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reached this town, famed once for being an appanage for royal mistresses, but destined for a better celebrity by an event which has lately taken place within its walls, we observed the old château of Mesnil-Voisin, the perty of the late unhappy Duke de Choiseul-Praslin, not otherwise noticeable, however, than as it recalled the fate of its owners. What adds to the interest of Etampes is the story of its four brides, the daughters of a once wealthy manufacturer named Bechu. From the wreck of an immense property considerable fortunes had accumulated for each of these young ladies, and they were constantly sought in marriage, but they resisted every solicitation, declaring that they would not change their condition until every claim upon their late father's estate was satisfied. The sums which they laid by for this purpose at length reached the required amount, and only a few weeks since the whole was liquidated to the uttermost farthing. They then felt themselves free, and no longer hesitated to give their hands to those who had sought them in marriage. All four were married on the same day, and it is a question if the old town of Etampes ever witnessed greater rejoicings. It may safely be affirmed that more genuine ones never took place.

There is a good deal in Etampes to gratify the antiquarian besides the walls of Guinette, which date from the eleventh century, and such is to be found in its ancient church of Notre Dame, its leaning tower of St. Martin, its turreted Hôtel de Ville, and the number of houses in the town which date from the period of the Renaissance. We could not, however, afford to stop on the threshold of the Loire, as it was our purpose to reach Blois that evening, so we contented ourselves with the ten minutes' survey allowed by the stoppage of the train, and then pursued our route across the wide plains of La Beauce, rich in garnered corn, and swarming with game. At the precise moment indicated in our "Foreign Bradshaw, we stopped in the Gare at Orleans.

III.

THOUGH Our purpose was only to pay a flying visit to the city to examine its most remarkable monuments, we were under the necessity of taking all our baggage with us, as if we had contemplated a twelvemonth's residence there. The reason assigned for this was the want of accommodation in the station, the railway officials observing, that if it were left in their care, the chances were it would either find its way back to Paris or on to Lyons. It is more than probable, however, that a better reason might be found in the desire to encourage the omnibuses which ply between the railway and the hotels, for the fares were more than doubled by the arrangement. We submitted, therefore, to what could not be avoided, and a ten minutes' drive deposited us at the oldfashioned but comfortable hostelry of the Boule d'Or, the substitute for the Hôtel de France, in the Place du Martroy, which was then-like most things in Orleans-undergoing repairs.

After an excellent breakfast, in which a conspicuous part was supplied by some very meritorious saucissons (though the wine which accompanied them was of the bluest, as our discoloured lips testified), we proceeded to visit the town. What there is to be seen in Orleans lies in a small compass, and the new street, called after Joan of Arc, facilitates the search, as the objects of chiefest interest are grouped at each extre

mity, almost in a straight line. The cathedral, whose towers are visible so far off on every side of the city, attracted us first. We were standing on the parvis in front of the western entrance, and had just begun to compare opinions on this light and graceful but not over pure specimen of Gothic architecture, which dates only from the commencement of the seventeenth century, when we perceived a party of three persons approaching, the leader of whom was a very dandified young man of about one or two and twenty, evidently cultivating his first moustache, and, no less evidently, on the very best possible terms with himself. In addition to his two friends, he was accompanied by one of those pert-looking white dogs so constantly seen in France, with sharp noses and tails that curl over their backs like the mainspring of a watch. The dog's master made straight up to us, smiling very much after Malvolio's fashion, and perfectly assured that it was all right. As Hamlet prophesied of the intention of Polonius, I felt certain he intended to praise the cathedral. He did not leave me a moment in doubt.

"N'est-ce pas que c'est magnifique ?" was his exclamation.

Now "magnificent" was not the word. Had he said "pretty," or "graceful," or made use of any term which did not place this bastard of Orleans on the same level with the grandeur of the first-rate cathedrals of France, such as Bourges, or Chartres, or Rheims, or Amiens, I might have suffered the phrase to pass, however unwilling to improvise a rapture which I had not yet felt; but this sudden demand upon my admiration, claiming the immediate surrender of my judgment, was more than I was disposed to agree to. Had the young man's tone been less arrogant, I might even at once have said "yes," and reserved my private sentiments; but as it was, I by no means responded to his enthusiasm.

"C'est assez beau, monsieur," I replied, "mais je ne trouve pas que c'est magnifique."

"Sir," returned he, speaking in frittered English, "I shall tell you that she is magnificent."

"Notwithstanding your assertion," (I might have said "assurance,") I answered, coldly, "I am not of your opinion."

It was clear that he had taken the Cathedral of Orleans under his special protection. His colour rose, his eyes sparkled, and he proceeded to clench his argument.

