6 JULY 1944, Page 14

A CHATEAU IN NORMANDY

SIR,—Mr. Harold Nicolson's musings about Cherbourg and Normandy prompt me to ask. whether any Americans have noticed the Chateau of Tocqueville, the home of the author of La Democratie en Amerique (Alexis de Tocqueville)? In x858 R. M. Milnes (Lord Houghton), Arthur Russell, M.P. (my father), spent a week with Tocqueville. My father wrote, August 11th, 1858: " The chateau is square with two round towers, near the sea, not far from Barfleur and the Hogue, where the battle was fought, and strange to say, the wreck of Tourville's ships are still at the bottom of the sea and have sometimes been seen. There remains an old stone Colombier which contains holes for 3,000 pigeons." Has this building or the Chateau survived the invasion?—I am, Sir,