I continued my way, and again I saw it, and it appeared as if several others, less tall, but still in armour, were by its side, by no means so distinct.

I paused again, it was growing darker and darker, and I then could distinguish nothing but a row of slender trees, whose delicate leaves were shivering in the evening breeze, and whose stems waved to and fro.

I went home--through the chill damp castle court, and across the bridge to the dismal street--impressed with an agreeable, though somewhat tremulous conviction, that I must have seen some of the ghosts which haunt the walks of the old castle.
I expected to hear that the memory of Queen Jeanne was venerated on this spot; but was surprised to find that she holds a place in tradition little more honourable than that occupied by our bloody Queen Mary; for there is scarcely any atrocity in history of which she is not the heroine: whatever might have been her fame with her Protestant subjects, those who succeeded them seemed carefully to have treasured the remembrance of all the cruelties executed by her orders, which, it must be acknowledged, were little in accordance with the religion of peace she professed to have adopted.

Her son, whose faith was of so changeable a character that it suited all parties, is the pride and boast of the country; but the object of love appears to be the amiable Princess Catherine, his sister, for whom her mother built, in a secluded spot in the royal park, a residence, called _Castel Beziat_, the last stones of which have now disappeared, as well as the _gardens_ originally planted by Gaston XI., in 1460, and said, in the time of Henri II.

and Marguerite, _to be the finest in Europe_.