ornament his park, since he had bought up three villages and their appurtenances (to use a legal word) to increase its extent.

M. de Scudery said of this palace, that, for the purpose of keeping the grounds and gardens well watered, M. Fouquet had divided a river into a thousand fountains, and gathered the waters of a thousand fountains into torrents. This same Monsieur de Scudery said a great many other things in his “Clelie,” about this palace of Valterre, the charms of which he describes most minutely. We should be far wiser to send our curious readers to Vaux to judge for themselves, than to refer them to “Clelie;” and yet there are as many leagues from Paris to Vaux, as there are volumes of the “Clelie.”

This magnificent palace had been