From the mountain side projects a low hill "dominated at its summit by an old castle flanked by compact towers, and by the notched spire of a romanesque church tower. At the foot of the hill are pastures bordered with alders, cherry and large nut trees, between whose trunks can be seen the walls, roofs and rustic bridge of a hamlet built in the shadow of the castle and comprising fifteen or twenty cottages of workmen, small farmers or shopkeepers, all grouped around the village church. These old towers, undermined at their bases by the weather, and cracked by the weight of stone above them, shorn of the spires at their summits, are useless to-day, except to flank a heavy square mass of naked stone, pierced with a winding stair and several vaulted rooms--such is my abode.... Thence the view, falling and rising, extends over the most beautiful part of the valley of St. Point. One's glance, following the rapid slope of the pastures, rests upon a field through the middle of which runs the river 'Vallonge.' Great nut trees with bronze foliage, motionless as metal leaves, poplars with trunks storm-twisted, and with foliage more hairy and whiter than the head of an old man, European cypresses, alders, birches, willows rescued by me, twenty-five years ago now, from the bill of the tree-trimmer, leaning from bank to bank of the river they love and are loved by, interwoven over its course, form a lofty, floating, capricious vault of foliage of every tint, a very mosaic of vegetation. The lightest airs of summer sway this moving curtain, and summon thence waves of sound, breathings, the watery sheen of leaves, flights of birds and vegetable scents, which gladden the eyes, vary the outlook, and rise in sweet sounds and wandering fragrances to the balcony of my house." This balcony was the construction in sculptured stone, in imitation of the old Gothic Balustrades of Oxford, that he had added to the principal façade. Here the peacocks perching, day and night, bordered its heavy stones with a row of living caryatides, as they spread their brilliant tails to the sun.[95] Meanwhile, with such passages as these in my mind, I was making for the village. Having climbed the winding staircase that leads up to the terraced churchyard, I saw, as I drew near, across the tangled graves, the tomb of Lamartine, a pretentious, but quite unsuccessful, production, in bastard gothic style, the interior hung round with horrible wreaths of artificial flowers. On a pedestal was a bust of the poet, with a metal urn on each side, and, below, a recumbent statue of his wife, and memorials of other descendants. It was with a feeling of intense relief that I turned from the artificial to the real, to the monument in which nature's art, that is not artifice, has immortalized the memory of Lamartine.