"Sir," said he, "I have travelled a great deal farther than you have, and know a great deal more than you do.”

Clairvoyance itself could hardly have settled a question more speedily than this. I might have been the Wandering Jew for anything this sprouting youth knew to the contrary, and had, in fact, been a traveller for more years than his whole life numbered.

"How do you know," I asked him, "that you have travelled farther than I have ?"

"Because," replied he, "I have been over the world ever since I had fifteen years. I have made twenty-six thousand leagues."

"If the distance were twice as great," I answered, "it proves nothing until you know where I have been. There is one thing, however, which you have acquired by your travels on which I must congratulate you." "What is that?" he asked, pertly.

"Politeness," returned I; "you have just given me a most decided proof of it."

He looked confused, but, evading the subject, returned to his darling cathedral.

the

"What do you object to her?" he inquired,

"The style," I replied, "does not satisfy me. I think it defective in have named." very quality

you

"It is perfectly Roman," he exclaimed, "the Roman of two hundred years."

This was the coup de grace; I could defend my position no longer, and wished him good morning. He seemed disposed for further parley, but, finding that I was walking away, he called out to his dog, "Come along, Putty," a name he had picked up no doubt on his travels in England, where it is commonly applied to dogs, and then rejoined his friends.

I suspect it must have been in the school of putty that this young gentleman acquired his knowledge of Gothic architecture.

Relieved by his departure, we now examined the building with some attention, and found in it a good deal to admire, though by no means without reservation. Its great beauty is its lightness, nor can it well pretend to any other, as the period at which it was built deprives it of any claim to originality, and in many of its details it has not even the merit of being a good copy. The best effects are produced by some of the transverse views, when the numerous pinnacles are well grouped together; but, taken to pieces, this cathedral is unsatisfactory, though it is lèze majesté to say so in the hearing of an Orléannois.

We next visited the Musée, which is lodged on the ground-floor of the old Hôtel de Ville, in an odd angle of the Rue des Hôtelleries. The old concièrge, who was busily engaged in mending a pair of battered sabots, seemed scarcely willing to leave his occupation to show us the relics with which the two or three rooms are filled, and fairly left us to return to it before we had gone over them, consigning us to the care of his wife, who, having no doubt a taste for the fine arts (as they are cultivated at the annual exposition), has taken the picture gallery under her particular care. There are some good specimens of carved work in wood and stone, chiefly of the fifteenth century, chests, cupboards, chairs, chinneypieces, &c.; but the principal relic is the heart of Henry II. of England. After the royal tombs at Fontevrault had been rifled in the first revolution, and their contents scattered, an antiquary obtained possession of the heart, which owed its safety to the leaden case in which it is enclosed. The case is broken at the lower extremity, by design apparently, to admit of the heart being seen; in colour and texture it resembles a dried nut. In the gallery are some curious pictures, but scarcely any good ones. A large clock, the open works of which are of elaborate workmanship, is, after all, perhaps the greatest lion of the Musée. As we quitted the building we were reminded of certain French habits by the following inscription :-- "Il est expressement défendu de cracher ici."

Groping through an arched passage which runs under the Hôtel de Ville, we issued into a narrow street from whence we found our way into the Rue du Tabourg, where two of the most interesting houses in Orleans are situated. These are the reputed residence of Joan of Arc, and the undoubted dwelling of Agnès Sorel. Externally the former exhibits nothing to justify its claim, and we had pronounced an opinion unfavourable to its antiquity on a dirty wooden house which we imagined was

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meant for it, when a marchand de légumes living nearly opposite, and who appeared solicitous for the honour of his native town, set us right in this particular. "If we rang the bell of No. 35,” he said, we should find what we wanted inside." We did so, and the door being opened we were marshalled along a narrow passage into a large courtyard. A young woman met us here, and conducted us into an inner court at the back, beyond which was a garden stocked with enormous pears and fine Frontignac grapes. She showed us the exterior of a square pavilion with closely grated windows and ornamented in the style of the Renaissance. We were then taken inside and inspected it both above and below. The legend which ascribes to Jean Bouchet, the treasurer of the Duke of Orleans, the honour of having received the heroine is unimpeachable; not less indubitable is the fact that on this site stood his house; nor can any question be raised against the statement that the property has continued since the days of Jean Bouchet in the same family. But that the building has remained unchanged is another affair, and no one who glances at the character of the ornaments, and of the architecture generally, can form any other opinion than that the socalled pavilion of Joan of Arc is of a date nearly a century later than the period ascribed. To endeavour to convince a concièrge, whose mistakes are his religion, is a task which no experienced traveller will venture on; so, agreeing to everything that was told us, and setting down archæology for the nonce as a vain science, we took leave and proceeded to the house of a marchand de sabots, No. 15, in the same street, whose shop and workrooms form the ground-floor of the house of Agnès Sorel. To describe it I cannot do better than quote from the account given ten years ago in Miss Costello's "Summer amongst the Bocages and the Vines:"

