immediately caused the place to be concealed by a high and close board fence. The tree was cut away in the night, the hole was filled up, and few knew anything about it. But it is scarcely possible that any serious accident should occur, even to a single house, without a previous and gradual sinking of its walls giving notice of the event. The palace of the Luxembourg, one of the largest and finest edifices of Paris, stands quite near the spot where the tree fell through, and yet there is not the smallest danger of the structure's disappearing some dark night, the piers below always affording sufficient support. _Au reste_, the catacombs lie under no other part of Paris than the Quartier St. Jacques, not crossing the river, nor reaching even the Faubourg St. Germain. I have taken you so unceremoniously out of the chateau of Versailles to put you into the catacombs, that some of the royal residences have not received the attention I intended. We have visited Compiegne this summer, including it in a little excursion of about a hundred miles, that we made in the vicinity of the capital, though it scarcely offered sufficient matter of interest to be the subject of an especial letter. We found the forest deserving of its name, and some parts of it almost as fine as an old American wood of the second class. We rode through it five or six miles to see a celebrated ruin, called Pierre-fond, which was one of those baronial holds, out of which noble robbers used to issue, to plunder on the highway, and commit all sorts of acts of genteel violence. The castle and the adjacent territory formed one of the most ancient seigneuries of France. The place was often besieged and taken. In the time of Henry IV. that monarch, finding the castle had fallen into the hands of a set of desperadoes, who were ranked with the Leaguers, sent the Duc d'Epernon against the place; but he was wounded, and obliged to raise the siege. Marshal Biron was next despatched, with all the heavy artillery that could be spared; but he met with little better success. This roused Henry, who finally succeeded in getting possession of the place. In the reign of his son, Louis XIII, the robberies and excesses of those who occupied the castle became so intolerable, that the government seized it again, and ordered it to be destroyed. Now you will remember that this castle stood in the very heart of France, within fifty miles of the capital, and but two leagues from a royal residence, and all so lately as the year 1617; and that it was found necessary to destroy it, on account of the irregularities of its owners. What an opinion one is driven to form of the moral civilization of Europe from a fact like this! Feudal grandeur loses greatly in a comparison with modern law, and more humble honesty.