before the first roof-tree was laid in the land which its owner had helped to build up to a great nation.  On a hill-side its appearance would have been grand.  As it was, it was impressive, and particularly as first seen from the road.  The portcullis was gone, but the arched gateway still remained, flanked by towers that looked sombre and stern, even amidst the deep green of the ivy which covered the left tower almost to the battlements.  I was afterwards told that the ivy itself had a special significance,—­having been planted by Charles Fox, during a visit to La Grange not long before his death.  And Fox, it will be remembered, had exerted all his eloquence to induce the English Government to demand the liberation of Lafayette from Olmuetz,—­an act which called down upon him at the time the bitterest invectives of party rhetoric, but which the historian of England now records as a bright page in the life of one of her greatest men.  Ah, how different would our record be, if we could always follow our instinct of immortality, and in all our actions look thoughtfully forward to the judgment of the future!

Passing under the massive arch, I found myself in the castle court.  Three sides of the edifice were still standing, darkened, indeed, and distained by the winds and rains of centuries, but with an air of modern comfort and neatness about the doors and windows that seemed more in keeping than the moat and towers with the habits of the present day.  The other curtain had been thrown down years before,—­how or why nobody could tell me, but not improbably in some of the domestic wars which fill and defile the annals of mediaeval Europe.  In those days the loss of it must have been a serious one; but for the modern occupant it was a real gain,—­letting in the air and sunlight, and opening a pleasant view of green plantations from every window of the court.

A servant met me at the main entrance, a broad stairway directly opposite the gate, and, taking my card, led me up to a spacious hall, where he asked me to wait while he went to announce my arrival to the General.  The hall was a large oblong room, plainly, but neatly furnished, with a piano at one end, its tessellated oaken floor highly polished, and communicating by folding-doors with an inner room, in which I caught a glimpse of a bright wood-fire, and a portrait of Bailly over the mantel.  On the wall, to the left of the folding-doors, was suspended an American flag with its blue field of stars and its red and white stripes looking down upon me in a way that made my American veins tingle.

But I had barely time to look around me before I heard a heavy step on the stairs, and the next moment the General entered.  This time he gave me a French greeting, pressing me in his arms and kissing me on both cheeks.  “We were expecting you,” said he, “and you are in good season for dinner.  Let me show you your room.”