We left Chalons on the morning of the 1st, in high spirits at the thought that there were but little more than two hundred miles between us and Paris.  In walking over the cold, muddy plain, we passed a family of strolling musicians, who were sitting on a heap of stones by the roadside.  An ill-dressed, ill-natured man and woman, each carrying a violin, and a thin, squalid girl, with a tamborine, composed the group.  Their faces bore that unfeeling stamp, which springs from depravity and degradation.  When we had walked somewhat more than a mile, we overtook a little girl, who was crying bitterly.  By her features, from which the fresh beauty of childhood had not been worn, and the steel triangle which was tied to her belt, we knew she belonged to the family we had passed.  Her dress was thin and ragged and a pair of wooden shoes but ill protected her feet from the sharp cold.  I stopped and asked her why she cried, but she did not at first answer.  However, by questioning, I found her unfeeling parents had sent her on without food; she was sobbing with hunger and cold.  Our pockets were full of bread and cheese which we had bought for breakfast, and we gave her half a loaf, which stopped her tears at once.  She looked up and thanked us, smiling; and sitting down on a bank, began to eat as if half famished.

The physiognomy of this region is very singular.  It appears as if the country had been originally a vast elevated plain, and some great power had scooped out, as with a hand, deep circular valleys all over its surface.  In winding along the high ridges, we often looked down, on either side, into such hollows, several miles in diameter, and sometimes entirely covered with vineyards.  At La Rochepot, a quaint, antique village, lying in the bottom of one of these dells, we saw the finest ruin of the middle ages that I have met with in France.  An American lady had spoken to me of it in Rome, and I believe Willis mentions it in his “Pencillings,” but it is not described in the guide books, nor could we learn what feudal lord had ever dwelt in its halls.  It covers the summit of a stately rock, at whose foot the village is crouched, and the green ivy climbs up to the very top of its gray towers.

As the road makes a wide curve around the side of the hill, we descended to the village by the nearer foot-path, and passed among its low, old houses, with their pointed gables and mossy roofs.  The path led close along the foot of the rock, and we climbed up to the ruin, and stood in its grass-grown courtyard.  Only the outer walls and the round towers at each corner are left remaining; the inner part has been razed to the ground, and where proud barons once marshalled their vassals, the villagers now play their holiday games.  On one side, several Gothic windows are left standing, perfect, though of simple construction, and in the towers we saw many fire-places and door-ways of richly cut stone, which looked as fresh as if just erected.