Belonging to the estate, about which there is nothing too princely, nor yet too financial, where prince and farmer-general have both lived (which fact serves to explain it), are four thousand acres of woodland, a park of some nine hundred acres, the mill, three leased farms, another immense farm at Conches, and vineyards,—­the whole producing a revenue of about seventy thousand francs a year.  Now you know Les Aigues, my dear fellow; where I have been expected for the last two weeks, and where I am at this moment, in the chintz-lined chamber assigned to dearest friends.

Above the park, towards Conches, a dozen little brooks, clear, limpid streams coming from the Morvan, fall into the pond, after adorning with their silvery ribbons the valleys of the park and the magnificent gardens around the chateau.  The name of the place, Les Aigues, comes from these charming streams of water; the estate was originally called in the old title-deeds “Les Aigues-Vives” to distinguish it from “Aigues-Mortes”; but the word “Vives” has now been dropped.  The pond empties into the stream, which follows the course of the avenue, through a wide and straight canal bordered on both sides and along its whole length by weeping willows.  This canal, thus arched, produces a delightful effect.  Gliding through it, seated on a thwart of the little boat, one could fancy one’s self in the nave of some great cathedral, the choir being formed of the main building of the house seen at the end of it.  When the setting sun casts its orange tones mingled with amber upon the casements of the chateau, the effect is that of painted windows.  At the other end of the canal we see Blangy, the county-town, containing about sixty houses, and the village church, which is nothing more than a tumble-down building with a wooden clock-tower which appears to hold up a roof of broken tiles.  One comfortable house and the parsonage are distinguishable; but the township is a large one,—­about two hundred scattered houses in all, those of the village forming as it were the capital.  The roads are lined with fruit-trees, and numerous little gardens are strewn here and there,—­true country gardens with everything in them; flowers, onions, cabbages and grapevines, currants, and a great deal of manure.  The village has a primitive air; it is rustic, and has that decorative simplicity which we artists are forever seeking.  In the far distance is the little town of Soulanges overhanging a vast sheet of water, like the buildings on the lake of Thune.

When you stroll in the park, which has four gates, each superb in style, you feel that our mythological Arcadias are flat and stale.  Arcadia is in Burgundy, not in Greece; Arcadia is at Les Aigues and nowhere else.  A river, made by scores of brooklets, crosses the park at its lower level with a serpentine movement; giving a dewy freshness and tranquillity to the scene,—­an air of solitude, which reminds one of a convent of Carthusians, and all the more because, on an artificial