belonging to one of the numerous French
sportsmen whom the train was carrying to
the spot where his prowess was to be proved
amongst the rabbits of the sandy plains near
Staples, and just as we had arrived at the
conclusion that Louis the Eleventh had passed
this way when he visited the famous shrine
of Notre Dame de Boulogne, a general shout
and peal of laughter interrupted the argument;
and, looking from the window—as every one
else in the train did at the same moment—
we beheld our noisy and desperate canine
fellow-traveller in the act of clearing the rail
and coursing at liberty over the fields, in a
backward direction, leaving his master—gun,
gaiters, and all—without his valuable assistance,
borne on, in spite of his vociferous cries
to "Looloo!" and frantic entreaties to be let
out. The noise, the laughter, the exclamations
that ensued, can only be conceived by
those who have witnessed French excitement,
nor had it subsided when we reached the
Montreuil station; the distracted master of
the ungrateful companion of his sports having
lost all recollection of his intention to stop
some fifteen miles before, and thus having
allowed himself to be swept on while he
recounted to interested listeners the escapades
of his dog and his own extraordinary feats,
not only as a sportsman, but in almost every
other capacity. As we had condoled with
him, on his accident, he had become
communicative on many subjects, and we found his
vanity extremely amusing. He was a
remarkably little man, with such small hands
and feet as none but Frenchmen own, but he
informed us that his strength was perfectly
miraculous, and he had done things which
the most powerful-looking men had been
unable to accomplish: he had lifted weights;
he had stopped horses at full gallop; he had,
by merely pressing his foot against it, kept a
gate against six; he had invented machines
for stopping a train in an instant, regardless
of consequences; he knew how to sail a
balloon on a principle impossible to fail; but
with all these achievements he had yet a wish
unaccomplished. "What I desire," said he,
looking lightnings, "above all other things is
to tame a Lion!"

Meantime we left him at the station, where
having joined a brother of the craft, he
appeared, at once, to forget his misfortune; and,
by his gesticulations, bows, and smiles, we
gathered that he had accepted an invitation
to repair in due course to a certain small
château which was pointed to, and whose
bright red trellice was heavy with crowding
clusters of grapes, destined, no doubt, to
furnish part of the dessert on that memorable
day, when the good dinner fitting reward for
manly toil should crown the exertions of the
Little Lion-tamer.

More marshes, more sportsmen, and more
rows of spectre-like trees, brought us to the
station of Rue. There is nothing in the
station or the country round to excite notice,
yet the reiteration of the name, as it sounded
in our ears, awoke many recollections. Rue!
we said—the most celebrated spot of pilgrimage
in all Picardy, possessing a miraculous
crucifix sculptured by the hand of Nicodemus—
Rue! where one has only to go, even at
the present time, to obtain all sorts of
Indulgences, quite as efficacious now, under the
reign of the Imperial President, as when
Pope Alexander the Third raised money by
selling them to the devout, who travelled
from Lyons by the Roman road (by the bye,
we were then crossing it) which led to the
shrines of Ponthieu.

We scarcely allowed ourselves time to
acknowledge sufficiently the ceremonious
greetings of the antique hostess of our hotel
at Abbeville, before we ordered a vehicle for
Saint Riquier, fearful of losing the fleeting
light of an October day.

By a very dreary road, now and then
enlivened by rows of red apple-trees; past
swampy fields and trim hedges, through thin
little woods filled with chattering magpies—
our driver, a jolly pati'onising character, fond
of gambolling with an ugly little dog, for
whose convenience he occasionally stopped
his horses that it might overtake us—we
found ourselves consuming the two leagues
which lie between Abbeville and the
hundred-towered region of Saint Riquier. We
had emerged from a rather thick wood, one
of the "fringes" left "upon the petticoat" of
the forest of Crecy, and were eagerly gazing,
in hopes that one of the hundred turrets
would reward our perseverance. A high
square tower presently peered over the
distant trees, and on a bright blue board, fixed
on the gable of a lonely cottage, we read the
name of the town we were in quest of. A
long and thinly-peopled faubourg led us at
last to the main street of this redoubtable
place, once the protection as well as the
oppression of the whole district, and our
vehicle drew up in a wide place before a huge
square tower, seated on the declivity of a hill,
up which the rows of apparently uninhabited
houses ran. Not a sound, not a breath, broke
the perfect solitude, except the rattle of our
wheels on the rugged pavement, and our
inquiries of our driver as to the road to the
church. Presently we met a troup of young
students, who all saluted us with studied
courtesy: every peasant we passed, few as
they were, bowed with equal civility, and we
found that this silent city seemed the abode
of the most exemplary politeness.

The truth is, that Saint Riquier is a town
devoted to learning; that the college founded
by Charlemagne still exists; and that, though
the monks and students of the abbey are no
longer seen, there are still monastic costumes
and "learned runnagates," as in days of old.

The college, famous for so many centuries,
in spite of the destruction of the year Three,
nourishes at the present moment in great
vigour; more than three hundred students are