. Wayfaring in France, from Auvergne to the Bay of Biscay. shadowof old walnut-trees. A few yards off, under one ofthe great trees, was a high wooden crucifix, aroundwhich some twenty or thirty geese were standing orlying down, all in a digestive or contemplativemood, and through the openings between the bolesand the branches were seen the sunlit meadowssloping to the low willows and the flashing river. From St. Mondane a charming road or lanebetween very high banks that are almost cliffs leadsupward to the Chateau de la Motte-Fenelon, where,in 1651, was born Francois de Salignac de la Motte,k
. Wayfaring in France, from Auvergne to the Bay of Biscay. shadowof old walnut-trees. A few yards off, under one ofthe great trees, was a high wooden crucifix, aroundwhich some twenty or thirty geese were standing orlying down, all in a digestive or contemplativemood, and through the openings between the bolesand the branches were seen the sunlit meadowssloping to the low willows and the flashing river. From St. Mondane a charming road or lanebetween very high banks that are almost cliffs leadsupward to the Chateau de la Motte-Fenelon, where,in 1651, was born Francois de Salignac de la Motte,known to the world as Fenelon. Having reachedthe top of the hill, I soon came in view of a pictur-esque mass of masonry with round towers cappedwith pointed roofs, and with Gothic gables hanginglightly in the air over dormer windows ; the wholerising out of a dense grove of trees in the midst ofa quiet sunny landscape. When quite near I foundthat the grove was a sombre little wood of ever- 190 IN UPPER PERIGORD oreen oaks. The same wood, if not the actual. z << 0 oaks, may have been there in Fenelons time, for CHATEAU DE FENELON 191 the ilex is one of the commonest trees in Perio-ordon the hills about the Dordogne. As a boy, whileclimbing- here, he may have torn his hose intotatters, notwithstanding his precocious knowledge ofGreek. The future churchman may even haverobbed a jays nest on this very spot. Whatquietude and what deep shadow! Not a leafstirred ; only a fiery shaft of sunshine forced its wayhere and there through the dark roof of unchanginggreen to the brown soil and the ramparts mossy wall. Although the present castle was raised whenfeudalism was nothing more than a tradition and asentiment, the outworks, consisting of two walls,the inner one standing on ground considerablyhigher than the other, were of exceptional strength,and as they were originally, so they remain at thepresent day. I passed through the outer and thenthe inner gateway, and, in my search for
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