The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Motor Routes of France, by Gordon Home

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license


Title: The Motor Routes of France

Author: Gordon Home

Release Date: May 10, 2018 [EBook #57133]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOTOR ROUTES OF FRANCE ***




Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images available at The Internet Archive)

THE MOTOR ROUTES
OF FRANCE
·
TO THE CHÂTEAUX OF TOURAINE, BIARRITZ, THE
PYRENEES, THE RIVIERA, AND THE
RHONE VALLEY

A. AND C. BLACK, SOHO SQUARE, LONDON

AGENTS

{i} 

{ii} 

CHARTRES.

The Cathedral towering above the old roofs of the city from near the Porte Guillaume.

{iii}

THE
MOTOR ROUTES
OF FRANCE

BY
G O R D O N   H O M E


WITH

16 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR, 16 IN
BLACK AND WHITE, AND 60 MAPS & PLANS




ADAM   AND   CHARLES   BLACK
SOHO SQUARE, LONDON · MCMX
{iv}

PREFACE

The fascination of a motor tour through France can scarcely be exaggerated. It is a country eminently suited to the new method of road travel, for with the spaces between the towns traversed by wide national ways going to their objectives as straight as the contours of the country will permit, no one feels that the presence of a rapid car is destroying the peace or beauty of the neighbourhood. And yet in the tour described in this book there is a huge diversity of scenery, from the wheat plains of the North to the mountains and sea of the South.

Great pains have been taken to embody in the small compass of a book that will easily slip into an overcoat pocket all that is essential for the motorist to know both before and during the tour. At the same time, the large clear type of the first volume of this series has been retained in order that there may be no difficulty in reading while the car is in motion.

Dr. Kirk’s practical notes are the result of much experience, and they need only be supplemented by a word as to hotel charges. In every case the wise{vi} tourist discusses prices with the manager or proprietor before he takes his car into the courtyard or garage. By doing so he knows exactly what his bill will amount to in the morning, and he is quite sure of no overcharge. If no arrangement is made on arrival, one must be prepared for any charge, notwithstanding the prices given in guides or the hotel books published by the Touring Club de France.

For those who either do not possess cars or do not wish to take their own abroad, the simplest method is to hire a car in England. The author’s experience of hiring from the Daimler Company has been so satisfactory that he is glad of this opportunity of recommending their cars. To Mr. A. H. Hallam Murray the author is greatly indebted for permission to reproduce four of his delightful pictures from ‘On the Old Road through France to Florence.’

As in the previous volume of this series, a list of dates of prominent events in French history and of the Kings of France is given in the Appendix.

The author would greatly appreciate any suggestions for improving the book, and would much like to hear of any inaccuracies which may have crept in.

GORDON HOME.

43, Gloucester Street,
London, S. W.
{vii}

CONTENTS

{ix}

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

{xi}

THE
MOTOR ROUTES OF FRANCE

ERRATA

The amount of ‘£48 10s. 0d.’ on page 420 should read ‘£89 3s. 4d.’; and the grand total at the foot of the page should be ‘£102 16s. 4d.’

(OMITTING JUMIÈGES, 89 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

{1}{xii}

THE
MOTOR   ROUTES   OF   FRANCE

TO THE CHÂTEAUX OF TOURAINE, BIARRITZ,
THE PYRENEES, THE RIVIERA, AND
THE RHONE VALLEY

SECTION I

HAVRE TO ROUEN, 58¼ MILES
(93½ KILOMETRES)
(OMITTING JUMIÈGES, 89 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

{2}

DIEPPE TO ROUEN, 36 MILES

(58 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

BOULOGNE TO ROUEN, 109½ MILES

(176 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

In spite of the fact that Havre is a port of such magnitude, and that its tonnage approximates to{4} a quarter of that possessed by France, one is dependent on the state of the tide for disembarking a car when, after the night crossing, one finds the ship tied up to the Grand Quai.

Instead of the ranges of dock-sheds and the giant cranes of Southampton, the ship seems to be lying along the side of a second-rate French street, and one looks in vain for the great steel arm that should silently let down a hook to lift the car like a toy from the ship’s lower deck. So if the tide should be low, one must wait until the deck is level with the quay—a delay more often than otherwise a boon to a party adjusting itself and its luggage for a long tour.

Although Havre is an infant port when compared to Marseilles, with its founding by the Greeks, there are things worth remembering about the place. When Rollo with his Norsemen in their black-sailed ships hovered at the mouth of the Seine in preparation for their attack upon Rouen, there was no Havre, and it was not until six centuries had passed that François I. gave the order to Guillon le Roy, the Commandant of Harfleur, on the opposite shore of the estuary of the Seine, to construct a port for great ships, owing to the necessity for an ocean seaport after the dis{5}covery of America. In 1514 the making of the port began, and its growth has been continued up to the present day.

Town Plan No. 1—Havre.

Walker & Boutall sc.

Of the original town and its defences nothing is left, for even the old tower of the château in which Cardinal Mazarin imprisoned the Princes of Condé and of Conti, and the Duke of Longueville, has gone, and the only relic of the century that saw the birth of the city is the Church of Notre Dame. It stands in the Rue de Paris, near the Grand Quai, and is a mixture of the last flicker of Gothic and of Renaissance architecture. The building{6} would appear to be the successor of the original Church of Notre Dame de Grâce, founded for the sailors of the port, which then bore the title of Le Havre-de-Grâce. In 1562 the Huguenots invited the English to enter the town, and the church tower was used as a gun platform, so that an effective fire on the royal camp could be maintained. But the townsmen paid for this by having the spire and walls of their church taken down. The rebuilding began in 1574, and the completion of the aisles and chapels took place in the following century.

Henri IV., Richelieu, and Colbert, who employed Vauban, not only improved the harbours, but added to the defences of the town, which in 1694 and 1759 resisted English bombardments. In 1856 the walls were removed, and the town now relies on three forts.

LEAVING HAVRE FOR ROUEN

The road to Rouen is through the Rue de Normandie, and this rapidly brings one to the suburb of Graville, where, on the left side of the road, on a hill above the Town Hall, stands the church of the Abbey of Ste. Honorine. It is an interesting building of the eleventh century, with{7} curiously carved corbels outside, and within capitals as grotesque, and the sarcophagus which contained the remains of St. Honoria. Pilgrims, it is said, were just as numerous at Graville after the relics of the saint had been removed to Conflans for safety at the time of the Norman invasion!

The view over the Seine from the abbey church is exceedingly fine, and on sunny mornings the broad river shimmers in a silvery light.

HARFLEUR,

to which the tramway comes, is a quaint town, with narrow streets and a flamboyant church, whose highly enriched spire and curiously tall north porch, recessed in the wall and full of elaborate carving, give one a foretaste of that wealth of detail and medieval charm which a tour through Normandy offers to the stranger.

Either the walls of Harfleur must in 1415 have been exceedingly strong or their defenders of exceptional resource and courage, for in that year Henry V., with 30,000 English, besieged the town when the garrison numbered only 400, and yet for no less than forty days did they maintain the defence. It was 75 Englishmen to 1 Frenchman; but it generally took a few weeks to get through{8} medieval walls, unless treachery or hunger came to the help of the attackers. Harfleur languished as a port owing to the shifting sand of the river-mouth, and the growth of Havre put an end to its commercial importance.

No. 1 HAVRE AND DIEPPE TO ROUEN

Bending to the left after passing the church, and going to the right almost immediately at a fork, Harfleur is soon left behind, as the road ascends the side of a green valley containing one or two large country houses.

The farms stand compactly inside a hedge of trees, which almost hides the buildings, and suggests{9} the tun, or hedge, of the villages of our Saxon ancestors. A straight poplar-bordered road leads past pretty thatched farmyards, with timber-framed barns, to St. Romain de Colbosc. Besides the sixteenth-century cross in the cemetery there is a twelfth-century lepers’ chapel, with paintings inside, but it has for long been reduced to a mere farm-building.

In St. Romain one turns to the right for Lillebonne, and soon afterwards the road bears nearly due east, and runs straight for Lillebonne, descending into the picturesque wooded valley of the Bolbec River with several turns.

LILLEBONNE

If there was reason to complain of the juvenility of Havre, there is sufficient antiquity at Lillebonne to satisfy the most exacting, for the presence of a Roman theatre indicates the former existence of an important Roman city, and there is some reason for believing that this Julia Bona of the Romans was built where the chief town of the tribe of the Caletes stood. The heavy squared stones that formed the seats were to a great extent carried away to the other side of Caudebec to build the Abbey of St. Wandrille, and one can only get{10} a small idea of the perfect building from the rough inner stonework of the two lowest tiers. Even these were only revealed through the excavations which took place between 1812 and 1840. Many of the discoveries made in the excavations are to be seen in the museum at Rouen.

Of exceptional interest to Englishmen is the castle of Lillebonne, for in the great Norman hall—now also demolished—William the Conqueror gathered together a great assemblage of his viscounts, his warrior bishops, and men of lesser potency, and before them all announced his intention of invading England. The reception of this portentous declaration was mixed, many of the barons being unwilling to consent to so hazardous an enterprise, in spite of the enthusiasm of the Duke’s particular friends. Notwithstanding this lukewarmness, William’s determination eventually carried away all opposition, and the invasion ‘scare’ became an accomplished fact. That the historic hall should have survived until a wealthy cotton-spinner, who had purchased the castle, destroyed it in cold blood is distressing to the visitor who longs to feast his eyes on the building that once held that stirring council. What he sees to-day is the ruins of the thirteenth-century castle built{11} on the site of the Conqueror’s stronghold, and the great round donjon did not come into existence until long after William had been gathered to his fathers. The church has a beautiful crocketed spire of the fifteenth century, similar to the one seen at Harfleur.

As one climbs out of the valley the road winds in different directions, and gives charming views over the Seine, with its passing steamers, and the distant green country beyond.

Two pretty villages, La Frenaye and St. Arnoult, are passed, each with its mossy thatched roofs and quaint little church, its particularly attractive half-timbered houses, and here and there an outside wooded staircase; then follows a winding descent into that most romantic of towns—

CAUDEBEC-EN-CAUX

Although artists have painted the church, the river, and the old streets and waterway for years, there are still many of the most appealing aspects of the place that seem to remain outside the attainments of the painters and sketchers who reveal the results of their work there. There is one particular old street of houses, with romantic frontages on one side rising from the green water{12} of a narrow canal, which is not easy to forget. Not only are the greens and greys and reds and ochres a delight to the eye, and the detail of the windows, overhanging eaves, and timber framing of the walls and gables particularly attractive, but one also gets peeps into interiors, where one can see old folk seated by windows with faces and curious black headgears such as Holbein and Rembrandt painted.

Even Lisieux cannot eclipse Caudebec in the completeness of its antique streets, for here there have been few attempts to hide the picturesque timber fronts with stucco, and there are half a dozen narrow streets by the church where the buildings, with the passage of the centuries, have let their time-worn gables nod towards one another until the strip of sky that the builders left has been appreciably narrowed. Then, in wandering through these ancient ways one is suddenly confronted with a wealth of the most delicately carved stone, and looking up, one sees the exquisitely graceful tower of the church, with its profusion of ornament and its crocketed and coroneted spire rising above. The western entrance is often open, so that the passer-by may see the lacelike ornament of the doorway thrown out against the velvet blackness

CAUDEBEC-EN-CAUX.

One of the most picturesque towns in Normandy.

{13}

of the interior, a darkness relieved by the brilliant fifteenth and sixteenth century stained glass of the Flamboyant windows.

Henri IV., when he stayed at Caudebec, said that the town had la plus jolie chapelle que j’ai jamais vue, but added that the jewel was badly set. The building was commenced in 1426, and in 1484 Guillaume Le Tellier, the master mason, died, and was buried in the Lady-chapel of the glorious building he had created.

There existed in the sixteenth century an island in the Seine opposite Caudebec, and it is stated by Mrs. Macquoid that there were ‘three beautiful churches’ on it until the mascaret, a tidal bore, which at certain full moons in the spring and autumn equinoxes comes up the river with tremendous force, swept the whole island away. By 1641 the island had appeared again, but the mascaret again demolished it. The wall of water that rushes up the narrowing river-mouth varies from 6 to 12 feet in height, and its force is sufficient to dislodge and carry away great stones.

Caudebec began its existence as a fishing village under the control of the Abbey of St. Wandrille, and, with its convenient quay, soon grew prosperous.{14} When Henry V. besieged the town, it held out for six months.

During the Franco-Prussian War the Germans occupied the old town, but fortunately did no damage to it.

It is with keen reluctance that one leaves the sunny quay of Caudebec, with its busy market scenes, its steam ferry-boat, and the lovely views up and down the curving river. However, the road follows the Seine, and one enjoys for mile after mile lovely views across the wide belt of silvery water, backed by sweeping green forests.

ST. WANDRILLE

About two kilometres from Caudebec a turning to the left leads up in a few minutes to St. Wandrille, where the ruins of the Norman abbey stand in a pretty valley. The conventual buildings are now the residence of M. Maurice Maeterlinck, the dramatist and author, who recently performed an historical play in the refectory and cloisters of the abbey, the audience moving from one part of the buildings to another for each successive scene.

The abbey was originally called Fontenelle, after the stream that flows through the valley. It was founded in the middle of the seventh century by{15} a pupil of St. Columba, and the early buildings fell a prey to the harrying Norsemen, who left the place in ruins. In 1033, having been rebuilt, the abbey was dedicated to St. Wandrille, but a fire did much destruction in the thirteenth century, and in 1631 the tower and spire of the church fell, and smashed down the nave and aisles, the Lady-chapel, and the choir-stalls. What remains of the church is not so remarkable as the ornate cloisters of the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, and the imposing Norman refectory, with its vaulted roof of the fifteenth century and its fine Flamboyant windows.

Returning to the main road, and continuing towards Rouen, one soon catches sight of the two towers of the abbey of Jumièges rising above trees beyond a bend of the winding river. At the small village of Yainville, with a Norman church, the road to Jumièges goes to the right, and the singular beauty of this stately ruin justifies the détour.

JUMIÈGES

The entrance to the abbey is at a lodge gate on the left side of the road in the pleasant village, and the concierge—a quite charming type of country-woman—accompanies one through the admirably-{16}kept ruins, and afterwards to the museum adjoining, where is preserved, among other carved stones from the ruined buildings, the slab of black marble under which was buried the heart of Agnes Sorel, the beautiful mistress of Charles VII. She died near Jumièges in 1449, after the birth of her fourth daughter, and her body was buried at Loches, which is passed through on the way southwards from Tours (see Section VI.).

The impressiveness of the twin towers of the west end of the great church is due in part to the extreme simplicity of the Norman work—for the buildings were completed just before the Norman Conquest—and also to their great height of 328 feet. On entering it is hard to believe that until 1790 the abbey and its great church were in a perfect state of preservation, for the roofs have gone except in the aisles, where the stones of the vault have been in some places so disturbed by roots and frosts that collapses are imminent. There are traces of orange-coloured painting on the arches, and the stone is of a warm cream, which looks singularly beautiful when afternoon shadows are falling from arches and pillars. There are only the foundations of the semicircular apse, with its nine chapels, and the gaps in the east end of the church are beautified by{17} the presence of tall larches that droop their graceful branches over the broken moss-grown walls. The fourteenth-century chapel on the south side, dedicated to St. Pierre, is also in a state of ruin.

St. Philibert founded Jumièges in 654, about the same time as St. Wandrille was begun, and it also suffered terribly at the hands of the Northmen, who tortured and massacred without mercy, and left the once prosperous abbey a shattered ruin.

The rebuilding was encouraged by William Longsword, the son of Rollo; but the builder of the Norman church which stands to-day was Abbot Robert of Jumièges, who was afterwards appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Edward the Confessor, who had been educated at Jumièges under his care. The buildings, completed and consecrated in 1067, remained in use until 1793, the date of the Suppression, so that, with an interval of about a century in its early history, Jumièges existed as a monastery for 1,139 years, and in that period was ruled by eighty-two abbots.

It is interesting to know that, although the Benedictines of Jumièges contributed a very large sum towards the ransom of Richard I. after his capture on the way home from the Holy Land, the monastery was twice plundered by English armies,{18} and the first occasion was in Edward III.’s reign, when the generosity of the monks seems to have been quite forgotten!

A portion of the buildings belonging to William Longsword’s church is to be seen in the Chapel of St. Pierre already mentioned.

An interesting legend of the founder of the abbey explains the presence of a wolf at the feet of the saint on a carved stone boss. St. Philibert had given to a convent four leagues from Jumièges the laundry work of his abbey, and the Abbess and her nuns washed the linen which was sent to them. One day a wolf ate the ass that carried the washing, but the holy Abbess induced the wicked wolf to carry the baskets, which he did, we read, until the end of his life.

The greatness and power of the abbey declined very much after the Reformation, and at the time of the Revolution the religious who were dispersed were not numerous.

The short distance from Yainville has to be retraced, and then, going to the right through a belt of forest, one reaches the banks of the Seine once more, and passes through the little town of Duclair, with its sunny quay and its ferry-boat. There are beautiful views over the river, and as the{19} car runs along the level road one may overtake a steamer that is sliding along with a little pile of water pushed up in front of its bow, and note the contrast of its stained red funnel with the soft green landscape beyond. On the left curious little chambers are cut out of the cliff of chalk, and several form complete cottages. So even and horizontal are the layers of chalk, with bands of flint at different heights, that the cliff has often an exceedingly artificial appearance.

Soon afterwards the road cuts across the neck of another peninsula formed by one of the deep windings of the Seine, and on reaching the foot of the rising ground a turning to the right leads to the hamlet of St. Martin Boscherville, whose noble Church of St. Georges rears its great bulk on the hillside. The hurried tourist might be inclined to pass this by, thinking that of ecclesiastic architecture he has seen enough in this neighbourhood; but throughout the whole of France he will not find another Norman church so perfect as that of St. Georges de Boscherville. The abbey was founded and built in the eleventh century by the Grand Chamberlain of William the Conqueror, Raoul de Tancarville, a fact proclaimed in an inscription above the chief portal; and the great{20} church, built at the time when England was newly subjected to the Norman, stands to-day, with the exception of the western turrets, exactly as the original builders left it.

The transepts are remarkable for their galleries, similar to those in Winchester Cathedral; and the chapter-house, which is later than the church, being Transitional in style, should also be seen. The sixteenth-century tomb of Le Roulx, the last Abbot, is in front of the altar.

On resuming the journey, the hill just mentioned is negotiated with some considerable winding, which enables one to get especially fine views over the wooded country to the west, with the big church in the middle distance, and the gleaming river showing its snaky windings on either side.

After passing through a belt of typical French forest, composed of thin trees without beauty or individuality, one begins the long curving descent to Rouen, the historic capital of Normandy. The city appeals so much to the student of history that this first view of the place as a whole, threaded by its broad river, and dominated by the fretted spire and beautiful towers of cathedral and churches, is one that stands out vividly in the memory when other impressions have faded.{21}

DIEPPE TO ROUEN (36 miles—58 kilometres)

This is a direct road, with a few hills, the ascent from the river at Sanqueville and the winding descent at Malaunay being the only ones worth mentioning.

Town Plan No. 2—Dieppe.

Walker & Boutall sc.

BOULOGNE TO ROUEN (109½ miles—176 kilometres)

This road is through the little town of Samer, where there is an interesting fifteenth-century church and the ruins of the Abbey of St. Wulmer. Soon afterwards there is a steep hill.

Montreuil-sur-Mer has a Palais de Justice, which was formerly part of a Carmelite convent, and the college and École d’Infanterie occupy the buildings of the Abbey of Ste. Austreberthe. The chapel of the Gothic Hôtel Dieu has a curious altar-screen, and the very interesting Church{22} of St. Saulve dates from the twelfth century. The view seawards down the Canche from the citadel, which is surrounded by towers and walls of the Middle Ages, is remarkably fine.

On the road to Abbeville there is a steep ascent at Nampont St. Martin, and a steep descent to Bernay-en-Ponthieu. The forest of Crécy lies to the left of the road, and on the farther side of it is the medieval battlefield, where the English army, under Edward III., crushingly defeated the French in 1346.

Abbeville is an interesting old town, still possessing some very good specimens of its domestic architecture of the thirteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. The best are the Maison François I., with richly carved woodwork, at 29, Rue de la Tannerie; No. 2 in the same street (sixteenth century); 7, Rue du Pont de Boulogne; 3 and 5, Rue de l’Hôtel de Ville; 41, Rue de la Boucherie; and, besides these, several others will be noticed in a walk through the town. There are also some good town houses, or hôtels, in the Rue St. Gilles. The Church of St. Vulfran belongs to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and is remarkable for its fine restored façade, with beautifully sculptured doorways. The interior is{23} not remarkable, except for two curved altar-screens.

The Hôtel de Ville has a bell-tower dating from the beginning of the thirteenth century, and the library in the Jardin Public d’Emonville contains a Gospel which belonged to Charlemagne.

Neufchâtel-en-Bray is famous for its cheeses, and is the chief town of the district, which has been called ‘the dairy of Paris.’ It was at one time called Driencourt, the name having been altered when a new castle was built by Henri Beauclerc. The Church of Notre Dame, of various periods from the twelfth century, has a sixteenth-century tower. A passage from the Grand Rue leads to the Maison des Templiers, a most picturesque timber-framed building, with much carved woodwork.

From Neufchâtel to above the River Arques the road climbs, dropping steeply down to that river at St. Martin Omonville. After leaving the valley the road is comparatively level to Rouen.

CALAIS TO BOULOGNE

The coast route is the most interesting, as it gives splendid views of the Straits of Dover and{24} the white cliffs of England. Sangatte (7½ kilometres from Calais) is famous in connection with M. Blériot’s cross-Channel flight, and for the abandoned workings of the Channel tunnel.

Town Plan No. 3—Calais.

Walker & Boutall sc.

{25}

Four miles before passing over Cape Grisnez one passes the little town of Wissant, associated with the Roman Portus Itius, from which Julius Cæsar sailed when he made his first reconnaissance of the coast of Britain. Beyond the great headland is Ambleteuse, the landing-place of the fugitive James II. at 3 a.m. on Christmas Day, 1688. The King had left Rochester on the night of the 23rd, and had passed by a back-door on to the Medway, where he boarded the smack which brought him to the French coast.

Town Plan No. 4—Boulogne.

At the next river-mouth is Wimereux Harbour,{26} the landing-place of Prince Louis Napoleon in August, 1840. Having received no support, the Prince and his followers were easily captured, and in Boulogne one can see the thirteenth-century château, now converted into barracks, where he was imprisoned.

No. 2. CALAIS TO BOULOGNE AND ROUEN.

Boulogne Cathedral was erected in 1869 on the site of the original Norman church, built in 1104 by Ida, the mother of Geoffrey de Bouillon.{27}

SECTION II

ROUEN TO EVREUX, 32½ MILES (52 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

ROUEN

On the sunlit slopes that went down to the swamps by the Seine, where stands the Rouen of to-day, there were Celtic inhabitants in remote times; and when the advancing sway of Rome brought civilization to the north of France, the light of history illuminates the spot, and reveals the presence of a town called Ratuma, the chief centre of the tribe of the Veliocassians. The Romans modified the name to Rotomagus, and in the second century it is believed to have received the first seeds of Christianity. From South Wales, the home of so much evangelizing enthusiasm, there arrived, about the year 260, a missionary called St. Mellon, who became in time the first Bishop of Rouen. This may, perhaps, sound a far-away piece of information, belonging too much to what is legendary{29} to be of much service as a guide to the antiquities of Rouen; but it is not so, for beneath the Church of St. Gervais, a building in the modern Norman style, there can still be seen, in a crypt of the fourth or fifth century, the tomb in which was laid the body of that early missionary. The crypt was probably built soon after the year 404 by St. Victrice, the sixth to succeed St. Mellon, and the body must, therefore, have been placed there more than a century after his death. It remained there until 1562, when the Huguenots opened the tomb and removed the remains.

The Cathedral.—Building Dates

St. Victrice was the first to put up any church on the site of the present cathedral, and the numerous Bishops who succeeded him rebuilt and enlarged the Early Christian structure until it must have been something far removed from the simple rudeness of the first building. Rouen, however, was destined to frequent disaster. A fire in 556 was followed by a plague, and the city suffered much in the disorder which followed the death of Charles the Great. Therefore, in the year 841, when the Northmen began their raids upon the north of France, they found only a lean city to plunder; and when Rollo became first Duke of Normandy, and was converted to Christianity, he had almost to refound the capital of his new dominion. It is{31} therefore in no way surprising that the crypt of St. Gervais is the sole survival yet discovered of the buildings of the earlier city.

After the paralysis of fear which gripped Christendom at the approach of the year 1000 had passed off, with the unchanged procession of normal days and nights brought in by the new century, there came so great an enthusiasm for church building that the cathedral of Rouen was reconstructed on a larger and finer scale. The new structure was consecrated on October 1, 1063, by Archbishop Maurilius, in the presence of William the Norman.

It is quite possible that this church was of greater magnificence than those of Jumièges or St. Georges de Boscherville, and perhaps even more perfect than St. Étienne at Caen; but whatever theories one may care to form must be built upon the style of the lower portion of the north-west tower—the Tour St. Romain—for in the year 1200 a disastrous fire destroyed the great building, and all that now exists of the Norman church is this portion of a tower and some indications of Romanesque work that can be discovered in a few other places. The havoc a fire can work in a Norman church even at the present time, in spite of modern fire extinguishing appliances, has been very forcibly illustrated by{32} the recent burning of the abbey church of Selby, in Yorkshire, in which the terrific heat burnt halfway through stone piers of enormous thickness.

The reconstruction of the cathedral appears to have been undertaken soon after the disaster, and was commenced at the east end, where one finds that the chapels of the apse and transepts were built first and the choir soon afterwards, for it was finished in the Early French style. Between 1202 and 1220 the nave, choir, transepts, and central tower would appear to have been built, and before St. Louis (IX.) visited the cathedral in 1255, the magnificent church, as it is to be seen to-day, had assumed an appearance of completeness.

The embellishment of the great pile continued right through the centuries that followed, until the influence of the Renaissance shows itself in the central porch of the west front. In the fourteenth century the Lady-chapel was built, and in the fifteenth the Tour de Beurre climbed upwards, while the money provided by the indulgences sold, giving permission to eat butter in Lent, was helping to provide the funds. This tower, therefore, together with the uppermost portion of the Tour St. Romain, the western rose-window, and a good deal of decoration on each of the porches,{33} belong to the Flamboyant period, corresponding to the Perpendicular of English architecture.

At the base of the Tour St. Romain there still stands the lodge of the porter, whose duties from very early times right up to 1700 included the care of the fierce watch-dogs who were at night let loose in the cathedral to guard its many precious treasures from robbers. How much would we give for a glimpse of one of those porters walking through the cavernous gloom of the echoing aisles, with his lamp throwing strange shadows from the great slouching dogs!

The misereres of the choir-stalls were carved between 1457 and 1469, and should be seen for the vivid details they reveal of nearly every trade and employment, as well as the costumes of the period when the Flamboyant style was in vogue.

The tombs in the cathedral bring one into close touch with the Dukes of Normandy and their successors on the throne of England. In the easternmost chapels on either side of the nave are the tombs of Rollo, the first Duke of Normandy, and his son, William Longsword, who was murdered in 943. The statues were made in the thirteenth or fourteenth century, and have been restored. The inscription on Rollo’s tomb says:{34}

A thirteenth-century effigy of Richard Cœur de Lion, discovered in 1838, lies outside the southern railing of the choir. The heart was found in a triple casket of lead, wood, and silver. Some of the dust can be seen in the Museum of Antiquities, whither the original effigy of Henry II.’s eldest son, Henry Plantagenet, has also been taken, the one in the cathedral being modern. On the left side of the high altar is the tomb of John, Duke of Bedford, Regent under Henry VI., and on the north side of the choir is the mutilated effigy of Archbishop Maurice, who died in 1235.

The two grandest monuments are facing one another in the Lady-chapel. The finer is that of Louis de Brézé, who was Grand Seneschal of Normandy. It is an extremely good example of early Renaissance work, carried out in black marble and{35} alabaster. The splendid equestrian figure in the upper part gives the monument a most imposing character. At the head of the recumbent effigy is the figure of Diane de Poitiers, who raised the memorial to her husband after his death in 1531. She subsequently left her name written prominently on the page of history by becoming the mistress of the Dauphin, afterwards Henri II. At the castle of Chenonceaux and at Fontainebleau we shall see the homes of this famous widow (see Section V.).

On the west side of the great monument is the beautiful canopied recess of the Flamboyant period, where the effigies of Pierre de Brézé and his wife lay until they were removed in 1769. Pierre was the first Grand Seneschal of Normandy when the province was restored to France, as a result of the work of Jeanne d’Arc. He was the favourite of Charles VII., and was prominent in the reconquest of Normandy, finally losing his life in the Battle of Montlhéry in 1465.

Opposite is the tomb of the famous Cardinal Georges d’Amboise, whose lifelike figure is shown kneeling under a beautiful canopy. He was made Bishop of Montauban when he was only fourteen, and was elected Archbishop of Rouen at the early age of thirty-three. The story of his{36} election is interesting. On the death of Archbishop Robert de Croixmare, Charles VIII. hinted that he would like the canons to choose the Duke of Orleans, and by so doing gave some annoyance. However, on August 21, 1493, when the crowds in Rouen were wondering what was going to happen, the canons retired to the chapter-house, as was their custom, and each took the oath to vote according to conscience. Then, all kneeling down, they sang the Veni Creator Spiritus, and prayed that they might make the right choice, after which all rose to their feet as one man, saying, ‘Georges d’Amboise shall be Archbishop.’ This remarkable unanimity was based on the wonderful promise the Cardinal showed even at that age, and to Rouen he became a benefactor, for whose wisdom and equity in administration and for the splendour of whose gifts the city has still reason for gratitude. If he had lived earlier in the century, it is conceivable that his influence would have prevented the tragedy of the death of Jeanne d’Arc. He was the builder of the splendid Tour de Beurre and the Flamboyant work of the west front of the cathedral, and he improved the city’s supply of water, as well as its sanitation. Further than that, he became, as Prime Minister under the easy-going Louis XII.,{37} the virtual ruler of France; for the King was always ready to let the wise Cardinal act for him, usually saying, ‘Leave it to George.’ He died in 1510.

The other figure on the tomb is that of the second Cardinal of the same name, who was a nephew of the statesman.

The great bell which was given by the Archbishop to be hung in the Tour de Beurre, and was named Georges d’Amboise, was in 1793 melted down to make cannon for the Republicans. The thirteenth-century glass in the sacristy and the two adjoining windows is a foretaste of the glories of Chartres.

The erection of the great spire of open ironwork on the central tower began in 1827, replacing the wooden spire finished in 1550, and destroyed by lightning in 1822. It is one of the tallest spires in the world, and is considered by many writers to be a hideous excrescence on the great Gothic pile; but although it cannot have the romance or charm of stone, its effect at a distance, in spite of its curious finial, is quite the reverse of unpleasing, and when one is near at hand it has a way of hiding itself, or, if it shows at all, it appears so vast and tremendous that its dimensions suppress the{38} criticisms that would flow readily if the spire were half its height.

The Church of St. Ouen.—To the north-east of the cathedral (see plan) stands the great abbey church of St. Ouen, in the wide open space of the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville—as great a contrast to the narrow streets that crowd up to the cathedral as could be imagined. It is for this reason that St. Ouen from without does not call up with any vividness the romance of a medieval church packed into the small space which was all that the encircling defensive walls could afford. But the church of St. Ouen is the most perfect and the most beautiful of the abbey churches of France, and there might be legitimate cause for grumbling if it were impossible to get a clear view of it. There is only space to tell the story of the building in the following list of dates:

St. Ouen.—Building Dates

The Church of St. Maclou stands back a few paces from the east side of the Rue de la{40} République, and one comes upon its wondrous display of delicately carved stone all of a sudden. It is an exquisite example of the Flamboyant style, having been commenced in 1436 and completed about 1480. The present spire was only finished in 1868, the previous one, covered with lead, having suffered much through a storm, and later during the Revolution.

The wonderful doors, with their remarkable carving, and the splendid tympanum above the central one, date between the years 1527 and 1560. In that period it is possible that some of the carving was executed by Jean Goujon, who was afterwards killed in the massacre of St. Bartholomew. St. Maclou was a Scotsman who went to Brittany, was made Bishop of Aleth, and died in 561. The first church dedicated to him was built in the tenth century outside the walls of Rouen. A passage on the north side of the Rue Martainville (which runs from the north side of St. Maclou) leads into the Aître St. Maclou, a picturesque little cloister built in 1526, surrounding a paved courtyard, which was a burial-ground at the time of the plague of 1348—the Black Death that claimed 100,000 victims in the city.

Jeanne d’Arc.—The tragedy of the

THE TOWERS OF ST. OUEN AT ROUEN.

St. Ouen is, next to the Cathedral, the finest church of Rouen.

{41}

martyrdom,—or, more properly, the murder—of the Maid of Orleans, who saved her country from the English, cannot be forgotten by the visitor to Rouen. There are still houses standing near the cathedral which were there in her day, and were the lodgings of some of her heartless judges; there is still the great pile of Notre Dame, standing much as it stood in her day, although the later Flamboyant work, including the Tour de Beurre, had not then appeared; and there still remains one solitary tower of the castle of Rouen in which Jeanne was confined. The tower was never her prison, but in the ground floor she was intimidated by being shown instruments of torture. The visitor can enter this chamber, which was the scene of that callous brutality to a most innocent maiden, who, encouraged by her implicit belief in the vision of her saints, bore herself throughout with a fortitude and heroism which baffled and enraged her inquisitors.

It is a pity that the tower has been over-restored, and that the walls are hung with wreaths of artificial flowers. There is also a statue of the maid and many prints hung on the walls, but their interest is not commensurate with the subtraction from the grimness of the tower which they cause.

When Jeanne d’Arc was finally condemned to{42} be burnt, the stake was set up in the Vieux-Marché, and the exact spot is now marked by a large stone, bearing the inscription, ‘Jeanne d’Arc, 30 Mai, 1431.’ The heroic girl was taken to the spot in a car with a confessor and others, and escorted by English soldiers. With the awful piles of faggots ready for kindling, the girl’s agony was dragged out with a sermon, and after her sentence was read there is no wonder that she wept bitterly. To Bishop Cauchon, whose heart must have been of flint, she said, while they set the wood on fire: ‘It is you who have brought me to this death.’ A Dominican priest who stood near gives the following account of her death:

Another witness—Maître Jean Massieu, a priest—says:{43}

The Palais de Justice (small gratuity to the concierge) is in the Rue Jeanne d’Arc, with the main front facing the Rue aux Juifs. The central portion dates from 1499 to 1515, and was designed by Le Roux, who was also the brilliant architect of the western portal of the cathedral and the tomb of the Cardinals d’Amboise. The interior is rather disappointing. The great hall, formerly used for the Parliament or Échiquier of Normandy, is now a criminal court, and its panelled and gilded oak ceiling is flat and ineffective in spite of its pendent bosses. The fine Salle des Pas-Perdus in the west wing has a gallery at each end and the marble table of the tribunal.

The Rue de la Grosse Horloge contains a picturesque sixteenth-century archway, bearing a great blue and gold clock, and alongside it is the belfry, commenced in 1389. The visitor who cares for vivid impressions of the past should stroll through this street at 9 p.m., and hear the great bell La Rouvel ring the curfew, raising as it does{44} so the same mellowed tones that have vibrated the air since the Middle Ages.

LEAVING ROUEN

The memory of those sounds is a precious one, and on the next morning, when the car carries one away, it remains among the many things in the mind that are not left behind.

Town Plan No. 5—Rouen.

Walker & Boutall sc.

Keeping to the north bank of the Seine, and going to the right at the fork which almost immediately presents itself, one shakes off the cobble-stones in a mile or so, and, after the modern river-side village of Amfreville, the open country is freed from the suburban growth of Rouen. Across the level green fields appear the cotton and cloth mills which are the chief industry of the neighbour{45}hood, and in the distance on the right across the river’s windings can be seen the manufacturing town of Elbeuf. The freedom from smoke of this and the average French industrial town is most striking to the Englishman.

Two kilometres beyond the hamlet of St. Crespin one turns sharply to the left, and, climbing an easy gradient among low woods, comes to the village of Igoville, where one turns to the left again; and, a kilometre farther on, goes to the right, crossing the railway and a long modern bridge over the Seine, which brings one to the old town of

PONT DE L’ARCHE

It is picturesquely situated above the river, which is studded with islands in this portion of its course, and the remains of the ramparts are visible on the river-side, with the towerless Church of Notre Dame des Arts rising above old roofs. There are some old timber-fronted houses, and one of them has a thirteenth-century wooden-pillared porch.

Charles the Bald (died 877), a grandson of Charlemagne, had a palace at Pont de l’Arche, and the little town was one of the first to open its gates to Henry of Navarre when he became Henri IV. in 1589, after the murder of the Duke of Guise. Being{46} one of the gates of Normandy, it suffered several sieges; the old bridge, however, survived up to 1850.

