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Laboissiere, dis-moi Vais-je pas bien en homme ? ?Vous chevauchez, ma foi, Mieux que tant que nous sommes. Kiln est Parmi les hallebardes Au regiment des gardes, Comme un cadet. ON THE ROADS ?MARIE DE ROHAN, DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE? THE AFFAIR OF THE VAL-DE-GRACE?A FAMOUS RIDE?LA ROCHEFOUCAULD?MADEMOISELLE AT CHANTILLY IT was always the custom, after travelling became possible at all, for great people to escape from the heat and horrible smells of Paris at the end of the summer. The nobles fled to their castles, which in Richelieu’s days suffered much dismantling of walls and towers. Some of them found consolation in laying out splendid gardens in a style full of formal affectations, yet with a grandeur of its own. The Royalties, weary of Saint-Germain and Fontainebleau, often followed the fashion set in a former century and travelled in state about the kingdom. Sometimes they borrowed a palatial house from its owners; sometimes they were entertained, as Henry IV so often was, by great seigneurs or princes of the blood. Trains of coaches, carts, baggage- waggons, pack-horses, mules, troops of guards or armed servants, were added to the usual population of the great roads, always lively with highwaymen, beggars, gipsies, pedlars, students, travelling players, caravans and shows, as well as the smaller public who travelled unwillingly and of necessity, messengers, merchants, ecclesiastics, or occasionally English foreigners on their way to Italy or Spain. Great people needed great trains, for they travelled with their beds and all necessary furniture, with their household servants and stores of provisions of every kind. Their nightly hosts on the way were asked, in theory at least, for no hospitality beyond bare walls. The King himself, when he invit…
