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Saumer is a most delicious place, with its little red and white houses, seated at the foot of a flower dressed hill, and divided by the Loire, which runs sportively through it, like a blue scarf on the neck of a beautiful girl. But, alas! this new Eden, like all other cities, has its sad attendants on civilization -- a prison and a sub-prefect, a literary society, and a lunatic hospital -- yes, a hospital for lunatics! Ascend the Loire by the left bank, and when you have arrived at the outskirts of the city, clamber by a steep path, and you will soon arrive at the top of a pebbly hill, in the flanks of which are placed small cabins, furnished with great bars of wood. It is there, while you are occupied with admiring, with all the powers of your soul, the beautiful country which stretches from Tours to Angers, the green and fertile fields, the rapid and majestic current which crosses and bathes the brilliant landscape, suddenly the cries of rage, and the laughter of stolidity, will burst forth behind you, and call you to contemplate the spectacle which you have come to seek. Then you will renounce with pain the happiness of the contemplation; but you will renounce it, because it cannot be enjoyed beside such an accumulation of misery.

Look at that young man who is walking almost naked -- the young man whose limbs are blackened by exposure to the sun, and whose feet are torn by rough pebbles in his pathway. He had taken holy orders -- he was surprised by love -- he went crazy -- now he is stripped of his orders and his love -- poor victem! -sic-

As I was wandering one day in the midst of all this wreck of humanity, behind me was walking a young lady accompanied by her husband, leading by the hand a pretty little girl, their child. She came, without doubt, like myself, to seek for strong and new emotions. We become strangely jaded with the tiring excitement of a city.

I arrived at the same moment with this lady, opposite a girl who had been led out of her cell into the court, and was fastened to the wall by an iron chain. Her large blue eye had so much sweetness, her pale face so many charms, and her long auburn hair fell with so much grace over her naked shoulders, that I looked at her with inexpressible pain. She appeared to have beenweeping bitterly, how heavy, then, appeared that horrible chain which abraded her white delicate skin!

I asked the lay sister, who acted as a guide to me, what had befallen this girl, that she was treated so rigorously. She answered me, lowering her eyes and blushing, "It is Mary, a poor girl from the city, who has loved to -sic- deeply. The fiend who tempted, abandoned her, and after two years, the child of her shame died. This last loss deprived her of reason. She was brought to this institution, and in consequence of sudden dangerous excesses of derangemont, she is chained."

The good sister bowed, as if ashamed of referring to such a subject.

I stood lost in reflection upon the mutation of human affairs, as I gazed at the unfortunate being before me, when suddenly I saw her spring the whole length of her chain, seize the little child which the young lady held by the hand, press it closely to her breast, and rush back with the swiftness of an arrow to her stone bench.

The mother screamed frantically, and sprung towards the miserable lunatic, who drove her back with shocking brutality.

"It is my babe!" cried Mary, "it is she indeed, God has restored her to me -- oh, how good is God!" -- and she leaped up with joy, and covered the child with kisses. The father attempted to seize the child by force, but the lay sister prevented him, and besought him to let Mary have her own way.

"It is not your daughter," said she kindly to Mary, "she does not resemble you in the least."

"Not my daughter! Good heavens! Look -- look, sister Martha -- look at her mouth, her eyes; it is the very likeness of her father. She has come down from heaven. How pretty -- how very pretty she is, my dear sweet daughter" -- and she pressed the child to her bosom, and rocked it like a nurse, to still its cries.

It was, however, heart-rending, to see the poor mother, who watched with anxiety every movement of the lunatic, and wept or smiled as Mary advanced toward, or retired from sister Martha.

"Lend your daughter to me a moment, Mary, that I may see her." said the good sister.

"Lend to you! Oh no, indeed the first time the priests told me also that I should lend her for a little while to God, who desired such angels, and she was gone six months. I will not lend her again- no, no, I would rather kill her and keep her body" -- and she held up the child as if she would dash its head against the wall.

The mother, pale, and inanimate, fell helpless upon her knees, and with bitter sobs supplicated the lunatic to give back her child, and not to do it harm. Mary gave no heed to her; she was holding the infant with her eyes bent intently upon its features.

The father, half distracted, had gone to seek the director of the institution.

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It would have been difficult then, to say which was the really crazy one -- the mother, who lay trembling in my arms, and calling aloud for her child, or Mary, who with wild laugher, was presenting to the child her shrivelled breasts.

It was resolved not to employ force, but allow Mary to retire into the cell, and when she was asleep, to take away the child.

Once in her cell, Mary laid the child at the foot of the bed, pressed down the matress, and disposed the clothes into the form of a cradle -- while the real mother, with her face pressed against the gratings of the cell, watched in the twilight of the place, with haggard and streaming eyes, every motion of the lunatic.

Mary carefully disposed the child in its new made bed, hushed it, and sung little nursery songs, with a wild and fitful voice and then fell asleep beside the infant.

The nurse immediately entered the cell on tiptoe, snatched up the child, and restored it to its other's arms, who screamed with joy, and fled away with her precious burthen.

The cry of the mother awakened Mary, she felt beside her in vain for the child -- she ran to the grating, and shook it with a powerful arm -- she saw the child borne from her, she uttered a wild discordant cry, and fell her whole length upon the floor -- she was dead! -- twice was too much.