as well as the fine fruit-trees everywhere covering the walls of the front court. A broad gravel-drive descended to the moat, which was crossed by a stone bridge, substantial, but not ornamental. On our right were stables, &c., for about half-way down the court; on the left the enormous roofs of barns and farm-buildings appeared over the wall, and beyond them, again, the rather inelegant spire of the village church. An arched doorway communicated on this side with the farmyard. Behind the chateau the view was bounded by the tufted and feathery masses of a superb avenue of beeches and a hill covered with wood seen through the few openings between them, relieving well the reddish sombre tone and formal outlines of the building. Every feature of this place is strongly impressed on my memory as I then beheld it for the first time, not without emotions of disgust; for though rather a picturesque object to look at, I could not suppress a shudder at the idea of its becoming my habitation for an indefinite time. Nothing do I regret more than not having made a sketch of it from this side, although I did several from other points. The road was so narrow, and the turn so sharp, that it required all the dexterity of our drivers to get decently into the court with their six-horse teams. They did, however, effect it without carrying away the gate-posts, to the no small amazement of some half-dozen boors, whom the novelty of arrival had drawn together, and we finally formed a very compact little park, three pieces and their ammunition-waggons on each side of the central path. The _corps de garde_ was established in the loft over the stables in which were lodged the officers’ horses; and the rest of the troop were billeted on the neighbouring farms, which, in general, were so large that they took a subdivision, or thirty-two horses, each, and, if I mistake not, that adjoining the chateau a whole division of sixty-four horses. Having despatched this business, we proceeded to examine our own quarters. The old gardener, a tall meagre figure, with a venerable grey head and good-humoured physiognomy, but somewhat bent by age, accompanied by his daughter, a pale melancholy-looking young woman, met us on the bridge, the keys of his fortalice in one hand and his dirty _bonnet de nuit_ in the other. (Be it here remarked that although neatness and cleanliness characterise the dwellings of the Flemish peasantry, yet are they not over and above particular in this respect as regards their own persons.) As he could speak nothing but Flemish, Mademoiselle came to officiate as his interpreter, but the _patois_ in which she expressed herself was so unintelligible that, after listening for some time to her long-winded story, and comprehending nothing more of it than the constantly-recurring “Mon père dit,” &c., our politeness gave way, and we begged that the doors might be forthwith thrown open. The burden of her song or