Which shows what a French forest was in the year of our Lord 1642, and by whom it was inhabited. THE vast Sylva Lida, which in the days of Charlemagne stretched far along the banks of the Seine, and formed a woody screen round the infant city of Paris, has now dwindled to a few thousand acres in the neighbourhood of St. Germain en Laye. Not so in the time of Louis the Thirteenth. It was then one of the most magnificent forests of France, and extending as far as the town of Mantes, took indifferently the name of the Wood of Mantes, or the Forest of Laye.
Which shows what a French forest was in the year of our Lord 1642, and by whom it was inhabited. THE vast Sylva Lida, which in the days of Charlemagne...
All was bustle round the door of the little inn of Montigny; twenty or thirty horses employed the hands and attention of as many grooms and stable-boys; and while they put their heads together, and talked over the perfections or imperfections of the beasts they held, sixty or seventy respectable citizens, the great cloth merchant, and the wholesale dealer in millstones, the cure of the little town, the bailiff of the high-justiciary, the ironmonger, the grocer, and the butcher, stood in knots on the outside, discussing more important particulars than the appearance of the horses. The sign of...
All was bustle round the door of the little inn of Montigny; twenty or thirty horses employed the hands and attention of as many grooms and stable-boy...
The convent of the Black Penitents was a very different building indeed, and a very different establishment altogether from that which the imagination of the reader may have raised up from the images furnished by dark and mysterious tales of Italian superstition. It was certainly intended to be, and was, in some degree, a place of voluntary penitence for women who conceived that they had led a peculiarly sinful life: but there were two classes of nuns confined there by their own good will, --one of which consisted of persons who had mingled long with the world, and really led an irregular...
The convent of the Black Penitents was a very different building indeed, and a very different establishment altogether from that which the imagination...
It was as dark and sombre a morning, the sky was as gloomy, the earth as dry and parched, as earth, sky, and morning ever appear in the most northern climates. A dull grey expanse of leaden cloud shut out the blue heaven, a hard black frost pinched up the ground, the blades of grass stood stiff and rugged on the frozen soil, and vague grey mists lay in all the hollows of the ground.
It was as dark and sombre a morning, the sky was as gloomy, the earth as dry and parched, as earth, sky, and morning ever appear in the most northern ...
