His companion gazed on in the direction which he pointed out, and then replied, "I once knew this land well, and could have marked out in it many a fair field either for the chase or the battle; but other scenes have made me forget it. Our memory is but like a French crown-piece, since so many kings have been called, one after another, to rule this unhappy land. First, one figure is strong upon it; then it goes to the mint, and a new king's head drives out the other, and keeps its place, till something fresh is stamped upon it again; while, all the time, traces of former impression may be seen below, but indistinct and meaningless. Ay! there is Beaumont en Maine, and there the chateau of St. Real; I remember them now: but what is that massive building, with that large square keep, still farther to the right?" The youth fixed his eyes upon it, and remained silent for more than a minute: he then replied, abruptly, "That chateau belongs to the Count d'Aubin. Let us on!" CHAPTER II. Memory is like moonlight, the reflection of brighter rays emanating originally from an object no longer seen; and all our retrospects towards the past times, as well as our individual remembrances, partake in some degree of the softening splendour which covers small faults and imperfections by grand masses of shade, and brings out picturesque beauties and points of interest with apparently brighter effulgence than even when the full sunshine of the present beaming upon them, suffers at the same time the eye to be distracted, and the mind otherwise engaged by a thousand minor particulars. Nothing gains more, perhaps, from the impossibility of close inspection than the manners, the customs, and the things of the past; and, in some instances, even Nature herself, and Time, that enemy of man's works, in general so remorseless, seem to take a fanciful pleasure in assisting the illusion. That which was in itself harsh and rude in form, acquires as it decays, a picturesque beauty which it never knew in its prime; and the rough hold of the feudal robber, which afforded but small pleasure to behold, and little convenience to its inmates, is now seen and painted with delight, fringed with wild flowers scattered from Nature's bountiful hand and softened with the green covering of the ivy. The old chateau of St. Real, to which the two travellers we have just left were bending their steps, and to which, for a moment, we must now shift the scene, was one of those antique buildings, few of which have outlasted the first French revolution--buildings which, however we may love to look upon any that do remain, from the magical illusion regarding former days to which I have just alluded, were, nevertheless, much better suited to the times in which they were built, than to the more luxurious present.