It is in that district between Paris and Meaux little known to the
ordinary traveler. It only consists of less than a dozen rude
farm-houses, less than five miles, as a bird flies, from Meaux, which,
with a fair cathedral, and a beautiful chestnut-shaded promenade on the
banks of the Marne, spanned just there bylines of old mills whose
water-wheels churn the river into foaming eddies, has never been popular
with excursionists. There are people who go there to see where Bossuet
wrote his funeral orations, in a little summer-house standing among
pines and cedars on the wall of the garden of the Archbishop's palace,
now, since the "separation," the property of the State, and soon to be a
town museum. It is not a very attractive town. It has not even an
out-of-doors restaurant to tempt the passing automobilist.
My house was, when I leased it, little more than a peasant's hut. It is
considerably over one hundred and fifty years old, with stables and
outbuildings attached whimsically, and boasts six gables. Is it not a
pity, for early association's sake, that it has not one more?
I have, as Traddles used to say, "Oceans of room, Copperfield," and no
joking.
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