His son and successor, Ernest-Alexis Dubois de Courval, was taken into high favour by Charles X., but was nevertheless made a councillor-general of the Aisne under Louis Philippe. He married the only daughter of Moreau, who was a child of nine years old when her father fell fighting against France and Napoleon in 1813. In a curious Gothic tower which he built at Pinon are still preserved some of the standards captured from the enemies of France by Moreau, and these I am assured are the only such standards, excepting those of the Invalides, recovered through the efforts of the House of Peers, which existed in France before the Crimean War. In this tower the Vicomte de Courval formed a remarkable collection of mediaeval arms and armour, antique furniture, stained glass, medals and coins. This region is very rich not only in Roman remains, but in druidical stones and other vestiges of the races which dwelt here before Caesar came. Marcus Aurelius, Trajan, Hadrian, Alexander Severus, Probus, Gordian, Constantine and Constantius are all represented on the coins found in and around the property of M. de Courval; but one of his most interesting acquisitions was a silver coin bearing the name of Clovis, with the title of 'imperator.' There is a record at Anizy of a treasure of coins of Aurelius, found there so long ago as in the middle of the twelfth century; and under the bishop-dukes of Laon a collection of Roman coins and vases was gradually formed at the mairie of Anizy, which 'disappeared' soon after the 'patriots' of Chauny undertook to 'liberate' that commune. The American Vicomtesse de Courval, who now owns Pinon, and passes a part of each year there, is the widow of a son of this Ernest de Courval. Looking backward dispassionately over this 'centennial record' of two considerable estates in the Department of the Aisne, what advantages, social, political, or economical, can be shown to have enured to the people of the commune of Anizy and of Pinon from the revolutionary processes to which those estates were subjected a hundred years ago? Not a man in Anizy or in Pinon owns a rood of land now which he might not just as easily have owned had the alienation of the Church property in those communes been conducted through the gradual and systematic processes of law and order. Instead of one remarkable and interesting chateau, these communes would now possess two, each in the natural course of things, a centre of local activity and civilisation. Instead of one ancient church, much despoiled and damaged, Anizy would now possess three such churches, each in its own way an object of interest to architects and artists, and it would be possible for an honest gendarme or a poor labourer on the highway to hear mass, if he liked, in any one of them, without incurring the wrath of his superiors and the loss of his daily bread. CHAPTER X IN THE AISNE--_continued_ LAON