Fastening our horses, under the guidance of a grey-headed old negro, born in the family of General Washington, we entered the lawn and came upon the rear-front, if the term may be allowed, of an old-fashioned mansion, surmounted by a cupola and weather-cock, semicircular piazzas extending around from each end, connecting it with the kitchen and servant’s apartments. Various buildings, all bearing the impress of time, were scattered about, evidently in architectural order and plan, and the two large gardens, rendered interesting by the flowers and plants, still blooming in the beds where they had been placed by the hands of the General, extended back to the forest from which we had just emerged. As we stood for a moment looking at the old building, we almost expected to see the yellow travelling-carriage of his Excellency, with its four beautiful bays, and liveried out-riders, draw up at the great hall door in its centre. Having sent in our address, we received permission from the courteous branch of the family, who now hold the estate, to enter and survey the interior. We were struck with its extreme simplicity, the lowness of the walls and ceilings, and the bare floors, which were waxed, not, as with us, carpeted. The sides of the rooms were composed exclusively of wooden panels, upon which hung some old oil paintings of merit,—engravings of naval actions between the English, the Dutch, and the French; and a small enamel miniature, which is considered the best likeness extant of Washington. Curiosities of various kinds covered the shelves and the mantels, and the painted porcelains and china jars, stood in stately display behind the glass doors of the old-fashioned beaufets in the corners. Our attention was arrested for a moment, as we passed through one of the rooms, by a large rusty key of iron, enclosed in a glass case. It was the key of the Bastile, that infernal prison, that monument of centuries of grinding cruelty and oppression, where men vanished, and were seen no more of their day and generation,—where, by the intrigues of the courtier, the subtle blandishments of the minion of the palace, letters de cachet plunged equally the innocent, the imprudent, and the generous, into the jaws of living death,—that accursed congerie of dungeons where, from mid fellowship of rats and spiders, such scrap of soiled paper, written in the blood of the poor prisoner, fluttering from a loop-hole in its lofty towers, arrests the footstep of the casual passenger upon the causeway. “Mases de Latude, _thirty-two_ years prisoner in the Bastile, implores good Christians to intercede for him, so that he may once more embrace his poor old father and mother, if they yet live, and die in the open world.”