The church was chiefly built in the fifteenth century, and, though unfinished, justifies its unique dedication in the wealth of beautiful carving that adorns the exterior. The chapels ranged along the sides of the nave have curious little conical roofs, which, in the absence of any tower, form the main outline of the building. The interior is very light, in spite of the fifteenth and sixteenth century glass that fills several of the windows. One of them in the north aisle is noticeable for the curious little portraits inserted at a later date. Henri IV., it is said, gave the church its organ, and Jean Gougon is associated with the carving of the font. The choir-stalls come from the neighbouring abbey of Bon-port.

At a fork on leaving the town the road to Louviers goes to the left, and rises straight uphill through the forest of Pont de l’Arche. Succeeding this comes a curious stretch of switchback road, with a blue horizon beyond, and soon afterwards one is bumping on the cobble-stones of

LOUVIERS

Standing at a fork in the middle of the town is the Church of Notre Dame, whose outline is marred{47} by an uncompleted tower, but whose profusion of the most elaborate fifteenth-century carving leaves the wondering spectator almost breathless. The writer once, several years ago, commenced a drawing of the south aisle and porch, but it remains to-day as unfinished as the tower just mentioned! All the lacework carving is on the most obvious side of the church, and is an addition of the Flamboyant period. Its extraordinary wealth of detail repays the closest scrutiny, for among canopied niches and flame-patterned parapets are the grotesque heads of gargoyles and representations of such creatures as the monkey and the bat. The north side of the church shows the greatest contrast imaginable to all this delicate beauty. It is plain and bare thirteenth-century work, with the fortified tower built about the year 1366, a few years after the town had been half destroyed by the English, when the citizens set to work to fortify their town, which hitherto had relied for protection solely on the fact that Louviers was a possession of the Archbishop of Rouen. The thirteenth-century interior, with its double aisles, giving wonderful perspectives of pillars, is one of the most remarkable in Normandy. Gisors (see Section XXVII.) also has double aisles, but their loftiness gives an entirely different effect{48} to those at Louviers. The dark brown pulpit has its sounding-board supported by a couple of carved wooden palm-trees. Some picturesque old houses remain in the old part of the town near the church, and although the town is given up to a considerable extent to woolen factories, it is still a pleasant place, surrounded by the beautiful pastoral scenery of the River Eure.

A terrible incident of the Hundred Years’ War took place in 1418, when Louviers fell into the hands of the English, in spite of its newly built wall, and 120 of its most wealthy merchants were condemned to death. In 1431, in spite of an heroic defence, the English again entered the town, and burnt and destroyed so heartlessly that it is a wonder that the town ever recovered, and yet in the last years of the same century the amazing mass of ornament was added to the south side of the church.

THE ROAD TO EVREUX

Continuing through the main street of Louviers in a straight line past the church, the road runs by the side of the River Eure, with wooded hills on the right. A picturesque half-timbered château, with pepper-box turrets, is passed on the left, and

THE ROAD NEAR ROUEN.

A typical corner on the road between Rouen and Pont de l’Arche.

{49}

old church lying a little way from the road on the same side.

No. 3. ROUEN TO EVREUX.

The Iton, a tributary of the Eure, is then crossed, and with a beautiful view of steep hills dropping down to the strip of water-meadows by the Eure, the road to Evreux climbs up steadily, making a big bend as it passes through a strip of woodland. The road swings to the right to make a zigzag down into the valley of the Iton, where in descending one has beautiful views of the curving, delicately tinted hills, and a distant glimpse of Evreux, which is entered through a fine avenue.{50}

SECTION III

EVREUX TO CHARTRES, 47¾ MILES
(77 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

Evreux is a cathedral town, with comparatively wide, but very unassuming, streets of old houses, having their original charm generally hidden under a covering of plaster. Cavalrymen, with horsehair falling from their helmets, and the numerous clergy seem to make up a considerable proportion of the population. In walking through the town one frequently comes to little canals, which take the water of the River Iton in several directions, in a similar fashion to the Stour at Canterbury.

The spacious square in front of the Hôtel de Ville is overlooked by public buildings, whose new appearance might give one a wrong impression of the antiquity of the town, if it were not for the beautiful belfry tower, with a pinnacled spire, standing in one corner. It was built in the latter part of the fifteenth century, and the bell, whose notes are frequently heard, was cast in 1406, and is nearly a century older than the tower, which was built in place of an earlier one. The Museum, in the same square, is interesting, on account of the{52} Roman remains it contains, found at the village of Vieil-Evreux, a Roman site about four and a half miles to the west.

Town Plan No. 6.—Evreux.

From the museum a short street, the Rue de l’Horloge, leads to the Cathedral, whose lately restored spire appears above the roofs from nearly every point of view. From the eleventh right down to the nineteenth century rebuilding or{53} alterations have been taking place on the great church, and now, to the architect, as well as those who are interested in the history of France, there are the records in stone of the changes which those eight centuries have witnessed.

The first Norman cathedral was burnt, in 1119, by Henry I. of England, who rebuilt the nave about twenty-six years later. During the fighting in Normandy in the time of Philippe Auguste the church again suffered, and the triforium of the nave was rebuilt about the middle of the thirteenth century. The present choir followed at the beginning of the fourteenth century. The following summary covers the chief periods of the cathedral:

The west front is unique in being the only completely classic façade among all the cathedrals of France. It almost gives the feeling of the François I. châteaux by the Loire. The interior is a most inspiring example of pure French Gothic. In the chapels are several windows containing beautiful stained glass of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; that in the south transept is sixteenth century.

The Bishop’s Palace, on the south side of the cathedral, can only be seen from the Boulevard Chambaudouin, where its fortified exterior is washed by one of the canals of the Iton. It is an interesting building of the fifteenth century, and in 1603 was, for a time, the residence of Henri IV., whose famous victory at Ivry, a few miles south of Evreux, is described at the end of this chapter.{55}

At the end of the Rue Joséphine is the Church of the Benedictine Abbey of St. Taurin. The life-story of that otherwise obscure worthy of the Church is told in the windows of the choir, and one of them shows his successful attack on the devil, who had entered the temple of Diana in Evreux. The sacristan will show the casket containing relics of the saint (small gratuity) to those who ask permission. It is worth while to do so, as this silver-gilt reliquary is one of the most sumptuous examples in existence of goldsmiths’ work of the thirteenth century.

The choir, the tower, and part of the nave of St. Taurin belong to the fifteenth century, and the other portions are Romanesque work of the eleventh century. Evreux suffered the most terrible buffets in the unsettled period when Normandy was the battle-ground of England and France. Henry I. burnt the town and John sold it to Philippe Auguste, regaining it treacherously after the release of Richard I. Philippe, however, having captured it, massacred a large proportion of the miserable townsfolk.

It is generally believed that the Devereux family obtained their name from this Norman town.

The road to Chartres goes southwards from{56} Evreux over the hedgeless plain of St. André in a perfectly straight line. The hamlet of Thomer, with its little church with a spiky spire on the left, is passed through, and here and there another village is seen across the fields; but otherwise, for some eighteen miles the great plain stretches away to a flat horizon, with so few features that one marvels how a peasant can find his way to the particular field he was working in on the previous day. There are no hedges, no roadside cottages, and scarcely a tree to serve as a guide to any particular square of the great patchwork of green and brown!

NONANCOURT

On reaching this old town one goes over a level-crossing, and, turning to the left, goes through the street, getting a passing glimpse of the market-house standing on wooden posts. Henry I. chose this place to build a castle for the defence of Normandy, and in it an agreement was signed between Richard I. and Philippe Auguste, by which those two kingly warriors promised not to molest one another’s dominions while absent on the Crusades. Here also they arranged their respective shares in the Third Crusade.

On leaving Nonancourt the River Avre is

ROUEN CATHEDRAL FROM THE SOUTH.

The Tour de Beurre is on the left, and the Portail de la Calende appears at the end of the street beneath the great central tower. (Page 32.)

{57}

crossed, and about nine miles farther one reaches the interesting town of

No. 4. EVREUX TO CHARTRES.

DREUX

The most conspicuous feature is the Hôtel de Ville, a large square tower-like building, with slightly projecting circular turrets at each corner. It was built between 1512 and 1537, and is a most interesting example of the transition from Flamboyant Gothic to Classic forms. The tall{58} conical roof is broken with dormers, and ends in a bell-turret. Inside there is a beautiful staircase, a Renaissance fireplace, several fine rooms, a library, and old armour.

Built on the steep hill that dominates the town on the north side, where the ruins of the keep and towers of the Castle dismantled in 1593 still stand, is the Chapelle Royale, erected in 1816 by the Duchesse d’Orléans. After suffering imprisonment and banishment during the Revolution, she returned to France in 1814, and resided at Ivry, a few miles to the north of Dreux. The tombs of her father and the Princes of her family in the vaults of the old collegiate church at Dreux had been broken open during the Revolution, but certain pious folk having hidden the bones, the Duchess decided to build a chapel in which they could be preserved. It was completed in 1820, and her son Louis Philippe afterwards built a larger structure. Lenotre describes how Louis refused to have any assistance in the work of sorting up the confused heap of the bones of his ancestors. ‘These poor dead people,’ he said, ‘have already been sufficiently tormented. Leave me alone with them’; and, shut up by himself for a great part of a night, he laid out the bones on cloths,{59} measuring, examining, and sorting them by the light of a lamp.

The tombs include those of the Duchesse d’Orléans, the foundress of the chapel, of Louis Philippe and his queen and their young children, and the Duchesse de Bourbon Condé, mother of the unfortunate Duc d’Enghien.

The Church of St. Pierre, with its odd-looking unfinished towers, has a somewhat severe interior, relieved by the beauty of its sixteenth-century glass. The nave is fifteenth century and the choir and transepts twelfth or thirteenth. A holy-water basin, or bénitier, of the twelfth century is of great interest, and so is the chapel on the south side of the nave, containing wall-paintings of the inhabitants of the town who made the pilgrimage of St. James of Compostella (Santiago in Spain) during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The beautiful ambulatory has graceful pillars without capitals, and the sounding-board of the pulpit rests on palm-tree supports, as at Louviers.

During the Huguenot war Dreux and its neighbourhood was involved in heavy fighting. In 1562 the first pitched battle was fought near the town, the Catholic Leaguers being led by Montmorency and François, Duc de Guise, and the{60} Protestants by Coligny and Condé. Although the Catholics were successful, it was a closely fought battle, in which 4,000 perished, and both Montmorency and Condé were taken prisoners.

When Henry of Navarre had become Henri IV., although still only recognized as King by a few of the provinces of France, he laid siege to Dreux in 1590, but retired a few miles northwards to Ivry, in the plain of St. André, on the approach of the Catholic army under Mayenne, numbering about 16,000. ‘My friends,’ said Henri, as he fastened on his helmet, ‘yonder is the enemy; here is your King; and God is on our side. If you should lose your standards, rally round my white plume: you will always find it in the path of honour and of victory!’ The fight began at ten in the morning, and in two hours the army of Mayenne was in full flight.

THE ROAD TO CHARTRES

Outside the town the journey across the great agricultural plain is continued. There are still no hedges between the strips of green and brown, sometimes broken by distant belts of woodland, going away to the soft blue horizons in heaving undulations. The first village passed is Marville-Moutier-Brûlé. One can see the high-pitched{61} green roof and small spire of its eleventh-century church on the left.

Le Boullay Mivoye, the next village, which also has a little twelfth to fifteenth century church, consists of a very compact collection of uniformly low thatched or green-tiled cottages and barns, practically surrounded by a wall, beyond which there is no sign of any habitation until the next village is in sight.

Speeding southwards there appears right ahead on the horizon, at the end of a very straight perspective of road, an enormous building with two spires. There is nothing else in sight beyond a few low trees, and the stranger at once realizes that he is approaching a building of the greatest consequence. It is the vast Gothic cathedral of Chartres.

On entering the town, by going to the right along the Rue de la Couronne, one reaches the Place des Epars, where the hotels are situated. (See town plan of Chartres on p. 67.){62}

SECTION IV

CHARTRES TO ORLEANS, 45¼ MILES
(73 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

A straight road across the level plain of La Bauce, sometimes subjected to fierce rain storms.

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

CHARTRES

In approaching the city across the plain from Dreux the huge bulk of the cathedral alone broke the monotonous horizon, and when one is inside the moat and fragmentary ramparts, the vast Gothic church remains the paramount interest. In its fabric is the story of Chartres, and apart from the cathedral there is little to tell of the town’s genesis.

The Cathedral began as a little church built over a grotto where the early missionaries from Rome had discovered a statue of the Virgin. It was venerated under the name Notre Dame-de-Sous-Terre. Quirinus, the Roman Governor of the town, then called Autricum, in the time of the Emperor Claudius put a number of the Early{64} Christians to the sword, and had their bodies thrown into a well called the Puits de Saints Forts. This interesting link with Gallo-Roman Chartres was lost in the seventeenth century, and was only rediscovered in 1901. It can be seen in the crypt behind the altar of the Virgin.

This Crypt is the largest in France, and, next to St. Peter’s at Rome and Canterbury Cathedral, it is the largest in the world.

APPROACHING CHARTRES ACROSS THE PLAIN OF LA BAUCE.

The cathedral stands out before the roofs of the town appear owing to its great height. The passing of a squall of wind and rain gives great grandeur to the plain. (Page 61.)

{65}

Second Church. Burnt by Normans in the ninth century.

Third or Fourth Church:

The Interior is memorable for its immensity and for the strange and almost crude crimsons and blues of the twelfth and thirteenth century glass. The three twelfth-century windows are below the rose of the western end of the nave, where they survived the fire of 1194 almost by a miracle. Several of the windows were given by the trades of Chartres, from the armourers to the pastry-cooks.

By many Chartres is considered the finest cathedral in France, and although there will occur to the mind the glories of the choir of Beauvais and of the nave of Amiens, the interior of Chartres, in its reposeful vastness and strength as a complete structure built in one period, leaves all rivals far behind.

The Ambulatory Screen is the most sumptuous piece of Renaissance carving in France. It was begun in 1514 by Jean de Beauce, and completed{67}

Town Plan No. 7.—Chartres.

{68}

in the eighteenth century. The lives of Christ and of the Virgin are illustrated in the series of pictures in stone.

The Assumption of the Virgin, of Carrara marble, carefully selected by Bridan the sculptor, was finished in 1773. At the Revolution it was saved by an architect, who put a red cap of liberty on the head of the Virgin and a lance in her hand.

The Vierge-du-Pilier is a figure of wood, painted and gilded, with an almost black face. It stands on a short pillar, and is especially venerated by women, being a link with very early and primitive forms of worship.

The Chapelle St. Piat was built in 1349 at the east end and separate from the cathedral. A staircase and passage lead to it.

The Labyrinth of blue-and-white stone in the floor of the nave is a rare and interesting feature, and one of the best in existence. It is not properly known in what way these mazes were used, nor the rites connected with them, although it has been stated that instead of a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, a penitent could perform the 600-feet journey of the maze on his knees.

The Treasury contains, in a modern reliquary, two pieces of white silk, regarded as part of the{69} tunic or veil of the Virgin, which had been given to Charlemagne by the Empress Irene, and was afterwards presented to Chartres by Charles the Bald.

THE LESSER CHURCHES OF CHARTRES

St. Pierre or St. Père-en-Vallée. The abbey church of St. Père-en-Vallée, founded by Clovis, is a fine building dating from the twelfth to the fourteenth century. It was commenced in 1150, under the direction of the monk Hilduard, and almost entirely rebuilt in the thirteenth century. Of the earlier construction there remains the lower part of the choir, with its heavy pillars, the aisles which surround the choir, and the chapels. The great square tower has been placed as early as 940, but may have been built a century later. The stained glass belongs to the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, the earliest being in the choir excluding the apse. In the south aisle of the nave is the tombstone (1037) of Robert, Archbishop of Rouen, son of Richard I., Duke of Normandy. Unique enamels of the twelve Apostles can be seen in the apsidal chapel.

St. Aignan is mainly a Renaissance church, with the chief entrance built in the fourteenth century. The windows are the most interesting feature.{70}

St. Martin-au-Val is the church of the ancient priory of the abbey of Marmontier, and to-day the chapel of the Hôpital St. Brice—a curious building of the twelfth century, incorporating some remains of a great basilica previous to the tenth century. The crypt contains some Roman capitals of marble, stone sarcophagi, and the tomb of a Bishop of Chartres.

St. André, an interesting ruined collegiate church, now a shop, built, about 1108, over two square crypts belonging to Early Christian times. There is a beautiful Romanesque door.

St. Foi is chiefly a Flamboyant church. It was desecrated with great profanity in the Revolution, and remained secular until it was reconsecrated in 1862.

The Hôtel de Ville is a Renaissance building, formerly the Hôtel Montescot (1614). It contains the Museum of pictures, objects of art, ancient armour and tapestry, and also the Library.

The Bishop’s Palace is a seventeenth-century building.

Maison de Loëns, built over a thirteenth-century crypt.

Maison du Médecin, at No 8, Rue du Grand Cerf, is a beautiful specimen of Renaissance, with{71} an inscription above the door, showing that it was built by Claude Huvé, who was a doctor (1501-1559).

Maison du Saumon, at No. 10, Place de la Poissonnerie, was built in the fifteenth century, and is the most curious construction of wood in Chartres. A big salmon is carved on one of its beams.

The House of the Old Consuls, in the Rue des Écuyers, is interesting as the cradle of the city’s municipal power, and in possessing a most picturesque outside staircase turret (sixteenth century), now called the ‘Escalier de la Reine-Berthe.’

Many other houses belonging to the Middle Ages and Renaissance periods refresh the eye in walking through the streets of Chartres.

The Porte Guillaume is the only survivor of the seven gates that formerly existed. It is flanked by two cylindrical towers of the fourteenth century, with restored machicolated battlements.

In going round the tree-shaded boulevards which mark the limits of the medieval city several sections of the ramparts can be seen, as well as a most attractive view of the cathedral over the river.{72}

ON LEAVING CHARTRES,

on the road to Orleans, almost immediately after passing a direction board, there is a fork, where one goes to the right, with the railway parallel with the road for a few kilometres.

No. 5. CHARTRES TO ORLEANS.

The huge wheat-growing plain of La Beauce{73}—the granary of France—stretches away to a perfectly level horizon in all directions.

Windmills are passed now and then, and distant villages can be seen, but more memorable than anything else is the great dome of sky, and as the car slips rapidly and smoothly along the white ribbon that cuts the scenery in two, one seems to be in the strangest of solitudes and on the very outermost surface of the globe, where every mood of the heavens is felt to its fullest without any mitigating influences. When it rains every drop falls without hindrance, and smites the face with a sting when driven by the untempered wind, and when the sun shines every ray reaches the soil.

Allonnes is a roadside village roofed with thatch, coated with green velvet moss, and having blind stone gables towards the road.

Two level-crossings succeed, and then Ymonville, another stone village with great farmyards and a megalithic stone, is passed.

At Allaines there is a church belonging in part to the eleventh century, and strips of low plantations begin to appear.

It is noticeable that French advertisers use the corners of houses in the wayside villages for announcing their productions in blue and white, just{74} where one looks for the blue-and-white direction-boards, so that the eye never fails to catch them, and the various makes of cocoa or pneumatic tyres are engraved on the memory!

Soon after passing a grey-green boarded windmill close to the road, which makes a very pretty picture against the emerald of the growing corn beyond, the road goes to the left, and immediately afterwards to the right in the village of Artenay.

Soon afterwards a railway appears on the left, and with thin, rickety telegraph-poles as companions, the rest of the way to Orleans begins to lose interest, until a long, dull street shuts out the views.

ORLEANS

Like many cities boasting a history that goes back to a remote period, Orleans has rebuilt itself so often that it is now a modern town, with only a very few buildings to connect it with the past. All the atmosphere of antiquity pervading such cities as Rouen and Chartres has gone to such an extent that it is with a mental effort equal to that of replacing the hippopotamus in the primeval marshes of the Thames, where London now stands, that one remembers that the Gallic town of Cenabum which stood on the site of Orleans was taken by Julius{75}

Town Plan No. 8.—Orleans.

Cæsar from the Carnutes in 52 B.C. By the third century the town was known as Aurelianus, from{76} which it is an easy step to the present name. In 451 the devastating Huns under Attila were forced back. By 613 Orleans had become one of the most important cities in France, second only to Paris; it was frequently the residence of French kings, and money was minted there.

In 1344 Philippe de Valois separated Orleans from the crown, and it became a duchy, and in the next century (1429) came that historic siege by the English, raised by the ‘Maid,’ who, clad in white armour, rode fearlessly at the head of the French army, and sent a cold terror into the hearts of the English.

After having been occupied by Leaguers and Huguenots in turn, Henri IV. took the city in 1594. The year of Waterloo saw the Prussians in Orleans, and in 1870 they again occupied the city. They were driven out for a time, but after returning they did not evacuate until March, 1871.

The Cathedral has its eighteenth-century ‘Gothic’ west front facing the wide Rue Jeanne d’Arc. It is a most abominable conception of narrow pointed doorways of a Moorish character, with ogee arches and the oddest pair of towers. The thirteenth-century east end, with its great display of flying{77} buttresses, is the chief portion of the earlier cathedral burnt by the Calvinists in 1567.

Building Dates

The interior is very impressive, with tall pillars without capitals, the great star windows in the transepts, and the very pictorial modern glass.{78}

Other Churches:

St. Pierre-le-Puellier is the oldest church in Orleans. It is of unprepossessing appearance, but is interesting on account of the remains of the ninth and twelfth centuries.

St. Aignan was mutilated by Protestants in 1562. It is built over a crypt of the eleventh century, and consists now of transepts and choir only.

St. Euverte is a Flamboyant church, first built in the twelfth but rebuilt in the fifteenth century. It has a tower of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Notre Dame de Recouvrance is an eleventh-century church, rebuilt in 1515-1519, and restored in 1862.

The Hôtel de Ville is a Renaissance structure of modern aspect, built in 1530 for Jacques Groslot, Seigneur de l’Isle. Many French monarchs have stayed there: François II., Charles IX., Henri III., and Henri IV.; also Catherine de Medici and Mary Stuart. François II. died there in 1560. In 1790 it became the Hôtel de Ville.

The Bishop’s Palace dates from 1631.

The Old Houses are mainly to be found in the Rue du Tabour, a side street of great interest.{79}

The Musée Jeanne d’Arc occupies a charming fifteenth-century house in the Rue du Tabour, known, without reason, as the Maison d’Agnès Sorel.

The Maison de Jeanne d’Arc, in the same street, is the house in which Jacques Bouchier, treasurer to the Duc d’Orléans, received Jeanne during the siege of 1429. The room she occupied was unfortunately pulled down and rebuilt in 1580.

The Hôtel Cabut, not far from the Rue du Tabour, wrongly called Maison de Diane de Poitiers, is a Renaissance house, built in 1540, and now contains the Musée Historique.

The City Walls. There are still a tower and a few fragments of the city ramparts.

The Fête de Jeanne d’Arc is held on May 8, in honour of the raising of the siege of Orleans by Jeanne d’Arc. It is one of the most brilliant in France, and has only been interrupted during the religious wars of the sixteenth century and from 1792 to 1804.{80}

SECTION V

AMONG THE CHÂTEAUX OF TOURAINE

ORLEANS TO TOURS, 103½ MILES

(166 KILOMETRES)

ORLEANS TO TOURS, DIRECT, 71¾ MILES

(115 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

{81}

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

The simplest way to leave Orleans is to go to the bridge, and then turn to the right along the north bank of the Loire, which is followed as far as Beaugency.

For long distances the river seems so very little below the level of the surrounding country that there seems scarcely any reason why it should keep to the course it now follows. In wet seasons the flat, sandy shores are often covered by the river, which spreads out into broad lagoons and engulfs the grassy islands.{83}

At Meung, where the road bends to the right, there is an interesting abbey church, founded in the sixth century by St. Liphard. It was burnt by Louis le Gros in the early part of the eleventh century, but before its close the church had been rebuilt with the exception of the tower. This western tower, with a pyramidal spire, is connected with a curtain wall to a thirteenth-century fortified tower, the oldest part of the castle of the Bishops of Orleans, which was chiefly built in the classic period of some 400 years later. The village has some old houses, and the Porte Amont, rebuilt in the seventeenth century.

BEAUGENCY

The first glimpse of this compact little town is very suggestive of antiquity. It is overshadowed by a huge Norman keep, about whose lichened parapets jackdaws circle and flutter, and across the river stands the oldest bridge on the Loire—some of its twenty-six arches going back to the thirteenth century.

The keep is called the Tour de César, and it is all that now remains of the first Castle, built at the end of the eleventh century. The other portions were constructed in 1440 by Dunois, the Bastard of Orleans, who maintained the defence of Orleans{84} against the English until relieved by Jeanne d’Arc. There is a most picturesque courtyard with open arcading and a tower, and the great hall, known as the Salle de Jeanne d’Arc, has a huge fireplace. The buildings are now a Depôt de Mendicité.

Close to the castle is the Transitional Church of the Benedictine Abbey of Notre Dame, finished at the end of the twelfth century, and lately restored. It was burnt by the Protestants in 1567, when they committed terrible excesses in the town. Besides the church, there is nothing left of the abbey buildings, except an old circular tower called the Tour du Diable and the Abbot’s house.

Adjoining the Hôtel St. Étienne[A] there is a picturesque wooden house with moulded beams and much carving, and along one side of the hotel courtyard is the disused Church of St. Étienne, a very interesting and perfect little cruciform building of the eleventh century or earlier. It has a central tower, and the windows are small and very deeply splayed. Being kept locked, the plain barrel vaulting of the interior can only be dimly seen through the unglazed windows.{85}

The Hôtel de Ville might, at first sight, owing to restoration, be thought a modern building. It has a Renaissance façade built between 1520 and 1525, and the bas-reliefs with which it is covered show the arms of Dunois and Longueville, the Salamander of François I., and the fleur-de-lis. The seventeenth-century tapestries to be seen inside came from the choir of the abbey church.

Other features of the town are the Tour de l’Horloge, used as a prison before the sixteenth century; the Tour St. Firmin of the church destroyed during the Revolution; and the portions of the twelfth-century ramparts with the ruined Porte Travers.

In 1428 the English captured Beaugency, but Jeanne d’Arc recovered it in the following year.

Crossing the bridge, with its massive old buttresses, and turning at once to the right, one keeps near the river through the village of St. Laurent-des-Eaux, with a statue of Jeanne d’Arc, and houses with the mossiest of roofs and quaint little dormers. There is a quality in the air of this part of the Loire conducive to the growth of parasitic vegetation, for every roof and wall, and every tree, is enriched with luxuriant moss or splashes of silvery and orange lichen.{86}

The road continues through the same flat country, with low, scrubby forest to the left, and touches the river again at Nouan-sur-Loire, another old village rich in soft greens and greys. A house on the left is conspicuous for its quaintness, and several of the cottages have heart-shaped holes cut in the shutters of the windows.

No. 6 ORLEANS TO TOURS.

Just beyond Nouan the road to the Château de Chambord goes to the left at a fork, and in a few minutes one passes through a gate in the{87} seven-league stone wall that surrounds the park, and a straight avenue through the low trees leads to the great castle.

CHÂTEAU DE CHAMBORD

There is no appearance of age in the immense pile of white stone that gleams in the sunshine under its astonishingly overweighted roofs, and by many who have come expecting something altogether different, the bitterest disappointment has been expressed.{88}

Before the year 1519 there had been only the grim and gloomy feudal castle of Chambourg on the site, and the excellent hunting in the scrub and swamps of the Sologne (the name given to this marshy district) was the only reason for the visits of the Court. But in that year François I. began the construction of the existing château in place of the old one; and belonging to that era of magnificence when the Renaissance influence was being felt throughout Europe, he built the largest and most splendid hunting-box the world has ever seen. Although 1,800 workmen were employed year after year to carry out Pierre Nepveu’s designs, when the King died, in 1547, only the central portion and the east wing, which contained his own apartments, were completed. His successor, Henri II., added a wing, but liked Anet better, and Charles IX. and Catherine de Medici preferred Chenonceaux, Blois, and Chaumont.

Louis XIII. and Louis XIV. regarded it as a hunting-box, but the latter came to the amazing conclusion, after his first visit to the place with his Court, that it was too small, and plans were prepared for two additional wings, which, however, were never built, although the foundations of one were laid; on them were built, in the eighteenth{89} century, the barracks still to be seen. They were for the accommodation of the regiment of Uhlan horse, with which the famous Marshal Maurice de Saxe, of Fontenoy fame, amused himself when in retirement at Chambord.

It is, however, the figure of the magnificent François I., the King who, at the death of his English neighbour, spoke of Henry VIII. as his old friend, to whom one’s thoughts turn in walking through the great Renaissance courtyard and the innumerable and vast apartments ornamented on every side with his fiery salamander. In spite of their rich coffered ceilings the apartments are cold and bare, and need the sumptuous furnishings of the sixteenth century and the King himself apparelled in his favourite pink or blue Italian velvet.

In the middle of the central pile of buildings is a remarkable double staircase, so arranged that those ascending by one spiral cannot be seen by those coming down the other. This no doubt had its uses and advantages in the sixteenth century, when Court intrigue added a zest to life.

The custodian takes visitors on to the roofs, where the extraordinary detail of the chimneys, balustrades, turrets, and dormers can be seen closely. The uncarved surfaces of stone are{90} generally adorned with slate cut into various patterns and fixed up with nails.

Nearly all the hundreds of rooms are vast, bare, and lifeless, and one feels in the echoing spaces that the tide of social progress has left such colossal buildings—the greatest that the final phase of feudalism produced—far away on a half-forgotten beach of history.

The moat was filled up and the terraces taken away when Stanislas Leczinska, the exiled King of Poland, received the castle from his father-in-law Louis XV., and lived there contentedly for eight years.

Madame Berthier, the widow of Napoleon’s Chief of Staff, cut down all the old trees in the twenty square miles of forest belonging to Chambord, thus robbing its surroundings of the dignity given by great trees, while perhaps giving the park the aspect which it bore in the days of François I.

The long straight roads bordered with Austrian pines go straight through the park southwards to the little town of Bracieux on the Beuvron. It has a quaint market-house on posts and a good deal of half-timber work with herring-bone brickwork, but otherwise the place is uninteresting, and need not delay one on the road to Cheverny.{91}

The Sologne, through which the route goes, is a very peculiar strip of sandy marsh-land dotted over with innumerable lakelets and covered with a network of rivers. It was until recent times considered a hopelessly unprofitable waste, suitable for nothing at all but sport. Drainage and careful cultivation have shown, however, that the vine will produce good harvests, and strawberries and vegetables are also cultivated with such success that the peasant of the Sologne is now prosperous and contented.

That the sporting qualities of the district have not yet been destroyed is proved by the frequency with which one hears the sound of the horn across the watery levels, and sees the very excited hunting folk clattering through the village streets and along the highways and byways.

Turning to the left in the village of Cour Cheverny, and to the right at a fork just afterwards, one reaches the village of

CHEVERNY

Opposite the curious little church, with its Norman door and wide wooden verandah sheltering a few mendicants, is the entrance to the Château. It is open to visitors from April 1 to October, and not{92} during the other months of the year, as it is the home of the present owner, the Marquis Henri Hurault de Vibraye, who is a descendant of that Philippe Hurault de Cheverny whose son built the present château in 1634. This Philippe Hurault had been Chancellor under Henri III. and Henri IV., and died in 1599 in the house destroyed when the existing one was built.

The corridor and dining-room are decorated with paintings on Cordova leather illustrating the life of Don Quixote. Jean Mosnier, of Blois, born in 1600, was the artist who painted all the pictures in the château. A beautifully carved stone staircase leads to the upper floor, where one can see the Salle des Gardes—a splendid room in perfect condition—decorated with armour, paintings, and rich tapestries, and the Chambre du Roi, with its old bed and more tapestry.

The tomb of Chancellor Hurault is in the chapel in the château, and others of the family are buried in the church (already mentioned) outside the gates of the park.

Returning to Cour Cheverny, where the church has a tall and slender spire, and an early Pointed doorway with a toothed moulding, one goes straight on through the village and the forest of Russy{93} (passing on the left the Château Beauregard) to the picturesque and historic town of

BLOIS

On crossing the bridge over the Loire one looks upward at the great castle on its inaccessible rock, the centre of a vast feudal power in the Middle Ages, and the scene of callous intrigue and murder in the latter part of the sixteenth century.

It is not difficult to find the way up to the Château, which is a national monument, and is open to the public at all reasonable hours.

The east wing and entrance-front of the château, of red brick and stone, was built by Louis XII., probably while he was Duke of Orleans, and finished before his death in 1501. His emblem—the porcupine—can be seen above the little door on the right of the archway, above which is an equestrian statue of Louis XII.—a modern work, taking the place of the old one destroyed in the Revolution. This wing now contains the Museum and Picture Gallery.

The north wing was built by François I. between 1516-1525. François I., while transforming the exterior, kept one of the towers of the old fortress,{94}

Town Plan No. 9.—Blois.

whose dungeons served as prisons; the west wing, later demolished by Gaston d’Orléans; and also the Grande Salle de Justice, known later as the Salle des États, from the États généraux held there in 1576 and 1588. This hall united the new wing to the old one of Louis XII. It is a thirteenth-century building, with its roof supported by eight{95}

Plan of the North Side of the Château of Blois.

On the first floor are the rooms of Catherine de Medici, and above are those of Henri III., the scene of the historic murder of Henri, Duc de Guise.

5 V, the Council-hall, and VI the fireplace at which Guise warmed himself. The dotted line shows the way Guise left the Council-hall for the Cabinet Vieux, where the King (Henry III.) awaited him. XVIII, the narrow passage in which Guise was stabbed.

{96}

columns. The beautiful outside stone staircase is the most remarkable feature of this wing.

On the first floor are the rooms of Catherine de Medici, containing the bedroom where she died in 1589 and the Tour des Oubliettes—the ruined tower where the Cardinal de Guise (brother of Henri, Duc de Guise) and the Archbishop of Lyons were imprisoned. The Cardinal was assassinated the day after his brother just in the entry. The Archbishop was sent into exile.

On the second floor are the rooms of Henri III., including the King’s bedroom, where the Duke died; the oratory, where monks were praying for the success of the enterprise, not knowing what it was; and the Salle du Conseil, where Guise stood and warmed himself by the fire on the morning when he was assassinated—December 23, 1588. The Cabinet Vieux, where Henri waited during the murder, has been pulled down.

Henri III., owing to his vacillating policy, found himself in 1588 completely dominated by his powerful subject, Henri, Duc de Guise, who had founded the league to re-establish the Catholic religion and to extirpate all heresy. The King had been forced to proclaim Guise Lieutenant-General of the kingdom, and to pledge himself to suppress heresy,{97} but, though outwardly reconciled, Henri was determined on vengeance. Miss Edith Sichel gives the following account of the murder in her brilliant work on Catherine de Medici.

The west wing, dating from 1635, was built for Gaston d’Orléans by François Mansard. It contains the public library.

The south wing contains some rooms built by Louis XII. or his father, Charles d’Orléans, and also the ornate Chapelle Saint Calais, in which Henri IV. married Marguerite de Valois. It has been restored so much that it has lost somewhat in interest, in spite of its profuse gilding on walls and ceiling.

THE CHURCHES OF BLOIS

Cathedral of St. Louis, sixteenth century, rebuilt in seventeenth century in the time of Louis XIV. in a debased ogee style. The upper parts of the tower and main entrance are Renaissance, while the base of the tower belongs to the twelfth century, when an earlier church was standing.

St. Nicholas, a cruciform church situated at the foot of the château, is the oldest in Blois, and is quite the most interesting. It formerly belonged to the Benedictine Abbey of St. Laumur, and was built between 1138 and 1210 in Transitional and{101} Gothic periods. The upper parts of the two western towers are modern. The interior is very impressive, the style being strong and simple, with a beautiful vaulted ambulatory. Some of the capitals are very finely carved. The altar-screen dates from 1460, and there are epitaphs and inscriptions of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

St. Vincent-de-Paul, a church of the Jesuits, built 1626-1671, contains a monument to Gaston d’Orléans (to the right of the chief altar) erected by Mademoiselle de Montpensier, his daughter (known as La Grande Mademoiselle).

St. Saturnin, in the Faubourg de Vienne, south of the river, belongs to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It has a statue of Notre-Dame des Aides, the object of a pilgrimage for which Anne de Bretagne (wife of Louis XII.) had a great devotion.

Old Houses.—There are many Renaissance houses of stone, and also numerous wooden ones of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with curious carvings on brackets and corbels and moulded beams. Nos. 1 and 2, in the narrow old Rue St. Lubin, west of the market below the château, are particularly good.

Tour d’Argent (Rue des Trois Clefs) is the fifteenth-century octagonal tower of the Hôtel des{102} Monnaies, or Mint, under Charles d’Orléans and Louis XII.

