It is about twenty-seven miles from Paris to Rosay, a small town that is a league from the castle. This is not a post-route, the great road ending at Rosay, and we were obliged to go the whole distance with the same horses. Paris is left by the Boulevard de la Bastille, the Barriere du Trone, and the chateau and woods of Vincennes. The second time I went into Brie, it was with the General himself, and in his own carriage. He showed me a small pavilion that is still standing in a garden near the old site of the Bastille, and which he told me, once belonged to the hotel that Beaumarchais inhabited, when in his glory, and in which pavilion this witty writer was accustomed to work. The roof was topped by a vane to show which way the wind blew; and, in pure _fanfaronnade_, or to manifest his contempt for principles, the author of "Figaro" had caused a large copper pen to do the duty of a weathercock; and there it stands to this day, a curious memorial equally of his wit and of his audacity. At the Barriere du Trone the General pointed out to me the spot where two of his female connexions suffered under the guillotine during the Reign of Terror. On one occasion, in passing, we entered the Castle of Vincennes, which is a sort of citadel for Paris, and which has served for a state prison since the destruction of the Bastille. Almost all of these strong old places were formerly the residences of the kings, or of great nobles, the times requiring that they should live constantly protected by ditches and walls. Vincennes, like the Tower of London, is a collection of old buildings, enclosed within a wall, and surrounded by a ditch. The latter, however, is dry. The most curious of the structures, and the one which gives the place its picturesque appearance, in the distance, is a cluster of exceedingly slender, tall, round towers, in which the prisoners are usually confined, and which is the _donjon_ of the hold. This building, which contains many vaulted rooms piled on each other, was formerly the royal abode; and it has, even now, a ditch of its own, though it stands within the outer walls of the place. There are many other high towers on the walls; and, until the reign of Napoleon, there were still more; but he caused them to be razed to the level of the walls, which of themselves are sufficiently high.