Special Correspondence.

Compiègne is the place where Napoleon III passed his hunting season. But it has a history, not feudal, communal and episcopal like the other cities, but royal and even pontifical. Kings were chosen, crowned, poisoned and buried, royal matches made, royal brides received, royal marriages celebrated there. Queens divorced there and mistresses substituted for queens. The States-General have been held and treaties concluded there. But with all this history the two ancient churches and the Hotel-de-ville are better worth seeing than the seat of the court, the château, a heavy edifice of the time of Louis XV.