Hôtel d’Alluye (8, Rue St. Honoré) is a masterly example of Renaissance, built for Florimond Robertet, Baron d’Alluye, and Secretary of Finances under Louis XII. and François I. He also built the Château de Bury.

Hôtel Sardini (17, Rue du Puits-Châtel) is of the time of Louis XII.

Hôtel Denis-Dupont (Rue St. Honoré) is the sixteenth-century dwelling of Denis-Dupont, the celebrated lawyer of Blois.

The College (Place Louis XII.) is installed in the ancient Abbaye de Bourg-Moyen, rebuilt in the eighteenth century, with the exception of the fourteenth-century gable.

Hôtel Dieu (between the castle and the river) occupies buildings of the Abbey of St. Laumur; rebuilt under Louis XIV., and recently enlarged.

Fontaine Louis XII., in the Place Louis XII., where markets are held, is a picturesque fifteenth-century work.

The Bridge was built between 1717-1724, from plans of Gabriel, father of the celebrated architect, the obelisk in the middle showing the arms of France.{103}

History.—The name Blois is derived from the Celtic word bleiz, meaning wolf, possibly because the Celtic fort on the site of the château was in a wolf-infested country, and perhaps the name may have some totem significance. The Counts of Blois ruled over a vast district during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, including Chartres, Dunois, Vendômois, and even Champagne. Thibaut le Tricheur (or the Cheat) was the most celebrated of the first Counts. He built a keep on the site of the present château before his death in 978.

After these tragic events the Kings of France disliked the château, and only one Duc d’Orléans, Gaston, brother of Louis XIII., resided there. He formed a sort of provincial court round him, and employed Mansard to build the west wing. After Gaston’s death in 1660 only two Princesses used it—Marie Casimire, widow of Sobieski, King of Poland, and the mother of Stanislas, King of Poland, who died at Blois in 1722. After this the château was abandoned, and even partly mutilated, and the Revolution continued the destruction.

AMBOISE.

{105}

An exceedingly picturesque town on the Loire, with its famous château conspicuous above the river.

THE ROAD TO AMBOISE

There is a peculiar charm in the riparian scenery of the Loire when seen from the raised road that follows the broad river closely all the way to Tours. In the late afternoon the soft colours of the sunset sky reflected in the oily and swirling surface of the river are singularly beautiful, and looking backwards, as one leaves the town of Blois, the buildings beneath the château, the towers, and the bridge, are all transformed with a soft gold, which subdues all that is crude, and heightens every charm, in just the fashion that memory gilds the past. To the south, beyond the river, is the forest of Blois, a remnant of the medieval forests that surrounded the town, and near at hand all the trees are tufted with mistletoe, which shows up against the burnished gold of the sky as the sun drops lower and lower in the west.

A suspension bridge of six spans crosses the river opposite.

CHAUMONT-SUR-LOIRE

The little brown-roofed village nestles by the water-side under an orange-red cliff crowned with the picturesque castle built in 1473 by Charles de Chaumont. He was a brother of the great Cardinal{106} Georges d’Amboise, Archbishop of Rouen, who was born in the castle in 1460, and whose Cardinal’s hat can be seen in the chapel.

Visitors are allowed to see the castle every day in the absence of the owner (the Princesse de Broglie), and on Thursdays when the family is in residence. When first built, in the tenth century, the fortress belonged to the Counts of Blois, and came afterwards to the family of Amboise. It was burnt by Louis XI. because Pierre d’Amboise (his tomb in Rouen Cathedral has been mentioned) had rebelled against him, and rebuilt in quadrangular form by his son Charles. The side towards the river was pulled down in 1739 to open up the beautiful view.

Catherine de Medici appears not to have lived at Chaumont, but she obliged Diane de Poitiers to accept it in exchange for Chenonceaux.

The entrance gateway between machicolated towers shows the initials of Louis XII. and Anne de Bretagne, and the arms of Charles and Georges d’Amboise. Certain apartments are called those of Catherine de Medici and of her astrologer Ruggieri. The Salles des Gardes are hung with Beauvais tapestry. A big cedar holds out beneficent arms in the courtyard, and the steep ravine on the west side of the castle eminence is clothed with trees.{107}

Returning to the north side of the river, one passes the mossy-roofed hamlet of Veuves, built close up to the-raised road, and in a short time the strikingly picturesque town of Amboise appears on the south bank of the river.

AMBOISE.

The first bridge takes one on to the Île St. Jean, where in 496 Clovis held a conference with Alaric, King of the Visigoths, and the second bridge brings one to the town built under the shadow of the castle commenced by Charles VIII., continued by Louis XII., and finished by François I. Entrance tree every day; gratuity to custodian.

Amboise was the Ambatia of the Romans, and in the fourth century tradition reveals the presence of St. Martin of Tours causing the destruction of a pagan temple. In the Middle Ages there was a castle on the site of the existing one, which belonged to the Counts of Anjou, and afterwards to those of Berri. It came to the Crown in 1434; Louis XI. abode there before he went to Plessis-les-Tours.

Charles VIII. was born in the feudal castle which has now vanished, and it was here he began the reconstruction, and died in the unfinished Gothic pile in which he had taken such delight. He{108} brought artists, sculptors, and workmen from Italy and wherever he saw beautiful things, and what the château might have been can be judged by the exquisite little Chapel of St. Hubert, with its exterior alto-relievo representing the conversion of the canonized huntsman. While watching a game of tennis, however, on April 7, 1498, Charles was seized with apoplexy and died. The excellent guide shows a low doorway, against the lintel of which he describes how the King struck his head when going after a tennis-ball. This picturesque story is, nevertheless, untrue.

Leonardo da Vinci, who died at Amboise in 1519, left instructions for his burial in the Chapel of St. Florentin, formerly in the castle, but now destroyed. In 1869 some bones were discovered on the site, and were deposited in St. Hubert’s Chapel in the belief that they were those of the painter, and a bust of the great Italian has been placed above the spot where the remains were unearthed.

The interior of the castle has been so mutilated and destroyed that its interest centres very largely in the two great cylindrical towers, which contain spiral roadways paved with red brick, up which the Emperor Charles V. rode on horseback when he{109} paid a visit to François I. in 1539. The ascent is so easy that to drive up in a carriage is no great feat, and an automobile can accomplish it with comparative ease.

The year 1560 witnessed a terrible scene in the now peaceful and flower-scented courtyard of the castle. An abortive Huguenot conspiracy to capture the young King François II. and remove the government from the Guises met with a frightful retribution. A series of horrible executions and hangings were carried out in the presence of the Court, and Mary Stuart was forced to witness the spectacle by her fierce mother-in-law Catherine de Medici. The dead bodies were hung from the galleries.

In 1872 the National Assembly gave back the castle to the Comte de Paris, and at the present time the Duc d’Orléans uses it as a maison de retraite for old servants.

The view from the ramparts over the blue river with its sandy banks is very beautiful. Down below are the old roofs of the town, standing where, at one time, the river washed the base of the castle rock.

A picturesque gateway in the town, with a pointed arch, a clock, and a lantern turret above its high-pitched roof, is passed through on the way to the fine{110} cruciform Church of St. Denis. It is a Transitional building with a Romanesque north door, richly sculptured capitals, an interesting St. Sépulchre, and a massive central tower.

The Hôtel de Ville near the bridge (built 1500-1505 by Pierre Morin, Treasurer of France) has been carefully over-restored, and can be entered without any charge beyond a small gratuity. Near by is the Church of St. Florentin, built by order of Louis XI. (1461-1483).

To reach Tours from Amboise one only has to follow the road westward on either bank of the river, but by doing so one misses the fascinating castle of Chenonceaux, which lies a few miles to the south-east.

The best road to take is the one going due south through the forest of Amboise towards Bléré, and at the first important cross-road (see map) one goes to the left parallel with the River Cher.

Just before reaching the village of Chenonceaux a turning to the right leads across the railway to the entrance-gates of the château of

CHENONCEAUX

Admission is given every day except when the family is in residence, when the public can enter on{111} Sundays and Thursdays only between 2 and 4. The charge is 1 franc for each person.

An avenue leads down to a formal garden enclosed by low walls and brilliant with flowers, which make a fitting foreground to this castle of pleasant memories, for there are no records or traditions of any treachery or murder here; instead, one finds accounts of brilliant fêtes and receptions, when the picturesque little château must have been a pageant of colour and beauty.

An isolated tower on the right of the garden belongs to an earlier castle than that which exists now, and its walls have the mellowed tones which restoration has stolen from the beautiful building just beyond.

The approach is by a bridge, for the whole of the castle stands in the River Cher on the site of a mill owned by the predecessors of the builder. Although erected in the sixteenth century, there are two drawbridges which isolate the castle from the banks, but its peaceful story does not suggest that they were ever needed.

The elaborately ornamented roofs, the circular corner turrets, and the galleried bridge reflected in patches in the eddying water, make a most attrac{112}tive picture, and one feels surprise that no one has imitated such an idea.

It was in 1515 that Thomas Bohier is supposed to have begun the castle. He was Chancellor of the Exchequer of Normandy, and spent large sums of money on the building. The style was not altogether of the Renaissance, as one may see from the Gothic chapel he built. In 1524 he died in Italy, the country from whence he had drawn his ideas for his exquisite house in the Cher, which was still unfinished. Antoine, his eldest son, found himself in such a predicament through his father’s methods of finance that in 1535 he sold Chenonceaux to François I.

Although the King seems to have only twice visited the castle, he went on with the buildings, and his high opinion of the place is on record.

In 1546 he held a great hunting-party at the castle, and with him were Diane de Poitiers and the future Henri II., in whose affections the King’s mistress soon had the highest place. In 1547 Henri II. succeeded his father, and at once gave Chenonceaux to his lovely Diane, and it was she who built the bridge connecting the castle with the south bank of the river.

THE CHATEAU OF CHENONCEAUX.

One of the most attractive of the castles of Touraine. It is built in the River Cher, and was never the scene of any fighting.

{113}

Twelve years later Henri received a mortal wound in the lists when tilting with Montgomery, Captain of the Scottish Guards, and his embittered widow, Catherine de Medici, at once forced Diane de Poitiers to exchange Chenonceaux for Chaumont. In 1559 Catherine received the boy-King, François II., with his Queen, Mary Stuart, at the château in the river. Mary came there from Amboise with the bloody scenes of the castle courtyard fresh in her memory.

While she had Chenonceaux, Catherine built upon the bridge erected by her rival Diane the gallery with a long banqueting-hall above, which makes so attractive a feature from the water-side. She died in 1601, and left the castle to her niece, the beautiful Françoise de Lorraine, Duchesse de Mercœur.

Having been a possession of the Bourbons, Chenonceaux was sold, in 1733, to Fermier Général Dupin, whose widow, Madame Dupin, entertained there most sumptuously for many years, and even survived the Revolution, dying in 1799, at the age of ninety-three. The Revolutionaries did no damage to the buildings, but required Madame Dupin to bring out all her securities, and the priceless pictures and portraits which had been accumulating in the{114} château for three centuries, and all were burnt in a great bonfire.

The castle is now owned by M. Terry, a Cuban gentleman, who has spent large sums of money on its restoration.

Much of the beautiful furniture has always been in the castle, and the decorations bear the monogram of Henri II. and Diane de Poitiers. The blue-and-orange enamelled tiles on the floors of some of the rooms add to the feast of colour and detail.

BLÉRÉ,

to which one returns after seeing the castle, is an old but disappointing little town, for the bridge built by Henry II. of England in 1160, and in use until quite lately, has been replaced by a modern stone structure of no interest. The Church of St. Croix has a Romanesque apse with grotesque corbels. There are three parallel naves; the central one is fifteenth-century work, those north and south of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

From Bléré to Tours the road keeps near the Cher, and the scenery is pretty.{115}

(70 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

(Along the north bank of the Loire)

For the route from Briare to Cannes, see Sections XXIII., XXII., XXI., XX., XIX., and XVII.

CHARTRES TO TOURS DIRECT, 87½ MILES

(141 KILOMETRES)

By this road, which is on the whole level, one can shorten the distance to Biarritz by 61 miles, but it means omitting the fascinating Château Country.{116}

SECTION VI

TOURS TO POITIERS, 76½ MILES
(124 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

{118}

TOURS

is a large, cheerful, and busy manufacturing city, spread out between the Loire and the Cher, which take parallel courses close together. It stands on a level site, and has no conspicuous attractiveness beyond the few old buildings for which such a commercial centre could spare space. The manufactures include so many commodities that the list would be wearisome. One can hear, see, and smell the iron foundries, but the passing stranger might not be aware that the specialities of the city’s products are dried plums, potted meats, and white wines. The silk industry, formerly of great importance, has declined.

Tours was originally a Celtic town on the rising ground north of the Loire. The Romans preferred the present site, and called it Cæsarodunum. Christianity came there in the third century, and St. Martin, the third Bishop, became the apostle of the Gauls. The plundering Visigoths reached Tours in 473, but were driven out in 507 by Clovis. In the Middle Ages there were two towns side by side: the Roman city, surrounded by walls (of which there are no remains), and west of it Châteauneuf, of which the tomb of St. Martin had formed the nucleus. When the Normans reached Tours in{119}

Town Plan No. 10.—Tours.

{120}

853, and again in 903, they were only able to plunder and destroy the newer town.

Henry II. of England, a descendant of the Counts of Tours, made Touraine a part of the English possessions in France, which it remained until 1242. Nearly all the Kings of France from Louis IX. to François I. resided at Tours.

The religious wars were disastrous to the city, which was half destroyed by Catholics and Huguenots, until 1589, when Henri IV. established peace. In 1870 the Germans bombarded Tours.

The Cathedral, dedicated to St. Gatien, first Bishop of Tours, was in 1166 burnt by fire through a quarrel between Louis VII. of France and Henry II. of England. The lower parts of two towers of the Norman building remain. The reconstruction commenced in 1225, and the latest work was done in 1547.

The choir, finished in 1265, is the work of Étienne de Montagne, and it contains glass of the same period.

The tomb of the children of Charles VIII. (died 1495 and 1496) is in the south transept, and the remains of the late fifteenth-century cloisters, with a Renaissance staircase, are interesting.

The Archevêché, or Archbishop’s residence, is

OLD GABLED HOUSES IN THE RUE DU CHANGE AT TOURS.

The overhanging storys are supported by richly carved brackets.

{121}

close to the cathedral. It is only in part of the fourteenth century, the rest having been rebuilt in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The entrance of Ionic columns was constructed partly of materials of an Arc de Triomphe put up to the glory of Louis XIV., and demolished when the Rue Royale (or Nationale) was cut.

The Roman remains behind the cathedral consist chiefly of portions of the amphitheatre to be found in some cellars of houses in the Rue du Général Meunier and Rue Manceau. Other remains were destroyed in 1883.

The Tour de Guise, a round machicolated tower of the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, is all that remains of the royal castle built by Henry II. of England about 1180. It is called ‘de Guise’ because it was the prison, after his father’s murder at Blois, of the Duc de Joinville, son of Henri, Duc de Guise.

St. Martin died at Candes about 400; his body was brought to Tours, and a modest oratory of wood erected above his tomb. In 472 a new edifice was consecrated; it was the most important work in the West erected after the fall of Rome and before Charlemagne. Clovis and his successors heaped benefits upon the monastery established near the{122} church, and even carried in their expeditions the cope and relics of the saint. Having become one of the great Christian pilgrimages, by the eighth century the church was the centre of a new town, distinct from the old, as already mentioned.

Between 906 and 918 Martinopolis or Châteauneuf was surrounded by walls; in 997 the church was burnt. The next church lasted till 1175, when the third church was built. In 1562 it was ruined by the Huguenots, and in 1802, in order to make an opening for a street, everything was demolished except the two towers and a gallery of the little cloister.

The new Church of St. Martin. In 1860 excavations were carried out to discover the bones of St. Martin. These efforts were successful, and now an imposing new church with a huge dome has been built over his remains.

Tour de l’Horloge (or Du Trésor), built in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, is crowned with a small dome of the eighteenth century.

Tour Charlemagne, of the same period, is so called because at its base was the tomb of Luitgarde, third wife of Charlemagne, who died at Tours in 800.

Notre Dame la Riche, founded in the fourth{123} century, and rebuilt in the fifteenth, was greatly destroyed by Huguenots in 1562, and restored recently.

The Priory St. Côme.—The remains near the bridge of St. Cyn include the church, belonging to the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, and the Romanesque refectory.

The Chapelle du Lycée is the ancient Church of the Minimes. The first stone laid by Marie de Medici in 1630.

St. Julien (Rue du Colbert) is the abbey church on the site of the church founded, it is said, by Clovis.

The fifth reconstruction took place between 1225 and 1259, after a fire. The building is a remarkable example of early ogee style. It was sold at the Revolution, when it became an hotel, but it has since been bought and restored. In the capitulary room, north of the choir, which has been used as a stable, Henri III., in March, 1589, convoked the Parlement de Paris, which met in Tours owing to the troubles of the League.

Église des Jacobins, on the quay, was built in 1260 at the expense of St. Louis. It is now converted to military uses.

St. Laurent (near the Tour de Guise) is a ruined church of the twelfth century.{124}

The Bibliothèque, close to the bridge, is in the old Hôtel de Ville. It is rich in works of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and has a precious collection of historical manuscripts, including the Bible of Charlemagne (coming from St. Martin), on which the Kings of France took their oath as honorary abbés and canons of the Church. There are also books of Charles V., Anne de Bretagne, and Henri III.

The Rue du Commerce leads to the old quarter, where those picturesque houses that still stand are to be found.

The Maison de Tristan l’Hermite (Rue Briçonnet) is wrongly so called. It is of the time of Charles VIII.

The way out of Tours to Loches is by the same straight road by which one entered, and soon after passing the turning to Bléré the straight road to Montbazon is passed at a fork where the way to Loches goes to the left.

A forest country with areas of cultivation is traversed. By the roadside will perhaps be seen a woman with a herd of goats, and the cart-horses have blue sheep-skins over their collars and red tassels on their heads.

The hamlet of St. Blaise, with an old tower on{125} the left, is passed through as the road drops down to the Indre, crossing that river by two bridges, which lead to the village of Cormery. The parish church is an interesting building of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, and near it is a stone Calvary.

By the river, on the left, stand the roofless refectory and cloisters of a Benedictine abbey, founded in the eighth century by Alcuin, Abbé of St. Martin, at Tours. The upper part of the fine Romanesque tower fell recently.

Beyond the ruins, and on the farther side of the river, is the little cruciform church of Truyes, also Romanesque.

The turning to the left in Cormery, immediately after the second bridge, goes along a beautiful portion of the Indre Valley, through Reignac and Azay-sur-Indre, where, if, instead of crossing the river, one goes on, the more direct route to Loches is joined a short distance beyond Chambourg.

On the direct road, although there are no villages, two very picturesque farms are passed on the left. One of them has three circular stone towers with old conical roofs, and the other a very good hexagonal turret.

After Chambourg hilly country begins, and in{126}

No. 7. TOURS TO POITIERS.

{127}

a very short time one enters the interesting old town of

LOCHES

The streets are narrow and picturesque, for above the stone houses there generally frowns a dark machicolated gateway, or a portion of the old town walls which surround the raised site to which the medieval town was restricted.

Some changes are taking place within the walls, which are robbing the town of some of its tortuous ways and some of its glamour, and the hand of the restorer is beginning to appear on the gateways; but although the French idea of restoration is far too radical, the town will maintain its attractiveness for many years to come.

Loches (pronounced with a short o) has an interesting history, which is worth remembering, in connection with the many remains of the Middle Ages it possesses.

Under the Romans it was called Luccæ, and in the fifth century St. Ours founded a monastery, which was the nucleus of the town of to-day. It was defended by a château as early as the sixth century, and under Charles the Bold it became the seat of an hereditary Government. It passed by{128} marriage to the House of Anjou, to which it belonged till 1205.

In the town walls there remain two fine gateways—the Porte des Cordeliers, at the north-east angle over the river, and the Porte Picoys, to the north-west, both of the fifteenth century. The Tour St. Antoine, with a Gothic base and upper portion dating from 1530, has been robbed of its church, and now serves as a clock tower.

The Hôtel de Ville, near the Porte Picoys, was built between 1535 and 1543 in the Renaissance style, and has just undergone restoration. Among the old houses, La Chancellerie, built in 1551, in the Rue du Château, is especially interesting.

THE STREET OF NARVATE, A TYPICAL BASQUE VILLAGE. (Page 207.)

{129}

The Château. A charge of a half-franc for the castle and a half-franc for the donjon is made, and a gratuity is expected by the girl who shows visitors over the Church of St. Ours.

At the imposing twelfth-century gateway between two towers a charming little girl meets visitors, and acts as a connecting-link between the guides to the three features of the castle: (1) the donjon, (2) the church, (3) the château. The concierge of the first, a comparatively young man, has the most extraordinary power of conveying an impression of the terrors of the prisons and dungeons which he shows. When with graphic gesture he shows the fate of prisoners who in the darkness of a rock-hewn cell stumbled headlong into a purposely prepared hole of great depth, murmuring under his breath ‘Très horrible!’ one feels a chilly sense of terror. The writer has seen many dungeons in the course of his wanderings, but those of Loches, coupled with the impressiveness of the admirable guide, are to him the most fear-inspiring and hopeless he has ever penetrated.

The Donjon was built in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and consists of two rectangular buildings, one much larger than the other. The four floors of the larger one have all gone. It{130} served as a prison for Jean, Duc d’Alençon, Pierre de Brézé (see Rouen), and Philippe de Savoie, and is said to have been built by Foulques Nerra.

The great cylindrical tower—the Tour Neuve—was built by Louis XI. in the fifteenth century, as a place where that cold-blooded breaker of the feudal power in France could safely bestow those whose lives could not be taken. In the Salle de Question there are gruesome instruments of torture, and in a circular room below the ground level is shown the place where Louis XI. ordered Cardinal Balue to be suspended in the cage of his own invention. The Cardinal, who was of humble origin, had been a favourite of the King, but met this awful fate by plotting against him.

In the dungeons of the Martelet there are horrible underground cells, and the large chamber in which Ludovic Sforza, Duke of Milan, passed nine years in confinement after his capture during Louis XII.’s war in Italy. On the walls are the inscriptions cut by the noble captive, and also a sundial on the spot where a ray of light entered through the one small funnel-shaped aperture. The prison of the bishops incarcerated by François I. is below, and on the walls are cut an altar and cross and other ecclesiastical designs. The{131} cell in which the father of Diane de Poitiers—the Comte de Saint-Vallier—was imprisoned by François I. is also shown. Diane begged for, and eventually obtained, her father’s liberty.

From the top of one of the towers the guide points out the different features of the castle and town, and one gets a good idea of the position of both on the rocky little plateau above the Indre, which at this point divides itself into two, joining again a little below the town.

The remarkable Church of St. Ours is mainly a work of the twelfth century, in which period Prior Thomas Pactius, who died in 1168, built the two stone pyramids which form the unique roof of the nave.

In 965 the church of Geoffrey Grise-Gonelle, Count of Anjou, was consecrated, and the first bay of the nave forms the interior vestibule of the existing church; above rises a tower, whose upper part is octagonal, with a stone spire, and is not earlier than the twelfth century. The porch, also added in the twelfth century, contains a pagan altar, now in use for holy water.

The interesting crypt has early mural paintings, and the treasury contains the (or a) girdle of the Virgin.{132}

The Château Royal, or Logis du Roi (now the Sous Préfecture), is at the north end of the castle enclosure. It was inhabited by Charles VII., Louis XI., Charles VIII., and Louis XII., and dates in its present condition from the first to the last of these princes.

The old chestnut-tree was planted, it is said, by François I. The guide shows the oratory of Anne de Bretagne, and also the tomb of Agnes Sorel, the beautiful mistress of Charles VII. The white marble figure rests on a black monument, with two kneeling angels at her head and two lambs at her feet. She died near Jumièges in 1450, and her tomb was erected in the choir of St. Ours. Louis XVI. gave the canons permission to remove it from the church.

From Loches to the main road near Dangé the road winds through a hilly country, and after Ligueil the surface is inclined to be rough. On leaving Loches one goes along the outside of the town wall in a south-westerly direction, and at the first fork one takes the turning going down to the right, with the village of Ciran given on the direction board. The kilometre stones on the left are marked Ligueil.

The road is often lined with closely trimmed{133} poplars, and here and there are wooden crosses by the wayside turnings, and the cottages are of stone, with brown tiled roofs. The Château de St. Senoch, among trees on the left near Ciran, has a very Scottish appearance.

In Ligueil one turns to the left and takes the second turning to the right, marked Cussay. There are several houses of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in the little town, and the Church of St. Martin, with a modern tower, dates from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, and has a beautiful seventeenth-century altar-screen of gilded wood.

The road goes on through the village of Cussay, past woods with large birches near the road, up and down hill to the small town of La Haye-Descartes, where there is a restored Romanesque church of the eleventh and twelfth centuries on the right. A bronze statue to Descartes, the famous philosopher and mathematician, who was born in the town in 1596, in a house still standing, is passed on the left. Remains of the town wall can be seen, and the streets are full of half-timber and stone houses.

After crossing a railway and the River Creuse, there is a fork, where one goes to the left through{134} a wooded up-and-down country, where the road gets to its worst phase before joining the national road within sight of Dangé.

A smooth run southwards on a broad, straight road above the Vienne soon brings the busy manufacturing town of

CHÂTELLERAULT

in sight. Its great industry is the manufacture of firearms, which has been established in the town since 1819. All the rifles in use in the French army are made in the town, and the daily output can, under pressure, reach 1,200, with between 5,000 and 6,000 workmen. The manufacture of cutlery, established some 500 years ago, flourished until the small-arms industry rather overshadowed it. The works are at the villages of Naintré and Cénon, south of the town. The Church of St. Jacques, in the broad main street, has a modern façade—a copy of that of Notre Dame at Poitiers—in front of a building of Romanesque and fourteenth-century work. Besides this building and a few old houses, the only feature of interest is the imposing bridge across the Vienne, passed over on leaving for Poitiers. It was commenced in 1525, and finished in 1609, and has two big towers at the west end.{135}

The famous Battle of Tours, as it is generally known to the English, was fought at the junction of the Vienne and the Clain, about 5 kilometres south of Châtellerault (see map). It was in the year 732 when a great Saracen host, led by Abderahman, was marching northwards through Frankland, plundering and spreading desolation as they went. Before they reached the Loire, however, the Saracens were met by Charles Martel (or Charles of the Hammer), who had hurried from the Rhine with his army of Austrasians in time to forestall the invaders, and to win a most decisive victory. The beaten Saracens, numbering 80,000, according to Arab authorities, retreated to the Pyrenees, although Charles Martel made no attempt at pursuit. This battle has generally been considered one of the great decisive conflicts of the world, and the Mayor of the Palace, surnamed of the Hammer, has been regarded as the man who rolled back the Saracen power in Western Europe. In a scholarly article which appeared recently,[B] Mr. E. A. Foord produces a great deal of valuable evidence to show that the invasion of France from Spain would have been something of a much more serious character but for the heavy{136} defeats inflicted on the forces of the Caliphate at Constantinople by Constantine IV. and in 718 by Leo III. Mr. Foord’s comments on the invasion of Frankland are most interesting:

An exceedingly interesting change in the architecture of the houses is noticeable in this portion of the route—the pitch of the roofs becomes very low, curved tiles take the place of flat ones, and the stone houses are often not stuccoed. It almost seems to suggest that Charles Martel’s victory prevented the Southern influence in architectural{137} matters from coming farther north than the ground which the Saracens trod!

All the way to Poitiers from Châtellerault the River Clain and a railway are below the road on the left.

At La Tricherie, a small and picturesque village, the ruins of a twelfth-century castle stand out boldly above the road on the right. There is also a Romanesque church.{138}

SECTION VII

POITIERS TO ANGOULÊME, 67¼ MILES
(108 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

Poitiers is the historic capital of Poitou, a province of France, which, together with all the country between the Loire and the Pyrenees, was declared in the Treaty of Bretigny to belong to England as late as the year 1360, when Normandy{140} had been an integral part of France for more than 150 years. The sovereignty of Edward III. being maintained by force of arms only, it was inevitable that his advancing age and the illness of the Black Prince should foreshadow the early loss of such unwieldy possessions. By 1372, when Bertrand du Guesclin, the Breton hero, had been made Constable of France, the English were rapidly losing their hold. In 1377 both Edward III. and his son were dead, and the whole of the country south of the Loire had returned to its natural rulers.

The situation of Poitiers on an extensive tabular area of rock occupying a bend of the Clain, and defended on the open side by the little River Boivre, is one that made it of immense importance in early times; and yet, unlike Périgueux, the town does not group itself into any romantic outlines from a distance. It is the individual buildings which make the charm of the town, and of these the chief are ecclesiastic. The Romanesque churches of Poitiers are, indeed, a magnet, which makes it difficult to drag oneself away. A few of the main events in the early history of the place may be mentioned before dealing with the architectural relics individually.

History.—Christianity was brought to Poitiers{141} in the third century, and thoroughly established by St. Hilaire, a champion for Catholicism against Arianism.

Town Plan No. 11.—Poitiers.

During the religious wars of the sixteenth century the city was taken, turn by turn, by Catholics and Protestants.{143}

The Churches of Poitiers.—Among the Romanesque churches Notre Dame-la-Grande makes the greatest impression, owing to its hoary west front, encrusted with the strange carving of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, to which the building as a whole belongs. The life of the Virgin is shown in the lowest sculptures, and the other rows of figures represent the Apostles, St. Hilaire and St. Martin. On the right side the figures of two wrestlers appear to be in every way similar to those on the remarkable Norman font at Cowlam, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The gable above has a figure of Christ triumphant. It is interesting to notice that the lower parts of the walls seem to belong to an earlier church, possibly of the eighth or ninth century. The interior is covered with crude painting in herring-bone, zigzag, and striped patterns, giving a strange atmosphere to the church, almost suggesting that one was in Southern Spain.

The Cathedral of St. Pierre was largely built at the expense of Henry II. of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, all the principal work being completed before the death of Henry in 1189. It is therefore a Romanesque building, with the exception of the western façade, with its two low towers, and{144} the north door, which were added in the thirteenth century, and are therefore Gothic. The exterior is disappointing on account of the restoration, which has robbed it of the charms of age. With only one exception—that of Notre Dame de la Roche, near Chevreuse—the choir-stalls are the oldest in France, dating from 1235 to 1257, and the stained glass includes some remarkable windows at the east end, of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The most interesting is the one of the Crucifixion, which also shows Henry II. and Eleanor.

St. Hilaire-le-Grand was reconstructed in the tenth and eleventh centuries on the site of a Roman building. During the siege by Coligny in the Huguenot wars the tower was damaged so much that it eventually fell, crushing the façade and the west end of the nave. This nave, which has been restored with one bay less, is the only one in France with triple aisles, and the effect is that of five naves with two aisles, or even of seven naves. On the walls there are paintings attributed to the eleventh or thirteenth centuries, and in the southernmost aisle there is an Early Christian sarcophagus lid of the fourth or sixth century. St. Porchaire has retained its very beautiful tower, built at the end of the eleventh century. The three tiers of{145} arcading, enriched with carved capitals, corbels, and mouldings, leave no surface unadorned. The church is otherwise a poor reconstruction of the sixteenth century, and is only interesting for the sixth-century sarcophagus of St. Porchaire under an altar.

St. Radegonde was founded in the sixth century as a mortuary chapel for the Queen, St. Radegonde, who fled from her fierce husband, Clotaire I., and took the veil in the Abbey of St. Croix, where she died in 587, and has ever afterwards been venerated as patroness of Poitiers, her tomb becoming a place of pilgrimage.

The chapel was made into a collegiate church, and was reconstructed in the eleventh century and consecrated in 1099. There is a beautiful Flamboyant west doorway, with empty niches, and the north and south entrances are of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

On the right of the nave is the Chapelle du Pas de Dieu, having an old tomb, with two statues, showing the apparition of Christ to St. Radegonde, the impression of Christ’s foot being left on a stone between the two figures.

The crypt in the centre of the church contains the tomb of St. Radegonde, an empty sarcophagus{146} of black marble, reposing on a massive table of the twelfth century.

The Church of Montierneuf (= monastère neuf) belonged to an eleventh-century abbey. The Romanesque choir was altered in the thirteenth century, with the addition of a central apse, known as ‘La Lanterne.’ It was mutilated during the religious wars, and has since been badly restored, but retains some remarkable eleventh-century work.

The Temple of St. John (or Baptistère St. Jean)—concierge to be found at Atelier St. Jean-Baptiste, No. 7, Boulevard du Pont-Neuf—is perhaps the oldest Christian building in France, and is one of the chief relics of Roman Poitiers, having been built between A.D. 320 and 330. It is constructed of brick and stone, has straight-sided arches in the south end (the building is oblong, and faces north and south), and altogether an exceedingly Roman appearance. There is a low twelfth-century tower, and the interior is enriched with paintings of the same period. An interesting collection of Early Christian tombs found near the Pierre Levée, outside the town, is now kept inside the building.

Pierre Levée is the name given to a recumbent monolith resting on three supporting stones, which{147} tilt up one end, two others having disappeared since the seventeenth century. It is a short distance beyond the Pont-Neuf, in the suburb called St. Saturnin, east of the River Clain, and although the stone bears a Gaulish inscription, it is not easy to give its age.

The Palais de Justice includes the ancient palace of the Dukes of Aquitaine and the Counts of Poitiers. The splendid hall, now the Salle des Pas-Perdus, has Romanesque and Gothic walls, with a similar wooden ceiling to that in the Palais de Justice at Rouen. The end wall, the work of Jean de Berry (died 1416), has three fireplaces with chimneys outside blocking the windows, which are filled with coloured glass. The keep, called the Tour Marbergeon, was built in the fifteenth century by Jean de Berry, and has four towers, ornamented with statues of the Counts of Poitiers.

The Château on the north side of the town was military, and not feudal. Its remains are of the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, with two round towers.

At the lofty southern corner of the town, now occupied by the Parc de Blossac, there are remains of the ramparts.

The remains of the Roman amphitheatre were{148} demolished in 1857, but fragments of a Roman aqueduct, called Les Arcs de Parigné, still stand a little to the south of the town.

No. 8. POITIERS TO ANGOULÊME.

THE ROAD TO ANGOULÊME

Leaving Poitiers by the Route de Bordeaux, one soon reaches Vivonne, a village on the Clain, where the road goes twice to the right and then to the left, across the little River Vonne. The church passed on the left belongs to the twelfth century, and has a fine Gothic west door, with much weather-worn carving.

A change comes over the country south of Poitiers, for hedges begin to appear, and the trees{149} are less closely trimmed. The curious sight of oxen drawing a plough with a donkey leading is sometimes to be seen.

Couhé-Vérac is a large roadside village with an uninteresting church, and no picturesqueness in its long street except the seventeenth-century market-hall, with an open wooden roof, supported by a row of stone pillars.

The road goes southwards in a straight line to Chaunay, where it bends, but on leaving the village at once resumes its straightness. The twelfth-century church at Chaunay has fine sculpture.

It is interesting to watch the way in which the houses assume a different character as one goes southwards. The roofs become very flat, and one begins to notice vines trained above doors and windows in a thoroughly Italian fashion.

The country is undulating and without distant prospects, plantations and the scattered fruit-trees closing up the views.

On passing from the department of Vienne into Charente, the direction-boards change from blue to green.

RUFFEC

is a town on a tributary of the Charente, with little charm in the street which runs straight{150} through it; but by turning to the left along the Rue de Valence, one finds in the Rue des Petits Bancs a church with a Romanesque west front of a most ornate character. The three members of the arch of the doorway are richly sculptured; in the beautiful arcade above there remain seven statues in the twelve niches. They are time-worn and battered, and most of them have lost their heads; but they and the figure above of Christ in a vesica, with worshipping angels on either side, still show the skill of the early sculptor.

Ruffec retains some specimens of its overhanging timber-framed houses, one of them dated 1582, and the town is famed for its patties made of truffles and partridges.

Keeping a southward course, the straight stretches of road bring one to a descent to the Charente, where there is a fine view beyond the river, with the village of Mansle down below on the southern bank. On crossing the river there is a pretty view of white walls with bright green shutters, low-pitched brown roofs, and a twelfth-century church raised above the road, with large empty niches by the western door.

Outside Mansle there is a fork, where one goes to the left. The trees lining the road have their{151} trunks covered with velvety moss, which forms a beautiful contrast to the pale blues, browns, and purply greens of the distant country.

After passing Tourriers, where there are imposing ruins of a château and a church of the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, a short run brings Angoulême in sight, with the Touvre joining the Charente in the foreground.{152}

SECTION VIII

ANGOULÊME TO BERGERAC, 84 MILES
(135 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

{154}

Angoulême, like Poitiers, occupies an isolated tabular site raised above the Charente, and has beautiful views from the wide boulevards which encircle the town, where the ramparts and towers formerly stood. In medieval times the outline of the town must have been most imposing, with every tower, spire, and crenellation thrown up against the sky. To-day, although some towers have survived, there is no striking silhouette, and Angoulême has a spacious modern aspect, which even the cupolas and fantastic sculpture of its cathedral cannot alter.

