The enceinte of the chateau is of enormous extent. The solidity of the walls and the towers resisted so successfully the mines and pickaxes of Richelieu that the great outlines of the immense building are still easily definable, with fine traces of the architecture of the great chapel. That St.-Louis and Henry IV. visited Coucy we know, and the guardian was good enough to give me very minute and particular information as to the chambers which they occupied. He was a curious fellow, this guardian, an Alsatian immigrant, he informed me. The people here, he thought, were not so much pleased as they ought to be that the Government had given him the place, which brings him in 400 francs a year, with the lodge I have mentioned for a residence, and the right to all the crops of any kind he can raise on the land attached to the chateau. He was then cutting the grass, which grew very well within the precincts of the chateau. But he took great pains to impress upon me that he was doing this, not so much for the sake of the hay he expected to make as for the accommodation of visitors like myself, 'to make the ground pleasanter to walk upon.' This was an attention which no right-minded person could fail to recognise with a _pour-boire_, particularly as the worthy guardian complained of the extremely poor quality of the wine grown about Coucy. I told him I had always heard that King Francis I. insisted on having his wine sent to him from this place. 'Ah!' he replied, 'in those days what did they know about good wine?' The rooks in countless numbers were flying and cawing all over the beautiful old place. 'I have tried to kill these birds,' said the guardian wearily. 'They destroy my peas. But the cartridges cost too much, and I have had to give it up.' He had been in his place four months. I might think it very pleasant seeing it in June. But if I could see it in February, with the wind howling 'through the tall trees and around the huge tower!' On my return to my neat little hostelry my host came out to meet me. 'He had just heard that four councillors-general, on their way home from a meeting, would like to dine at his house. Would I object to their dining with me--there was no other good room?' Naturally I was only too glad to share the room and the dinner with them. A very good dinner it was too. 'Men learn to cook, but are born to roast.' My host's cook was born to roast both fat chickens and a capital leg of mutton. One of the councillors-general, when they drove up, went out into the kitchen to examine and report upon the outlook. He came back presently rubbing his hands together with glee. 'Admirable!' he exclaimed; 'it will be a Belshazzar's feast--a superb leg of mutton, truly superb!' 'The first green peas of the season here!' said our host, coming in with them. 'You will see if they are good. They come late here, the green peas, but you see what they are when they do come.'