repaired this crazy vehicle, we rumbled on for Verneuil; where it was exchanged for a diligence of more capacious dimensions.  Here, about eleven o’clock, we had breakfast; and from henceforth let it not be said that the art of eating and drinking belongs exclusively to our country:—­for such manifestations of appetite, and of attack upon substantials as well as fluids, I had scarcely ever before witnessed.  I was well contented with coffee, tea, eggs, and bread—­as who might not well be?... but my companions, after taking these in flank, cut through the centre of a roast fowl and a dish of stewed veal:  making diversions, in the mean while, upon sundry bottles of red and white wine; the fingers, during the meal, being as instrumental as the white metal forks.

We set off at a good round trot for Dreux:  and, in the route thither, we ascended a long and steep hill, having Nonancourt to the left.  Here we saw some very pretty country houses, and the whole landscape had an air of English comfort and picturesque beauty about it.  Here, too, for the first time, I saw a VINEYARD.  At this early season of the year it has a most stiff and unseemly look; presenting to the eye scarcely any thing but the brown sticks, obliquely put into the ground, against which the vine is trained.  But the sloping banks, on each side of the ascending road, were covered with plantations of this precious tree; and I was told that, if the autumn should prove as auspicious as appeared the spring, there would be a season of equal gaiety and abundance.  I wished it with all my heart.  Indeed I felt particularly interested in the whole aspect of the country about Nonancourt.  The sun was fast descending as we entered the town of Dreux—­where I had resolved upon taking leave both of the diligence and of my companions; and of reaching Paris by post.  At seven we dined, or rather perhaps made an early supper; when my fellow travellers sustained their reputation for their powers of attack upon fish, flesh, and fowl.  Indeed the dinner was equally plentiful and well cooked; and the charge moderate in proportion.  But there is nothing, either on the score of provision of reasonableness of cost, like the table d’hote throughout France; and he who cannot accommodate himself to the hour of dining (usually about one) must make up his mind to worse fare and treble charges.

After dinner we strolled in the town, and upon the heights near the castle.  We visited the principal church, St. Jean, which is very spacious, and upon the whole is a fine piece of architecture.  I speak more particularly of the interior—­where I witnessed, however, some of the most horrible devastations, arising from the Revolution, which I had yet seen.  In one of the side chapels, there had been a magnificent monument; perhaps from sixteen to twenty feet in height—­crowded with figures as large as life, from the base to the summit.  It appeared