The Cathedral of St. Pierre is an exceedingly interesting Romanesque-Byzantine building, begun in the eleventh century, and constructed mainly between 1110 and 1130. From 1630 to 1654 it underwent restoration, and recently Paul Abadie supervised the work which has robbed the building of some of its external picturesqueness. The western façade, however, remains, with all its carved detail, showing the ideas of the Last Judgment prevalent 800 years ago.

Beyond the interest of the Romanesque architecture of the interior, there are on the north wall of the nave some restored inscriptions coeval with the building and the tomb of Philippe de Voivre,{155} Marquis de Ruffec and Governor of Angoulême, who was assassinated in Paris in 1585.

Town Plan No. 12.—Angoulême.

Adjoining the cathedral is the Évêché, built at the same time, but restored at different periods, chiefly in the fifteenth century. It was lately bought by the town, and is to be converted into a museum and library.

The Hôtel de Ville was built between 1858 and{156} 1866 by Paul Abadie, on the site of the old castle of the counts, and into it are incorporated two of its great towers. The earlier, called le Tour Polygone, was built by Hugues IV. (le Brun), who died in 1303, and the Tour de Valois, in which Marguerite de Valois was born, is a fifteenth-century work. At the present time the museums of painting and archæology are in the ground floor of the Hôtel de Ville. They are fairly interesting.

The history of Angoulême is similar to that of Poitiers in the main events.

On leaving Angoulême the road crosses a common of almost English type, and then a good deal of woodland, until one reaches the village of Dignac, prettily situated on hilly ground, with the tower of its Romanesque church showing prominently. Then follows a wood of oaks and more common-land, succeeded by open country with wide views.

Near La Rochebeaucourt the road goes to the right, and curves downhill to a level-crossing by the railway-station adjoining the village. Close by, on the left, is the château, among trees, with circular machicolated towers and conical roofs. The Romanesque church has a fine rose-window on the south side.

Going to the right, at the cross-roads in the village,{157} there is a pleasant run by the stream called La Belle Rivière, which the road follows almost to its source among the hills above Monsec. On approaching Mareuil-sur-Belle, the first building to be seen is the interesting château of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, to the left in the marshy ground by the river. The big cylindrical towers of the gateway and the round staircase tower at the north-east corner are in excellent preservation, and so are the buildings on three sides of the courtyard; but having fallen from its dignity as a seat of one of the four baronies of Périgord, it is now an unkempt farmhouse. There are some beautifully designed doorways and windows in the courtyard, and one can look into the chapel, which is now given over to secular uses. An inscription to the memory of the troubadour Arnant de Mareuil (twelfth century) was placed over the doorway in 1903 by the Félibres of Périgord.

An old wooden cross and a stone one stand outside the church, which is not interesting.

Huge views appear at intervals as the car follows the windings of the white road, running with great smoothness on a perfect surface.[C] The peasants of the district drive to market in quaint little{158}

No. 9. ANGOULÊME TO PÉRIGUEUX AND BERGERAC.

{159}

donkey-carts, into which three men or women pack themselves in the quaintest fashion imaginable.

After Monsec a watershed is crossed, and there are some considerable hills, in a more or less wild state, heather and juniper growing between small oaks.

BRANTÔME

is a delightfully picturesque little place on the very attractive River Dronne. The chief interest in the town is the monastery, founded by Charlemagne about the year 769. Before that time a small religious community had inhabited the grottoes in the rocky escarpments that rise above the town. These were enlarged natural cavities, and one of them continued to be venerated all through the Middle Ages. Its walls were covered during the sixteenth century with sculptures in high relief representing the Last Judgment and the Crucifixion.

The monastic buildings now include a machicolated gateway; a Romanesque church restored by Abadie, which before the thirteenth century had two cupolas on the roof; a curiously designed tower built in the eleventh century on the rock immediately above the church; and the fifteenth-century cloisters. There are two bridges over the sparkling{160} river, and facing one of them is the fifteenth-century parish church, a picturesque fortified building now used as a market-house. There are some interesting houses of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and others of the Renaissance period, including a manor-house called La Hierse.

Quaint stone well-heads are frequently to be seen in front of the houses; the vine becomes more and more frequent, and the umbrella pine begins to appear here and there as one journeys southwards. Between Brantôme and Château-l’Évêque a light railway crosses the road half a dozen times, and keeps by the road all the way to Périgueux.

At Château-l’Évêque the very picturesque fifteenth-century castle of the Bishops of Périgueux stands out in a most attractive fashion to the right of the road just behind the village. The steep red roof rises above the square and round towers that give great dignity to the pile.

The road drops down the valley of the Beauvronne, a small tributary of the Isle, passing the village of Chancelade, where there are very extensive underground quarries. A recent collapse was the cause of several deaths.

The greater part of the abbey church, founded in 1120, dates from a restoration in 1625, but the{161} Romanesque front remains, with the doorway half concealed by a modern porch of plaster and wood. There is also a twelfth-century chapel at the west end.

PÉRIGUEUX

The first view of the city, through an opening between steep slopes near Chancelade, is full of promise to those in search of romance. If it should happen to be a fine evening, a beautiful light gilds the great Byzantine campanile and clustered domes of the cathedral, as well as all the faces of the buildings turned towards the west, so that the river-encircled city assumes mellowed tones of creamy gold contrasted with the wooded hills overlooking it on all sides.

History.—The original prehistoric Périgueux stood on the south side of the River Isle, and it afterwards became the Gaulish city of Vesuna, the capital of the Petrocorians, whose name survives in Périgueux. When the Romans had occupied the country a new city was built on the site of the present one, and in the period of its prosperity, before the barbarian invasions swept away the Gallo-Roman civilization, the arena, the temple of Vesuna, and other surviving remains, were built.

The coming of Christianity is associated with the{162} name of St. Front, around whose tomb an oratory was built in the sixth century. Towards the end of the tenth century an abbey arose on the site, and then, precisely as at Tours, a new town arose alongside the walled Roman cité, and the dual towns must have had somewhat the appearance of the Carcassonne of to-day. After being in rivalry for a time, the two portions of Périgueux were in 1240 united by a solemn treaty.

Town Plan No. 13.—Périgueux.

The Cathedral of St. Front only became the{163} cathedral after the mutilation of St. Étienne by the Huguenots. It is a most remarkable building, in the form of a Greek cross, roofed with five huge domes. The similarity of the plan to that of St. Mark’s at Venice has suggested that it was copied from that building, with which it is generally regarded as contemporary, although a considerable conflict of opinion has taken place as to its exact age.

At the west end of the domical building there is a roofless structure consisting of three naves, and whether it is the earlier of the two still remains in doubt. Félix de Verneilh, a distinguished archæologist, holds that the domed building was begun in 984, and consecrated in 1047, and that the roofless church goes back as far as Merovingian times (fifth and sixth centuries); but latterly there has been a tendency to date the complete building between 1125 and 1150, and to regard the ruined structure as the one consecrated in 1047, and burnt in 1120.

The restoration has been so wholesale that, were it not for the domes and the impressiveness of the colossal square piers, the interior would be too bald and bare to be interesting. The arches are only slightly pointed, and this building is, perhaps, the{164} birthplace of French Gothic. The tower is one of the very earliest, if not the only Byzantine campanile in France, while the apse is quite modern.

The Bishop’s offices are above the cloisters of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, and, since the demolition of 1903, are all that remains of the monastery. The site is now an open space, forming a broad terrace, which gives a delightful view of the river and the wooded hills, and to a town with so many narrow streets as this it must be a boon to the inhabitants.

A walk through the old streets of the episcopal town, especially the Rues Limogeaune and Aubergerie, reveals some fine domestic architecture of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and there are some old houses defended with machicolation on the quay by the Pont Vieux. The Tour Mataquerre, of the fourteenth century, is a part of the ramparts of the city.

The Roman Amphitheatre, dating back to the third century, is now planted with trees, and the space inside contains some Roman remains. The Counts of Périgueux made this amphitheatre their château in the twelfth century, and inhabited it till the end of the sixteenth century. In 1644 the{165} town ceded it to the Visitandines, who despoiled it of its stones to build their convent.

St. Étienne, the former cathedral, is close to the amphitheatre. It belongs to the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and is surmounted by three domes and a tower analogous to St. Front.

The interior has three carved oak altar-screens of the seventeenth century; the largest one, formerly in St. Front, is the work of the Jesuit Laville, who took ten years over it. A richly sculptured tomb on the right on entering is that of Bishop Jean d’Asside, who died in 1169.

The Tour de Vésone is part of a Gallo-Roman temple dedicated to Vesuna, the tutelary goddess of the city. Some specimens of the red-and-green marble which formed the outer casing are preserved in the museum.

The Château Barrière has a Roman base. The highest tower, externally round, dates from the tenth century, while the body of the castle is late Gothic. Near the château is a Roman arch called the Porte Normande.

{166}

On leaving Périgueux the river is crossed in a south-easterly direction, and the first turning to the right leads one to a steady ascent out of the valley of the Isle, with the site of the original city on the right among the trees. The view backwards over the dome-crowned city in its setting of richly wooded hills is full of romance and charm. On nearly the whole of the thirty-three miles to Bergerac the road winds in and out among steep tree-clad slopes. It is a splendid drive, and on a clear moonlit evening, with the pale shadows of trees thrown across the road, and the dim mystery of the encompassing forest all around, there is left on the mind a vivid impression of a vast uninhabited country—one of those forest areas of the Dark Ages (fourth to tenth centuries) through which chivalrous knights were wont to travel in search of adventure and fair ladies. Between Clermont-de-Beauregard and Lembras, the feudal fortress of Montastruc stands above the River Condeau, and its Gothic towers fall in well with the spirit of its surroundings.

The last two miles to Bergerac are on a very straight open road, which brings one to the east side of the town, and takes one in a fairly direct fashion to the bridge across the Dordogne.{167}

SECTION IX

BERGERAC TO MONT-DE-MARSAN,
96¼ MILES

(155 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

Bergerac is a cheerful town on the north bank of the broad Dordogne, with straight modern streets and few antiquities. During the religious wars of the sixteenth century it was sufficiently important to give its name to the sixth peace concluded between Catholics and Protestants, and it became one of the eight places of safety where Protestants could worship unmolested. About 1620 Cyrano de Bergerac, the author, was born in the town.

There is a large modern church in the style of the thirteenth century. Nearer the river there is a network of narrow, and a trifle unsavoury, streets. The mouldering old houses often have their upper stories projecting on massive stone corbels or the ends of huge beams, and the half-timber work is filled in with thin bricks laid in thick mortar.{169} Among these narrow ways, in the Rue des Rois de France, is a larger and better-built structure of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, called the Château de Henri IV., but it is not worth looking for unless one has time to spare. The street leads down to the river at the point where the old bridge stood. The abutment on the south bank remains.

Crossing the Dordogne, the route is due south through a country of vineyards. On reaching some steep hills, the road curves to the right, to take the ascent as easily as possible, and soon afterwards winds down into and out of the valley of a small tributary of the Dordogne.

The tops of the hills here and there are crowned with small round towers with conical roofs.[D] After winding among the hills for several kilometres, there appears a great view towards the east as the road drops into the valley of the Drot above the picturesque village of Eymet. The houses on the road are modern, but behind them is a little medieval town, with its machicolated château grown over with ivy, a picturesque gateway and walls, as{170} well as some interesting Gothic houses.

No. 10. BERGERAC TO MONT-DE-MARSAN.

In Miramont, which is entered almost at right angles, one turns to the right for Marmande by a curious arcade of considerable width, which runs beneath some of the old houses. Some of the oldest shops have the primitive doorway and window in one, exactly the same as those one finds in the old Italian towns, and even in Pompeii.

The small churches dotted over the country generally have bell-cotes, and are surrounded with sentinel cypresses. Fruit-trees and vineyards are everywhere, and the slow-moving bullock-carts constantly passed make the roads exceedingly attractive.

After the village of{171} Seyches the country becomes flatter and flatter, and the road is lined with plane-trees.

MARMANDE

is entered at a level-crossing, beyond which one goes straight on to the last turning to the right before reaching the river (Garonne). This street leads to an open space, where one goes to the left and crosses the river by a suspension bridge.

The church is an interesting building, dating from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, and has a fine rose-window in the façade. There are three naves and a restored apse of the thirteenth century.

Marmande must have been well defended in the Hundred Years’ War, for when the English took it in 1447 they only succeeded by resorting to a ruse.

The journey from Marmande to Mont-de-Marsan—a distance of nearly sixty miles—is practically level throughout, and nearly the whole time one is passing through an immense forest.

Casteljaloux stands on the edge of this forest, and all the yards are stacked with sawn timber. The town is full of sixteenth-century and earlier houses, and some old hôtels. The most remarkable{172} is the Maison des Xaintrailles, or Château de Jeanne d’Albret, of which only a wing survives.

The road in passing through the town goes to the right, and then to the left, and to the left again at a fork.

South of Casteljaloux great perspectives of yellow road stretch away to a vanishing point among the blue-grey pines. It is not an uncommon thing to pass groups of dark-blue-coated soldiers bivouacking by the roadside, with stacked rifles and their heavy accoutrements deposited on the grass, while the men are lighting fires to cook their field rations.

Pompogne is a pretty hamlet in the forest, with a whitewashed church of the eleventh, thirteenth, and sixteenth centuries.

Houeillès, the next village, has a small thirteenth-century church of dark stone, with a fortified tower. There is a great staircase turret, and the tower opens into the church through a Romanesque arch with a toothed moulding.

At intervals there are large clearings in the forest, with only a tree here and there, and pools of water appear by the roadside. The lake shown on the map, near the modern château of Lubbon, is scarcely visible from the road, which continues to keep for long distances in a perfectly straight{173} line. The white crosses frequently to be seen roughly painted on farmyard gates, where they appear in the forest, suggest that ancient superstitions linger in the dim forest glades of a country still in the thraldom of a religion that encourages belief in supernatural visitations.

ST. JUSTIN

is an old and very picturesque little town. It was greatly damaged by Montgomery in 1569, but has still some remains of its ramparts perched above the road. The thirteenth-century church stands near a monastery of the Templars.

It is here that one notices the first of the Basque type of house, with the wall of its gable-end deeply recessed to form a shady verandah with a balcony to the upper floor. The ordinary old cottage of timber-framing still appears among these of a more southern type, designed for comfort during great heat.

More perspectives through the forest succeed, and bring one to the rather uninteresting town of

MONT-DE-MARSAN

There is a quaint view of houses built above the{174} river, and inside the big rectangular building of the old barracks stands the lower part of the keep of Nou-li-Bos, built in the fourteenth century by Gaston Phœbus, Count of Foix, to terrify the inhabitants.

BORDEAUX TO TOULOUSE AND PAMIERS OR CARCASSONNE

{175}

SECTION X

MONT-DE-MARSAN TO BIARRITZ,
66 MILES
(106 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

This section of the route is chiefly through the forest country adjoining Les Landes.

When one leaves Mont-de-Marsan the road is still through forest, and for mile after mile the dark pines shut out the views. The marshy district of Les Landes, where the shepherds use stilts in getting over the wet places, lies to the north-west.

The traffic on the roads, with the exception of automobiles, is drawn either by bullocks or mules, with their heads yoked together in a wooden framework, in addition to their collars. A horse is rarely seen.

After passing the village of Campagne the road{177} twists through the little town of Tartas, where there remain two towers of the fortifications dismantled by the order of Louis XIII. In the sixteenth century Tartas was one of the principal strongholds of the Protestants in Gascony. The church is modern.

After crossing the bridge over the Midouze the turning to the left is taken. One then goes to the right and to the left at the fork.

On passing over a rise a little beyond Tartas a great view to the south and south-east appears, and on a fine day one notices on the distant horizon what at first seems to be a long pale ruffle of cloud. The next glimpse, however, shows them to be the snowy peaks of the Pyrenees, ranging from 6,000 to 11,000 feet in height. The ethereal beauty of the huge mountain barrier that has for so long formed the frontier of France and Spain, when seen at a distance under the sunshine of a spring afternoon, is one of the loveliest sights in Europe. The delicacy of the amethyst and violet shadows is as exquisite as mother-of-pearl. The distant range appears and vanishes as the car races along a series of switchback hills, and every glimpse is a picture framed with the tall red stems of pines and firs, with a golden foreground of gorse.{178}

There is scarcely a tree passed without gashes in the bark, and a small earthenware cup attached to each, into which the resinous gum trickles—if it is possible to use such a word in connection with a fluid of the consistency of the thickest honey. The inquiring individual who puts a finger into one of the pots to discover the nature of its contents is impressed for several hours afterwards with its adhesiveness.

No. 11. MONT-DE-MARSAN TO BIARRITZ.

Just before reaching Pontoux and in that village the road is paved. The road goes to the right after the open space in Pontoux, and there{179} continue to be wide views at intervals across the River Adour down below on the left. The town of Dax is not entered unless one wishes to make a slight détour to the left. It can be plainly seen across the river from the main road. The hot mineral springs, for which Dax still has a small reputation, were known to the Romans as Aquæ Tarbellicæ, and Hare writes of the ‘curious Roman fortifications destroyed in 1856.’ The church was rebuilt in the seventeenth century.

The scenery continues of the same forest character until near Ondres, and only two other villages are passed—St. Géours-de-Marenne, with a quaint semi-fortified type of church, and St. Vincent-de-{180}Tyrosse, with a modern church shaded by big plane-trees. When this latter village is passed cork oaks begin to abound, and near Ondres come the first glimpses of the sea horizon of the Bay of Biscay.

The road crosses one of the group of small lakes scattered over the hilly country between the Adour and the sea. They are the only lakes in France.

Some of the lower peaks and a confusion of dark green foot-hills of the western extremity of the Pyrenees are boldly conspicuous as one goes due south on the last few miles to

BAYONNE

A portion of the town is on the north bank of the Adour, but all that is interesting is reached when the long bridge has been crossed.

It is to a very large extent through its history that Bayonne makes many appeals to the visitor, and particularly to the Englishman, for it is the capital of the country of that remarkable people the Basques. It stands on a noble river, with a magnificent mountainous country to the south, contrasted with the level wastes of Les Landes to the north, and its history as a possession of England almost to the beginning of the Renaissance, and as{181} the centre of Wellington’s victories preceding Napoleon’s abdication in 1814, is of thrilling interest.

Bayonne was included in the vast possessions of the Dukes of Aquitaine, and it passed with them into the hands of England for three centuries. The rule of the English kings was considerate, and Bayonne and Bordeaux prospered through their extensive exports of wine to England. Bayonne, in fact, reached its greatest prosperity while it was an English possession.

Towards the end of the fourteenth century the mouth of the Adour became completely blocked with a bank of sand and shingle, and the river’s course was diverted to the north, so that it entered the sea ten miles from Bayonne. This was a disaster to the town, and it was not until two centuries later, in the year 1579, that the engineer-architect Louis de Foix, aided by a great gale, succeeded in reopening the old mouth, and restoring the river to its earlier course.

The English lost Bayonne in 1451, when they were shorn of all their possessions in France except Calais.

In 1526, when François I. was released from his palatial prison in Madrid, he rejoined his Court at{182} Bayonne, and announced his intention of eluding the treaty which gave Burgundy to the Emperor Charles V.

An interesting meeting took place in 1565, when Charles IX., with his mother, Catherine de Medici, met his sister Elizabeth, the Queen of Philip II. of Spain. It was for a long while thought that the massacre of St. Bartholomew was decided upon on this occasion, but modern historians are inclined to think otherwise.

Coming down to Napoleonic times, the year 1814 brings Bayonne into the centre of the latter phase of the Peninsular War.

Wellington’s victorious army, composed of English, Spanish, and Portuguese, having crossed the Pyrenees, attacked Marshal Soult, who had taken up a strong position on the Nivelle. Soult was defeated, and withdrew to Bayonne, where he was again defeated by Sir Rowland Hill, who commanded the right wing of the British army. Soult left a strong garrison in Bayonne, and marched towards Orthez, followed by Wellington. Sir John Hope was left to besiege Bayonne, which capitulated after the abdication of Napoleon on April 5, 1814. Nine days after the declaration of peace, when the British forces investing the{183} town were entirely off their guard, the governor of the citadel suddenly made a treacherous sortie, which was nevertheless unsuccessful, although they captured Sir John Hope, who was wounded. The French losses were 910 to the English 830, a fact which may have been due in part to the reckless firing of the French gunboats on the river.

No. 11. MONT-DE-MARSAN TO BIARRITZ.

Town Plan No. 14.—Bayonne.

{184}

In the little cemetery of the Coldstream Guards, about two kilometres north of the town, can be seen the tombs of the officers and men who fell in resisting this sortie. It has been visited by the late Queen and King Edward VII.

Perhaps one of the greatest feats performed by the British army at this time was the building of a bridge of boats across the Adour below Bayonne, in order that the troops and artillery might cross the river and complete the investment of the town as rapidly as possible. Sir John Hope had managed to get a detachment of about 600 guards, under the command of Major-General Stopford, ferried across on pontoons before nightfall, and they successfully resisted an attack from the citadel of 1,300 French, who were terrified by the rockets, or Congreves,[E] which were used with startling success. The English army on the south bank of the river could only assist their comrades with artillery fire.

On the next day, February 24, the flotilla of small vessels bringing material for a bridge arrived off the river-mouth, but, owing to the force of the wind, they were only able to cross the bar with{185} the most heroic efforts. The description given by Colonel W. Hill James gives a vivid idea of the dangers that the British sailors faced:

A model of the bridge is to be seen in the United Service Institution in Whitehall.

The old portion of Bayonne has narrow streets and high buildings, and among them are the Château Vieux, a grim pile of the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, now used as barracks, and the very interesting cathedral. It was begun in 1213, the chief portions being completed while the town belonged to the English, and on the keystones of the vaulting one can see the arms of England. The west end is the latest part of the building, the graceful crocketed spires of the two towers having only been finished in 1884. The restored cloister, dating from 1240, is of particular interest, and should not be forgotten.

It has often been stated that bayonets get their name from Bayonne, but this is denied by Colonel Hill James, who states that they were first used at Baïonnette, a few miles from St. Jean de Luz, in a sixteenth-century battle between the Basques and the Spaniards. Having come to the end of their ammunition, the Basques tied their knives to{187} the muzzles of their guns, and the efficiency of the weapons thus produced soon caused them to be generally adopted.

There is a good view of the fortifications of Bayonne as one goes on to Biarritz, a short run of seven kilometres to the south.

BIARRITZ

When Queen Victoria ascended the throne Biarritz was a very small fishing village, and in 1856 its population was only about 2,500. It has now risen to from 25,000 to 30,000, and every year the visitors reach the huge figure of over one and a half millions.

In 1855, when the Empress Eugénie built a villa where the huge red-and-white pile of the Hôtel du Palais now stands, and began to make Biarritz popular, a favourite means of reaching the place was that called the cacolet. Two people rode in baskets or panniers slung on either side of a mule led by a Basque girl, as shown in the illustration reproduced on page 189.

Perhaps the reasons that have made Biarritz popular are, firstly, that it is neither too big nor too small; secondly, that it has very beautiful mountain scenery at its very doors; thirdly, that{188} it is King Edward VII.’s favourite seaside resort; fourthly, that the coast is one of exceptional beauty; and, lastly, because the hotels are very reasonable in their prices in winter and spring.

To those for whom the sea has charms there is an extraordinary appeal in the huge Atlantic waves that seem for ever to break on the rocky coast,

And at sunset, when the mountains respond to the western glories, and a trackway of burnished gold goes across the heaving waters to a fiery red disc that hangs above the horizon, there is such a charm about the place that the very thought of leaving is distressing.

The central portion of the town is built on a flat-topped promontory with deeply indented margins, fringed with isolated masses of rock, some of which have been joined with sea-walls to make small harbours for the fishing-boats. At the extreme point is the unfinished harbour of refuge begun by Napoleon III. and partially demolished by the{189}

How Biarritz was Visited in 1813.

Reproduced by permission from ‘The Battles of the Nivelle and Nive,’ by Colonel Hill James.

{190}

Town Plan No. 15.—Biarritz.

waves, and raised picturesquely on a rock above it is a statue of the Virgin. The promontory bears the Moro-Spanish name of Atalaye, and still retains slight ruins of the Château of Ferragus, built in the thirteenth century to guard the harbour. A little to the south-east of the town is the only other early{191} structure of Biarritz—the Church of St. Martin, dating back in part to the same period as the château. The pillars are dated 1541.

Sir John Hope—afterwards the Earl of Hopetoun—to whom reference has been made in connection with Bayonne, had his headquarters for a time in a house above the Vieux Port.

The walks and drives that have been made round the promontory are delightful places in which to be industriously idle while watching the breaking waves, the curving sweep of sandy shore towards the blue mountains beyond the Spanish frontier, and the foreground of French, English, and cosmopolitan visitors.

One may be looking at the people quite aimlessly, when one of the groups strolling slowly along among the rest suddenly attracts one’s attention, owing to the extreme familiarity of one of the figures—a man a little below the average height, having an almost white beard and a very pleasant and charming manner as he talks to a little girl and boy walking with him. It is King Edward VII., with two of his grandchildren, and with them are one or two friends or members of the Court. No one pays the slightest attention to the royal group, no one raises his hat, and no one turns his snapshot{192} camera in that direction; for it is understood that when the King of England comes to the Hôtel du Palais at Biarritz he wishes to leave all ceremony behind, and enjoy a spring holiday with as little ostentation as possible.{193}

SECTION XI

BIARRITZ TO PAMPLONA AND BACK VIA SAN SEBASTIAN, 155 MILES
(250 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

Pamplona to San Sebastian.—This is a good but dusty road, except on the very steep gradients which occur about halfway. There is a very steep and very dangerous winding descent on leaving a long and narrow ravine, but otherwise the descent towards the coast is gentle and continuous.

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

{196}

This section of the tour is a two days’ journey to and from Pamplona, the capital of Navarre. It is recommended on account of the scenery of the passes of the Pyrenees which are traversed rather than for any architectural or archæological interest, beyond the picturesqueness of the houses of the wayside villages.

For the whole time one is either among the Basque people or their neighbours a little to the south, who are sufficiently similar to them to be almost indistinguishable.

THE BASQUES

The Basque people, when unmixed, are a fair people in face and hair, and they are generally regarded as the survivors of the Iberian race which in primitive times occupied Western Europe from Spain to Ireland. Everywhere else they appear to have been absorbed by other races, and by many who have studied the subject have been looked upon as a part of the stock of the modern English, Irish, and Welsh.

Their language is of the agglutinative order, and has been called the despair of philologists, the difficulty of discovering how many of the Basque words{197} have not been assimilated from other tongues being almost insurmountable.

Of the religion of the ancient Basques Dr. Webster declares that no signs remain, their country being without burial tumuli or standing stones, although in the neighbouring areas the tumuli are thickly sown. The early Christian missionaries speak of idols, but no one knows what these were. Although a Roman road penetrates the heart of their country, the Basques were very gradually Christianized, while the Celts, on the contrary, were very susceptible to the new teaching from the East.

The Basques now hold to Roman Catholicism with firmness, and are an industrious, hospitable, and very courteous people, and are not given to excess or extravagance. They also differ from the city-loving Celts, according to Mommsen, in their love of the country. They delight in scattered habitations, and many of the Basque villages have scarcely anything that can be called a street. When they emigrate, it is to South rather than to North America, the Pampas life seeming to attract rather than to repel them. ‘In forty-eight hours after their arrival,’ said a French chargé d’affaires at Montevideo, ‘you will find not a Basque in the{198} town.’ It is very interesting, too, that in South America the dolichocephalic Basques are always regarded as distinct from Spaniards and Frenchmen, the brand of their race being deeper than the superficial signs of their nationality!

It is a rare thing to see a plough in the Basque Country, and the writer has not yet done so. Instead of this ancient labour-saving implement these remarkable people use the laya, or two-pronged digging-fork. This curious implement has a handle coming from one side, and is thus in the form of the letter h. One often sees a row of six or seven villagers—men, women, and children—working shoulder to shoulder. All the forks are raised aloft simultaneously, then driven into the soil from the full length of the arm perpendicularly, and when the forks have been driven home with the foot, the soil is turned over like a furrow by the pushing forward of all the forks in a row. In this way a width of ground about eight feet wide, more or less, according to the number of diggers, is ploughed into furrows with wonderful rapidity, for the people work with the greatest energy, which often surprises the stranger, who, on crossing the frontier, expects to enter a land of idlers.{199}

No. 12. BIARRITZ TO PAMPLONA.

{200}

LEAVING BIARRITZ

The road to the main-line station of Biarritz also takes one to the highway for St. Jean de Luz and the Spanish frontier; but there is another route closer to the sea, indicated in the sectional map, which joins the dusty national road near Bidart, and, being shorter and less frequented, is worth consideration, although there are one or two places where one needs to go slowly in order to take the right turning.

ST. JEAN DE LUZ

is a quaint and attractive little town on flat ground almost level with the sea at the mouth of the Nivelle. There is also an oval bay protected by breakwaters.

In the town there are several picturesque half-timbered houses with upper stories projecting on carved wooden corbels, and in the main street is the very typical Basque church of St. Jean Baptiste, in which Louis XIV. was married to the Infanta Marie-Thérèse of Spain on June 9, 1660. The interior suggests a spacious concert-hall or theatre rather than a church, for it is an aisleless structure with three tiers of black oak galleries fixed against the walls one above the other. The men, in accordance with the Basque custom, occupy the

THE METHOD OF SHOEING BULLOCKS IN THE BASQUE COUNTRY.

A sketch at Sant’ Esteban. (Page 207.)

{201}

galleries, while the women have the great surface of rather dusty wooden floor to themselves.

Just where it is necessary to turn to the left to get to the bridge the square-turreted Château de Louis XIV., built by Louis XIII., stands overlooking a wide place. The Mairie, built in 1657, contains the act of marriage of Louis XIV., and the Maison de l’Infante, on the quay, is shown as the house where the royal bride stayed before her wedding; it contains a painting of the ceremony by Gérôme.

No. 2, Rue Mazarin, behind the Maison de l’Infante, was occupied by Wellington when he had his headquarters in the town from November 17, 1813, to February 20, 1814, after defeating Soult at the Battle of the Nivelle. In this time of inactivity, while preparations were being made for investing Bayonne, the life in St. Jean de Luz is thus sketched by Colonel Hill James:

As long ago as 1520 Basque ships sailed from St. Jean de Luz to fish off the coast of Newfoundland, and as pioneers in this enterprise one can feel the fullest sympathy for the tenacity with which the French have held to their fishery rights on that part of the American coast.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries St. Jean prospered exceedingly, although in 1588 the Spaniards had succeeded in burning the town, in revenge for the many things they had suffered at the hands of the Basque corsairs who lived at the mouth of the Nivelle.

When the Duke of Buckingham was endeavouring to assist the Huguenots of La Rochelle in their desperate resistance to the huge forces brought against it by Richelieu, St. Jean de Luz sent fifty ships to the help of the garrison of the Île de Rhé, which had been blockaded by the English fleet, and Buckingham, having failed in his final assault, was forced to sail homewards and leave the Protestant town to fight the whole forces of France. It held out for fifteen months, capitulating in October, 1628.{203}

The pretty village of Urrugne, with its curious classic church, stands close to the foot-hills of the mountain chain which almost touches the sea at this point.

The curves of the road give beautiful views over the sea—a lovely blue flecked with breaking waves—and the green valleys dotted with white houses between the bare, buff-coloured mountain ridges.

BÉHOBIE (the Franco-Spanish frontier village)

In the little street of this village on the Bidassoa one must come to a halt at the sentry-box by the international bridge, where the official enters particulars of the car in a book, salutes, and allows one to cross the river. On the other side Spanish officials direct one to turn to the right to reach the Customs-house, where, if all arrangements have been made at home, it is only necessary to produce the triptique, and pay a small sum, according to one’s destination and the amount of petrol in the tank, which is calculated by depth only, and not capacity!

When the officials are satisfied, one is free to go where one chooses without any more trouble; but before leaving Béhobie it is worth while to look at the Île des Faisans, an island in the Bidassoa{204} famous for the meetings and conferences it has witnessed. The most memorable are the meeting of Louis XI. and Henry IV. of Castile in 1463, the farewell of François to his two sons on their way to Spain as hostages in 1526, and the meeting in 1565 between Charles IX. and Catherine de Medici with her daughter Elizabeth, wife of Philip II. of Spain.

In 1660 Louis XIV. met his future bride at Béhobie, and a great pavilion was put up for their reception. It was decorated by Velasquez, who caught a fever there, and died shortly after his return to Madrid.

The first turning to the left after crossing the bridge over the Bidassoa is taken, and for several{205} miles the road follows the river in a narrowing valley.

At the bridge where the road takes to the right bank of the river there is a charge of 5 pesetas made for automobiles.

The scenery becomes more mountainous every mile, but the road keeps fairly level as it winds through the steep-sided ravine of the Bidassoa. The shiny foliage of box trees and bushes clothes the precipitous ascents in a dark green garment, threadbare in places where the woodman has been at work, and the rough banks by the roadside are in spring starred with primroses growing among mosses, penny-pies, and withered ferns of the previous year. The lonely houses now and then to be seen in the valley are of the same type all the way to Pamplona. They have low-pitched, brown-tiled roofs with a very wide overhang at the gables, shading a quaint balcony at one end. The woodwork is often painted green or brown, and the building is almost invariably whitewashed, leaving a margin of red stone showing round windows and doors and at each corner. Where there are any chimneys, they are of the diminutive type one finds in Italy. The shutters are often plain and solid, and of different colours.{206}

Vera is the first village of a series. They are all small, the Basques, as already mentioned, disliking anything but hamlets, and all are of great picturesqueness. In general character they are very similar, each having, besides its wide-eaved balconied houses, a rushing stream crossed by a simple stone bridge half grown over with ivy, one or two bullock-carts, with a few men whose clean-shaven faces and regular, almost handsome, features seem too good to be true, a simple church, and possibly a military-looking personage in a brilliant uniform at the door of one of the houses.

The bullock-carts are often of the most primitive type, with spokeless wheels, such as one associates with the chariots of prehistoric man! Close to the fonda at Sant’ Esteban there is a smithy where the bullocks are shod. As the beasts do not stand quietly during the operation, they are slung in the wooden framework shown in the accompanying illustration, their knees resting on brackets and their hind-legs stretched out over a bar. They seem to rest quite comfortably on the broad girths by which they are suspended.

Those who visit Spain should remember that fonda means inn, and also that, in villages where there is no sign of the word on any of the houses,{207} there may nevertheless be an inn of a simple character where a modest meal can be obtained.

Of the fonda at Sant’ Esteban the writer can speak with recent experience of the excellent lunch of three or four courses, including an appetizing omelette, which was prepared in a short quarter of an hour for five hungry travellers. The waitress was a little girl of about fourteen, whose dignified manner gave a finish to the meal, especially when she insisted on removing the tablecloth before placing the dessert and wine on the old mahogany table.

Legasa is the next village. It has the usual features and conspicuously pretty children.

Narvate is very quaint, with its wide green balconies and the carved stone panels in the walls of the larger houses, revealing the heraldic dignities of the owners.

Gorse is abundant, and in some of the villages one sees fences made of thin slabs of stone placed upright on their edges in exactly the same fashion as in the Lake District of England.

At the little town of Irurita, where coats of arms and carved wooden brackets are numerous, the road from Bayonne is joined, and almost immediately afterwards the road begins a long{208} winding ascent among steep hillsides covered here and there with short beeches.

The haystacks are built round a central pole, as one sees them all over Italy, and the gates into the fields are of that awkward type which consists of several loose bars or thin poles dropped one above the other between two uprights placed close together at each side of the opening in the hedge or stone wall.

Climbing steadily, one is soon high above the green valley, with its string of villages just passed through, and the views become increasingly mountainous and austere. Great serrated ridges form the horizon, and naked rocks show above the road on the left. The villages become more scattered, and soon after Almandoz there is a vast solitude of precipitous ascents covered with low beech-trees, until the bare crags and peaks, whitened here and there with patches of snow, stand out against the clear sky and the drifting clouds.

From this point to the head of the Col de Velate the surface of the road is loose, and in places furrowed with running water, and the gradients become very steep, with sharp curves which necessitate careful driving, but a 12 to 15

ONE OF THE GATES OF PAMPLONA, THE CAPITAL OF NAVARRE.

Wellington besieged the town in 1813, and took it alter a brief resistance. (Page 210.)

{209}

horse-power car of a recent type can make the ascent very easily.

The head of the pass (2,717 feet above the sea) is guarded by two soldiers, whose presence is sufficient to keep off brigands. A suspicion of adventure is given to the tour at this point in the visible evidence that, but for these two cloaked figures, bearing modern rifles, a group of reckless and fully armed banditti might appear at any corner of the road and reduce the harmless tourist to a penniless condition.

