Villenoy, like a toy town, where the big bridge spans the Marne to carry
the railroad into Meaux. On the horizon line to the west the tall
chimneys of Claye send lines of smoke into the air. In the foreground
to the north, at the foot of the hill, are the roofs of two little
hamlets,--Joncheroy and Voisins,--and beyond them the trees that border
the canal.

On the other side of the Marne the undulating hill, with its wide
stretch of fields, is dotted with little villages that peep out of the
trees or are silhouetted against the sky-line,--Vignely, Trilbardou,
Penchard, Monthyon, Neufmortier, Chauconin, and in the foreground to
the north, in the valley, just halfway between me and Meaux, lies
Mareuil-on-the-Marne, with its red roofs, gray walls, and church spire.
With a glass I can find where Chambry and Barcy are, on the slope behind
Meaux, even if the trees conceal them.

But these are all little villages of which you may never have heard. No
guidebook celebrates them. No railroad approaches them. On clear days
I can see the square tower of the cathedral at Meaux, and I have only to
walk a short distance on the route nationale,--which runs from Paris,
across the top of my hill a little to the east, and thence to Meaux and
on to the frontier,--to get a profile view of it standing up above the
town, quite detached, from foundation to clock-tower.

This is a rolling country of grain fields, orchards, masses of
black-currant bushes, vegetable plots,--it is a great sugar-beet
country,--and asparagus beds; for the Department of the Seine et Marne
is one of the most productive in France, and every inch under
cultivation. It is what the French call un paysage riant, and I assure
you, it does more than smile these lovely June mornings. I am up every