38 
A REMARKABLE LOCALITY. 
water has a specially depressing effect on the Alpine 
traveller, who still recalls the freshness of the innumer¬ 
able fountains of the Alps, and still has before his eyes 
the radiance of those delightful and sublime minors 
—their lakes. There, all is clear and luminous in the 
waters and the snows. Here, all is obscure. This 
small angle, sequestered as it were from the rest of 
France, is an enigma. It shows you the dead sand¬ 
stones without a trace of life; it shows you, particu¬ 
larly to-day, the newly-planted pines, which suffer 
nothing living under their shade. To discover what 
lies concealed beneath this outer mask, you must have 
recourse to the divining-rod, the hazel-wand. Revolve 
it, and you shall find. But what is this divining-rod ? 
A study or a love; any passion which lights up the 
inner world. 
The power of this locality does not lie in its 
historical, any more than in its artistic associations.'* 
The chateau distracts one’s attention from the 
forest by its abundant variety of memories and epochs; 
but it fails to increase the impression. Nature is the 
true fairy in this strange, sombre, fantastic, and sterile 
region. 
Observe that wherever the forest assumes an aspect 
of grandeur, either through the extent of its vista or 
the loftiness of its trees, it resembles all other forests. 
The truly magnificent towering beeches of Bas-Breau 
* It contains, however, three notable things : one magnificent, the Hall of Henry II. ; one 
marvellous, the Little Gallery of I rancis I. ; and one sublime, the four colossi, the incompar¬ 
able relics of a lost art, that of sculpture in sandstone. 
