A GLIMPSE OF FRANCE. 205 



A GLIMPSE OF FRANCE. 



IN coming over to France, I noticed that the 

 chalk-hills, which were stopped so abruptly by the sea 

 on the British side of the Channel, began again on 

 the French side, only they had lost their smooth, pas- 

 toral character, and were more broken and rocky, and 

 that they continued all the way to Paris, walling in 

 the Seine, and giving the prevailing tone and hue to 

 the country, scrape away the green and brown 

 epidermis of the hills anywhere, and out shine their 

 white frame-work, and that Paris itself was built 

 of stone evidently quarried from this formation a 

 light, cream-colored stone, so soft that rifle-bullets 

 bury themselves in it nearly their own depth, thus 

 pitting some of the more exposed fronts during the 

 recent strife in a very noticeable manner, and which, 

 in building, is put up in the rough, all the carving, 

 sculpturing, and finishing being done after the blocks 

 \re in position in the wall. 



Disregarding the counsel of friends, I braved the 

 Channel at one of its wider points, taking the vixen 

 by the waist instead of by the neck, and found her as 

 placid as a lake, as I did also on my return a week 

 later. 



