A cross-road, skirted
with green hedge-rows, and overshadowed by tall poplars, leads you from
the noisy highway of St. Cloud and Versailles to the still retirement of
this suburban hamlet. On either side the eye discovers old chateaux amid
the trees, and green parks, whose pleasant shades recall a thousand images
of La Fontaine, Racine, and Moliere; and on an eminence, overlooking the
windings of the Seine, and giving a beautiful tho distant view of the
domes and gardens of Paris, rises the village of Passy, long the residence
of our countrymen Franklin and Count Rumford....
It was to the Bois de Boulogne that I looked for my principal recreation.
There I took my solitary walk, morning and evening; or, mounted on a
little mouse-colored donkey, paced demurely along the woodland pathway. I
had a favorite seat beneath the shadow of a venerable oak, one of the few
hoary patriarchs of the wood which had survived the bivouacs of the allied
armies. It stood upon the brink of a little glassy pool, whose tranquil
bosom was the image of a quiet and secluded life, and stretched its
parental arms over a rustic bench, that had been constructed beneath it
for the accommodation of the foot-traveler, or, perchance, some idle
dreamer like myself.
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