Life in any of these chateaux, on either side of the abyss, is much the same; indeed, much the same life has been led in rural France by the upper classes since the very days of the Roman Empire. The letters of Ausonius, written in the fourth century; or the Victorial of Don Pero Niño, a Spanish knight who visited a castle in Normandy some thousand years later; each alike present a picture which varies in no essential point from that which we behold in any important country house to-day. The letters of Ausonius introduce us to the brilliant villas that adorned in Gallo-Roman times the banks of the Garonne--villas that were rather _palazzi_, as they say in Italy to-day, with their picture-galleries, libraries, bath-rooms, and loggias adorned with statues. Round them extended noble gardens, like the gardens of Versailles or St. Cloud, with artificial lakes and canals, clipped yews in figures, rows of marble busts, and some little sunproof grove of ilex, where Pan for ever plays a flute grown green with moss. Just as in our days, the farm adjoined the villa, with its rick-yards and sheepfolds, its barns, stables, and winepress. But if the outer form of things was little different, still more striking is the social resemblance. Then, as now, the men of the household rose early for a morning’s hunting before the mid-day meal; visitors called after lunch, partook of a light refreshment, strolled with their hosts about the park and gardens. After their departure, then, as now, guests and hosts alike retired to write their letters. Not every day of old came and went the post, and the missives it brought and took were more studied and wittier than our hasty messages to-day. Then, as now, the upper class in France was passionately fond of music; and that, too, was a resource--the instruments indeed were a little different, being “lyres as big as carts,” says Ammianus Marcellinus, and hydraulic organs. But the pleasure and the habit were the same. On most afternoons, some of the guests of a large party were busy with music, or perhaps with the preparations for private theatricals, which then, as now, were a frequent entertainment in a country house: Paulus, of Saintes, brought with him to Lucaniacus a farce of his own composition for the delectation of Ausonius and his guests. While these were occupied in music or reciting, others were driving, or playing at tennis (Paulinus, of Pella, sent to Rome for his tennis-balls), and others, again, were planning some mighty race of cars. To-day they are motor-cars,--and there is all the difference.