In addition to this extract, Anquetil adds, "En effet, la fantaisie de garder devant ses yeux une naine monstreuse (her favourite negress mentioned previously), peut faire conjecturer que Marie Therese n'aura pas ete assez exacte a detourner ses regards d'objets qu'une femme prudente doit s'interdire; qu'elle les aura fixes sur les negres que le progres du commerce maritime commencoit de rendre communs en France; et que de la sera venue la couleur de cette infortunee, qu'il aura fallu cacher dans un cloitre. Cette Mauresse et l'homme au masque de fer sont les deux mysteres du regne de Louis XIV. Le redacteur des Memoires de St. Simon dit qu'elle est morte a Moret en 1732, et que son portrait etoit encore en 1779 dans le cabinet de l'abbesse, d'ou, quand cette maison a ete reunie ou Prieure de Champ Benoit a Provins, il a passe dans le cabinet des antiques et curiosites de l'abbaye de St. Genevieve du Mont a Paris, ou il est encore. On lit au bas de ce portrait, ces mots, Religieuse de Moret." Such are the words of the extract relative to this singular person. The Hotel de Poste, (as it chooses to style itself) at Fossard, is a dismal pot-house; and the people possess none of that good humour and alacrity which cover a multitude of faults. Having swallowed some of their gritty coffee, which might have been very delectable to the palate of a Turk, we walked about a mile and a half to the bridge[1] of Montereau-sur-Yonne, on which John Duke of Burgundy was murdered by Tannegui de Chastel, in the presence, and probably with the connivance of the Dauphin, afterwards Charles VII. Near this spot we remarked a small mass of ruins, the only remains of the once magnificent Chateau Varennes. Its former owner, the Duke de Chatelet, as we were informed by some market-people, resided for six months in the year at this seat, maintaining or employing most of the poor within his reach, and entertaining his peasantry with a weekly dance at the Chateau. Like many others, he fell a victim to the guillotine during the reign of terror; his lands, with the exception of a portion recovered by his heirs, were alienated, and the fragment which we observed was the only part of his residence left standing. From the tone and manner in which the French peasantry appear to speak of these very common occurrences, I should judge that the effects of the revolution have not yet eradicated that "subordination of the heart," which is natural among a simple and industrious people, and which nothing but very gross neglect or misconduct on the part of their superiors, or the unchecked licence of political quacks, can destroy. Most of the ravages in question might no doubt be traced to bands of plunderers, organized from the most desperate and notorious characters in many different parishes, and sufficiently countenanced by the revolutionary tribunals to overawe the peaceable and unarmed mass of the population, whom it would be hardly fair to confound with them.