Leaning in the niche of a battlement, we gazed and listened, and breathed it all in, enjoying the beautiful sunshine and balmy air impregnated with the pungent odour of the ruins.

And there, without thinking of anything in particular, without even phrasing inwardly about something, I dreamed of coats of mail as pliable as gloves, of shields of buffalo hide soaked with sweat, of closed visors through which shot bloodthirsty glances, of wild and desperate night attacks with torches that set fire to the walls, and hatchets that mutilated the bodies; and of Louis XI, of the lover's war, of D'Aubigne and of the charlocks, the birds, the polished ivy, the denuded brambles, tasting in my pensive and idle occupation--what is greatest in men, their memory;--and what is most beautiful in nature, her ironical encroachments and eternal youth.
In the garden, among the lilac-bushes and the shrubs that droop over the alleys, rises the chapel, a work of the sixteenth century, chiselled at every angle, a perfect jewel, even more intricately decorated inside than out, cut out like the paper covering of a _bonbonniere_, and cunningly sculptured like the handle of a Chinese parasol.

On the door is a _bas-relief_ which is very amusing and ingenuous.

It represents the meeting of Saint Hubert with the mystic stag, which bears a cross between its antlers.

The saint is on his knees; above him hovers an angel who is about to place a crown on his cap; near them stands the saint's horse, watching the scene with a surprised expression; the dogs are barking and on the mountain, the sides and facets of which are cut to represent crystals, creeps the serpent.