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*[NOTE: Suitable reproductions of the illustrations were not available at the time this document was prepared. Place holders have been included in the text for possible insertions at a later date]

LIST OF THE PLATES.

View of the Monastery of La Trappe
Ruins of the Ancient Church of ditto
Ruins of the Gateway of the ancient Chartreuse
Les Noyades (vignette)
Grotto of Héloïse at Clisson
Tomb of Abélard and Héloïse
Ruins of Abélard's House
Granite Rock in the Garenne
Le Connétable de Clisson (outline)
Ruins of Clisson
Tour des Pélerins
Moulin aux chêvres
Tour d'Oudon on the River Loire
View of St. Florent
Tomb (etching)


PREFACE.

In justice to the public and to myself, I must disavow for thefollowing pages any higher literary pretension than what is conveyedby the simple title of "Notes," under which I have ventured to givethem to the world. I had no other aim in writing but to occupy asrationally as I could the hours of travel, and no other object inpublishing but to impart to others as plainly as I could a portion ofthe pleasure I myself experienced. It has somewhere been remarked tothis effect, that if every man of common understanding were to putdown the daily thoughts and occurrences of his life, candidly andunaffectedly as he experienced them, he must necessarily producesomething of interest to his fellow men, and make a book, which,though not enlivened by wit, dignified by profundity of reasoning, norvaluable by extent of research, yet no man perhaps should throw asidewith either weariness or disgust.

Whether I shall prove fortunate enough not to excite these sensationsin such readers as may honour my book with a perusal, I fear toconjecture. But it was my good fortune, during a season of uncommonbeauty, to make a tour through some of the most interesting parts ofFrance, and to meet with persons who, from situation and talents,were highly calculated to give my journey every charm of society andinformation. The natural face of the country through which I passedwas peculiarly beautiful: I could scarcely move a step withoutsome novelty of picturesque enchantment, and had the most perfectopportunities of contemplating Nature in all her varied poetry, fromthe grand and terrible graces of savage sublimity, to the soft andplayful loveliness of cultivated luxuriance. There was scarcely atown or village where I arrived which romance or history, religion orpolitics, had not invested and adorned with every interest of mentalassociation. Under such impressions, and with such opportunities, itwas scarcely possible to resist recording something of what I saw andfelt; and if the publication of my hasty record be an error, itwill be deemed by my friends, I hope, a pardonable one. My bookcan scarcely demand the serious attention of the critic; nor couldcriticism well expect a better style from one whose profession isseldom supposed to allow much leisure to acquire nicety in the arts ofcomposition. I claim no other merit for my Notes than having followedthe advice (of Gray, I believe) that ten words put down at the momentupon the spot, are worth a whole cart load of recollections. I havenot sought to add to their attraction (if they should possess any) bythe embellishments of my invention, or the graces of my periods--thedecorative artifices of execution can never give value to falsehood,