The day becomes hot as we turn southward toward St. Gaudens. About an hour and a half out, an ancient château, evidently unpolluted by restoration, is seen on the right. I hesitate as to whether I shall stop, but it is hot and we are moving so well that I give up the idea, when, _pop!_ a tire is torn wide open. Now we must stop and not three hundred yards from the château, which an old peasant, washing clothes in a brook, tells me is well worth a visit, and the lord of the manor willing to allow one. In the meantime poor Jean is down in the dust and when he pulls out the pneumatic finds a hole as large as a dime. Heat is the worst enemy of these pneumatics as the delicate rubber will not stand it. However, the work is finally done and we move off to the entrance of the Château de St. Elix. It is surrounded by its village and one approaches through an avenue guarded by stately gates. A wide moat in which water still flows is crossed by an ancient bridge, and beyond rises a structure of the date of Francis I. A central portion with an enormously high mansard roof is supported by two huge round towers, one on either side, crowned by cone-shaped tops. A winding step leads to the main portal, where a servant stands awaiting my approach. "I am a traveller, will it be permitted to inspect the château? I am told it is of great interest." I hand in my card which is carried to the master off somewhere in the out-buildings, which on one side appear to be stables, on the other, gardener's cottages and hot-houses. When he comes I meet a pleasant-faced young Frenchman, who smilingly conducts me to the house, his home, to which he seems much attached, and to me it proved most interesting. A long wide hall leads straight from the front door out upon a rear terrace which overlooks a great square garden holding many rows of cedar trees cut in all sorts of fantastic shapes, no two alike. One represents a huge bird upon its nest, another a layer of mushrooms, while a third is round as a ball, and a fourth square as a box. "They have been trimmed that way for centuries and would not know how to grow otherwise."