“The train from Bar-le-Duc passes through a fertile, well-wooded country, with many sparkling streams and closely planted villages. There are few more picturesquely situated towns in Eastern France than Joinville, which lies on a branch of the Marne, in a valley overshadowed by undulating tree-clad heights, on one of which, until near the end of the eighteenth century, stood the Castle of the Guises.... The woods of Joinville to-day are full of singing birds. Every variety of foliage clothes the deep ravines. The high road leading towards Wassy is fringed with innumerable small, well-kept gardens, and the air, on May evenings, is not only light and bracing, but sweet with the scent of flowers. The little town must have changed very much in appearance since the sixteenth century. It once possessed a wall and three gates, and an old map in the Hôtel de Ville shows more than a dozen spires.... It acquired great importance under the first Dukes of Guise, who used it as their habitual country residence, and entertained royal personages in the Castle with regal magnificence. That proud Castle was allowed to fall into ruins during the eighteenth century.... The picturesque quays near the church, where the grass-impeded Marne runs between rows of tall, irregularly built houses, cannot have altered greatly since Queen Mary’s time. In unexpected corners we find whitewashed houses adorned with old and costly sculptor’s work, with carved pillars, and scrolls of vine-leaves surrounding the porch.”[313] Footnote 313: Stoddart, _Girlhood of Mary Queen of Scots_, chapter xxi. p. 346 _et seq._ * * * * * For Joinville, then, the diplomatist and the artist set out about the middle of August. The journey was a long one, and Hoby received in advance for travelling expenses, £66, 13_s._ 4_d._, nearly three times as much as he had been paid for his earlier journeys to Havre and Brussels, thus showing that the expedition was to be of considerably longer duration. This payment is entered in the royal accounts under August, anno 30, and is undated, but as may be gathered from entries preceding and following it, it was on some day between August 11 and 22. The place of destination is not mentioned; Hoby is said merely to be “sent into the parts of beyond the sea with all diligence.”[314] Footnote 314: _C.L.P._, vol. xiii. pt. ii. 1280 (f. 32).