791 



The accommodations at Houdan (les Trois Fils d'Amon) are not very 

 good, but the greatest defect was the want of attention. I had on 

 my arrival a long while to wait in the kitchen before I could even get 

 an answer to a question, and still longer before I could get ray lug- 

 gage taken up stairs : and when T came away, the servant was, with 

 great difficulty, induced to bring my trunk down stairs, but left it at 

 bottom, with " Voila votre malle, Monsieur," and would not bring it 

 any further. 



I had been assured at Mantes that I should find at Houdan con- 

 veyances for Rambouillet and for Chartres : I found neither, and there- 

 fore took my place in the evening for Dreux. The best hotel — the 

 Paradis — was full, and I took up my quarters at the Saumon, which 

 is not bad. The next day, May 25, I walked to the forest of Dreux, 

 which offers some fine chalky banks tow^ards the Eure, but internally 

 is an unproductive plateau. Here again I saw Orchis fusca, which 

 is evidently the most common of the tribe ; O. hircina was abundant. 

 The other plants were : — 



Anchusa italica Peuceclanum Oreoselinum Sileue nutans 



Pulmonaria anguslifolia P. parisiense Holosteum umliellatuni 



Salvia Sclarea Isatis tinctoria Sambncus Ebulus 



Orobanche cruenta Sisymbrium Iiio Gnaphalium arvense 

 Crepis biennis 



Helianthemum pulverulentum was abundant and in great beauty : 

 this seems to me hardly distinct from H. apenninum, nor do I know 

 how to separate it from H. polifolium, at least my specimens of H. 

 polifolium from Brean down seem in all respects the same plant. 

 After my walk I went to look at the new chapel which the King is now 

 building as a mausoleum for himself and his family. With some 

 beautiful bits of Gothic and a splendid general effect, it is neverthe- 

 less the strangest thing which can be imagined, and much more 

 whimsical than beautiful. 



At 6 o'clock the next morning I set out for Chartres. Nothing can 

 be more interesting than the magnificent cathedral of that city, or less 

 so than the country about it, especially as I saw it under the influ- 

 ence of a continued mizzling rain. At half past 2 I started for An- 

 gerville, where I had to wait at the station nearly two hours for the 

 arrival of the train from Paris, with rain so incessant, and a road so 

 deep in clay that I did not venture into the village. The country all 

 the way from Chartres to Orleans is as dull and monotonous as pos- 

 sible : we traverse for some distance the forest of Orleans. 



On the 29th I walked to Ingre and the forest beyond it. The hill 



