off the ordinary track, on which, indeed, he wants no guide but Murray
and Joanne.

My rallying point was a pleasant country-house at Couilly, offering easy
opportunity of studying agriculture and rural life, as well as of making
excursions by road and rail. Couilly itself is charming. The canal,
winding its way between thick lines of poplar trees towards Meaux, you
may follow in the hottest day of summer without fatigue. The river,
narrow and sleepy, yet so picturesquely curling amid green slopes and
tangled woods, is another delightful stroll; then there are broad,
richly wooded hills rising above these, and shady side-paths leading
from hill to valley, with alternating vineyards, orchards, pastures, and
cornfields on either side. Couilly lies in the heart of the
cheese-making country, part of the ancient province of Brie from which
this famous cheese is named.

The Comte of Brie became part of the French kingdom on the occasion of
the marriage of Jeanne of Navarre with Philip-le-Bel in 1361, and is as
prosperous as it is picturesque. It also possesses historic interest.
Within a stone's throw of our garden wall once stood a famous convent of
Bernardines, called Pont-aux-Dames. Here Madame du Barry, the favourite
of Louis XV., was exiled after his death; on the outbreak of the
Revolution, she flew to England, having first concealed, somewhere in
the Abbey grounds, a valuable case of diamonds. The Revolution went on
its way, and Madame du Barry might have ended her unworthy career in
peace had not a sudden fit of cupidity induced her to return to Couilly
when the Terror was at its acme, in quest of her diamonds. The Committee
of Public Safety got hold of Madame du Barry, and she mounted the
guillotine in company of her betters, showing a pusillanimity that
befitted such a career. What became of the diamonds, history does not