Chateau de Landin. 645 



the water. We were told at Rouen that Landin was neg- 

 lected and no longer worth going to see, but we felt ourselves 

 amply compensated for the journey, even if we had not seen 

 Mailleraie, nor any thing else. Almost the entire interest of 

 the place, in our eyes, consists in the grandeur of the situation, 

 and the facilities which it affords of forming what we have 

 always considered as the grandest description of walk or road 

 in nature or art; that of a level line carried along the side of a 

 steep, irregular, winding, wooded bank or hill, looking up to 

 woods and hill tops on one hand, and down to water, rich and 

 varied country, and extreme distance on the other. At Landin 

 the hill tops are wanting, but the irregularity of the bank affords 

 every opportunity that we could desire for varying the line of 

 walk, by retiring into wooded recesses with rocks, caverns, and 

 springs, and advancing to bold prominences commanding the 

 whole extensive reach of the river. In the alluvial plain on 

 the opposite side, and directly under the Chateau de Landin, is 

 a vei'y remarkable feature in rural economy ; a strip or strand 

 of one or two hundred acres close by the river, some yards 

 higher than all the rest, and entirely covered with cottages and 

 fruit trees. We were informed that, being found particularly 

 suitable for the culture of table fruits, especially apples, it is 

 let in portions of an acre or two for that purpose ; that every 

 allotment has a cottage for the occupier and his family ; and 

 that the whole have for many years formed a very remarkable 

 colony. We regretted our inability to examine it minutely. The 

 fruits, chiefly the apples, are said to be sent to many parts of 

 Europe, especially the celebrated Reinettes Grises. Beyond 

 this alluvial island, and on each side of it, up and down the 

 river, for several miles, the surface is flat, in meadow, and often 

 during winter and spring entirely covered with water. The 

 Chateau de Landin on these occasions looks down on an im- 

 mense lake, with the island of fruit trees and cottages in the 

 foreground, and in the distance a cultivated hilly country, 

 varied by natural woods, and the remains of some chateaus 

 and religious buildings. 



Before the revolution, the Chateau de Landin was possessed 

 by the Abbe Boismont, a man of learning and a gardening- 

 amateur of that day. Some of his verses may be seen in the 

 summer houses in the English part of the grounds at Mail- 

 leraie ; and the numerous walks which he traced in the woods 

 at Landin, with the ruins of some of his root houses and temples, 

 still remain. The Abbe Gossier informed us that the Abbe 

 Boismont had a flock of sheep, a herd of cows and bullocks, and 

 several milkmaids and shepherds, all formed of plaster of Paris, 

 and stuck about the grounds, and that it cost him 2000 francs 



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