A picturesque diligence that travels by this road is drawn by three mules abreast, with another leading. Besides this one seldom meets anything but the local vehicles of the villages. There are opportunities of seeing a number of rare birds, if one is lucky, and has time to linger in the solitude of the pass.[G]

Masses of conglomerate rock are passed on beginning the descent, and the evening light falls on great slopes covered with beech. The road gradually improves as the descent towards the plain is made. More quaint villages are passed,{210} dogs bark, and carts are met drawn by five or six mules in a long line.

Before reaching Pamplona, the sun sets behind a jagged ridge of blue mountains fringed with fluffy golden clouds, and the villages begin to show specks of brightness from a distance, for all are lighted with electricity, owing to the cheap power which is supplied by dozens of mountain torrents and streams.

Villata has an old bridge, a ruined convent, a small river falling over a dam, and a main street of tall houses, some of them ornamented with classic sculpture. It also has a notice warning cars to reduce speed. Soon afterwards an avenue of trees dignifies the road as one approaches

PAMPLONA

From the exterior, the lofty walls, the citadel and bastions of the city, with the towers of its cathedral and churches rising above, set in an amphitheatre of mountains, make a most attractive picture, but within there is a want of antiquity which is disappointing. There are no streets of old houses, and the churches lack, to some extent, the spirit of romance, although one of them dates back to the twelfth century.{211}

The Cathedral was founded in 1397 on the site of an older building, and the façade was built in 1783. The interior has three naves and richly carved choir stalls dating from 1530. In the south transept the doorway leading to the cloisters, of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, has a carved tympanum showing the death of Mary. It is painted and gilded, and is a very beautiful example of late fourteenth-century work.

The Chapel of Santa Cruz, in the south-west corner of the building, has an iron fence made of the chains which surrounded the tent of the Emir at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212. The tomb of Charles III. and his wife, Leonor of Castile, has been taken from the choir to the old kitchen of the canons.

The Church of San Nicolás, in the Paseo de Valencia, is an interesting building of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

San Saturnino has been restored and altered a great deal since the fourteenth century, and is now a curious building containing a dreadful atmosphere of human decay, the wooden floor being almost entirely composed of numbered trap-doors leading into the vaults beneath. On this dusty floor the ‘devout’ kneel to repeat prayers in{212} front of little altars and shrines, and seem to disregard the pestilential odours of the dead, which make the church intolerable for more than a few minutes. Perhaps the dirt and the smell are regarded somewhat after the manner of a penance, although the Roman Church, which inclines to a monetary basis for all the forms of absolution it dispenses, would be hardly likely to give it any recognition. Before hurrying out of the building the large representation of an armed knight in low relief high up on one of the walls should be noticed. The north door has a fine carving of the Last Judgment.

The Citadel is a great star-shaped fort at the south-west corner of the city’s defences, which have been attacked at different times down to the Carlist War of 1875-1876, when the city endured several bombardments without the Carlists being able to gain an entry.

In 1521 Pamplona was besieged by the French, and a young Spanish captain named Iñigo Lopez de Recalde was wounded near the gate of San Nicolás. During his convalescence he planned the rules of the Order of the Jesuits, and became their first vicar-general, being known after his death as St. Ignatius de Loyola. Near the gateway a{213} chapel was, in 1691, erected to the memory of the founder of the Jesuits.

In spite of its formidable defences, Wellington besieged Pamplona in 1813, after his victory at Vittoria, and took it after a brief resistance.

PAMPLONA TO SAN SEBASTIAN

Leaving by the gateway called the Puerta Nueva, one crosses the River Arga, and goes north-westward on a level dusty road. The city, with its double tier of ramparts and its church towers, soon becomes a distant object in the narrow plain set about with blue mountain peaks. On getting closer to the rocky heights the crumpled and distorted stratification becomes visible, as well as the intrusive masses of pale grey rock.

All the level ground is under cultivation, and the Basque method of digging with the laya can be frequently seen, for the Navarrais of the northern half of the province of Navarre scarcely differ at all from the Basques, and have the same language and physique. In the southern half of the province the people speak Spanish, and have the same characteristics and the same failings as the Spaniards.

A few rather dilapidated villages are passed, and then a road to the right is taken. It leads at once{214} straight up to a narrow cleft in a great glacis of forbidding grey rock. It almost takes one’s breath away to approach such a natural fortress in a car, but the road is encouraging, and one drives through the yawning portal into a narrow ravine, where a noisy stream of very green water rushes among boulders just below the road. Every few minutes it seems as though there can be no way out of the gorge, and that the road will either run into a quarry or a tunnel, but a fresh bend always shows a good stretch of road in front. Holly and beech grow on the precipitous slopes, and teasels and Christmas roses are passed. A rabbit is never seen, but sometimes a few sheep appear among the rocks.

A notice-board warns the driver of a big descent with a rough surface and hairpin corners and views of distant mountains, after which the road continues in a ravine for several miles, descending always. There are a few more villages, but little chance of a good déjeuner before reaching Tolosa. The valley gradually opens out a little, the scenery becomes tamed with agriculture, and soon after the road has turned towards the north one enters

TOLOSA

It is a small town with two narrow, shadowy streets running parallel and quite close together,{215} with a collection of new houses with bright red roofs, and some cloth and paper mills scattered promiscuously outside the old nucleus. The Church of Santa Maria, passed on the right, has an elaborately ornamental classic front, and the interior decorated with local marble.

At the village of Andoain there is a fork where the turning to the left is taken, and a beautiful road follows a river to Lascarte, where one goes to the right for San Sebastian, passing a number of factories, and then coming out to a delicious view of great green waves foaming on to the rocks of the bay of

SAN SEBASTIAN

It is a fashionable seaside town, with wide modern streets, containing little to interest the visitor beyond the smartly dressed people, the shops, and the chances of seeing the youthful King of Spain or other members of European royal families. The picturesque bay, with the rocky Isle of Santa Clara and the mountainous coast-line, make San Sebastian a most attractive place. The season is from June to October, when inland towns are being baked under a fierce sun.

The old town, besieged in 1813 by Wellington’s army, and occupying a peninsula between the mouth{216} of the Urumea and the bay, had had its fortifications removed by 1865, so that there is little to remind one of the siege of Napoleonic times. All who go there should, however, read a detailed account of the investment which Wellington entrusted to General Sir Thomas Graham. The garrison, under General Rey, made such a successful resistance to the first assault that the allied forces were obliged to retire, but a few weeks later Graham returned, and finally took the citadel on Mont Orgullo. The English and Spanish soldiers were accused of reckless sacking and plundering when they captured San Sebastian, but it is difficult to find the truth of the matter. One thing that is definitely known is the fact that Wellington complained so much of the plundering of the Spanish troops that he even sent them back from the front as he approached the Adour.

The citadel on Mont Orgullo cannot be entered without permission, but anyone may climb up the hill to the English cemetery, where the British officers who fell in the attacks on the town were buried.

The Church of Santa Maria was built in 1743, and San Vicente, rebuilt in 1507, has a reredos of gilded wood dated 1584.

THE LIMESTONE GORGE IN THE PYRENEES, BETWEEN PAMPLONA AND TOLOSA.

{217}

A large modern bull-ring is conspicuous on the hill on the east side of the river. It is highly interesting to visit this twentieth-century amphitheatre, and to see the elaborately fitted operating-room where the wounded toreador, a victim of Spanish decadence, can receive immediate treatment. There is also a small chapel in which the bull’s antagonist can receive the Sacrament before he goes out to the dangerous encounter.

At Irun, which need not delay one, there is a turning to the left leading down to the very picturesque little walled town of Fuentarrabia, at the mouth of the Bidassoa. It is difficult to take a motor through the narrow streets, and it is therefore wiser to leave the car outside the quaint gateway.

Wellington’s army crossed the mouth of the Bidassoa in October, 1813, the men wading through the water at low tide with their rifles held above their heads. Soult expected that the English would cross at Vera, eight miles up the river, the bridge at Béhobie having been destroyed, and being unaware of the ford among the sandbanks, which was known to the Basque fishermen.{218}

SECTION XII

BIARRITZ TO PAU, 69 MILES
(111 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

After leaving Spain the architecture on this section of the route seems rather dull and the scenery lacking in grandeur, but this impression lasts only for a short time, for the road, after going north-east by east for a few miles, gets nearer to the great white ridge of the Pyrenees, and day after day, as one goes eastwards, the snowy peaks form a great rampart on the right. They make splendid backgrounds to nearly every view, and one is never weary of gazing into the rugged valleys that open up every now and then as the miles slip by.

On leaving Bayonne, one goes past the entrance to the railway-station on the left, and follows the road that goes off to the right for Orthez and Pau. For several miles there is little calling for comment. Here and there a fine umbrella pine stands in lonely dignity, and in the spring there is much pink-and-white fruit-blossom. The ploughs and the country carts are all drawn by bullocks.{220}

The broad Adour is crossed on an iron bridge, and then, near Peyrehorade, the scenery improves. On market-days the narrow street of the little town is choked up with bullock-carts, and the spaces between them thronged with country-folk and soldiers, and the difficulty of getting the car through

No. 13. BIARRITZ TO PAU.

the tangle of traffic is so great that it is wiser to take the road going straight ahead at the bridge, passing the grey-towered castle which stands above the road.

The church of Peyrehorade is modern, and beyond the castle just mentioned and the ruins of another—the Château de Montréal, built in the{221} sixteenth century on the banks of the Gave—there is little to delay one. All the way to Orthez the road keeps by the river known as Gave de Pau, which was the line of Marshal Soult’s retreat from Bayonne.

Puyôo is a pleasant village, with steep roofs covered with brown tiles, and rows of ornamental overhanging courses under the eaves, chiefly formed with curved tiles. The name of the place, according to Mr. Baring-Gould, comes from the patois word for the great mound with a hollowed-out top, which was a stockaded fort of the Franks.

The hamlet of Baigts has a railway-station, a{222} ruined castle of the twelfth century, sulphurous baths, and a grand view of the Pyrenees.

ORTHEZ

is the ancient capital of Béarn, and although it has been robbed of much of its architectural charm, it still retains its conspicuously attractive fortified bridge over the Gave, which is illustrated here. The river flows rapidly along a deep rocky channel, with huge masses of stone standing immovably in the midst of the surging waters. The bridge was built in the fourteenth century, and in the centre rises a machicolated gateway. Although restored in 1873, the window remains through which the Huguenots, under Montgomery, forced priests and friars to leap into the river.

There are only a few old houses left in the town, and these are chiefly in the Rue Bourg-Vieux. The church is a fifteenth-century building with a modern spire, but the Tour Moncade is the machicolated keep of the castle built in 1242 by Gaston VII. It was this fortress which was visited by Froissart in 1388, when Gaston VII., surnamed Phœbus on account of his beauty, Count of Béarn and Foix, held his brilliant Court there.

Froissart says so much of his host’s perfection in{223} everything that a false impression of the man might be gained if some rather ugly facts were not known concerning him. In a moment of passion he stabbed Pierre de Béarn, Governor of Lourdes, who was either his brother or cousin, because he refused to give up the castle of Lourdes, and he also murdered his own son Gaston. The wife of Gaston Phœbus was living at Pamplona, after having become estranged from her husband, and while her son was visiting her, Charles the Bad of Navarre gave him a little bag of arsenic, which he declared was a love-potion which would restore his father’s love for his mother if the powder were sprinkled on the Count’s food. The youth wore the bag of arsenic under his clothes, and eventually returned to Orthez; but his half-brother, having seen the bag, warned his father, who waited until his son was serving him at dinner, and then, suddenly seizing hold of his vest, obtained possession of the bag. The powder was sprinkled on some food and given to a dog, who succumbed to the poison soon afterwards. Young Gaston was placed in confinement, and, fearing to be poisoned, refused all food. His father therefore went to the dungeon and stabbed his son with a knife, saying, ‘Ha, traitor! why dost thou not eat?{224}’

Orthez at one time had a Calvinist University, and the building still remains, although it is no longer a University. The Protestantism of the town has been consistent from the time of Jeanne d’Albret down to the present day, for there are more Protestants in Orthez than in any other town in Béarn. Montgomery, who had caused the death of Henri II. while tilting with him in the lists, began his career as leader of the Huguenots by raising an army and capturing Orthez, which had been filled with troops by Charles IX., in order to coerce the people into Roman Catholicism, three years before the massacre of St. Bartholomew. When the Huguenot army took Orthez, Montgomery’s initial success was marred by the savage treatment of the friars already mentioned. When the unfortunate clergy endeavoured to save themselves by swimming to the banks, they were shot.

In 1814, in the last phase of the Peninsular War, when Wellington was driving Soult before him, Napoleon’s marshal decided to give battle at Orthez, placing his army of 30,000 men in a well-chosen position on the hills to the north of the town. Wellington attacked with 50,000 men, and after a desperate fight, in which 10,000 were killed, the French retreated along the road to Pau, at

THE FORTIFIED BRIDGE AT ORTHEZ.

From one of the windows of the tower, Montgomery, during the religious wars of the sixteenth century, forced priests and friars to leap into the river.

{225}

first in an orderly fashion, but in the greatest confusion when their retreat was threatened. In his despatch Wellington wrote:

The scene of this débâcle is passed through on the way to Pau, but there is nothing at all to suggest the horrors of such a bloody retreat. There is an almost English feeling in the aspect of the country, the villages being tidy; and the large houses, standing in pleasant, well-kept, park-like surroundings, give a feeling of repose to the scenery. To the right, beyond the river, the landscape becomes hilly and dark with woods, and ends with a piled-up horizon of blue-white peaks touched here and there with a pale gleam where the sunlight falls on the snow.

It is interesting to watch the change from tiled roofs to slate, and the high-pitched roofs with hipped ends and splayed eaves, entirely taking the{226} places of the low roofs near Bayonne. Here and there walls built of round stones laid herring-bone-wise recall the cottages and barns of parts of the Sussex coast. The road keeps by the Gave, and goes very straight over the flat alluvial land of the valley until the beautifully situated town of Pau is reached.{227}

SECTION XIII

PAU TO ST. GAUDENS, 61½ MILES
(99 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

{228}

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

PAU

In its situation Pau is most fortunate, for, being raised high above the rushing Gave, the views of the splendid chain of white mountain peaks are uninterrupted, and most of the modern hotels have their balconies commanding the great panorama of the Pyrenees, with the Pic du Midi d’Ossau in the centre. The impressive scenery, coupled with a mild and genial climate and much winter sunshine, has lifted Pau from the obscurity into which{229} history had allowed it to fall into one of the most popular inland resorts in France.

Town Plan No. 16.—Pau.

It is a clean and healthy town, having had much attention paid to its sanitation, the authorities knowing that the English and American visitor has a strong antipathy to a tainted atmosphere. The town even has a supply of pure drinking-water, and besides the indoor attractions of a modern Winter Palace, there are golf, tennis, polo, and a pack of foxhounds.{230}

There is a season all through the year, for tourists follow the winter visitors; then there are the crowds of the ‘faithful’ on their way to Lourdes, and those who come to immerse themselves in the thermal waters for which the Pyrenean range is famous.

In its history Pau is chiefly interesting during the sixteenth century. Before that there was a fortress rebuilt between 1373 and 1380 by Gaston Phœbus, the keep of which can be seen to-day; but Pau only rose to importance when it became the capital and the residence of the Sovereigns of Béarn.

In 1527 Marguerite de Valois, the charming young sister of François I., was married to Henri d’Albret of Béarn. She not only obtained architects from Italy to remodel the castle on the Renaissance style, and made what was then considered the most beautiful garden in Europe, but attracted to her Court the leading artists, poets, and savants, as well as the best of the nobility of her time. Further than this, Marguerite encouraged the Reformation movement so warmly that Calvin and Clément Marot, whose psalms were sung by the Huguenots, found a refuge with her at Pau. Marguerite’s daughter was the famous Jeanne d’Albret, who{231} became the mother of Henry of Navarre, the great Protestant champion who eventually became Henri IV. of France. Jeanne’s husband, Antoine de Bourbon, died in 1562, leaving her the ruler of Béarn and Navarre; and being free to act as she chose, Jeanne made a public declaration of her belief in Protestantism, and then made the mistake of endeavouring to force her people to take the same step. It therefore became necessary for Charles IX. to send an army against Béarn; but Jeanne d’Albret, assisted by the Prince of Condé and the English, raised a strong force, commanded by Montgomery, and defeated the Catholics. These victories, as already mentioned in connection with Orthez, were marred by the savage treatment of the Catholics, including a massacre at a feast held on August 24, 1569, of ten lords whose lives Montgomery had promised to spare. The apartment of the château in which this bloody deed was carried out is hung with tapestry, and is called the Grand Salon de Réception de Henri II. (of Navarre).

Under Louis XIII. Navarre and Béarn were made into a province, and Pau, no longer possessing a royal Court, soon dropped into an obscurity in which it remained until English visitors began,{232} in 1850, to draw attention to the attractions of the climate and scenery.

The Château (open every day between 10 and 5 from April 1 to September 30, and between 11 and 4 from October 1 to the end of March). The fourteenth-century keep of red brick, built by Gaston Phœbus, as already mentioned, stands to the left on entering the courtyard through the open arches of the east side. On the left—that is, overlooking the river—is the beautiful façade restored by Henri d’Albret (Henri II. of Navarre). It contains the grand salon where the massacre mentioned above took place, and also the Chambre de Henri IV., where the Protestant king was born on December 13, 1553. His cradle, in the shape of a large tortoiseshell, is still preserved in the room.

An interesting story concerning the birth of the child is told by Miss Sichel in her work on Catherine de Medici.

It is a pity that the château has been so much restored. The work was chiefly carried out, with poor taste, under Louis Philippe.

In No. 5, Rue Bernadotte, which is marked with an inscription, Bernadotte, King of Sweden,{234} was born on January 26, 1764.[H] He was a lawyer’s son, who entered the army, and, at the early age of thirty years, had become General of Brigade. When the heir to the throne of Sweden died, Bernadotte was chosen, in 1810, as his successor, Napoleon thinking that his late General would submit to his wishes. Bernadotte, having no friendly feeling towards Napoleon, acted with complete independence, and in the fatal Battle of Leipsic the Swedish troops under him had a large share in Napoleon’s defeat. The lawyer’s son became Charles XIV. of Sweden in 1818.

THE ROAD TO TARBES

goes as straight as an arrow, except where it ascends and descends from the high ground that encloses the plain of Tarbes. The chief features are the huge views of the Pyrenees and the roadside houses, which very often have curiously thatched roofs.

At Soumoulou a turning to the right goes, through Pontacq, to the Roman Catholic Mecca of Lourdes.

Before 1858 this famous pilgrimage centre was a village of no importance at all. It can now be{235}

No. 14. PAU TO ST. GAUDENS.

reached by a railway and by good roads, and there are large hotels for the thousands of Catholics who flock there every year. Unlike Rocamadour, there is no architectural charm, nor is there any peculiarity of situation, about Lourdes. It stands in one of the many picturesque valleys that open out from the main Pyrenean chain, and its medieval castle, mentioned in the previous chapter, has been much modernized. No, Lourdes became famous because a little village girl, fourteen years of age, named Bernadette Soubirous, who minded pigs, stated that she had seen and conversed with the Virgin on several occasions. Roman Catholic apologists admit that Bernadette was a diseased, asthmatic, and underfed child, and also that ‘she was not particularly intelligent.’ On the first occasion when the girl claimed to have seen the Virgin she{236} was accompanied by her sister Marie and another companion, but neither of them saw any vision, nor did they hear the sound of wind which Bernadette thought she heard. The crowds who watched her during the numerous other occasions in the same month (February, 1858), when she went to the grotto by the Gave to see the Virgin, are said to have been impressed with the change which came over the child’s features, but she alone claimed to see anything appear in the grotto. Zola’s book pointing out the absurdity of the belief in the miraculous visions was scarcely needed; but, like Joan of Arc, the girl seems to have believed implicitly in the hallucinations which had come to her, and no doubt her consistent attitude gave the superstitious people of the neighbourhood the confidence which caused them to regard the vision as a genuine fact.

After delaying any action for some months, the Bishop of Tarbes appointed a commission to inquire into the affair which was causing so much stir and excitement in Lourdes, and finally gave out his opinion in favour of Bernadette’s visions! Pope Pius IX. endorsed the Bishop’s credulity with a Bull. In 1876 a church was built above the grotto, and year after year thousands of pilgrims travel{237} great distances to see the holy place, and to have all kinds of infirmities cured. A sacred spring, which flowed from the grotto when Bernadette, at the Virgin’s request, made a hole in the wet sand, has such remarkable effects that the blind recover their sight, the lame walk, and the nearly dead are restored to health with the application of a little of the water!

The hotel-keepers of Lourdes have no complaints to make—in fact, they probably feel some gratitude to Pius IX. and to the good Bishop of Tarbes.

*   *   *   *   *   *

An excellent and easily followed road leads from Lourdes to Tarbes.

The main road from Pau to Tarbes direct makes a great zigzag descent into the green plain, giving as it does so some most remarkable views, the level ground below being contrasted with the jagged line of mountains to the south.

Ibos, just to the right of the road, is a small village, with an aggressive church of the fourteenth century. It is narrow and lofty, with enormous buttresses and two towers.

TARBES

does not make appeals to the passing tourist. It is the centre of the great horse-breeding industry carried{238} on in the fertile plain, which grows tobacco, vines and maize, and is a loosely built, unpicturesque town, having been half destroyed in the religious wars of the sixteenth century. In 1569 Montgomery, the Huguenot leader, captured Tarbes, drove out the inhabitants, and burnt the churches and monasteries. Scarcely had the people returned when the Huguenots again took the town, this time levelling the walls and leaving the place in ruins.

Mr. Baring-Gould calls the cathedral the ‘most cumbrous, ungainly minster in all France.’ There are three windows of the twelfth century in the apse, and a thirteenth-century rose-window in the north transept. The fourteenth-century Church of St. Jean is not very interesting, and that of Ste. Thérèse is a modernized building of the fifteenth century.

On the door of the Lycée a Latin inscription, dated 1699, says: ‘May this building endure, until the ant has drunk the waters of the ocean and the tortoise made the tour of the globe.’

The Jardin Massey was given to the public by the manager of the gardens at Versailles in the time of Louis Philippe. Massey was a native of Tarbes, who began life as a working gardener.{239}

On the western side of the town is the Haras, or breeding-station, where the English and Arab stallions are kept.

Barère, the regicide, whom Macaulay regarded as approaching ‘nearer than any person mentioned in history or fiction, whether man or devil, to the idea of consummate and universal depravity,’ was born at Tarbes in 1755.

The road becomes exceedingly hilly as soon as the plain of Tarbes is left behind near Barbazan-Debat, and new views of steep-sided valleys, wooded ridges, and the snowy Pyrenees, appear every few minutes.

After passing the railway viaduct at Lhez, the road goes south-westwards to Tournay, a small town renamed after Tournai in Hainault, but of no particular interest.

The road ascends for several miles in a beautiful wooded valley, and after passing under a bridge one goes to the left across the railway, turning at once to the right parallel with it and nearly due east.

The long climb has brought one up to a lofty heathery moorland, commanding grand views in all directions. On this high plateau, where the River Gers has its source, is the little town of Lanne{240}mezan. The church dates back to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and has a fine Romanesque doorway.

Pinas, a small slate-roofed village, has picturesque gateways to its farmhouses, and before reaching Montrejeau (pronounced Mont Rejeau), one sees on the left M. le Baron de Lassus’ huge modern Château de Valmirande, built between 1892 and 1898. It commands a magnificent view into a valley leading up to the main mountain chain.

MONTREJEAU

is a small and picturesque town, with red roofs, brightly painted shutters, arcaded streets in the Italian style, and a sixteenth-century Hôtel de Ville, supported on pillars, with the market beneath. The Church of St. Jean has a great octagonal belfry, originally built as the castle keep. The situation of the town on a hill above the beautiful Garonne is delightful. Montrejeau was one of the bastide cities founded in 1272 by the Sénéchal de Toulouse, and was built on a regular plan, as one may see to-day.

A straight and level road by the Garonne leads to St. Gaudens, which is described in the next section.{241}

SECTION XIV

ST. GAUDENS TO CARCASSONNE,
105 MILES
(169 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

A PICTURESQUE CORNER OF ST. LIZIER.

The snow clad Pyrenees appear above the roofs of the steep street.

{243}

St. Gaudens gets its name from a boy of thirteen years who was martyred in 475 for holding to the Christian faith under the persecution of Euric, King of the Visigoths. It is a dusty little town, with a busy market-place and a beautiful Romanesque church, dating from the beginning of the twelfth century, when the place began to grow prosperous with the establishment of a college of canons at the martyr’s tomb. The church was formerly fortified, and the upper part of the Romanesque tower has been rebuilt by Laffolye, who restored the sculpture of the small tower door of the same period, the carving having been badly mutilated by Montgomery’s Huguenots. One enters by a fine Flamboyant doorway, and finds a very dark interior, with walls hung with old tapestries, and a horrible atmosphere, suggesting an{244} entire lack of ventilation. It is worth while, however, to endure this polluted air in order to examine the finely carved capitals, showing Biblical scenes, including a very interesting Nebuchadnezzar in the fields. The sacristy, with a vaulted roof, and the carved choir-stalls should also be seen.

No. 15. ST. GAUDENS TO CARCASSONNE.

The road follows the Garonne, and on nearing St. Martory runs close beside it, with a great wall of orange-coloured rock on the left.

ST. MARTORY

is a curious town with two imposing eighteenth-century gateways, one of them by the bridge which is crossed on the way southwards to St. Girons. Arthur Young marvelled at their magnificence when he saw them in 1787. He thought they{245} could only have been built to please the eye of travellers! The gendarmerie is built of the stone brought from the ruined Abbey of Bonnefont, and the Romanesque doorway of the church (sixteenth century) comes from the same monastery, a little south of the town.

A Renaissance château stands on the right bank of the river.

After crossing the hills south of St. Martory, the road drops down to the village of Mane, on the Salat, and all the way to St. Girons one follows that river without crossing it. At a point about 6 kilometres from Mane, where there is a bridge to Lacave, one is tempted to cross the river, as the road appears to be entering a stone quarry, but one must not be deterred by this.{246}

ST. LIZIER

is piled up romantically on a steep and almost isolated mass of rock rising from the rushing Salat. It is now a small decayed place without an hotel, but its very steep and picturesque streets lead up to Roman remains of a most interesting character.

Under the name of Lugdunum Consoranorum, St. Lizier was one of the nine cities of Novempopulania; it was the capital of Conserans, the seat of a bishopric founded in 450 by St. Vallier, and it remained an episcopal possession until the Revolution. One crosses the medieval bridge of three or four unequal arches, noticing a piece of Roman marble inscribed to the goddess Belisama let into one of the piers, and then, ascending a precipitous street, turns to the right towards the church at the corner, illustrated here.

The interesting Romanesque church dates from the twelfth or the following century, and is built of red brick, with a central tower, now well restored. Roman remains are built into the apse, and there is also a Roman doorway. The sacristan keeps the key of the beautiful cloisters, every capital of which is different and worth study. A tomb dated 1303

THE CLOISTERS OF THE ROMANESQUE CHURCH AT ST. LIZIER.

{247}

is that of Bishop Chatillon, and in the sacristy are portraits of other bishops, whose imposing residence still crowns the highest portion of the town: but this former home of episcopal dignity is now a lunatic asylum. Permission to enter is, however, easily obtained, a gardien conducting the visitor to the small fourteenth-century cathedral and the twelfth-century chapter-house. The bases of the walls of the bishops’ palace are undoubtedly Roman. There were six semicircular and six square towers, and even the twelfth-century episcopal keep stands on a Roman base, just inside the ramparts. Many picturesque corners and some quaint timber-framed houses invite one to linger at St. Lizier, and the time spent there would not be wasted.

ST. GIRONS,

on the other hand, is uninteresting, and as its hotels are uninviting, there is every reason for pushing on. Arthur Young went there in 1787, and wrote as follows:

The church was rebuilt in 1857, leaving the fourteenth-century tower only, and the château founded in the thirteenth century, is now the not very interesting Palais de Justice.

The way to Le Mas-d’Azil is along the Route de Foix as far as the fork at Lescure, where one goes to the left. There is a stone direction-post in front of the house at the corner.

ALTERNATIVE ROUTE TO PAMIERS THROUGH FOIX

After passing Lescure the road winds upwards and then falls at an easy gradient in a rocky valley,

THE LIMESTONE CAVERN THROUGH WHICH THE ROAD PASSES NEAR MAS D’AZIL.

The small arched opening has been cut to make a convenient entrance for the road.

{249}

with great grey ridges of rock standing out boldly, their highest points crowned with Calvaries. At Clermont there is a new church, the grey ruin of its castle, and a Calvary. The fields, tilted at every angle, are ploughed with oxen, whose heads are protected with a piece of sheep-skin.

THE GROTTE DU MAS-D’AZIL

A few kilometres beyond Clermont the road curves, and suddenly one is confronted with a vast cliff of yellowish-cream limestone, containing a cavern of gigantic dimensions, into which the green waters of the Arize pour tumultuously. At the side of the cavern’s mouth a small hole has been bored, and into this the road unhesitatingly plunges. The lofty roof of limestone is delicately coloured with mauve, emerald, and pink tints near the mouth, but farther in the darkness is so great that the road is lighted with oil-lamps. Birds fly in and out of the yawning mouth of the cavern, but the sound of their wings is drowned by the roar of the river on its rock-strewn bed. A suppressed excitement fills the mind of the motorist who for the first time drives into this subterranean way, but all too soon there is a glimmer of white light round a bend, and the roof of rock, which has{250} lowered to within a yard or two of his head, suddenly comes to an end, as the car runs out into the dazzling sunshine just beyond the cavern.

The little town of Le Mas-d’Azil has an hotel in the dusty market-place, which can provide a capital déjeuner. The church is of uncertain age from a casual glance, and the offensive smell of its interior, combined with the cobwebs, dirt, and damp, make one inclined to hurry away. Protestantism flourished in the town in the seventeenth century, and some of the people still adhere to the reformed faith. In 1625 the Calvinists were obliged to seek refuge in the cavern when attacked by the Catholics. They would have been forced to abandon it through their enemies having dammed up the river and reduced them to extremes of thirst, if the obstruction the Catholics had built had not been broken through by a party of Protestant soldiers.

From Le Mas-d’Azil the road goes through Sabarat and Menay to Pailhès, on the Lèze, where a picturesque château, dating from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries, stands on a wooded spur above the village.

The road to Pamiers goes to the right and then to the left, and winds for about fifteen kilometres through a very picturesque hilly country, with{251} superb views of the Pyrenees across up-and-down country, chequered with growing corn, pale brown ploughed fields, and purple woods. Sowing seed in the old broadcast method still prevails here.

PAMIERS

More bends in the road follow, and then Pamiers appears down below, on the margin of a fertile plain watered by the broad Ariège.

Although having an interesting story, Pamiers does not make many appeals to the visitor. The original town was called Mas St. Antonin, but it has decayed so much that there is scarcely anything to be seen even of its abbey, which gave birth to the town which has vanished.

The cathedral was mainly built between 1658 and 1689, with a brick tower of the fourteenth century. Notre-Dame-du-Camp has a colossal red brick façade of the fourteenth century, with machicolation and two towers, a most astonishing illustration of the Church militant. The Church of the Cordeliers dates from 1512, and is in the style known as Toulousian Gothic, from the town a little to the north. There are a number of old houses in Pamiers, but they are near the ironworks, which are an ugly feature of the town, and{252} in most instances they are frowsy and dilapidated. From the site of the destroyed castle there are fine views of the Pyrenees, but they are no better than those that the road commands.

THE ROAD TO CARCASSONNE

goes south-westwards from the southern side of Pamiers, and turns to the left at a fork, crossing the railway, and running in a straight line over the level plain to the valley of the River Hers, upon which is built the exceedingly attractive little town of

MIREPOIX

It is disposed of with a few cold words in the ordinary guide-books, but it is nevertheless a place of singular picturesqueness. There is an old nucleus, surrounded by wide tree-bordered boulevards, and the hurrying tourist sees none of the antiquity of the town if he does not penetrate the central square. It is surrounded on all sides with arcaded houses resting on heavy wooden pillars, with rows of curiously carved brackets in between. There are pictures everywhere, for at one end of the square is a medieval gateway, and on one side stands the Church of St. Maurice. The interior of this building is a vast aisleless space, and the{253} whole of the walls and the modern roof are covered with painting. The building dates almost entirely from early in the fifteenth century.

All the rest of the way to Carcassonne there are huge views north and south, and there are only two small places to be mentioned. The first is Fanjeaux, which stands out most picturesquely on the left side of the road, with a pair of quaint windmills on the hill opposite. The church dates from the thirteenth century, and is believed to have been built on the site of a temple of Jupiter the present name coming from Fanum Jovis. The little town standing out boldly against the sky at sunset is an exceedingly fine sight, and the colour of the foregrounds of nearly every picture the road presents is the burning gold of gorse.

Montréal stands on an isolated hill, and has a fourteenth-century church, built upon a terrace commanding a vast view of the Pyrenees.{254}

SECTION XV

CARCASSONNE TO MONTPELLIER,
94¼ MILES

(152 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

Carcassonne was for a long period a dual town, and even to-day, when the original city is mainly an historical monument, it contains a considerable{256}

Town Plan No. 17.—Carcassonne.

number of people within its ancient walls. A glance at the plan will reveal the position and relative sizes of the two towns, and it need scarcely be stated that the original city is the one standing on a raised site east of the river. Because of the great antiquity of the “Cité,” the large town beneath it is too often regarded as a mushroom growth. It was, however, founded in the thirteenth century by the people of the original Carcassonne,

THE PYRENEES IN SPRING.

Seen from a gorse-covered common near Pamiers.

{257}

who, according to some writers, were condemned to leave the town by St. Louis (IX.) for having supported Raymond Trencavel, the last Vicomte of Carcassonne, in his unsuccessful efforts to regain the city which his father had lost. The new town was called the Ville Basse, and its position being more suited for commercial expansion than the feudal one, it took a comparatively short time to outgrow the ancient Cité. Being entirely separated from each other by the River Aude, the growth of the new town did not mean the disappearance of the old, as at Tours and Périgueux, and thus in the twentieth century it is possible to see a practically perfect medieval city, completely encompassed by massive tower-studded walls. Within them the beautiful Church of St. Nazaire, the former cathedral, still stands; the castle also remains in complete preservation, and probably a resurrected townsman of the thirteenth century would find his way through the streets and along the defensive walls without the smallest difficulty.

The story of the Cité is told in its walls, for the lower portion belongs to the Roman occupation in the fourth century. Immediately above comes the different work of the Visigoths, into whose sinewy hands the place fell when the Gallo-Roman power{258} had weakened. In 713 the conquering Saracens took the place of the Visigoths, but Pepin-le-Bref, the founder of the vast Frankish Empire over which his son Charlemagne was to reign, drove out the Mohammedans in 759.

Great building activity took place in the eleventh and twelfth centuries under the powerful dynasty of the Vicomtes Trencavel, which was only terminated by Simon de Montfort (father of the leader of the English barons), who, by treachery, was enabled to seize the young Vicomte, Raymond Roger, during the fierce fighting in the Albigensian War.[I]

As already mentioned, the efforts of Raymond Roger’s son to recover Carcassonne led to the founding of the new town, which outgrew the ancient city, which has now become a source of revenue as an attraction to visitors from all parts of the world.

The restoration of the Cité was carried out by Viollet-le-Duc with that thoroughness which characterizes the archæological undertakings of the French, and in the buildings-up and pullings-down

ON THE RAMPARTS OF THE CITÉ OF CARCASSONNE.

One of the most complete medieval towns in the world.

{259}

one feels that more regard for the marks of time and less speculative roof-making would have preserved the spirit of antiquity, which, it must in candour be admitted, has been destroyed in the enthusiasm for reconstruction. When this fact has been recognized and the first disappointment has gone, the Cité becomes, as it cannot fail to do, one of the most thrilling of medieval survivals. There is a continuous double line of walls from 50 to 60 feet in height, made strikingly picturesque with no less than forty-eight towers. Several of these are the work of the Visigoth successors of Alaric, and merely to gaze upon them for a few moments in making the circuit of the walls with the guide gives one a more real and true impression of what the invasion of Gaul really meant than one gets from reading the sketchy account of those times which is all the smaller histories supply. Six more towers make the three inner sides of the castle formidable. The Porte Narbonnaise, on the east side of the Cité, was built by Philippe le Hardi, who continued to strengthen the defences of Carcassonne until his death at Perpignan in 1285.

The Church of St. Nazaire is a building of exceptional charm and beauty, the choir and transepts{260} being regarded as the most perfect example of thirteenth-century work in the South of France. They were added during the reign of St. Louis, to whose generosity the church was deeply indebted. The Romanesque nave dates from about 1100, when an earlier one was rebuilt. In the south aisle a most remarkable bas-relief is let into the wall. The subject is the Siege of Toulouse in 1218, when Simon de Montfort was killed. There are some exceedingly interesting effigies and tombs of early bishops, and that of Simon Vigorce, Archbishop of Narbonne, who died in 1575. The glass ranges from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, and some of it is very beautiful.