"The supposed habitation of Agnès Sorel is built with remarkable taste and care, the windows beautifully sculptured, and the doors of entrance of carved wood most elaborately worked in bas-relief, representing a perfect history in little. The lower court is well paved in a sort of mosaic of black and white stone; an antique well is at one extremity, the iron-work of which, and the extremity of the leaden pipe against the wall, are highly decorated; the latter with azure and gold, like a twisted ribbon. On the left of the court is a gallery, supported by three arcades of round arches, with strong and fine pillars, surmounted by richly executed capitals of great delicacy. This gallery sustains the corridor of the first story, the ceiling of which is adorned with panels, carved with much taste, representing hearts pierced with arrows, lighted torches, cupids, a tortoise, a sun, and in one a plate of pears, of that sort called rousselets, of which, it is to be supposed, Agnès was fond, and which also might have formed an allusion to her birthplace of Touraine, celebrated for this fruit. Fleurs-de-lis also occur here and there; and there are several heads placed (in medallions) along the wall. The staircase is beautiful, and runs from the lowest depth of the cellars to the height of the house; the steps are six feet long and two feet wide in some places, and on the landing-places the roof is elegantly carved with pendants. A large saloon, with an im- mense chimney, exhibits much carving, and the remains of gold and azure ornaments, which must once have encrusted it; but all is wearing away and disappearing, as the room is used for the purposes of the house. One of the heads presents a resemblance to that of Agnès, as

shown on her tomb at Loches, and another is like the head of Charles VII. on the coin of his time."

As a memorial of the spot, we bought some tiny pairs of sabots, and then, after visiting the house in the Rue des Albanais which bears the name of Diane de Poitiers, and that one in the Rue des Recouvrances called after François Premier, we returned to the Boule d'Or, reclaimed our baggage, had the pleasure of paying for it a second time, and took our places for the train which was about to set off for Blois.

IV.

AFTER leaving Orleans, the railroad, open now as far as Angers, pursues its course through vineyards and orchards which, with little intermission, are spread out on both banks of the Loire for nearly a hundred and fifty miles. The vintage was first beginning on the more favoured slopes, and the vignerons dotted about in their blue frocks added greatly to the harmony of the sunset scene. There are many supercilious English travellers who say that the vines of France are not more picturesque than currant-bushes; but if colour alone were the criterion, it would be sufficient to vindicate them from the aspersion. In this central district, moreover, the purple-leafed vine, or gros noir (the grapes from which are used for colouring the lighter-tinted wine), is distributed in large patches, and forms a rich contrast with the golden hue of the general mass. The vines here grow also to a greater height than in the south, and intertwine in pairs in a very graceful manner. Nor is the produce, though unknown or unsought for beyond the region of the Loire, of a quality at all to be despised. At Saint Ay a delicious wine is grown, -Beaugency will bear comparison with Bordeaux in all but the premiers crûs,—and if the vin mousseux de Vouvray be not equal to Champagne, it is quite as pleasant as, and not very dissimilar in taste to, sparkling Moselle. Montlouis and Bourgueil have also an excellent reputation. There being no demand for these wines out of the country, the prices, even at the hotels, are very moderate. At Blois we got the best Beaugency for two francs a bottle, and paid three francs at Tours for first-rate sparkling Vouvray.

Daylight lasted till we reached Beaugency, a town whose appearance is rendered so striking by the enormous square donjon keep which towers gloomily over all the surrounding buildings. It was the last object we could distinguish along the line until our journey ended for the day. More imposing, however, and appealing more strongly to the imagination by the memory of the deeds of blood which were enacted in it, rose the magnificent castle of Blois, round the base of which we wound as we descended from the station to the town.

Murray, who is seldom wrong in these matters, had marked the Tête Noire on the "C quay as very comfortable," to the exclusion of the Hôtel d'Angleterre at the foot of the bridge, on which he makes no comment; and rejecting the invitation to alight at the latter, we went to the Tête Noire, but luckily saw enough of it in two minutes to be satisfied that comfort was not very likely to be attainable there. A brouette was therefore put in immediate requisition, and we returned to the Hôtel d'Angleterre, which is, indeed, a first-rate house. The mistake has arisen in this manner:-