From the summit of La Pelerine the traveller's eye can range over the
great valley of Couesnon, at one of the farthest points of which,
along the horizon, lay the town of Fougeres. From here the officers
could see, to its full extent, the basin of this intervale, as
remarkable for the fertility of its soil as for the variety of its
aspects. Mountains of gneiss and slate rose on all sides, like an
ampitheatre, hiding their ruddy flanks behind forests of oak, and
forming on their declivities other and lesser valleys full of dewy
freshness. These rocky heights made a vast enclosure, circular in
form, in the centre of which a meadow lay softly stretched, like the
lawn of an English garden. A number of evergreen hedges, defining
irregular pieces of property which were planted with trees, gave to
this carpet of verdure a character of its own, and one that is
somewhat unusual among the landscapes of France; it held the teeming
secrets of many beauties in its various contrasts, the effects of
which were fine enough to arrest the eye of the most indifferent
spectator.

At this particular moment the scene was brightened by the fleeting
glow with which Nature delights at times in heightening the beauty of
her imperishable creations. While the detachment was crossing the
valley, the rising sun had slowly scattered the fleecy mists which
float above the meadows of a September morning. As the soldiers turned
to look back, an invisible hand seemed to lift from the landscape the
last of these veils--a delicate vapor, like a diaphanous gauze through
which the glow of precious jewels excites our curiosity. Not a cloud
could be seen on the wide horizon to mark by its silvery whiteness
that the vast blue arch was the firmament; it seemed, on the contrary,
a dais of silk, held up by the summits of the mountains and placed in