Qa’on ne vante plus la Touraine
  Pour son air doux et gracieux,
  Ny Chenonceaus, qui d’une reyne
  Fut le jardin delicieux,
  Ny le Tivoly magnifique
  Ou, d’un artifice nouveau,
  Se faict une douce musique
  Des accords du vent et de l’eau.

  Issy, de beaute les surpasse
  En beaux jardins et pres herbus,
  Dignes d’estre au lieu de Parnasse
  Le sejour des soeurs de Phebus. 
  Mainte belle source ondoyante,
  Decoulant de cent lieux divers,
  Maintient sa terre verdoyante
  Et ses arbrisseaux toujours verds.

* * * * *

  Un vivier est a l’advenuee
  Pres la porte de ce verger,
  Qui, par une sente cognuee,
  En l’estang se va descharger;
  Comme on voit les grandes rivieres
  Se perdre au giron de la mer,
  Ainsi ces sources fontenieres
  En l’estang se vont renfermer.

* * * * *

  Une autre mare plus petite,
  Si l’on retourne vers le mont,
  Par l’ombre de son boys invite
  De passer sur un petit pont,
  Pour aller au lieu de delices,
  Au plus doux sejour du plaisir,
  Des mignardises, des blandices,
  Du doux repos et du loysir.

After the death of Queen Marguerite, the house was sold and it belonged in turn to several Parisian families which occupied it until 1655.  Olier turned it to more pious uses than it had known before, by inhabiting it during the last few years of his life.  M. de Bretonvilliers, his successor, gave it to the Company of St. Sulpice as a branch for the Paris house.  The little pavilion of Queen Marguerite was not in any way changed, except that the paintings on the walls were slightly modified.  The Venuses were changed into Virgins, and the Cupids into angels, while the emblematic paintings with Spanish mottoes in the interstices were left untouched, as they did not shock the proprieties.  A very fine room, the walls of which were covered with paintings of a secular character, was whitewashed about half a century ago, but they would perhaps be found uninjured if this was washed off.  The park to which Bouteroue refers in his poem is unchanged; except that several statues of holy persons have been placed in it.  An arbour with an inscription and two busts marks the spot where Bossuet and Fenelon, M. Tronson and M. de Noailles had long conferences upon the subject of Quietism, and agreed upon the thirty-four articles of the spiritual life, styled the Issy Articles.

Further on, at the end of an avenue of high trees, near the little cemetery of the Company, is a reproduction of the inside of the Santa Casa of Loretta, which is a favourite spot with the residents in the seminary, and which is decorated with the emblematic paintings of which they are so fond.  I can still see the mystical rose, the tower of ivory, and the gate of gold, before which I have passed many a long morning