Another of the guardian castles of Cluny, that to which in dangerous times the treasures, charts, and title deeds of the Abbey were taken, was the Château de Lourdon. It was pillaged in 1575 by the partisans of the Duc d'Alençon, who burned so many of the original papers that Claude de Guise, after his reconciliation with Henry IV., obtained letters patent rendering valid the existing copies of the parchments. In 1632, Richelieu, who had obtained possession of the Abbey of Cluny, ordered the demolition of the donjon and castle of Lourdon, a command so faithfully carried out that nothing was left of the fortress, except what is to be seen to-day--a ruined ivy-hung wall, its line broken by a round tower, through whose windows you can see the concierge moving, and by a curious row of great columns, like organ pipes, now generally supposed to be the remains of a kind of mediæval tennis court. From the castle rising high above the bush-covered rocks, you can look down over the grape vines to the village of Lourdon, and the hills of the Grosne valley. Looking up at it, through the houses of the village street, it must have appeared a not unworthy guardian of a trust so great as were the treasures of Cluny. The best way to get there by the valley road from Cluny, is to turn up the hill when you come to a small sentinel tower. If you ask the way, you will probably be told, as we were, to turn at the next lane, which is longer, less convenient, and gives a much less striking approach to the castle. Persistent mis-direction of strangers is a common Burgundian failing. * * * * * Those who have wandered about the streets of Cluny may have happened upon the late fifteenth century, or early sixteenth century, house of the Prat family, the ancestors of the poet Lamartine, whose name is frequently heard by travellers in the Mâconnais or the Dauphiné; though the nation as a whole, soon forgot him, after that swiftly rising wave of latin enthusiasm had swept him into the seats of the mighty, and, receding, had dragged him with it, to face, as best he might, the obscure, penniless life of a literary hack. His birthplace, at Milly, is not now in existence; but the prospect of seeing the family Château de Saint Point, where part of his youth, and some later years of retirement, were passed, tempted me to pay a visit to that valley. In a very improbable, though naturally written and pathetic study of rustic life, "Le Tailleur de Pierres de St. Point"--he who died of that, unhappily, rare malady, the love of God--we have Lamartine's own description of his home.