Good plans of the Cité are sold in the souvenir shop in the main street leading from the Porte d’Aude, which faces the modern town. The old bridge across the Aude is an interesting medieval survival, and makes a good foreground to the first near view of the old city, with its many towers and conical roofs cutting into the sky-line.

The streets of the later town are all narrow, and as they run at right angles to one another, the American visitor must almost feel at home. There are two churches which should not be overlooked. They are St. Michael’s, now the cathe{261}dral, a thirteenth-century building, with a painted nave, and St. Vincent’s, belonging to the fourteenth century, with a west portal enriched with statuary.

THE ROAD TO NARBONNE

goes straight out of Carcassonne towards the east, crossing the Pont Neuf. In fine weather this road is white and dusty, like all the roads in the South of France, and motor-cars appear as clouds by day and fire by night.

Looking back on the ancient Carcassonne, the medievalism of the place is quite fantastic, and exactly what the early school of Italian artists depicted as backgrounds to their pictures.

For many miles a ridge of arid hills runs parallel to the road on the south, and the Cevennes appear in the distance to the north.

Barbaira has a ruined castle bearing the Visigoth name of Alaric.

Some of the hamlets have a strong resemblance to the rock villages of Italy, and it is here that the silvery green foliage of the olive is first noticed on the journey eastward. Soon after passing Moux the low hills come close to the road, exposing layers of soft sand between harder strata, and the{262} soil changes in colour from a light buff to the deepest orange.

Lézignan has a fourteenth-century church, but is not an interesting town.

Passing through more arid hills, one reaches the historic cathedral city of

NARBONNE

The continual silting-up of the Aude has converted the Narbo of the Phœnicians from one of the busiest ports of the Mediterranean into an inland town, connected with the sea by a canal. The Romans, foreseeing this danger, deflected part of the River Aude, and thus kept the seaway to Narbonne open until 1320, when a dyke gave way, and the river reverted to its earlier course, with the consequent rapid decline of the town as a port.

No. 16. CARCASSONNE TO MONTPELLIER.

THE ARCADED SQUARE OF MIREPOIX.

The pillars of timber have curiously carved gargoyles. (Page 252.)

{263}

It stands at the southern end of a plain which is a vast vineyard, and produces great quantities of wine.

The martyr St. Sebastian, whose death took place in 288, was born at Narbonne, and also the Roman Emperors Carus, Carinus, and Numerian. Carved stones of the Roman period have been discovered in great quantities in the city.

The Cathedral of St. Just was begun in 1272 {264}on a most ambitious scale, but the choir alone

Town Plan No. 18.—Narbonne.

came into being. Had the great undertaking been completed, Narbonne would have possessed one of the vastest cathedrals in France. As it stands to-day, the choir, with its two towers of the fifteenth

NARBONNE.

A picturesque town in Southern France.

{265}

century, rises up above the roofs of the city, after the fashion of Chartres. In the eighteenth century an effort was made to complete the nave, but the unfinished masonry in front of the west end of the choir is all that was accomplished. The swing-doors lead into what might be called a ‘narthex,’ which is without windows, and the darkness is profound until one has stumbled cautiously into one of the aisles. There are fourteenth-century windows in the apse, and round the sanctuary are some interesting tombs, including those of Cardinal Briçonnet, Prime Minister under Charles VIII., and La Borde, President and General Treasurer of France (1607).

Over the door to the sacristy there are magnificent tapestries of the early Renaissance, and one should see the beautifully vaulted roof of the fifteenth-century chapter-house.

The Archbishop’s Palace is a huge fortified building, joined to the cathedral by a mutilated cloister. A portion of the palace has been adapted as the Hôtel de Ville, the new work by Viollet-le-Duc being in the style of the thirteenth century. The large turreted tower was built in 1318, and the central one in 1375.

The museum is in the buildings of what was{266} formerly the Benedictine Convent of Lamourguier (thirteenth, fourteenth, and eighteenth centuries). On the same side of the canal—that is, on the opposite side to the cathedral—is the interesting Church of St. Paul-Serge, with a Romanesque nave, and a choir in the ogee style of Gothic, built early in the thirteenth century.

North of the cathedral is St. Sébastien, a church with fine fifteenth-century vaulting.

From Narbonne to Béziers the road crosses the flat alluvial ground to the little wine town of Coursan, on the Aude, which has a fifteenth-century bridge. The rest of the way is through a slightly undulating country, with scarcely more than a village on the road.

BÉZIERS

is one of the busiest centres of the great wine industry of the Midi, and has been famous for its wines from Roman times until now. It was the scene of considerable excitement and rioting during{267}

Town Plan No. 19.—Béziers.

the crisis in the trade depression of two or three years ago. The site is a raised plateau, with steep ascents from the River Orb, and during the feudal period it was a place of great strength, first under{268} its own lords, and then under the Viscounts of Carcassonne. In the latter period the town was besieged by Simon de Montfort, and was taken in July, 1209, a large proportion of the inhabitants being massacred, the lowest figures of those who perished being given as 20,000. Although Béziers has a healthy site and a wide, tree-shaded promenade named after Pierre-Paul Riquet, who was born in the town in 1604, and was the creator of the Canal du Midi, between Toulouse and Cette, yet the streets as a whole are narrow, and the atmosphere one breathes in passing through them is generally very unwholesome.

There is a thirteenth-century bridge of seventeen arches, which should be seen, and four churches, of which St. Nazaire, formerly the cathedral, is the most important. It was burnt in the siege of 1209, so that there are only slight remains of the early building. The transepts belong to the thirteenth century, and the choir, apse, and nave to the next. The façade has a fine rose-window, and in the choir the fourteenth-century windows are protected externally by wrought-iron grilles. The cloister, also of the fourteenth century, is a beautiful piece of work.

The other churches are—(1) St. Jacques, with a{269} beautiful twelfth-century apse: (2) La Madelaine, where many of the townsfolk were killed in 1209, is a Romanesque building, altered and restored in the eighteenth century; (3) St. Aphrodise belongs to the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, and has a Romanesque crypt. The font at the west end is an early sarcophagus of marble, with a bas-relief, showing two infuriated beasts in combat.

The Canal du Midi crosses the Orb at Béziers on a big aqueduct, and considering that it was built as long ago as 1668, it should be looked upon with the deepest respect. Arthur Young, who was inclined to run down most of the things he saw in the South of France, grew enthusiastic over the Canal du Midi. ‘The Canal of Languedoc,’ he says, ‘is the capital feature of all this country.... Nine sluice-gates let the water down the hill to join the river at the town—a noble work! The port is broad enough for four large vessels to lie abreast.... This is the best sight I have seen in France.’

A fairly hilly country is passed through between Béziers and Pézenas, but there are no bad gradients on the road.{270}

PÉZENAS

stands in a narrow plain, of such great fertility, owing to the volcanic properties of the soil, that it is called the Garden of Hérault. It was a Roman colony, and Pliny mentions the excellence of its woollen stuffs.

A bust of Molière reminds the passer-by that the famous playwright represented his first works in the town during the winter of 1656, and that it was here that he wrote ‘Les Précieuses Ridicules.’

A fifteenth-century gateway survives in the town, and there are some interesting houses of the same and the following centuries.

Leaving Pézenas, one crosses the railway twice, and then goes to the right for Montagnac, crossing the River Hérault.

Montagnac is a sad-looking town, with gloomy and dirty stuccoed houses; and one is glad to leave it behind, as one goes through the sunny hills towards Mèze, having, as one approaches that town, a great panoramic view over the land-locked Etang-de-Thau, with the Mediterranean showing beyond Cette. It is in this neighbourhood that one begins to notice the swords of the cactus, and the olive is seldom absent from the views. Aleppo{271} pines grow picturesquely here and there, and a solitary cypress appears now and then.

It is hardly worth while to linger at Mèze, as there is little to see, and there are many places farther east where the time would be valuable. There is a pleasant run by the side of the sparkling blue waters of the Etang, followed by a rather uninteresting stretch of country to Montpellier, which is entered through a fine avenue of sycamores.{272}

SECTION XVI

MONTPELLIER TO AIX-EN-PROVENCE,
98½ MILES
(158 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

THE CASTLE AT TARASCON.

On the Rhone.

{273}

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

Montpellier does not boast many antiquities, but it has some spacious promenades and boulevards which give a dignity and charm to the city. Hare, writing before some of the more modern streets had assumed their present appearance, says:

The place became prosperous in the thirteenth century with the founding of the School of Medicine, which is famous to this day. It is housed in the buildings of the Episcopal Palace, and its frontage is still machicolated.

The Musée Fabre in the Esplanade contains the best provincial collection of pictures in France next to Lille. It is open on week-days—except Mondays—from 9 to 12, and 1.30 to 4 or 5; Sundays, 11 to 4 or 5.

The Cathedral, with a very odd-looking porch, is the church of a Benedictine abbey founded in 1364. Three of the original towers at the angles of{275} the nave survive; the fourth and the Gothic choir were rebuilt about 1857.

Town Plan No. 20.—Montpellier.

The Tour des Pins is a survival of the early fortifications of the town, now restored. The{276} inscription is to the memory of Jayme, the conqueror of Arragon.

The Jardin des Plantes, founded in 1593 by Henry IV., is the earliest in France.

A triumphal arch, called the Porte du Peyrou, was put up at the end of the seventeenth century to the glory of Louis XIV. The Promenade de Peyrou, begun about the same time and completed in 1785, has a statue of the same Louis, and a great prospect towards the sea and the Cevennes across the level country bordering the mouth of the Rhone.

The impression one gets of Montpellier in a short visit is that of a city mainly composed of buildings that are all of a uniformly creamy-white colour, and that the only other colour besides the dusty green of the foliage is the bright red of the soldiers’ uniforms and the gaudy colour of advertisements.

THE ROAD TO NÎMES

Keeping to the edge of the plain, the road goes eastwards to Lunel, which stands in the great vine-growing plain. In the Place de la Liberté one may see a small facsimile of the New York{277} statue of Liberty by Bartholdi. The church is Romanesque in part.

From Lunel a détour of a most profitable character may be made to Aigues-Mortes (meaning ‘stagnant waters’), one of the dead ports of that blighted land called the Carmargue. The road passes through Marsillargues and St. Laurent-l’Aigouze, and for the last three kilometres runs parallel with the Beaucaire Canal, which has to some extent reanimated the ancient walled town from which St. Louis embarked for the Holy Land in 1248 and 1270. The lofty walls and square towers, without any machicolation to relieve their grim strength, were built by Philippe-le-Hardi, and are said to have been copied from Ascalon, in Syria, even as the Château Gaillard was based on the experience Richard I. gained in the Holy Land. It was the Crusades that seem to have brought the town into being, and, like everything connected with those unsuccessful efforts to roll back the Mohammedan power, Aigues-Mortes, being surrounded by fever-producing swamps, was doomed to failure from the first day St. Louis founded it. But the constant depletion of the population in the past—at the rate, it is said, of five or six a day in the spring out of a population of 1,500—has given the{278} modern antiquary a walled medieval town only comparable to Carcassonne and Avignon, and in some respects of greater interest than either.

No. 17. MONTPELLIER TO AIX-EN-PROVENCE.

From Lunel to Nîmes the country is a vast vineyard, with here and there an Aleppo or an umbrella pine or a few olives.

NÎMES

To the tourist who has never seen Roman remains outside a museum, or has only looked{279} dully at a few foundations of Roman walls in situ, Nîmes brings the reality of Rome’s power before his eyes with such overwhelming vividness that he begins to forget the remoteness of the civilization which raised these enduring monuments. That the vast amphitheatre, the perfect temple to Caius and Lucius Cæsar, the gateway called the Porte d’Auguste, the complete aqueduct known as the Pont-du-Gard, and the Roman tower, 90 feet{280} high, called the Tour Magne, date from the early years of the Christian era, or even before the birth of Christ, seems at first easy to grasp. But these structures stand so imposingly among the buildings of 2,000 years later which have grown up around them that there comes in time a feeling almost of incredulity. Perhaps some clever French architects have done most of the building, one thinks; but a glance at the stonework of any of these great works shows that the restoration that has taken place has been of a trifling character, the main work in the case of the arena having been the clearing away of the later accretions which were hiding the Roman fabric.

It was in 121 B.C. that the capital of a Gaulish tribe became the Nemausus of the Romans. For over five centuries it remained a Roman city of the greatest importance, a period equal to England’s history from the crude times of Richard II. to the present year. So much did the Romans appreciate their new colonies in Provincia (now Provence) that they even considered the transference of the capital of the Empire to the banks of the Rhone. One need not wonder, therefore, at the magnificence and the permanent character of the buildings they erected. At Orange, at St. Rémy,{281} and at Arles the survivals are equally forceful, and the most ill-informed who gaze upon them go away with an impression of Roman power so vivid that they cannot ever again regard archæology as a musty science.

Town Plan No. 21.—Nîmes.

In its modern aspect Nîmes is a thriving city with a busy trade in wine and silk. The main streets are wide and cheerful, with trees which are a boon during the hot time of the year.{282}

The chief features of the town are:

THE ROAD TO ARLES

From Nîmes the road is practically level all the way to Arles, whether one goes by St. Gilles or direct through Bellegarde.

ST. GILLES

The St. Gilles route is only seven kilometres longer, and the slightly increased distance will{284} not be regretted when the remarkable church has been seen. It was planned on a vast scale, and, if carried out, would have been one of the finest Byzantine churches in France; but for some reasons, perhaps connected with the decline of St. Gilles as a port owing to the constant silting up of the Rhone delta, or possibly owing to war or pestilence or a weakening of religious enthusiasm, the great structure was never finished, and a smaller church in the Gothic style is all that came to completion. It embodies, however, the splendid western façade of the earlier scheme, and the details of its columns, its mutilated statues and carved enrichments, are finer even than those of St. Trophime at Arles. The abbot of the monastery, which had been founded by St. Egidius in the sixth century, administered justice seated between the grotesque lions of the portal, and the charters often began with, ‘Sedente inter leones.’ The crypt, the tomb of St. Gilles and his altar, the twelfth-century sacristy, and the Vis de S. Gilles, a remarkably fine newel staircase, should all be seen. There is also a restored Romanesque house in the town of St. Gilles. [J]{285}

It should be remembered that historical and geological evidence prove that the flat marshy country called the Carmargue was in Roman times a beautiful district of rivers, tree-grown islands, and extensive seaways. No doubt there were marshes at the mouth of the Rhone then, but that mouth was a long way north of the present outlet, and the area must have been comparatively small before some of the large inlets were silted up and became fever-breeding swamps. Everywhere one goes in the Carmargue, from Arles to Aigues-Mortes, St. Gilles or Les Saintes-Maries, the same tale is told of prosperous ports becoming land-locked and fever-stricken. To-day the flat treeless land is cultivated where the swamps have dried up, but it is a sad desert even under a cloudless sky. In the summer there is dust everywhere, and in the winter the ground has a tendency to become a morass.

ARLES

is entered from the west side through the old suburb of Trinquetaille, the business quarter of the Roman city, and the Rhone is then crossed on a semi-suspension bridge of lattice girders, on which, when the mistral blows, it is scarcely possible to keep one’s feet. It is on the east side of the{286} river—the official and patrician quarter—that the thrilling relics of Greek and Roman Arles survive.

In the importance of these ancient monuments Arles is a close rival to Nîmes, and in some ways Arles is pre-eminent.

The origin of the name is generally considered

Town Plan No. 22.—Arles.

to be the Celtic ‘Ar-lath,’ meaning a wet place, and its position at the mouth of the Rhone, with the island which is now the corner of the Carmargue opposite, was so advantageous to traders that, long before the Romans conquered Provence, earlier even than the founding of Marseilles by the Greeks from Phocæa, there was a busy commercial{287} town at Arles, well known to the Phœnician traders of the Mediterranean. When the Romans found it necessary to conquer Provence they found a Greek city at Arles, and the ruins of the beautiful theatre, built before the Roman occupation was a reality, impress on the mind the change which took place, for within a few paces of the theatre there stands the amphitheatre—the time-defying evidence of the power of Rome. The amphitheatres and most of the other Roman remains in Provence are due to the Imperial policy of ‘panem et circenses,’ and what the huge arenas really meant is vividly brought to mind by Mr. Theodore Cook.

The beauty of the women of Arles astonishes the stranger even when he is prepared by the statement of the fact in all guide-books. The classic features of their Greek ancestry are constantly reproduced to-day, although in the men the intermingling of Roman, Saracen, and Frank has destroyed all resemblance to the Hellenic type. In a book of this character one is compelled to summarize where expansion is so inviting, and the reader is advised to study Mr. Cook’s two volumes entitled ‘Old Provence’ if he wishes to know more of the story of the region which teems with evidence of the Roman occupation.

The historic monuments of Arles are therefore briefly tabulated below:

THE GREEK THEATRE AT ARLES.

The two pillars formed part of the proscenium, and in the Middle Ages were used as a gibbet.

{289}

THE ROAD TO AIX-EN-PROVENCE

leaves Arles from the Avenue Victor Hugo, and after winding a little for about twelve kilometres, with trees interfering with the view, goes due east in a straight line across the open plain called La{290} Crau (pronounced ‘Crow’). It is a strange level waste of round stones, very uniform in size, which the torrents of innumerable ages have brought down from the Alps. The early peoples of Provence were mightily impressed with these monstrous pebbles, and Strabo has preserved the legend that Zeus rained them down on the earth to scatter the Ligurian tribesmen who often attacked the adventurous Phœnician traders and colonizers. The heat of the sun on the mass of stones, which has a depth averaging from 30 to 45 feet, produces the phenomenon of the mirage, and the conditions of wind and temperature are always inclined to be different to less exposed places. A clear sunrise over the mountains north-east of the Crau is a memorable sight. The desert of stones, broken here and there with lines of cypresses, is full of a strange shadowiness under the crimson-streaked sky as the eastern light grows in intensity, and one half expects to see a caravan of camels and the burnous of Arabia in place of the country cart of the French peasant.

The curiously isolated ridge called Les Alpines is prominent to the north wherever one goes between Nîmes and Salon.

Salon is a cheerful town at the very edge of the{291} Crau. The main street has a bright and almost Parisian touch, with its numerous cafés having their tables under the shade of old plane-trees. There is a fourteenth-century château, and in the Church of St. Laurent, a Gothic building of the same period, is the tomb of Michel de Notre Dame, Catherine de Medici’s favourite astrologer. Another church is dedicated to St. Michael, and is a century earlier.

At the fork just beyond Salon the turning to the right is taken to Pélissanne, a village with tall cream-washed houses. In the centre one goes to the right and immediately afterwards to the left. Beyond this the road runs through pine-covered hills to St. Cannat, and finally through open country down a long descent into Aix-en-Provence.{292}

SECTION XVII

AIX-EN-PROVENCE TO CANNES, 100 MILES
(160 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

Although Aix has retained no structures of the Roman period, it was the oldest of the colonies, having been founded by the Consul Sextius Calvinus, about 120 B.C., at the hot springs still in existence. The place was therefore called Aquæ Sextiæ, after the discoverer of the thermal waters, and is now contracted into Aix. The threatened invasion of Italy by the Teutones and Ambrones was utterly defeated by Marius, a few miles east of the city, in 102 B.C.; but Aix at the fall of Rome fell{295} a prey to the barbarians of the north, recovering slowly, and eventually becoming the capital of Provence. Under the good King Réné of Anjou, who died in 1480, Aix was exceedingly prosperous. His statue by David can be seen in the Cours Mirabeau.

Town Plan No. 23.—Aix-en-Provence.

The Cathedral of St. Sauveur dates from Romanesque times, with a chancel built in 1285. The tower and façade are fifteenth century—a little earlier than the highly enriched portal, with{296} its lovely doors ornamented with sixteen figures in niches, which dates from 1503.

In the baptistery are eight monolithic columns—probably from the Temple of Apollo, that stood on the same spot—sculptured panels by Puget, and two triptychs, on one of which King Réné is depicted on his knees.

The Romanesque cloister, with richly carved capitals, and the great Renaissance doorway of the Archbishop’s Palace should be seen.

The Hôtel de Ville, containing a big library, to which the public is admitted, except on Sundays and Mondays, and between August 15 and October 15, was built in 1640, and much altered in 1760; but the clock-tower adjoining goes back to 1512.

One relic of the medieval fortifications of Aix exists in the Tour de Tourreluco. It stands in the garden of the thermal establishment, where one can also see the slight remains of the Roman baths.

The Church of La Madeleine was built in 1703 with a later façade, and St. Jean de Malle was founded in the thirteenth century for the Order of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. It contains on the left side of the altar the tomb of

THE ROMANESQUE BRIDGE OF ST. BÉNÉZET AT AVIGNON.

Only four arches and the chapel survive. (Page 335.)

{297}

Raymond, Count of Provence, with statues and recumbent figures.

THE ROAD TO FRÉJUS

goes out eastwards, and, after a few miles, passes through a rocky ravine before coming out into the long valley of the River Arc, bounded on the north by the gaunt grey precipices of Mont Ste. Victoire. It was into this valley that Marius with his legions drove the undisciplined invaders in 102 B.C., and near Pourrières he outflanked and defeated them. The slaughter was so enormous that the two great tribes of the Teutones and Ambrones, with their women and children, were practically annihilated, and the river ran red with their life-blood. Just after crossing the Arc, on the north side of the road, are the slight ruins of the monument put up by the Romans to celebrate the great victory achieved by the brilliant strategy of Marius, who thus saved Rome from premature extinction.

Soon after passing Pourrières, a compact village north of the road, with roofs and walls of the same dark orange-red as the soil of the vineyards, there is spread out in front a splendid mountain view, with snow-capped peaks standing out against the blue of the distant sky.{298}

No. 18. AIX-EN-PROVENCE TO CANNES.

St. Maximin is a very small town with a lovely Gothic church, which should by no means be ignored. It dates from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, and stands over an early crypt containing Early Christian sarcophagi. This is kept locked, but the sacristan has the key. The altar at the east end of the north aisle is dated 1526, with the name ‘Jacques Baurmes, Chamberlain to the King,’ who gave it to the church. In one of the paintings Christ is being scourged on the Piazzetta at Venice! The choir-stalls of the seventeenth century are richly carved, the whole interior is clean and light, and the lofty arches are exceptionally beautiful.{299}

The way out of St. Maximin is a zigzag to the right, and at the fork just outside one turns to the left, neither going under the railway-arch nor up to the station, which one can see on the left a little farther on.

The village of Tourves has an obelisk by the fine ruined Château de Valbelle, on a ridge to the left. On the steep hillsides one sees miles of terraces, where vineyards have been patiently extracted from the formerly arid slopes.

Brignoles is a small town, with a long, narrow street, and the hotel is often a convenient resting-place for déjeuner. The dried plums of Brignoles have long been famous. They were eaten by the{300} Duc de Guise, it will be remembered, just before his assassination (p. 98). A twelfth-century house, with windows divided by columns, and the Sous-Préfecture, which was formerly the winter palace of the Counts of Provence, sacked by Charles V., are the only antiquities of the town.

Flassans is a comparatively new village on the road, with an abandoned one, now roofless and with broken walls, on the hill to the left. A conspicuous wooden cross and a little chapel by the ruined houses seem to suggest that something had to be done to keep restless spirits under proper control.

Le Luc has a narrow, shady street, with large plane-trees by a fountain, where there are often picturesque groups fetching water.

The Maure Mountains lie to the south, covered with pine, or showing crags of grey and orange rock. The coast-road from Fréjus to Hyères, round the bays of these mountains, is an exquisitely beautiful one, and those who have time should include this in their tour when staying at St. Raphaël or Valescure.

Passing through Le Muy in a serpentine fashion, with a very sharp and narrow turning, the road comes out into the flat alluvial plain of the River{301} Argens, with the pine-clad Estérels on the left as one runs into

FRÉJUS

This is a place of vanished glories, having the atmosphere of ancient importance inseparable from ports abandoned by the sea, which was their life-blood.

Fréjus was the last harbour on the great Roman road from Rome to Provence—the Via Aurelia—which at this point turned inland to Aix. Its importance was therefore seen by Julius Cæsar, who built the town called after him Forum Julii, and now contracted into Fréjus. By the remains to be seen to-day the work appears to have been done hurriedly, for strength rather than beauty, but the interest of the place is scarcely diminished in the knowledge of this probability.

The first most imposing survival is the Amphitheatre. It stands outside the town, and a by-road passes through its longest axis. There is no fencing, nor, indeed, any restriction to the public from climbing the broken tiers of seats; nor has there been any attempt at restoration to the broken arches or the grass-grown arena. On the eastern side of the little town, where the harbour was situated, is a small tower with a conical top, called{302} La Lanterne. This was the Roman harbour-master’s office, and not a lighthouse. The remains of the aqueduct are imposing detached masses of ivy-mantled stonework, ranging like great sentinels across cornfields and meadows to the hills to the north, from whence a pure supply of water was obtained. There are also remains of the walls of the Roman town; of three of the gateways, including the Porta Romana, which is the best; of the two citadels; the baths; and the theatre.

Modern Fréjus has some picturesque doorways and old houses spoilt with stucco. The Romanesque Cathedral has beautiful cloisters, much in need of restoration, and a baptistery with eight monolithic granite pillars from a Roman temple.

ST. RAPHAËL

stands on the opposite side of the alluvial plain, and being on the sea, has lately blossomed into a Riviera resort, with modern hotels, a huge domed church, and new streets of shops and stuccoed houses. It is a dusty and windy place compared to Valescure, a little way inland, on high ground, among the pines of the Estérel slopes.

Napoleon embarked from St. Raphaël for Elba after his abdication in 1814. The British warship{303} Undaunted received the ex-Emperor on board on April 28. He had come through many hostile crowds on his journey from Fontainebleau, and so great was the danger to his life that he consented to disguise himself in the uniform of an Austrian officer.

THE CORNICHE D’OR

is a most beautiful road, recently built by the Touring Club de France, along the high rocky coast of the Estérels. Its dangers for motorists have been described at the beginning of this section, but in case that warning may have been overlooked, the need of driving slowly and cautiously is again emphasized.

After the somewhat arid scenery of the delta of the Rhone and of the country about Aix and Brignoles, the first few miles of the Riviera are an exquisite pleasure to the eye. The road at first winds between gardens, whose trees cast long patches of shade, and the air is deliciously scented with lemons and other plants; then one comes out by the breaking waves, and looks across little bays, ‘the peacock’s neck in hue.’ Dark masses of firs clothe the red of the porphyry cliffs, and each turn of the road brings some fresh combination of rock and wave and tree-clothed valley.{304}

Agay is a tiny place on one of these lovely bays, and as there is a choice of hotels, it is a delightful spot for a halt for the night if one does not mind the periodic roar of the P.L.M. expresses. Beyond Théoule comes the first great view of the French Riviera. On a clear morning of typical spring sunshine the great sweep of the blue bay of Cannes, with its bold mountain background and green villa-dotted shores, is one of exquisite loveliness. It appears with a foreground of the strong, hot colour of swarthy rocks, deep green foliage, and perhaps the brilliance of lemons and oranges, or a bank of glowing flowers, emphasizing the delicate charm of the distance.

The road gradually drops down to the sea-level at La Napoule, where the famous golf-links of Cannes are situated. A short run along the villa-bordered main road brings one to the great resort founded by an English statesman—Henry, Lord Brougham and Vaux.

ON THE COAST OF THE ESTERELS.

A typical stretch of the rocky shore between Cannes and St. Raphaël.

{305}

SECTION XVIII

CANNES TO SAN REMO, 53¾ MILES
(89 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

Cannes has a sea-front broken by the isolated mass of rock called Mont Chevalier. Here was founded the early settlement which was, no doubt, the Aegytna mentioned by Polybius as the scene of a treacherous attack by some of the Ligurian tribesmen on some unarmed Romans. The hill is now picturesquely crowned with the thirteenth-{308}century parish church, a medieval tower, and the ruins of the castle of the Counts of Provence. Down below is a small harbour.

The views westwards from the palm-shaded promenades along the shore include the rugged masses of the always attractive Estérels.

Town Plan No. 24.—Cannes.

Cannes is essentially a resort of English visitors, and the winter and spring of every year bring together in the hotels and flower-scented villas a more or less regular selection of English gentlefolk. The town has grown enormously since the days when Lord Brougham, the founder, who died at Cannes and was buried in the cemetery, first began to find relaxation from his Parliamentary activities{309} at the Villa Louise Elenore. Le Cannet, at one time a separate village among the hills, is now joined by the straggling suburbs and a tramway to the centre of the town, but the main charms of the resort are not lost.

A good road inland takes one to Grasse, an interesting old town with a curious eleventh-century church, fine views, and a huge industry in perfumery and preserved fruits. Beyond Grasse a splendid road takes one to Le Loup, and the romantic limestone gorge of that name, and farther on still is the ancient town of Vence, where a church incorporating part of a Roman temple has several other interesting features.

From Vence a road goes down to the coast at Cagnes, a village whose name the visitor finds difficult to pronounce differently to Cannes.

If this inland route has been taken the coast road is joined east of Antibes, so that one must either go back about six miles or leave that fascinating town for the return journey.

ANTIBES

There is a tendency for ordinary guide-books to say that there is nothing to see at Antibes, but all who have read of the Greek colony of Antipolis should{310}

No. 19. CANNES TO SAN REMO.

test this with half an hour in the old part of the town. It will not be disappointing. Facing the wide Cours Masséna is the medieval wall of the town, with a big round-towered gateway leading into a street that almost at once brings one out on to the seaward defensive wall, at the base of which the waves break continuously, often shooting up columns of spray on to the pathway above. In the narrow streets there are arches, quaint doorways, and medieval defensive towers, often incorporating Roman stones and many other details telling of the changes that time has wrought. A narrow doorway in the old wall at the harbour end of the Cours Masséna has a stone lintel from some Roman build{311}ing, placed upside down by the medieval masons. One of the most interesting relics of the Greek town is a dark green diorite boulder, bearing the strange inscription: ‘I am Terpon, servant of the august goddess Aphrodite; may Cypris reward with her favours those that erected me here.’

The Îles des Lérins that lie opposite Cannes are full of interest. Steamboats ply regularly to them from the harbour. Ste. Marguerite, the larger island, retains the fort, built by Cardinal Richelieu, wherein was imprisoned by Louis XIV., at the end of the seventeenth century, the mysterious ‘Man with the Iron Mask.’

St. Honorat, the smaller island, is the Lindisfarne of the South of France, for there, during the European upheavals in the fifth century, St. Honorat founded a monastery and kept alive the sacred spark of a pure and restrained life beyond the reach of the barbarous waves of invasion that were sweeping over south-western Europe. In the eighth century Saracens wiped out the monastery and massacred the monks, but their crude weapons could not destroy the influence which had gone forth from the islet in the four centuries of its previous existence. In the ninth century the monastery was refounded, and two hundred years later the fortified{312} building existing to-day was put up to secure the monks from attack.

NICE

Town Plan No. 25.—NICE.

may be described as ‘Paris by the Sea.’ Its wide streets are entirely reminiscent of the metropolis, and the whole life of the great resort is French, in marked contrast to the English feeling of Cannes. The enormous hotels, the plane-bordered streets, the kiosks, the trams, and the people, are all so essentially Parisian that, out of sight of the sea or the mountains, one easily forgets that one is by the

CAP MARTIN.

The wooded promontory separating Mentone from Monte Carlo.

{313}

shores of the Mediterranean. Like Cannes, there is a conspicuous isolated mass of rock on the otherwise flat shore, which was the nucleus of the Greek town of Nicæa. The remains of the Greek buildings were found at the foot of the rock, which was, no doubt, a fortified place of refuge. The Romans preferred a site farther inland, and at the modern Cimiez, on the rising ground north of the present city, they built Cemenelium, of which shapeless masses of the amphitheatre remain, although a road passes right through them. The site of the Roman baths has also been found, and great quantities of small objects have been discovered. The rock down on the shore became important again after the Lombards had sacked Cimiez, and on it was built a castle, from which the counts ruled under the Frankish kings. It was besieged by the Turks in 1543, when François I. had made his infamous alliance with Kheyr-ed-Dīn, the Corsair admiral, but the bravery of a woman saved the place from being taken by assault.

When Smollett visited Nice the condition of the town must have been exceedingly primitive. He says:

Of the mosquitoes he writes:

The Nice Carnival, or Battle of Flowers, has its origin right back in the time of the floral games of the Greeks of Nicæa.

THE UPPER CORNICHE ROAD

The advantages of the upper road over the lower are in the finer scenery and in the absence of dust and trams; but as the return journey gives one a double opportunity, it is easy to go by one and come back by the other.

On the upper road one passes above the romantically situated village of Eze, which makes a perfect picture in its setting of pines and its background of sea. This eagle’s nest was occupied by the Romans, and later by the Saracens, whose ruined castle is{315} still visible on the top of the rocky height. A little farther on a bend of the road brings La Turbie in sight. Above the roofs of the houses and the church tower rises the massive ruin of the huge trophy of the Emperor Augustus, put up in the year 12 B.C. to commemorate the defeat of forty-five Ligurian tribes. Part of the present structure is medieval, for the vast monument was at one time incorporated into a stronghold, which was no doubt partially built of the stones of the magnificent Roman work.

From La Turbie the views along the coast embrace practically the whole of the French Riviera, for one can see the Estérels away in the west; down below are Monaco and Monte Carlo; to the east are Cap Martin and Mentone. A funicular railway goes down from La Turbie to Monte Carlo, but this is of minor interest to the motorist. The road descends to the coast past the picturesque old village of Roquebrune, with its ruined castle on a mass of brown conglomerate rock, and joins the lower road near Cap Martin.

If one goes by the coast road, one passes through Villefranche, with its sheltered bay, much frequented by French warships. The old town is{316} eminently picturesque, with its foreground of brightly painted boats in the harbour, protected by an old tower belonging to the days when corsairs were continually dreaded. There are curious old streets, with supporting arches and dark passages, typical of the Ligurian method of building.

Beaulieu is little more than a scattered collection of pleasantly situated hotels and villas. It was here that the late Lord Salisbury had a house.

MONACO

stands on a tabular mass of rock projecting into the sea, and forming one side of the Bay of Monte Carlo. The road and the railway go through the narrow cleft between the almost insulated rock and the vast and precipitous cliffs of pinkish and creamy-grey limestone that tower up to the height of 1,300 feet. On the rock of Monaco stands the castle where the Prince resides in the midst of his toy kingdom. Some of the towers of the castle have survived since the thirteenth century, but most of the buildings belong to the seventeenth century, and contain some fine contemporary furniture.

The little town of Monaco consists of half a{317} dozen very clean streets and a big new cathedral in the Romanesque style. On the extremity of the rock is the Prince’s imposing new museum of oceanography—a subject in which he is deeply interested.

Monte Carlo, a part of the principality, is joined to Monaco by Condamine, which consists mainly of hotels, restaurants, and closely built streets of shops and stuccoed terraces. The Casino is a rococoesque building of the exhibition type, standing out prominently at the opposite side of the bay to Monaco, with its conspicuous pair of towers reflected in the sea. It is approached by imposing terraces from below, and the level ground in front of the entrance is adorned with the brilliant glow of flowers and the pleasant green of carefully cultivated grass under the shade of palms.

The brilliance of the contrast of creamy-white buildings against the deep blue sky is wonderful, and the reflection of the town in the rippling waters of the harbour is astonishingly vivid in its tones.

Where a fork appears near the wooded promontory of Cap Martin one goes to the left on the higher road, and in a few moments Mentone is in sight,{318} spread out along a beautiful bay backed by mountain masses of a most imposing character.

MENTONE

As a resort both for the healthy and for invalids, Mentone is delightful, as it is generally free from cold winds, owing to the close protection of the mountains, and there are also many valleys to penetrate, in which the Ligurian rock village is seen at its best. The sea-front is shaded with big eucalyptus-trees, and there is a complete freedom from that monotony which is so characteristic of Nice, Brighton, and other favourite resorts. The old town is a pleasant contrast to the newer parts. It stands on higher ground above the harbour, where the shore curves in towards the suburb of Garavan.

The road into Italy is cut out of the lofty rock faces, which in Napoleon’s time carried only the narrow Via Aurelia of the Romans.

At the Pont St. Louis there is an international bridge across a small gorge, and here the customs formalities are arranged. If one is armed with a tryptique there is scarcely more than a delay of a few minutes.

{319}

The road soon afterwards passes the beautiful gardens of La Mortola, where the late Sir Thomas Hanbury lived for many years. The extraordinary variety of tropical plants and trees he collected there is one of the best testimonials to the mild winters experienced in this sheltered part of the Riviera.

VENTIMIGLIA

is the first Italian town after passing the frontier. It stands at the mouth of the River Roya, and is a place of exceptional picturesqueness.

