There is much rushing water around the château and its little village, and we come soon upon a majestic aqueduct spanning the river,--a structure which might be considered one of the immediate causes of the French Revolution. Rising from the placid river and its bright green banks, the arches are picturesque and beautiful to-day, and yet, to build them, forty thousand troops were employed. The spot was so unhealthy that the mortality was immense,--many thousands,--and the dead were carried away by night that the workers might not be discouraged or the pleasure of the King delayed, for this was to furnish life to his fountains at Versailles. The King intended to carry the waters of the river through a new channel eight leagues in length, and hence this aqueduct, as it was necessary to connect two mountains. However, before it was completed, the work was abandoned for the hydraulics at Marly. This structure was partly demolished to build the Château of Crécy for Madame de Pompadour. Of the forty-seven original arches, fourteen remain, each eighty-three feet high with a forty-two foot span. The loss of life caused in the building of this canal of thirty-three miles does not appear to have excited much attention at the time,--such was the power of the King, but the people remember, and the grandchildren of these did remember in 1793, when, as usual, the innocent suffered for the guilty. Leaving the aqueduct with its burden of sorrow and the softly murmuring river, we mount the hills and enter upon La Beauce, the finest corn land in France. It spreads away from us, a vast plain, gently sloping off for miles, until far in the hazy distance of this lovely spring day the twin towers of the famous Cathedral of Chartres pierce the sky, and from now on with scarcely any power, and soundless, the car speeds on and on, ever faster and faster, until the wings come out on its hubs once more, and we are flying, fairly flying. If Sheridan had possessed an automobile that day at Winchester, T. Buchanan Reid would have lost the opportunity to make him immortal, but still "hurrah, hurrah for Sheridan, hurrah, hurrah for horse and man," and one feels like returning to boyhood's days and giving utterance to some wild whoops as this car rushes onward and onward. The vast plain spreads away, spangled with daisies. The hedges are all a-blossom, the air is full of perfume and this old world seems young once more, until, as we enter the ancient city of Chartres and pause before her Cathedral, we suddenly drop back again into the Middle Ages. [Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL AT CHARTRES By permission of Messrs. Neurdein]