I have taken you so unceremoniously out of the chateau of Versailles to put you into the catacombs, that some of the royal residences have not received the attention I intended. We have visited Compiègne this summer, including it in a little excursion of about a hundred miles, that we made in the vicinity of the capital, though it scarcely offered sufficient matter of interest to be the subject of an especial letter. We found the forest deserving of its name, and some parts of it almost as fine as an old American wood of the second class. We rode through it five or six miles to see a celebrated ruin, called Pierre-fond, which was one of those baronial holds, out of which noble robbers used to issue, to plunder on the highway, and commit all sorts of acts of genteel violence. The castle and the adjacent territory formed one of the most ancient seigneuries of France. The place was often besieged and taken. In the time of Henry IV. that monarch, finding the castle had fallen into the hands of a set of desperadoes, who were ranked with the Leaguers, sent the Duc d'Epernon against the place; but he was wounded, and obliged to raise the siege. Marshal Biron was next despatched, with all the heavy artillery that could be spared; but he met with little better success. This roused Henry, who finally succeeded in getting possession of the place. In the reign of his son, Louis XIII, the robberies and excesses of those who occupied the castle became so intolerable, that the government seized it again, and ordered it to be destroyed. Now you will remember that this castle stood in the very heart of France, within fifty miles of the capital, and but two leagues from a royal residence, and all so lately as the year 1617; and that it was found necessary to destroy it, on account of the irregularities of its owners. What an opinion one is driven to form of the moral civilization of Europe from a fact like this! Feudal grandeur loses greatly in a comparison with modern law, and more humble honesty.
It was easier, however, to order the Chateau de Pierre-fond to be destroyed, than to effect that desirable object. Little more was achieved than to make cuts into the external parts of the towers and walls, and to unroof the different buildings; and, although this was done two hundred years since, time has made little impression on the ruins. We were shown a place where there had been an attempt to break into the walls for stones, but which had been abandoned, because it was found easier to quarry them from the living rock. The principal towers were more than a hundred feet high, and their angles and ornaments seemed to be as sharp and solid as ever. This was much the noblest French ruin we had seen, and it may be questioned if there are many finer, out of Italy, in Europe.