near the houses there is a small lake, whose smooth bosom, reflecting the heights and trees that surround it, adds greatly to the idea of tranquillity; and above, overlooking the whole, are the ruins of an old castle, which fling upon, and over that tranquillity-if we can make ourselves understood-the shadow of their solemn and antique grandeur.

The château of the Sires de Laval, the lords of Retz, is still formidable in its ruins. The tower, cleft in twain from the summit to the base, seems to forbid threateningly the approach of the traveller; and through the crumbling walls that surround the building he sees its desolate courts overgrown with weeds-in the midst of which stands a solitary cow, like the image of meditation-and its roofless. chambers resounding only to the hoot of the owl, and the wings of the hermit bat. Near the wall, half choked with docks and nettles, there are several wide black mouths gaping from the earth, into which the wanderer looks with a shudder, as a thousand stories of subterranean horrors connected with the times of feudality crowd upon his memory. In these gulfs the peasant even of our own day, who is hardy enough to venture in search of the treasures supposed to lie hidden in their recesses, finds only bones of women and children, broken fetters, and instruments of torture and death.

LOIRE INFERIEURE-INGRANDE.

FROM Chantocé to Ingrande the route presents all the finer characteristics of the Loire, such as we have hitherto seen it here a vineyard, there a wooded eminence, and between, the proud river rolling majestically along in glory and in joy, The little town of Ingrande appears to be cut in twain by a narrow street; and when you cross this street you are no longer in the department of the Maine-et-Loire, but in that of the Loire Inférieure. This is nothing today; but in former times, when one territorial division was Anjou, and the other Brittany, the place must have frequently found itself in a very awkward predicament.

The only barriers which separated two distinct peoplenot seldom at loggerheads—were a couple of posts, each painted in stripes with the colours of its own duchy, and a huge stone, placed as a terminus by both parties in the middle of the town. Only think of the effect of a declaration of war between the Angevines and Bretons! Even in time of profound peace, however, this debateable town was not without its adventures arising from the peculiarity of its situation. The Bretons, for instance, paid at one time as a tax only two liards in the pound of salt, while the Angevines were charged by their rulers thirteen or fourteen sous. The consequence, of course, was, that it was no uncommon thing for a quiet citizen, on emerging from his porch in the evening, to be knocked down by a bag of this commodity, travelling, duty free, through the air from the opposite side of the lane. The