44 WOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO 
selves from this sombre orchard. Penetrating the ancient hedges 
and chestnut-alleys, you found yourself in a nook of barren argil- 
laceous soil, where, among thyme-laurels and other strong, rude trees, 
rosé an enormous cedar, a veritable leafy cathedral, of such stature 
that a cypress already grown very tall was choked by it, and lost. 
This cedar, bare and stripped below, was living and vigorous where 
it received the light; its immense arms, at thirty feet from the 
ground, clothed themselves with strange and pointed leaves; then 
the canopy thickened; the trunk attained an elevation of eighty feet. 
You saw, about three leagues distant, the fields opposite the banks 
of the Sevre and the woods of La Vendée. Our home, low and 
sheltered on the side of this giant, was not less distinguished by it 