The old town has retained its ramparts, and is built in the typical Ligurian fashion, with innumerable narrow tunnelled passages, in which the stranger easily loses his way.

The Cathedral is Romanesque, with a very early baptistery, whose fabric is hidden under plaster. Considerable restoration took place after the earthquake of 1831. Another church which should be seen is that of San Michele. It is Romanesque, and the crypt has a Roman milestone supporting the vaulting.

Ventimiglia was a place of importance in Roman times, and also throughout the Middle Ages, when it became a possession of Genoa, and was the scene of frequent fighting between the Guelph and Ghibelline factions. When one is crossing the{320} bridge over the Roya there is a splendid view up the mountainous valley, with great snow-clad peaks wreathed in clouds closing up the northern end. Monte Bego, a conspicuous peak, is famous for the prehistoric rock-carving to be seen in midsummer when the snow has melted. Rubbings of these primitive carvings are on view in the museum at Bordighera. Less than halfway to Bordighera from Ventimiglia the valley of the Nervia opens out, and on the west side a good road leads through the old village of Camporosso to

DOLCEACQUA

The valley closes in a good deal at this point, and the old village clusters up a steep rocky ascent, crowned by the imposing ruins of the castle of the Dorias of Dolceacqua. A narrow old bridge of a single span, suitable only for mules and foot-passengers, connects the hoary little cluster of houses with the less ancient portion on the right bank of the river. The narrow passages in the old village are generally nearly dark and often blocked with a laden mule, while the paved steps are generally slippery with olive oil.

Going farther up the valley in the midst of scenery which becomes wilder and more Alpine

THE MOUTH OF THE ROYA.

At Ventimiglia. The distant mountains are in France, and the foreground is in Italy.

{321}

every mile, one reaches Isolabona, where the road to the right across the river leads up the Merdanzo Valley to Apricale, one of the most romantically situated of all the rock villages of the Ligurian coast. Such extraordinary compactness and inaccessibility was the outcome of continual intercommunal fighting and fear of corsair raids. The Scourge of the Mediterranean also caused the building of the little stone watch-towers still standing on the hill-tops in convenient positions for giving warning to the surrounding villages.

There is no other road to the coast than the one through Dolceacqua, so one returns by the same way to the main road.

BORDIGHERA

is a thoroughly English resort, with several excellent hotels, a museum, a library, an English church, a tennis-club, and other opportunities of amusement, and it has also the advantage of being small, and without the towny flavour of Mentone, Monte Carlo, Nice, and Cannes. There are beautiful walks among hoary olives at a very short distance from any part of the scattered town, and there is still an old nucleus on the hill of Capo San{322} Ampeglio, where a hermit’s cave is now converted into a tiny chapel.

The road runs through Ospedaletti, a newly built resort, to

SAN REMO

The coast becomes steeper and more impressive as one goes eastwards from Bordighera, and at San Remo the town is backed by an amphitheatre of very lofty hills. The town is busy and smart, and curiously individual in its character.

Perhaps the best way to see the place in a short time is to make for the market-place and enter the gateway that leads into the old town. The moment one begins to ascend the extremely picturesque passages and winding vicoli all one’s bearings are lost, and, as fresh openings and turnings occur every few yards, one is soon hopelessly lost. The only plan to follow is always to go upwards. This will bring one out to a flight of steps leading up to a small public garden, from which there is an enormous view, with the old roofs of the original town immediately below and the new stuccoed houses spread out on the lower ground and on the hill-slopes on either side.

Those who have time should keep along this{323} fascinating coast, and explore those valleys which have good roads. There are a thousand delights awaiting the motorist, but there is unfortunately no space to deal with them here. [K]{324}

SECTION XIX

AIX-EN-PROVENCE TO AVIGNON, 65¼ MILES
(105 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

From Aix to Avignon direct is less than 50 miles, but the longer route through St. Rémy and Tarascon is well worth the extra 18 miles.

The first village is St. Cannat, where the remains of a castle of the Bishops of Marseilles can be seen, and also the pilgrimage chapel of Notre Dame de la Vie. The road then begins to go through an open country, broken up with a curious formation of rocky ridges, through which the road has been cut. The whole neighbourhood was badly shaken with an earthquake in 1909, and Lambesc and other villages suffered very severely.

Sénas is a small stone village without interest, but Orgon, the next place, is strikingly situated between a precipitous limestone ridge and the wide bed of the River Durance, spanned at this point with a huge lattice girder railway-bridge.{326} On the summit of the ridge are the picturesque ruins of a château of the Counts of Provence, twice dismantled, and also the Chapel of Notre Dame de Beauregard. The town has preserved part of its ramparts and several picturesque houses of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. The church dates from 1325.

Five kilometres north of Orgon the road to St. Rémy goes off to the left, and runs along the north side of the isolated group of hills called Les Alpines. Long rows of tall cypresses stand by the roadside in vast perspectives, and help to mitigate the fierce mistral when it comes shrieking over the desolate plains of the Rhone’s delta.

ST. RÉMY

is a pleasant town with tree-lined streets and a fourteenth-century tower to its church, which is modern. About a mile to the south, on the site of the Phœnician town of Glanum Livii, afterwards Romanized, stand two remarkably fine relics of the first four centuries of this era. One is a Roman triumphal arch, half destroyed above, but still retaining finely coffered work inside the arch and some sculptured figures outside; the other is a magnificently preserved mausoleum of three stories,{327} 50 feet high, and built of the same orange-coloured sandstone as the arch. The base is adorned with bas-reliefs of battle and hunting scenes, and on the top is a peristyle of ten Corinthian columns, containing two statues (with modern heads) representing the parents of Sextus and Marius, of the family of the Julii, by whom it was erected. The situation of these remarkable structures on a rocky little plateau is most striking.

TARASCON

Keeping along the foot of Les Alpines for about 9 kilometres farther, one swings to the right to the interesting old town of Tarascon, which faces Beaucaire on the opposite side of the mud-coloured Rhone. A long suspension bridge joins the two towns.

The Church of Ste. Marthe, with its crocketed spire, was built on the site of a Roman temple in the twelfth century, and rebuilt between 1379 and 1449. It retains the magnificent south portal of the earlier church. The saint to whom the church is dedicated is said to have been buried under the marble effigy one may see. A legend tells how St. Martha found the district ravaged by a hideous dragon, which she killed or tamed, and thus earned{328} the gratitude of the people of Tarascon. The memory of this deliverance was kept alive until recent years by a fête held on the second Sunday after Pentecost, when a huge representation of the dragon was taken through the streets. The castle of Tarascon is a complete and most imposing pile, standing four square, with one side washed by the Rhone. It was begun by Louis II. of Provence in the fourteenth century, and finished by the good King Réné of Anjou. Being now used as a prison, it is not easy to obtain permission to enter. The town still preserves a good gateway, flanked by round towers, and some of the old streets are picturesquely arcaded.

Beaucaire is a rather squalid little town, and it is far better to look from the Tarascon side at the fine ruined castle of Montmorency standing on its mass of white rock.

The road to Avignon goes through a baked and dusty country, with arid, bleached hills and endless groves of cypresses.

AN ARCHED STREET IN APRICALE, near DOLCEACQUA.

A good example of the rock villages of the Italian Riviera.

{329}

SECTION XX

AVIGNON TO VALENCE, 94½ MILES
(152 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

{331}

Town Plan No. 26.—Avignon.

It is unfortunate that Avignon has straggling suburbs outside its circle of wonderfully preserved walls, for if this new growth could be swept away there would appear on the plain a city of medieval aspect, encircled within its machicolated ramparts. Until this is done those who delight in such permanent pictures of the Middle Ages must be content with the views of the walls to be had from{332} the fairly wide boulevards outside them and from the river side of the town. From across the Rhone the strange piled-up mass of the Papal palace shows a striking silhouette, and gives Avignon that feeling of romance so lacking in some towns whose relics of the past are more remarkable.

It was in the year 1305 that Pope Clement V. removed the headquarters of the representatives of St. Peter from Rome to Avignon, and it remained there until 1411, when what Petrarch termed ‘a shameful exile’ came to an end and the Popes returned to Rome. During the century of their residence in Avignon the Popes built the enormous pile of buildings called a palace, although it is a forbidding fortress and one of the finest examples of fourteenth-century military architecture in existence. It is, as Hare has fittingly described it, ‘rather the citadel of an Asiatic tyrant than the representative of the God of peace.’ The walls and towers encircling the town were begun by Innocent VI. (1352-1362), and finished by his successor, Urban V.

Until lately the palace was utilized for barracks, but fortunately the soldiers are now quartered elsewhere, and the restorers are peeling off plaster and taking down the ugly walls and partitions of recent times, thus bringing to light the original{333} splendour of the Papal residence. A magnificently carved stone doorway of large dimensions has been literally dug out of a most unpromising wall, and when the work is completed the palace-fortress will be one of the most remarkable of the historic monuments of France. Fortunately, one of the smaller apartments, with richly painted walls and ceilings, was sufficiently remarkable to escape the destructive hands of those who built up the great doorway, and the chapels in the Tour St. Jean are also covered with wall paintings. The palace is built on a raised mass of rock, and some of the irregularities of design are due to this fact.

Just to the north, on the same rock, is the interesting Romanesque Cathedral of Notre Dame des Doms, first built in early Christian times on the site of a Roman temple. Of the 157 Cardinals and Bishops buried in the church there are no monuments, and even the elaborate tomb of Pope John XXII., at one time in the middle of the nave, has been placed in the antechamber leading to the sacristy. This John XXII., who held the Chair of St. Peter between 1316 and 1334, was the son of a shoemaker of Cahors. His genius seems to have lain chiefly in the acquisition of vast wealth, for when he died he had laid up treasure on earth{334}

No. 20. AVIGNON TO VALENCE.

in his newly built castle to the extent of eighteen millions of gold florins in specie and seven millions in plate and jewels! Milman also describes him as harsh and relentless and a cruel persecutor, who betrayed joy not only at the discomfiture but at the slaughter of his enemies, and then goes on to speak of the fame of his piety and learning, and how he rose every night to pray and to study and every morning to attend Mass. One has to think of this cruel and callous Pope kneeling at night to thank God for his great wealth laid up for many years, for his success in overcoming his enemies,{335} and perhaps for the general feeling of comfort and security given by the massive walls of his fortress. His successor, Benedict XII., pulled down John’s buildings and put up much of the present palace.

Beyond the cathedral is a public garden, sheltered from the sun and the fierce mistral by a close growth of trees and bushes. An outer walk commands a magnificent view over the Rhone, with the broken bridge of St. Bénézet throwing its four arches into the irresistible waters down below. It was during a republic which lasted from 1135 to 1251 that the bridge was built. It originally had nineteen arches, and above one of the piers was built a chapel to St. Nicholas. This interesting little structure still survives, and is illustrated in these pages.

A favourite nursery rhyme, known to anyone who has had a French nurse, is:

The best of the churches is St. Pierre, to the south of the Papal palace. It has an elaborate façade, built in 1520, and richly carved doors. St. Didier is of the fourteenth century, and contains the grave of St. Bénézet under a slab in the centre of the nave. Near this church is the Hôtel Crillon,{336} a fine example of the domestic architecture of the seventeenth century. St. Agricol dates from 1340.

The palace of the Archbishop of Avignon is a picturesque old building, dating from early in the fourteenth century. It is now a Petit Séminaire.

Villeneuve-les-Avignon, on the west side of the Rhone, attracts one from the first, with its romantic grouping under the imposing bulk of the fourteenth-century Fort St. André. The great square tower by the river, also of yellow stone, was built by Philippe le Bel for the defence of the bridge. Inside the Fort St. André are the remains of a Benedictine abbey and a Romanesque chapel.

The interesting parish church of Villeneuve dates from the fourteenth century, and contains the tomb of Cardinal Arnauld de Via, the founder. In the chapel of the hospital on the other side of the street is the splendid tomb of Pope Innocent VI. (1352-1362), who did much to make amends for the misdeeds of Clement VI. The richly sculptured canopy rises in pinnacles to the roof, and the whole work reveals the enormous wealth of the Avignonese Popes.

In the picture-gallery of the hospital one of the most interesting works is the portrait of the lovely Marquise de Castellane, who, with her husband,{337} was much at the Court of Louis XIV., and became known as ‘La Belle Provençale.’ When the Marquis de Castellane died she married the Marquis de Ganges, and returned with him to Avignon. Here she was subjected to the unpleasant attentions of her brother-in-law, the Chevalier de Ganges, whose ill-controlled and illicit passion she firmly resisted, in spite of the efforts of another brother-in-law, the Abbot de Ganges. It was this villainous ecclesiastic who finally gave the beautiful Marquise poison, and the brutal Chevalier, on finding her dying, ran his rapier through her body several times. Both brothers were condemned to be broken alive on the wheel.

Roquemaure has the ruins of a picturesque medieval castle, where Clement V., the first of the Avignonese Pontiffs, died in 1314.

The road crosses the Rhone about two kilometres north of Roquemaure, and a short six miles brings one to

ORANGE

This quiet old town contains two astonishingly perfect relics of the Roman city of Aurasio—a triumphal arch and a theatre. The first stands on a circle of grass just outside the present town, and{338} the road leading up to it in both directions gives the great arch a most striking position. A certain amount of restoration has been carried out, but it does not detract from the impressiveness of the work. There are several sculptured panels, and a frieze in which one can still see a great deal of a big battle subject.

It is generally believed that this is the triumphal arch put up in A.D. 21 to commemorate the victory of Tiberius over Sacrovir and Florus. It is certainly the best in France, and there are only two others in the world that surpass it in size and importance.

The theatre is an astonishingly perfect structure, retaining the enormous stone wall forming the back of the building. It is 118 feet high, 340 feet long, and 13 feet thick, and no doubt it was spared during the Middle Ages owing to its usefulness as an outer barbican or bastion to the castle on the high ground immediately above. There are indications showing that the theatre was roofed, and evidences of fire on the top of the vast wall reveal the agency which removed this unique feature. The three tiers of seats were cut out of the hillside, so that the building-up of the great auditorium was greatly simplified. The lowest tier of seats{339} has been wonderfully well preserved, and the others have been reconstructed in recent years for the annual dramatic and lyrical performances given by the Comédie Française in August.

Thus the theatre of the second century, having come in comparative safety through the great gulf of time separating the present from the Roman{340} civilization, is now given a new term of active existence, making, with the amphitheatres of Nîmes and Arles and the roadway of the Pont du Gard, the fourth Roman structure in France still in use for its original purpose.

The Church of Notre Dame was formerly a cathedral, and was first built by Liberius, Prefect of the Gauls. On the ruins of that building the present church was erected, about the twelfth century, or soon afterwards. It is small and has neither transepts nor triforia.

Orange became the capital of a small principality in the eleventh century, and in 1531, on the death of Philibert of Châlons, the little State was inherited by Count Réné of Nassau-Dillenburg, who, being childless, nominated his cousin William I. Stadtholder of the United Netherlands as his successor. All the Stadtholders who followed, including William III., held the title ‘Prince of Orange,’ and in 1688, during the Irish Revolution, the English Protestant party, under the leadership of William of Orange, became known as Orangemen. By the Treaty of Utrecht, made in 1713, Louis XIV. united the principality to the crown of France, but both the Kings of Prussia and of the Netherlands have held on tenaciously to the empty title.{341}

THE ROAD TO MONTÉLIMAR

goes out of Orange past the Roman arch—those who drive in the dark should remember that there is no roadway through it. The River Aigues is crossed, and then, bearing to the left, the road skirts a hill and passes through the old town of Piolenc, with remains of its ramparts and a Cluniac priory or château.

At Mornas there is a gateway with a picturesque street inside. Along the overhanging precipices of rock above the houses stand the ruins of the castle, built in the twelfth century, and among the broken walls, thrown down during the religious wars, there is a small chapel and crypt of the Romanesque period. The Popes of Avignon had a toll on the Rhone at Mornas, and in the days of religious intolerance it is said that it was no uncommon thing to see the corpses of Protestants floating down the river.

Along this portion of the Rhone medieval castles are thickly sown. In nearly every direction one sees one or two precipitous rocks standing out conspicuously, their summits crowned with great towers and crenellated walls in varying states of ruin. One of these is at Montdragon, standing{342} out boldly on a cliff above the village. It was founded in the eleventh century by a chieftain who bore the name of Dragon.

In April the villages are beautified with the delicately subtle blue of the wistaria. This touch of colour is wanted, for, owing to the dust of the Rhone Valley, the villages are all toned down to a pale biscuit colour, and even where a patch of green grass offers a wayfarer resting-ground one finds on reaching it that the blades of grass grow thinly from a soil composed of pale whity-brown dust. Every passing vehicle raises the surface of the road high in the air, and a fast car is a terror to all it passes.

Lapalud, with a Romanesque church, is typical of the dusty roadside village, and its three cassis in the road should be watched for carefully. The level vineyards are intersected with straight lines of cypresses or poplars, and on the right the hills rise suddenly and precipitously.

Pierrelatte is a rather poor little town with cobbled streets, intersected with three bad cassis. There is a covered market and a clock-tower, and on the isolated mass of rock giving its name to the town are slight ruins of a castle.

As one approaches Donzère the arid hills, whose{343} fronts are broken up with strange valleys filled with detached masses and spires of rock, contract the valley to narrow dimensions. The town has kept its old walls and a machicolated gateway, which makes a pleasing picture when the wistaria on an adjoining house is in flower. In the town are the ruins of a château and the interesting church of the abbey, founded in 678. This early church was demolished by the Saracens, but the existing building goes back to the twelfth century.

The road climbs up among scrubby hills north of Donzère, and before dropping down to the river level again gives a magnificent view over the great valley, with a straight white ribbon going across the flat ground to the town of

MONTÉLIMAR

There are no remains of the Roman town of Acunum, and there is scarcely anything that is not quite modern in the streets. The chief relic of the Middle Ages is the château of the great family of Adhemar, now unfortunately converted into a prison. It contains considerable remains of a Romanesque chapel dedicated to St. Agatha. The Tour de Narbonne, standing on higher ground than the other buildings, was added in the four{344}teenth century as a second keep. Two gateways of the town ramparts, one of them rebuilt in recent times, and two good houses belong to the fifteenth or the following century.

The well-known almond ‘nougat’ of Montélimar is sold in several shops in the Grand Rue and elsewhere in the town.

North of Montélimar the road runs close to the banks of the Rhone, and then turns away slightly to Saulce, where there are mosaics and other remains of the Roman station of Batiana. A little to the left of the road is the old château of Freycinet, from which the well-known politician obtained his name.

After passing Loriol the road crosses the Drôme and goes through Livron, an interesting little town, with the ruins of its castle and remains of its fortifications, besieged in 1574-75 by the rigidly Catholic but excessively dissolute Henri III. The Protestants of Livron successfully held out during three assaults, and Henri retired ignominiously.

Just beyond Livron there is a bad cassis, and another occurs at the next village. The straightness of the road between Livron and Valence no doubt encourages scorching, and these shallow drains over the road, with their conspicuous warnings

THE ROMAN ARCH AT ORANGE.

One of the finest outside Rome.

{345}

to motor-drivers, serve their purpose admirably in protecting human life in the villages. The humanitarian therefore cries ‘Vive le cassis!’

In spring-time the blossom of the peach, apricot, and cherry gives a pink-and-white blush to the valley, making a strong contrast to the gaunt rocks on the west side of the river. The mulberry is extensively grown for the silkworm, and the trees are constantly passed from Orange northwards.{346}

SECTION XXI

VALENCE TO ST. ÉTIENNE, 58¼ MILES
(94 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

ALTERNATIVE ROUTE TO PARIS,

368½ MILES

(602 KILOMETRES)

If there is too much snow on the Cevennes to make the St. Étienne route possible, the following road will be available:

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

{347}

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

Valence is beautifully situated on a raised site above the Rhone, and the view across the river from the cathedral towards the Cevennes, and to the Vivarais Mountains to the north-west, is given a flavour of romance, owing to the prominence of the twelfth-century Château of Crussol. It is one of the biggest ruined castles on the Rhone, and its great height of 1,055 feet is unusual.

The family of Crussol were great supporters of Protestantism in the South of France, and Galiot de Crussol was killed in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew.

Valence was the Roman Valentia, and a few relics of that age are in the Museum (open on Sundays and Thursdays, 1 to 4). The chief interest in the town is the cathedral, consecrated in 1095 by Pope Urban II. The building has, however,{349}

Town Plan No. 27.—Valence.

undergone much restoration, and the tower and porch were rebuilt during the last century. The heart of Pius VI., who died at Valence in 1799 is buried in the cathedral, and there is a statue to his{350} memory on the south side of the altar. When Napoleon invaded Italy in 1797, he sent General Berthier to Rome to proclaim a republic and demand of the Pope the renunciation of his temporal authority. His refusal to do so resulted in his being taken prisoner and removed from the Vatican to Florence, and then by stages through the Alps to Grenoble, and finally to Valence, where he died in captivity not far from Avignon, the former seat of Papal authority.

Outside the cathedral on the north side is the large tomb of the Mistral family, put up in 1548. It has a very flat dome and an inscription in a curious spiral form.

The richly ornamented house at No. 57 Grande Rue was built in 1531, and is called the Maison des Têtes, on account of the statues and busts, now much mutilated, which adorn the front and the corridor leading into a courtyard behind. Another interesting house is at No. 7 Rue Pérollerie, a Renaissance building ornamented with bas-reliefs.

THE ROAD TO ST. ÉTIENNE

One crosses the river by the suspension bridge on leaving Valence, and in St. Péray, which is chiefly interesting as the nearest place to the Château{351} Crussol already mentioned, one turns sharply to the right for Tournon.

No. 21. VALENCE TO ST. ÉTIENNE.

The road goes through the village of Cornas, and all the way to Andance motor-drivers have to be constantly on the alert for the dangerous shallow{352} drains across the road, which, if passed over at twenty miles an hour, would mean the chance of a broken axle.

Immediately on the right is the broad Rhone, and on the left the hills rise sharply, with a narrow strip of vineyards and orchards on the lower ground.

On the right, just above the junction of the Rhone with the Isère, the castle of Châteaubourg stands on an isolated mass of rock. It was visited by St. Louis in 1248.

TOURNON

is a romantic little town under the shadow of steep hills, and has two suspension bridges across the Rhone. One of them is the earliest bridge of this type built in France. The old town has medieval walls and circular towers, with machicolation, archways, and narrow picturesque streets. The château is now turned into an Hôtel de Ville.

The collegiate church belongs to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and the Lycée, one of the best-known colleges in France, consists chiefly of Renaissance buildings. Cardinal de Tournon, one of the feudal family which owned the town until 1644, founded the Lycée in 1542.

After crossing the River Doux, one passes the{353} village of Arras, cowering beneath a ruined castle with a tall, bulging tower.

The busy-looking town of St. Vallier appears on the opposite bank of the Rhone, just before reaching the hamlet of Sarras.

On approaching Andance one goes over a level-crossing, and immediately afterwards turns to the left, leaving the river behind, and begins climbing up a beautiful mountainous valley, adorned in April with masses of pink-and-white fruit-blossom.

The road winds and gives a last peep of the Rhone—a blue patch in the midst of soft shades of green and purply-brown.

Still climbing, one passes through the village of St. Cyr, with prominent Calvaries and great views over the mountains to the west.

The main Cevennes range terminates a little to the south, and the confusion of ridges and valleys one passes over and through on the route belong to the Northern Cevennes. They are formed of clay and mica slate, quartz rock and gneiss, while further west, in the neighbourhood of Le Puy, there is a large area of volcanic rock.

At Annonay the road turns southwards, along the edge of a steep valley, whose sides are filled with gloomy glove-leather and paper factories and{354} dirty streets of stone houses, very reminiscent of one of the cloth manufacturing towns near Huddersfield in Yorkshire. After crossing the bottom of the valley in the centre of the town, a turning to the right marked St. Étienne and Bourg-Argental is taken along the west side of the valley; so that one leaves Annonay going northwards, the direction from which one came on entering.

The scenery is delightful, as the road goes through a valley clothed with fir plantations on steep slopes, with pleasant murmuring streams down below. In spring the banks are starred with cowslips and primroses, and the rich green of growing corn is contrasted with the sombre tones of the woods, where the cuckoos can be heard.

At Bourg-Argental the road climbs up to a dour and grey street, not altogether unsuited to a town which, among other things of a less melancholy character, manufactures much crape. The richly carved Romanesque doorway of the church can be seen on the left.

The road then climbs higher and higher, winding in long curves, and passing steep ascents of lichened rocks and tall pines growing on boulder-strewn slopes.{355}

Mont Pilat, with three peaks—the highest, the Crêt de la Perdrix, 4,705 feet above the sea—is about five miles to the north. The view from the road is modest compared with what one commands from this mountain-top, but without leaving the car the eye sweeps away across the Rhone Valley to the Alps, and westwards the skyline is serrated with the volcanic peaks of the Auvergne Mountains.

At the highest portion of the road the views are cut off by dense masses of pines. The resinous scent they exhale and the music of the wind in their waving branches are delicious. Snow lingers up here long after it has disappeared in the open.

The descent gives a grand western panorama, and one is lucky if there is a golden sunset behind the Auvergnes. In places the road is hewn out of a steep slope covered with coarse grass or pines, and the modern town of St. Étienne is reached all too soon.{356}

SECTION XXII

ST. ÉTIENNE TO MOULINS, 109½ MILES

(177 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

St. Étienne owes its prosperity to its extensive coalfields, covering about 100 square miles. The annual production of the mines is given as from 3,000,000 to 4,000,000 tons. The town also employs thousands of men in the iron foundries, where armour-plate and machinery and all sorts of large castings are made. A very large output of rifles and revolvers is another source of wealth to the town, and the ribbon industry, largely carried on in the homes of the workmen, keeps 40,000 men employed. The weavers, as a rule, show their looms to visitors without the least objection.

The Palais des Beaux Arts contains a good picture-gallery and a museum of gun-making and looms, but otherwise there is little to see in this town, consisting mainly of one very long street.

THE ROAD TO ROANNE

From St. Étienne until one reaches Fontainebleau the towns and villages have fewer antiquities and, on{358}

No. 22. ST. ÉTIENNE TO MOULINS.

{359}

the whole, less picturesqueness than farther south, and if time is running short this portion of the tour can be hurried over with less fear of missing good things than any other part of the route described. The scenery is delightful in some districts, but comparatively tame in others.

At the red-roofed village of La Fouillouse the tramway from St. Étienne stops. The valley, although containing so many factories and such a busy town, is extraordinarily free from smoke, and the fields are as clean and bright as though there were no industrial activities for many miles.

At the end of the valley the distant peep of mountains, snow-covered until May, is delightful on a sunny morning. The road goes nearly due northwards through the flat, marshy Plaine-du-Forez, through which the Loire winds a snaky course. Hills surround the plain on all sides, and the pastoral scenes of grazing cattle, backed by the snowy ridges to the west, are most paintable.

At the village of Meylieu-Montrond there is a complete shell of a castle on the right bank of the Loire. The reddish-coloured road keeps very straight between rows of poplars, and in a short time brings one to Feurs, a busy little place where, among other things, they make sabots.{360}

There was a town here called Forus in Gallo-Roman times, but there are no remains to interest the passing traveller beyond a few old houses.

Balbigny is an uninteresting village on the Loire, just where the road leaves the level ground and begins to enter the tumble of hills enclosing the northern end of the plain. The views obtained are most exhilarating all the way to Roanne, and one frequently has great panoramic views of the Loire, which appears as a huge blue serpent in the midst of the green and reddish-brown fields.

The road passes through the villages of Neulise, Vendranges, and l’Hôpital, and then drops down to the red-roofed town of

ROANNE

There is nothing to detain visitors in this busy manufacturing town, for all that was interesting or picturesque, beyond a few houses of the sixteenth century, has disappeared. The streets are narrow and not beautiful.

North of Roanne the vine appears again, after having disappeared since leaving the Rhone Valley.

The enormous plain of the Loire extends to the north, with mountains on the western horizon, dominated by the silvery grey peaks of the Auvergnes.

THE TOUR DE L’HORLOGE AT MOULINS.

Built in the fifteenth century. The spires of the cathedral are modern work by Viollet-le-Duc. (Page 365.)

{361}

Town Plan No. 28.—Roanne.

La Pacaudière is a picturesque village, with a conspicuously attractive old house on the left, having a steeply pitched turreted roof of dark brown tiles, and a carved stone doorway of the sixteenth century. One notices the gradual dis{362}appearance of the low-pitched roof as one goes northwards.

La Palisse is a picturesque town on the pretty River Bèbre. The turreted château on the right above the road and river dates from the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries, and has a Flamboyant Gothic chapel, containing the tombs of the family of Chabannes. Jacques de Chabannes, often called La Palisse, became Marshal of France, and was killed at the Battle of Pavia in 1525.

The road crosses the river opposite the château, and then goes out of the village westwards along a beautiful road, bordered by tall and stately poplars, standing like rows of pillars on the short, close-growing turf on each side of the way. Small flocks of sheep, feeding on the roadside grass, and tended by girls, who fill up their time with industrious knitting, are often passed.

All the low-pitched roofs have been left behind, and the villages are picturesque with thatch and weather-worn tiles and little hipped dormers. The country is slightly undulating and green, and to the south the strangely shaped peaks of the volcanic mountains of the Auvergne group are seldom out of sight.

Farther on one reaches the shallow depression in{363} which, on sunny days, the River Allier sparkles between its low banks.

The men of this part of the centre of France wear black felt hats and blue smocks, and have side-whiskers and clean-shaven lips and chins, after the fashion of the peasants of Normandy.

Varennes-sur-Allier is a quietly picturesque little town, with many old roofs and overhanging eaves, supported with wooden brackets.

In the pretty village of Bessay there is a bad caniveau across the road, but otherwise there is little calling for comment on the rest of the way to Moulins.{364}

SECTION XXIII

MOULINS TO BRIARE, 87 MILES

(140 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

Moulins is a picturesque and attractive town on high ground above the River Allier. The first{366}

Town Plan No. 29.—Moulins.

conspicuous feature reached on entering from the south is the Tour de l’Horloge, built in 1455, with moving figures in its curiously designed lantern. The narrow streets contain several good houses of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and many of the brick fronts are ornamented with lozenges{367} in darker brick. One house behind the clock-tower is noticeable for its beautiful little gazebo on the roof, with carved corbels and pilasters.

The nave and towers of the Cathedral are modern, having been built under the direction of Viollet le Duc. The spires add to the appearance of the town, as they stand out boldly from a hundred points of view. The beautiful choir was built by Agnes de Bourgogne in 1463, and it has been fortunate in preserving its fine fifteenth to sixteenth century glass. In the sacristy on the north side there is a fine triptych, showing, on the inside, the Virgin surrounded with angels, and Pierre II. de Bourbon and his wife, Anne of France (died 1522), a daughter of Louis XI. On the south side of the choir there is a beautiful spiral stone staircase, and near it, in a chapel, is a gruesome memorial representing the horrors of worms consuming a human body.

Adjoining the cathedral is all that now remains of the Castle of the Dukes of Bourbon, now unfortunately converted into a prison. From the river-side the walls tower up to a great height.

In the Lycée, formerly a convent of the Visitation, one is shown the sumptuous tomb of Carrara marble put up by his widow to the famous Henri,{368} Duc de Montmorenci, who was executed at Toulouse in 1632 on a charge of treason against Louis XIII.

No. 23. MOULINS TO BRIARE.

Lord Clarendon wrote a portion of his ‘History of the Great Rebellion’ while he was staying at Moulins, and James FitzJames, Duke of Berwick, Marshal and Peer of France, and a natural son of James II., was born here in 1670.

As one goes out of Moulins one notices two massive pillars marking the position of the town walls which have disappeared. The poplar-bordered road gives pretty views of the Allier on the left, and the fresh green of the roadside grass is a pleasant contrast to the

THE FIFTEENTH-CENTURY FIREPLACE IN THE HÔTEL DU GRAND CERF AT LE GRAND ANDELY. (Page 409.)

{369}

dust farther south. Picturesque timber-framed houses with dark browny-red roofs begin to abound, and the villages increase in charm. Large farmhouses with big stone barns, here and there buildings with quaint crows’ steps to the gables, and two or three windmills, are passed, all adding considerably to the charm of the scenery.

St. Pierre-le-Moutier is a delightful old place. It retains portions of its ramparts, round towers, and a gateway, made more interesting when one remembers that this was one of the towns of the Loire Valley taken by Jeanne d’Arc in 1429. The church belonged to the Cluniac priory of St. Martin d’Autun, and is a very interesting example of the style of the latter half of the twelfth century. The north doorway, with its richly sculptured tympanum showing Christ in the midst of angels, should be seen. The town contains some picturesque houses of the fifteenth century and later.

NEVERS

On approaching this town there is a fine view of its cathedral rising above the old roofs with the Loire in the foreground, and the confluence with the Allier two or three miles to the left.

All remains of the Roman town of Nevirnum,{370} which was of so much strength that Cæsar kept his military stores there, have entirely disappeared, with the exception of a few objects in the Library of the town.

Town Plan No. 30.—Nevers.

{371}

The medieval remains are, on the other hand, of great interest. On the town walls there remain—(1) The Porte de Croux, a most picturesque gateway dating from 1393-1396; it has corner turrets and three openings for the drawbridge supports; (2) the Loire gateway, the lower part of which is as early as the eleventh century; (3) the Tour Goguin, twelfth century; and (4) the Tour St. Eloi, sixteenth century.

The Ducal Palace, now the Palais de Justice, was built in 1475 by Jean de Clamecy, Comte de Nevers, and its Renaissance character was given during the next century, when the Clèves family, and afterwards the Gonzogas of Mantua, held Nevers. In front of the palace there are pleasant gardens, with a view southwards towards Moulins, and to the right (when one faces this prospect) is the Cathedral of St. Cyr. It has a square tower of the Flamboyant period, rather severe in outline, but encrusted with beautiful panelling and statuary, and the south porch belongs to the same period. The curious, almost bizarre, feature of the interior is the apsidal termination at both the east and west ends. At the east end there is a beautiful vaulted ambulatory of the fourteenth century, erected outside the eastern apse of the Romanesque{372} cathedral, built in 1028 and restored and altered in 1194. The early wall-paintings were fortunately preserved by the Gothic architect.

At the west end, the Romanesque crypt remains beneath an apse rebuilt in the sixteenth century. The Saint Sépulcre in the crypt is a hideous group of painted figures bending over a representation of Christ. The beautiful nave, rebuilt in 1188, is enriched with caryatides and sculptured figures.

Before leaving Nevers the very fine Church of the Cluniac Priory of St. Étienne, begun in 1063 by William I., Count of Nevers, and finished in 1097, should be seen. It is a remarkably fine example of the Burgundian-Romanesque style. The cloisters belong to the thirteenth century.

Bernadette Soubirous, the unfortunate heroine of the Lourdes apparition of the Virgin, spent her last years, and died at the early age of thirty-five, in the nunnery of St. Gildard at Nevers. Throughout most of her life, and especially towards the end, her physical infirmities were a great burden to the poor girl. Her grave is in the convent garden, and one marvels that the Roman Catholic authorities did not order a sumptuous tomb in the pilgrimage church at Lourdes! (See p. 235.)

{373}

The road goes northwards through Pougues-les-Eaux, and runs close to the Loire from the hamlet of La Marche for a considerable distance. The river is broken up with sandy islands covered with low green bushes and thin wire-grass.

La Charité is a very picturesque and cheerful little town with several good old houses, and an old stone bridge across the river. The extremely interesting and beautiful Romanesque church belonged to one of the most important Cluniac priories in France, so famed for its good deeds that the place received the name it now bears. A town sprang up round the abbey, and ramparts defended with several towers were built in 1184, but the fortifications standing to-day were rebuilt in 1364. It is surprising that there are any of the defences left when one reads of the frequent sieges and sackings the town endured, particularly during the religious wars of the sixteenth century.

The Church of Ste. Croix, just mentioned, was consecrated in 1107 by Pope Pascal II., but not finished until some years later. The nave and south-west tower were ruined in 1557 during the religious wars. The choir, with picturesque stilted arches, the transepts, and the central tower, are all that remain of one of the finest Romanesque basilicas in France.{374}

The road goes northwards through the mossy-roofed village of Mesves, which has a twelfth-century barn, and for mile after mile the Loire appears on the left as a blue ribbon threaded through the lacework of the intervening trees.

Pouilly is a cheerful little town with high-pitched roofs and stone walls, a seventeenth-century château, and a partially Gothic church. The white wine of the neighbourhood is considered exceedingly good.

COSNE

is a considerable town with iron foundries, barracks, and a hospital. The church of St. Aignan has a fine Romanesque apse with richly carved capitals to its pillars, and a greatly enriched west door of the same period. Pope Pius VII., when in France under Napoleon’s orders, stayed at the Hôtel du Grand Cerf.

One passes through the village of Myennes, with the houses standing back from the road, and two or three hamlets, including Bonny-sur-Loire, with the oddest spire to its church, and then enters the village of Briare, where the road to Orleans goes off to the left.

