I have passed four or five times through the Senonais since the death of my dear host. I saw the hills from the high-road: Joubert walked there no longer; I recognised the trees, the fields, the vines, the little heaps of stones on which we used to rest ourselves. Driving through Villeneuve, I have cast a glance on the deserted street and the closed house of my friend. The last time when that happened, I was going on an embassy to Rome: ah, if he had been at home, I would have taken him with me to Madame de Beaumont's grave! It has pleased God to open a celestial Rome to M. Joubert, even better suited to his soul, which abandoned Platonism for Christianity. I shall not meet him again here below: "I shall go to him rather: but he shall not return to me[414]." The success of _Atala_ having decided me to start afresh on the _Génie du Christianisme_, of which two volumes were already in print, Madame de Beaumont offered to give me a room in the country, in a house which she had hired at Savigny[415]. I spent six months with her in this retreat, with M. Joubert and our other friends. The house stood at the entrance to the village, on the Paris side, near an old high-road known in that part as the Chemin de Henri IV.: it leant against a vine-clad slope, and faced Savigny Park, ending in a wooded screen, and crossed by the little River Orge. On the left, the plain of Viry spread out as far as the springs of Juvisy. In every direction, in this part of the country, lie valleys, where we used to go in the evenings in search of new walks. In the morning, we breakfasted together; after breakfast, I withdrew to my work; Madame de Beaumont had the goodness to copy out the quotations which I marked for her. This noble woman offered me a shelter when I had none: without the peace which she gave me, I should perhaps never have finished a work which I had been unable to complete during my misfortunes.