and were within about seventy miles of Chalons sur Marne.  The vintage and the fruits of Autumn were now rich and abundant on all sides.  The fields were all purple, and the orchards all red and gold.  Wine casks, stained with the gushing juice, met us between every stage; while on the right hand and left, we saw the women walking beneath their perpendicular baskets, laden with the most bountiful produce of the vineyard.  Such a year of plenty had hardly been remembered within the oldest memory.  Mean time, the song and the roundelay were heard from all quarters; and between Dombasle and Clermont, as we ascended a wooded height, with the sun setting in a flame of gold, in front—­we witnessed a rural sight, connected with the vintage, which was sufficient to realise all the beautiful paintings ever executed by Watteau and Angelis.

It was late when we reached Chalons.  The next day, we started for Rheims, and stopped at Sillery in our way—­the last stage on that side of it.  The day was really oppressive—­although we were in the middle of October.  At Sillery we drank some Champagne—­for which it is famous—­the produce of the same year’s vintage.  It had not been made a fortnight—­and tasted rather sharp and strong.  This, we were triumphantly told, was the sure test of its turning out excellent.  We were infinitely delighted with Rheims, more especially with THE CATHEDRAL.  The western porches—­and particularly that on the north side—­are not less beautifully, than they are elaborately, sculptured.  The interior, immediately within the western porches—­or rather on the reverse sides of them—­presents sculpture of admirable workmanship:—­of the fourteenth century.  But the porches appeared much lower than I had imagined.  In the nave is an isolated roman sculpture,[187] of the lower age, cut in a block of marble—­and unconnectedly placed there.  This has been engraved in the Antiquite Expliquee of Montfaucon.  At the further end of the choir, is an elaborately sculptured modern monument—­containing many beautiful figures in white marble:—­upon the whole, one of the most interesting which I had seen upon the Continent.  The upper part of the exterior of the cathedral, on the south side, is very elegantly carved; but the towers are short, and under repair.  The lower part of the south exterior of the cathedral is entirely marred, as to picturesque effect, by the recent buildings attached to it.  Upon the whole, however, the Cathedral at Rheims is a very pure and interesting specimen of Gothic architecture.  Nor must I omit an anecdote connected with its present state of preservation.  That it escaped the ravages of the revolution, was owing, as I learnt, to the respect which was paid to the Cure of some neighbouring parish.  He came down to the armed multitude, when they were ripe for every species of destruction.  He told them—­they might take his LIFE ... but entreated them to spare