Eo3engarten.] OOLf [Dee. 21, 



by his son, who commanded the French forces in the American War of 

 Independence, and later on became Marshal of France. The Chateau 

 itself dates from the twelfth or thirteenth century. It was originally sur- 

 rounded by walls and flanked with towers. It was rebuilt by Marshal de 

 Rochambeau in the style of his time, and all that recalled the feudal castle 

 disappeared to make room for the architecture of the period. The towers 

 were demolished, but so solid were the foundations that even now when 

 the water of the Loire is clear the old massive stones on which they 

 rested can be seen. Now the Chateau is a large main central building 

 with two wings. These are comparatively modern, but the main body is of 

 very old construction, with massive walls, secret passages and a hidden 

 entrance to what were once the dungeon keep and underground prisons. 

 In face of the main entrance a graceful modern chapel has been con- 

 structed, hollowed out of the soft rock. On one side a great series of stables 

 and other houses, on the other the long line of very ancient caves, still 

 used for farm purposes, in which the archeological zeal and intelligence 

 of the present owner have unearthed many curious relics of its successive 

 occupants, from those of the stone age, through Gallic and Roman days 

 down to historic periods quite within our own memory. Indeed so vast 

 are these artificial caves, that in one of the largest, a whole troop of 

 cavalry were quartered during the recent French military manojuvres at 

 Chateaudun, horses and men numbering nearly a hundred each, being 

 easily accommodated in these roomy, high, airy, dry, well-lighted and 

 well-ventilated natural dwellings. Where once the crenelated walls of 

 the Chateau commanded the Loire, there are now broad terraces 

 and flights of steps and grassy banks leading to the edge of the 

 river ; on either side of the Chateau fine gardens, and beyond the river 

 broad meadows planted with fine trees in the style of an English park, so 

 much afiected in France in the last century, while a splendid avenue of a 

 mile or two leads from the house between the river on one side and the 

 series of rock caves on the other, to the high road leading to Vendome, 

 all in admirable preservation, and in striking contrast to the flat plain 

 that surrounds the famous Chateau de Chambord, and the typical straight 

 lines of small trees that are so frequent throughout Touraine, depriving 

 even its historical chateaux of the beauty of the simple Chateau de Rocham- 

 beau. The present Marquis de Rochambeau, in his interesting monograph 

 on the Chateau and its vicinity, gives a series of early charters, from the 

 seventh to the thirteenth century, for churclies and properties now in- 

 cluded in its grounds, and the gift of the ground itself under the name of 

 Rocliatnbeau in I48i>, the will of the first owner of the present family in 

 159S, the deed of the establishment of its chapel in 1633, and other inter- 

 esting papers drawn from the family archives and from local and other 

 public depositories of ancient records. These monographs, that of the 

 younger General de Rochambeau, and that of the present owner of the 

 Chateau, are in the library of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 

 which already has on its shelves the Memoirs of the Count de Rochambeau, 