The quaint Hôtel de France, with a courtyard, can furnish a modest déjeuner.{375}

SECTION XXIV

BRIARE TO MELUN, 64 MILES
(103 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

TWO ALTERNATIVE ROUTES

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

{376}

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

Briare is the Roman Brivodurum, but it is now a quiet, uninteresting little town where buttons are manufactured.

After passing through the old-fashioned village of La Boussière, one turns to the left towards the château, at a corner where a board indicates the ‘Route de Paris.’ The yellow-coloured road, with a fine surface, goes on through a well-wooded country to Nogent-sur-Vernisson, a village without interest, and soon afterwards Mormant, a hamlet with a small Romanesque church.{377}

MONTARGIS

This historic town has, unfortunately, only preserved a gateway of its twelfth-century château, at one time called le Berceau des Enfants de France, owing to the French queens coming thither, before the building of Fontainebleau, when they were about to become mothers. Two circular towers of the medieval fortifications are the only relics of the walls that resisted the English army under the Earl of Warwick during the Hundred Years’ War.

The church has a fine twelfth-century nave, an ornate west end, and an exceedingly graceful and unusually designed choir, built between 1540 and 1618. The tall pillars of the ambulatory are without capitals, and they support roofs of equal height above the choir and the ambulatory. Interior and exterior show the change from the Gothic to the Classic style.

The long canal extending from Briare to the Loing passes through Montargis, which was at one time surrounded by marshy country, now drained and cultivated.

On leaving the town one passes a statue of Mirabeau, and, after crossing three bridges, the{378} road to Fontainebleau turns sharply to the left past the goods entrance of the railway-station, and then keeps to the western side of the fairly extensive forest of Montargis.

No. 24. BRIARE TO MELUN.

Mistletoe grows luxuriantly in this district, and all the way from Moulins the trees are tufted with the curious parasitic plant, which English folk buy from the French in huge quantities as each Christmas festival approaches.

At the hamlet of Fontenay one goes to the right at the fork, and the road continues through a scattered forest, with prodigious quantities of mistletoe,{379} and at a point 13½ kilometres from Nemours there is a caniveau in the middle of the village.

After passing Souppes, a hamlet with a twelfth-century church, the scenery changes. On the right great isolated masses of rock stand on the grassy slopes, and on the left the shallow little valley of the Loing is beautified with the picturesque mills and weirs on the river. The low wooded hills on the left, full of faint purples and browny greens in spring-time, form a delightful background to the bright green of the grass near at hand. The rocky slopes on the right are often covered with juniper, and here and there pines scent the atmosphere.

Nemours is a quiet little town, with a collegiate church of the Gothic and Renaissance periods, with the lower part of the tower of the thirteenth century; but the château, built in the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, is the most interesting and picturesque feature. It has circular towers, with conical roofs at each corner, and another tower (the keep) to the north is joined to the main building with a passage three stories in height. The castle has been converted into a museum, and the whole of the interior is shown to visitors by an indefatigable old gardienne, who insists on showing{380} the view over the surrounding forests, which can be seen from the donjon tower.

It was at Nemours, in July, 1585, that Catherine de Medici, on behalf of Henri III., signed the treaty revoking all edicts in favour of the Protestants, and enforcing the universal profession of Catholicism.

At the present time the title of Duc de Nemours is borne by the second son of Louis-Philippe.

On leaving Nemours the road keeps to the west of the Loing, and almost at once enters the Forest of Fontainebleau. Most of the trees are without any beauty, being thin and tall and of an average size. There are no suggestions of the primeval, such as every English forest contains, including even the Londoner’s paradise of Epping. The only feature of this great tree-grown area which is interesting, apart from its associations, is the strange appearance of great lumps of rock, tilted up at curious angles, and sprawling about among the trees in such an odd fashion that in the twilight the forest seems full of giant sloths and other prehistoric beasts!

FONTAINEBLEAU

The town of Fontainebleau stands in the midst of the forest, with the palace and park on the east side.{381}

The palace is open to visitors every day between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m.

As long ago as 1137 a French king—Louis le Jeune—dated an Act ‘apud fontem Bleaudi.’ François I., that mighty builder of Renaissance palaces, was, however, the real creator of the Fontainebleau of to-day. He planned, and to a considerable extent carried out, a structure he desired to be the finest palace in the world. The Galerie de François I. and that called after and decorated by Henri II. were built by François, and so were the Chapelle de la Sainte Trinité, the Chapelle St. Saturnin, and the magnificent Salon de François I. Henri II., Henri IV., and various other sovereigns carried on the building of the immense pile, Fontainebleau being popular for various reasons, particularly on account of the hunting in the great forest.

Perhaps it is the figure of Napoleon in the midst of the accumulated royal splendours of Fontainebleau that appeals most to the imagination. The young Corsican soldier, transformed into an Emperor, and dwelling with his Empress wife in palaces such as this, causes one to gaze with more than ordinary interest at the sumptuous apartments, with their gilded furnishings, their{382} heavy silken coverings, their thrones, bedsteads, mirrors, and a thousand features, all of which were backgrounds to the short, dark-haired, and clean-shaven man who had put the States of Europe, with one notable exception, into the melting-pot of his ambition. One is shown the little round table upon which ‘the Usurper’ signed his abdication, and the famous horseshoe-shaped staircase where he said good-bye to the weeping soldiers of the Old Guard.

THE ROAD TO MELUN

goes northwards through the forest, and about 8 kilometres from Fontainebleau passes the stone Table du Roi, dated 1723. On emerging from the forest Melun is close at hand.{383}

SECTION XXV

MELUN TO ST. GERMAIN-EN-LAYE,
45¼ MILES

(73 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

TO PARIS, DIEPPE, AND CALAIS

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

The interests of Melun to the passing stranger are summed up in the two churches of Notre Dame and St. Aspais. The first is on the island formed by the Seine, and is a curious specimen of eleventh-century architecture, with alterations and additions made in the twelfth, fifteenth, and later centuries. The Tour de César, also on the island, is a relic of the royal castle demolished in 1740. The Church of St. Aspais, on the north side of the river, is an irregularly shaped building of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with a beautiful choir, having a fine vaulted ambulatory.

Henry V. captured Melun in 1420, but ten years{385} later Joan of Arc stirred up the people to regain their liberty, and with her help the English were expelled.

Town Plan No. 31.—Melun.

{386}

No. 25. MELUN TO ST. GERMAIN-EN-LAYE, AVOIDING PARIS

Three straight roads lead away from Melun towards Paris, and it is necessary to be careful to take the central one, going through Lieusaint. This road goes as straight as an arrow to Montgéron and Villeneuve-St.-Georges, suburbs of Paris. By using the accompanying map, one will easily find the turning to Choisy-le-Roi, which crosses the railway to the left of the busy street of Villeneuve.

Choisy-le-Roi is a manufacturing suburb of Paris. The palace, in which Louis XV. spent his{387} time in profligacy and debauchery, and where Louis XVI. and Marie-Antoinette often stayed, was destroyed in 1797, during the Revolution.

Beyond Choisy-le-Roi the road curves and twists frequently, and there are about 4 kilometres of pavée. Near Chatenay one reaches some straight sections of road, bringing one rapidly to

VERSAILLES

MELUN TO ST. GERMAIN-EN-LAYE.

The town is a large and pleasant outer suburb of Paris, with wide streets and large open spaces. Louis XV. laid the first stone of the cathedral in 1743.

The palace of Versailles is the largest royal residence in the world. It almost tires one to look at the enormous frontage with its great wings, and{388} the waste of gravel, extending over several acres outside the gates and railings, gives a dreary appearance to the town side of the palace. It takes a whole day to go over the buildings and the park, and on a tour such as this it may be wiser to leave the historic palace for some other occasion. There is, unfortunately, no opportunity of including any adequate description of the buildings and their story here, but the literature obtainable in handy form on the spot is amply sufficient for all.

It was Louis XIV. who made Versailles the Court residence instead of St. Germain, and his successors, Louis XV. and Louis XVI., continued to spend vast sums on the palace, until it became the wilderness of great apartments through which the tourist is conducted at the present day. The two small residences in the park—the Grand Trianon and Petit Trianon—were built for Marie de Maintenon and Madame du Barry, and were appreciated as retreats from the immensities of the palace.

ST. GERMAIN-EN-LAYE

is a delightfully situated town commanding beautiful views across a great loop of the Seine towards Paris. The famous terrace by the side of the park and{389} above the river has a wonderful prospect towards the east, wherein the capital appears on a bright, sunny day as one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

The château, built of red brick and stone, belongs to the thirteenth, fourteenth, and sixteenth centuries, and has only just been subjected to an excess of restoration, leaving the exterior with the freshness of a new building. The earliest portion of the château is the chapel, a beautiful example of the style prevalent in the reign of St. Louis (IX.). This was spared when, in 1539, François I. ordered the famous Pierre Chambiges to rebuild the medieval castle. Henri II. continued the work, but the form of the letter D in the plan probably has no connection with his beloved Diana de Poitiers, as the plans were prepared several years earlier.{390}

SECTION XXVI

ST. GERMAIN-EN-LAYE TO GISORS,
37½ MILES
(60 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

The Forest of St. Germain-en-Laye, through which the route goes towards Pontoise, occupies practically the whole of the area enclosed by the third loop of the Seine below Paris, and was formerly part of the immense forest of Laye, one of those which surrounded Paris in the Middle Ages, and formed a great attraction to the French monarchs on account of the excellent hunting they provided.

From the long avenue there are interesting views{392} of Paris, with the Eiffel Tower conspicuous, and on fine sunny days it has the fantastic aspect of a city of palaces and temples.

On emerging from the forest of very indifferent trees, the road crosses the Seine, and one turns to the right at once for Conflans-Ste. Honorine, where the ruins of its two castles, with an old tower conspicuous, look out over the soft green of the willows bordering the river. The late Gothic church, with a tower of the twelfth century, contains a picture attributed to Zurbaran, a Spanish artist of the seventeenth century who was Court painter to both Philip III. and Philip IV. The association of Conflans with St. Honorine has been mentioned in connection with Graville (Section I.).

About eight kilometres north of Conflans the River Oise is crossed at

PONTOISE,

an historic town picturesquely situated on high ground above the river.

It became the capital of the ancient province of Vexin when Philippe I. of France united one-half of Vexin to the Crown, and the castle became a royal residence. The boundaries of the province{393} were, roughly, the Oise, the Seine, and the Andelle, and dividing it into two portions, known as Vexin Français and Vexin Normand, was the little River Epte. In the tenth century the Epte was decided upon as the boundary of the Duchy of Normandy, and it remained so until Philippe Auguste (II.) added the Norman half of Vexin to France. It is an interesting fact that the French half of Vexin, through having been a possession of the Abbey of St. Denis, gave the viscounts of the province the right of carrying in battle the celebrated banner of the oriflamme: thus, when Philippe I. acquired the territory he obtained the privilege, and the oriflamme of St. Denis was transferred to the royal standard.

There was a bridge at Pontoise in Roman times, for it was then called Pons Iscaræ, and before the present steel structure made its appearance in recent years there was a stone bridge of five arches.

It is unfortunate that the remains of the Château are inconsiderable, for its history as a royal residence in early times is interesting, St. Louis (IX.) having spent much of his youth in its massive walls at the time when his mother, Blanche of Castile, was endeavouring to keep him from his wife, Marguerite de Provence. It was also at{394} Pontoise that St. Louis, when ill, vowed that he would lead a Crusade if he recovered. It was the fifth expedition to the Holy Land which he eventually headed. The town was often besieged in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, and under Louis XIV. and Louis XV. the Parliament was held there in 1652, 1720, and 1753.

The ramparts still exist in part, but there has apparently been a great deal of reckless destruction in the town, for it has been robbed of many of its old buildings.

The Hôtel Dieu, built by St. Louis down by the river, was rebuilt in 1823-1827, and its only interest now is the picture, ‘The Healing of the Paralytic,’ by Philippe de Champaigne, who was one of the artists who helped to decorate the Luxembourg in Paris for Marie de Medici, the wife of Henri IV.

Bossuet, the most famous man in the Church of France in the seventeenth century, was consecrated Bishop of Meaux in 1681 in the church of the Cordeliers, which had a splendid refectory. This church, with others, and several convents has disappeared.

St. Maclou, the more important of the two which remain, is in part a twelfth-century building, although mainly of the fifteenth and sixteenth{395} centuries. The west front has a fine Flamboyant porch. Pierre Lemercier, who was grandfather of Jacques Lemercier, who built the Sorbonne, the Sorbonne church, and the Palais Royale (1585-1660), was the architect of the Renaissance portions of the church.

No. 26. ST. GERMAIN-EN-LAYE TO GISORS.

{396}

Notre Dame, the other church, is chiefly in the Classic style of the latter half of the sixteenth century. It contains a fine altar-tomb of 1146, bearing the recumbent effigy of St. Gautier, Abbé of Meulan, with four angels swinging censers. There is also an ancient Madonna which attracts pilgrims to the church.

*   *   *   *   *   *

Leaving Pontoise by the road to Gisors, one passes through several picturesque villages. The first is Cormeilles-en-Vexin, whose church (partly twelfth century), with big flying buttresses and gargoyles, stands out prominently over the green and wooded country as the village is approached.

There are two or three stretches of paving-stones on this road, necessitating a slow pace to avoid dislocating every part of the car and its occupants, and there is thus plenty of time to enjoy the rural charm of the red-roofed villages, the big picturesque farms, and the extensive woods.

Marines is a small village with a seventeenth-century château containing a notable staircase. It belonged to Chancellor Sillory, who was Chancellor of France under Henri IV. In the church is the sixteenth-century chapel of St. Roch, standing over an octagonal crypt.{397}

Three short stretches of pavé follow after leaving Marines, then the road drops down through a cutting in yellow sandstone to Chars (on the River Voisne), where there is a church of the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. The earlier work is worth studying, and there is also an interesting tomb to Jeanne de Ferrières, of the fourteenth century.

Passing over a level-crossing, the village of Bouconvilliers lies on the left. It has a large farm of the Sussex Downs type, sheltered by big trees, a church with a Romanesque tower, and a castle of the time of Louis XIII. (seventeenth century) on the site of a much earlier one, of which the entrenchments remain.

Just beyond the hamlet of Lierville (on the left) five roads meet. The direct way to Gisors is straight ahead, but a notice warns one of bad paving-stones, and recommends going to the right through Chaumont-en-Vexin. By doing so the distance is only slightly increased, and the pavé is entirely avoided.

The road winds down steeply into the leafy hollow in which the little town of Chaumont-en-Vexin stands. Its church, with a curious Classic tower of stumpy proportions, contains rich Flam{398}boyant work, and is conspicuous on the shoulder of a hill above the houses.

There are remains of the eleventh-century castle where some of the French kings resided when the Norman frontiers were defended by a chain of castles. In the chief street there is a picturesque sixteenth-century house of timber-framing.

The Pierre-Trouée (or des Druids) is a very fine dolmen, composed of four stones, situated about two kilometres south-east of Trie-Château. An artificial circular hole has been cut through the base of the side stone, and Fergusson infers from this that the dolmen was probably never intended to be covered up with earth, or at the most only partially. The age of dolmens of this type is a matter of the greatest uncertainty. Although in a general way regarded as prehistoric burial-places, some of them may belong to post-Roman times.

TRIE-CHÂTEAU

is an interesting place. Its Hôtel de Ville is the Maison de Justice of the twelfth century, and it still has its round-headed windows with small pillars. The Romanesque façade of the church is richly ornamented, and the rest of the building belongs to the twelfth, thirteenth, and sixteenth centuries.{399}

A fortified gateway (fifteenth century) of the château is passed through on the way to Gisors, and by it is a big round tower of the same period, although much restored. There can also be seen vaulted underground portions of this formerly important castle.

Charles François Dupuis, who wrote ‘Origins de tous les Cultes’—a book which did much to precipitate the irreligious crisis of the Revolution—was born at Trie-Château in 1742.

On entering Gisors there is a bad caniveau.{400}

SECTION XXVII

GISORS TO ROUEN, 41 MILES

(66 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

{402}

Gisors is an exceedingly picturesque old town possessing a fine castle and a very beautiful church. Standing on the little River Epte, it was on the frontier of Normandy, and its importance in medieval times was due to this fact. It was William Rufus who realized the strategic value of the place, and, having obtained possession of it, Robert de Bellesme in 1097 built him a castle, the keep of which, raised upon an artificial mound, is standing to-day. The first two Henrys of England strengthened the castle with towers, and in 1196, when Gisors was ceded to Philippe Auguste at the Treaty of Louviers, still further building was carried out, including a subsidiary keep on the outer line of defence, now called the Tour du Prisonnier. A considerable portion of the eleventh-century walls of Rufus’s castle are still standing.

It is worth while to climb the fifteenth-century staircase turret in the Norman keep, and from it see the outer walls of the castle down below, with the town built close up to it on three sides, and out across the green fields, about four kilometres to the west, appears the ruined tower of the castle of Neaufles. A subterranean passage, so it is said, connected the castle of Gisors with Neaufles. During a siege in the thirteenth century a sortie{403} was made by Queen Blanche of Castile, the mother of St. Louis (IX.), with only a small party, and being cut off from Gisors, they made for the fortress of Neaufles, which was a ruin even at that time. Night was approaching, so the best plan was to surround the ruin and make the Queen a prisoner in the morning. But when daylight came there was no sign of life within the old walls, for the Queen and her men had taken advantage of the secret passage, and had not only reached Gisors in safety, but had prepared a stronger force, which sallied forth and scattered their amazed enemies.

The salient fact concerning Gisors, which it is not easy to keep in mind, is that this quaint old town was a feudal stronghold of the English, and that the Epte formed the frontier of English land. It was therefore the scene of many alarms and excursions and much hard fighting. When it became a French possession through the treaty already mentioned, Richard Cœur-de-Lion built Château Gaillard, a few miles away, on the Seine, although he had undertaken not to fortify that spot, for without some such defence Rouen lay at the mercy of the French.

The little chapel in the keep at Gisors was dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury; only the{404} foundations remain to-day, but these, if carefully cleared of grass, weeds, and rubble, would be an interesting addition to the ruin.

In the dungeon of the Tour du Prisonnier there are many curious carvings and scratchings on the stone walls. The chief of these are attributed to Nicholas Poulain, who, in the fifteenth century, was kept in this hopeless prison for four years by Louis XI.

The streets of Gisors are full of charm, for, although stucco has been applied far too liberally to quaint overhanging houses of the sixteenth century, or earlier, their individuality has, in many instances, survived the treatment, and carved brackets and moulded beams are frequently to be seen. The greenish, and yet transparent, waters of the Epte flow through the town in the form of a canal, and the covered washing-places for the women are of exceptional picturesqueness.

The Hôtel de Ville, dating from the seventeenth century, was formerly a convent of the Carmelites.

The Church, dedicated to the saints Gervais and Protais, is a building of wonderful charm, and peeps of its Flamboyant carving, seen through narrow passages between antique timber-framed houses, are some of the delights of the town. The{405} earliest portion of the building is the choir, with its aisles, built in the thirteenth century through the generosity of Queen Blanche, who was Regent for her son during his minority, and while he was away crusading in the Holy Land (see under Pontoise). The nave, chapels, and towers date from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, the wonderfully enriched north portal is Flamboyant, and the west end, with its two unfinished towers, belongs to the Renaissance period, as at Evreux (Section III.). The towers were stopped at their present height, for fear that they might be used against the castle if the town were occupied by an enemy.

Jacob’s vision of the angels is shown in a very fine carving over the central west door. The architects of the church in the sixteenth century were chiefly members of the family of Grappin, and it was Robert Grappin who, in 1530, built the nave in such a hurry that it collapsed, but within a decade it had been rebuilt.

Of the interior there is only space to mention the exceedingly interesting carved pillars; the huge Tree of Jesse in the baptistery; the chapel, containing a skeleton in stone; twenty-eight sixteenth-century painted panels, showing legends of the{406} lives of the patron saints of the Church; the beautiful vaulted aisles of the choir; and, finally, the sixteenth-century glass of the windows.

No. 27. GISORS TO ROUEN.

The conferences between the English and French kings were held under an elm that grew upon the boundary, and under its shade, in 1188, Henry II. of England and Philippe Auguste held a peace conference, at which the aged Archbishop of Tyre appeared, and implored the monarchs to lead armies to aid in driving the infidels from the Holy City. It was agreed that both should lead a crusade in two years’ time; but in the following year, having fallen out, they were at war again, and Philippe soon afterwards cut down the tree.{407}

Going out of Gisors by the street that leads approximately southwards, a tributary of the Epte is crossed by a bridge bearing a gilded statue to Our Lady, and just afterwards a level-crossing, where one turns to the right by the railway, soon afterwards passing (on the right) a very interesting example of the fortified farm, having a squat round tower at each corner. Further off, beyond the river, appears the ruined tower of the castle of Neaufles.

After crossing the Epte the road climbs up through the village of Dangu, whose château on the left among the woods above the river was at one time of the greatest importance. The Norman structure has been demolished, and the existing castle dates back no further than the fifteenth century, some of it only to 1567, and part is modern, but a large portion is older than the time of Louis XIII.—a contemporary of Charles I.—when it was owned by the Comte de Bouteville, of whom Mr. Dearmer tells the following story in his admirable work on Normandy:

On the left-hand side, on entering the village of Les Thilliers-en-Vexin, where the route nationale to Rouen is reached, a little distance from the road, is the Château de Bois d’Enemets, built in the time of Louis XIII., and attributed to Mansard.

After a short run on the straight and perfectly level main road, a turning to the left is taken, which drops at a gentle gradient down the side of the Gambon Valley—reminiscent of the chalky valleys of Kent—through the hamlet of Harquency, with its midget Norman church, to

LE GRAND ANDELY

Although possessing an almost cathedral-like church, the major attraction of Le Grand Andely{409} must be its early sixteenth-century inn—the Hôtel du Grand Cerf. It was built in 1515 by Nicholas Duval, Seigneur du Viennois, a favourite of François I., and in the carving on the oak beams of the house one frequently comes across the salamander and the fleur-de-lys of that monarch. The frontage on the street and the charming little courtyard are made beautiful with the dark brown timber, in many places richly carved, which has never been hidden by plaster.

Going through a beautifully decorated door from a corner of the courtyard, one enters the old hall of the house through a tambour, or lobby, of richly carved and panelled oak. The chief feature is the great fireplace, which almost makes folk who sit at the little tables appear as figures in a romantic picture. It was only in 1749 that the house was sold to the M. Lefèvre who turned it into an inn. Sir Walter Scott, Rosa Bonheur, Viollet-le-Duc, Chateaubriand, and Victor Hugo, all stayed at Le Grand Cerf, but the book in which these famous guests wrote their names was stolen a few years ago.

The church dates between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, but belongs chiefly to the earlier period, and has three towers and fifty-two beautiful sixteenth-century windows worthy of careful{410} examination. It has stalls of the Flamboyant period and three pictures by Quentin Varin, the first master of Nicholas Poussin, the most famous of the French painters of the seventeenth century, who was born, in 1594, in a village close to Les Andelys, and to whom a statue has been erected in the town.

On June 2 every year there is a pilgrimage to the Fontaine de Ste. Clotilde, which is under the shade of lime-trees near the church. Its waters are sacred in connection with the legend that Ste. Clotilde gave them the strength and flavour of wine for the workmen who were building a convent for her, and had complained of having nothing but water to drink.

LE PETIT ANDELY

A short straight road leads from Le Grand to Le Petit Andely, with its church standing in the centre of a space where one turns either to the right to go on to Rouen or to the left for Château Gaillard, whose walls, gleaming white in the sunshine, still frown above the picturesque main street of the town. The interesting church seems to have been built very soon after the first siege of the castle, and therefore at the beginning of the{411} thirteenth century. The choir is considered to be the oldest part, but the whole building is very much of the same period, and is a very perfect example of early French architecture. Inside and out the style is a little plain, but the beauty of its proportions is very striking. The paintings on the walls are fifteenth century, and the copper chandeliers belong to the eighteenth.

CHÂTEAU GAILLARD

Just before the last houses of the little town are reached an opening to the left leads to the footpath which climbs up the steep, grassy ascent to the ruins of Richard Cœur-de-Lion’s ‘saucy’ castle.

Although, since the year 1603, when Henri IV. gave permission for the castle to be destroyed, it has been used as a quarry for dressed stone at various times in that period, the great pile still retains its chief features, and is, in many ways, one of the most notable castles in the world. Richard coolly determined to fortify the spot soon after the Treaty of Louviers, in which it was expressly agreed that neither France nor England should either fortify or have any feudal rights in Les Andelys! Only three months after the compact had been sworn he of the lion-heart began the{412} great fortress. It was to be no ordinary castle; it was to be impregnable; and M. Dieulafoy suggests that Richard I. utilized his experience in the Crusades and built after the Syrian plan, Antioch and Tyre having been found exceedingly hard to capture.

The oval inner bailey has the outer surface of its exceedingly lofty wall formed of nineteen semicircular buttresses, which touch one another, and are practically a continuous series of half-towers, leaving no flat surface anywhere. Inside this remarkable inner bailey stands the circular keep, whose walls are 27 feet thick, with an angular projection towards the gateway of the bailey. The outer courtyard was defended with five great circular towers. The weak point of the defence, however, was the high ground that overlooked the walls on the south-west side, and to make this impregnable an exceptionally strong outer castle, with three large towers and two small ones, was built, with a deep ditch separating it from the main works. All this and much more can be seen by anyone who cares to climb up and down the steep grassy banks that fall away from the walls.

When the great pile was completed, Richard gazed on his ‘Dreadnought’ castle, with its frowning

CHÂTEAU GAILLARD.

The ruins of Richard Cœur de Lion’s great castle built above the Seine to defend the English frontier.

{413}

machicolations crowning the unassailable white walls, and exclaimed: ‘Comme elle est belle, ma fillette d’un an!’ Philippe Auguste, however, with justifiable indignation at the broken treaty, began hostilities, assuring Richard that he would take his saucy castle if it were made of iron, to which came the prompt reply, ‘I will hold it were it made of butter’; and Richard soon afterwards defeated the French army on the Plains of Gamaches. But in 1199 Richard died, and in his successor’s feeble hands Château Gaillard was soon in peril, for, in 1203, Philippe began a siege which lasted for five months.

The English Governor was Roger de Lacy, Constable of Chester, who was left to look after himself, when John with his army had made one half-hearted effort to relieve him. The fort on the island opposite Le Petit Andely was taken, and the little town soon afterwards fell into the hands of the French, the people fleeing to the castle for safety. But the Governor had no pleasure in seeing his food-supplies consumed by non-combatants, and the hapless creatures were soon turned out to shift for themselves. Some were at first allowed to pass through the French lines, but many were stopped, and lay in the grassy hollows, starving{414} between friends and foes. The French King finally took pity on them and fed them, and allowed them to go before all were dead.

Meanwhile the siege proceeded with vigour; a wooden tower was built, and the outer castle was sapped and an entrance gained. The outer bailey was surprised by an entry being made through an unprotected window which may be seen to-day. Finally, the inner bailey was entered through a breach in the gateway, which the besiegers succeeded in making with a mangonel, and they rushed in with such impetuosity that the English had no time to reach the keep, and its enormous strength was therefore useless. There were only 180 Englishmen left when Philippe gained possession; the Governor was given his liberty, and the garrison marched out as the French flag was unfurled above the towers.

In 1314 Marguerite of Burgundy, wife of Louis X., was imprisoned in the castle and strangled with her own hair by order of her husband, who wished for another consort, and later on Blanche, wife of Charles le Bel, also accused of adultery, was kept there until removed to the Abbey of Maubisson for imprisonment for the remainder of her life.

In 1334 David Bruce, the son of Robert the{415} Bruce, spent the seven years of his exile in France in Château Gaillard, while Edward Balliol had made himself King in Scotland.

Charles the Bad, King of Navarre, was another famous prisoner, in 1355. He was sent to the castle by King Jean of France for having had designs on the throne, and escaped when the King was captured by the English at Poitiers, in 1356.

The vivid story of the castle told in full, with a detailed account of its defences, would keep one at Château Gaillard much longer, and it is with the keenest regret that one leaves the steep hill, with its strange ruins standing out in front of the widespread view over a great horseshoe bend of the Seine.

The road by the river is followed for two kilometres, with the white, castle-like chalk cliffs on the right, to a few houses called La Vacherie, where one goes to the right and zigzags up the steep ascent that leads to the villages of Heuqueville and Amfreville les Champs.

From Amfreville the road winds steeply down to the charming valley of the Andelle, and crosses the river at the village of St. Nicholas-de-Pont-St. Pierre, where there is a fine fifteenth-century château, approached by an avenue of evergreen{416} trees. There is an imposing façade flanked by two towers, and close by are the ruins of an older castle.

After a steep, winding ascent through the forest of Longboël the plateau of Caux is reached, the River Andelle dividing it from that of Vexin.

At Boos the route nationale is joined, and one may stop to see the remarkable ruins of a thirteenth-century manor-house of the Abbesses of St. Armand de Rouen. The beautiful octagonal pigeon-house of the sixteenth century is decorated with inlaid tiles.

Just before descending the steep hill down to Rouen, from whence there is a remarkable panorama of the city, the village of Blosseville Bonsecours is passed through. An important Benedictine abbey was founded there in 1030. It was fortified in the fourteenth century, but in 1597, after the wars of the League, it was destroyed at the demand of the people of Rouen, who had always been apprehensive that the cannons would be turned upon them.

*   *   *   *   *   *

The routes from Rouen to Havre, Dieppe, Boulogne and Calais, are described in Section I.{417}

SECTION XXVIII

GISORS TO DIEPPE VIA BEAUVAIS,
86¼ MILES

(138½ KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

{418}

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

[This is an alternative route to that described through Rouen, and the information is therefore restricted to the smallest space.]

{419}

{420}

No. 28. GISORS TO DIEPPE.

HINTS ON TOURING IN FRANCE

BY JOHN L. KIRK, B.A.

I. THE QUESTION OF EXPENSE

The main route described in this book was taken from Havre to Mentone by the author and four other persons, one of whom drove and acted as mechanic. From Mentone to Havre four only were carried.

A rough summary of the expenses is given below:

{421}

Details of the Above

Expenses connected with the 15-20 H.-P. Car, running 2,347 Miles in 28 Days

In Addition

{422}

II. TOURING SEASON

October to end of April.

III. MOTOR CLUB

To facilitate matters, it is advisable to join the Royal Automobile Club (Secretary, J. W. Orde, 119, Piccadilly, W.); or the Motor Union of Great Britain and Ireland (Secretary, Rees Reffreys, 1, Albemarle Street, W.); or the Automobile Association (8, New Coventry Street), and the Touring Club de France, 65, Avenue de la Grande-Armée, Paris.

These bodies supply information as to Customs formalities, routes, and all such matters, and issue a paper called a Triptyque, which enables one to pay the Customs deposit through them, and thus obviate the necessity of depositing the money with the Customs abroad. These clubs also issue valuable handbooks, giving the names of hotels and repairers, also a list of Channel routes and their services, fares, and cost of car transport.

IV. CLOTHING

It is advisable to always carry loose-fitting wind-and weather-proof overcoats. A woollen overcoat, with the above over it, is warmer and far less fatiguing than the heavy leather-lined motor coats often in use. Provide boxes and bags that are water-and dust-proof, or have covers that are.

Given a certain knowledge of the principles of a modern reliable motor-car, it is possible to undertake a Continental tour unaccompanied by a driver or mechanic. By so doing, the man of moderate means can take a holiday abroad en automobile cheaper than he can at home, once he has got his car across the Channel.{423}

Nevertheless, the owner should try to come to a definite understanding, before leaving home, with the makers of the car regarding the prompt despatch of any spare parts that may be necessary through accidents or breakdowns on the road.

Having decided to embark on such a trip, it is essential for the owner of the car to personally see that all tools, etc., are carefully packed and locked in their respective compartments, and that the machine has a thorough overhaul, at which the prospective man at the wheel is present.

The compiler of these notes assumes, of course, that the intending tourist has had some experience of touring at home before plunging into the unknown.

V. CARRY ON THE CAR

1. The usual kit of tools.

2. A hack-saw and blow-lamp.

3. A good supply of inner tubes and a spare cover.

4. A coarse funnel to strain the oil (the oil obtained in France often contains rubbish and the petrol water).

5. A petrol-funnel and a wash-leather bag to prevent water getting into the petrol tank; a densometer to take the specific gravity of petrol.

6. Overalls for dirty work, plenty of dusters, and some soap.

7. A sponge and wash-leather; also a coil of stout window-cord.

8. Tins of grease; spare tin of petrol and oil.

9. An electric inspection-lamp to fit to accumulators.

10. A tyre-pressure tester.

The following Books should also be carried

1. Royal Automobile Club, Motor Union, foreign handbook; also Touring Club de France’s Annuaire Général.{424}

2. ‘Faults, and How to Find Them,’ by J. S. V. Bickford, B.A. 2s. 6d. Iliffe and Sons, Limited, 20, Tudor Street, E.C.

3. A catalogue of the particular car taken abroad, containing sectional drawings of the car’s parts.

4. ‘The Autocar Automobile Dictionary,’ by Sigmund Krausz. 3s. 6d. Iliffe and Sons, Limited, 20, Tudor Street, E.C.

5. A set of Taride maps, on cloth, covering the route.

6. ‘The Motor Routes of France,’ by Gordon Home. 5s. A. and C. Black, 4, Soho Square, W.

7. Burroughs Wellcome and Co.’s ‘Tabloid Brand’ Motor-Car First-Aid Case.

VI. GENERAL REGULATIONS FOR FRANCE

1. A circulation permit (Permit de Circulation) and registered number must be obtained for car.

2. The driver must obtain a driving certificate (Certificat de Capacité), when two photographs of his head and shoulders, about 1½ inches by 1¾ inches, must be produced.

3. Name-plates must be placed on the dash-board facing the driver, about the size of a visiting-card, and have inscribed on them—

4. Lighting Regulations.—Three lamps must be carried. The front one, on left (off) side, to show a green light; the tail-light to be on left side, and to efficiently illuminate the number-plate. These lamps must be lit not later than fifteen minutes after sunset.

5. Rule of Road.—Keep to right, overtake on left.

6. A bell or horn must be used, but the use of sirens is forbidden.

7. There is a uniform speed-limit of 30 kilometres (about{425} 18 miles) per hour, but this is rarely, if ever, enforced, except in and about the towns. Special speed-limits are often in force in towns and villages, notices to this effect being displayed.

8. Octroi duties for petrol have to be paid on entering Paris and some of the larger towns. The officials, except in the case of Paris, require you to pay only on the spare petrol—i.e., that not in the petrol-tank proper.

With regard to the daily mileage covered, as shown in the log, the writer thinks that to properly enjoy the tour, and to do justice to what there is to see en route, one should take at least twice the twenty-eight days, especially if the party consists of more than two or three. Otherwise, for a man driving and looking after his own car, no matter how reliable, the trip might become too arduous for enjoyment, the opportunities for sight-seeing, as this book demonstrates, being enormous.

If possible, all night-driving should be avoided. In the dark one cannot see the broken glass and rubbish in the villages, nor is it easy to find the right road.

Even with a certain amount of night-driving the tour described in this book was accomplished with a very small outlay in tyres, which were Dunlops. Five new covers and an old one on the Stepney wheel and eight air-tubes were found to be ample, owing to the excellent manner in which they stood the strain of rough surfaces and sometimes fast driving.{426}

FRENCH ROAD WARNING NOTICES

ITALIAN ROAD WARNING NOTICES

{427}

FRENCH ROAD SIGNS

Sharp turning to the right
Sharp turning to the left
Turning with descent
Dangerous crossing
Steep ascent
Steep descent
Winding descent with sharp turning
Archway
Level-crossing (passage à niveau)
Rails projecting above the road
Shallow drain across road (cassis or caniveau)
Bad paving (mauvais pavé)
Humpy road

{428}

LOG OF A 15-20 H.-P. CAR FROM MARCH 24 TO APRIL 25, 1909.

{429} 

{430} 

A LIST OF IMPORTANT EVENTS IN FRENCH HISTORY, AND OF THE KINGS OF FRANCE AND THE SOVEREIGNS OF ENGLAND IN PARALLEL COLUMNS

{435}

INDEX

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, Y, Z

Abadie, Paul, 154, 156, 159
Abbeville, 2, 22, 23
Abderahman, 135
Acquigny, 48, 49
Adour, River, 179, 180, 181, 184, 220
Agay, 304
Agde, 254
Aigues-Morte, 273, 277
Aigues, River, 341
Aix-en-Provence, 292-297
Alaric, 107
Albigensian war, 258
Alcuin, 125
Alençon, Jean, Duc d’, 130
Aleth, Bishop of, 40
Allaines, 73
Allier, River, 363, 365, 368
Allonnes, 73
Alluye, Baron Florimond d’, 102
Almandoz, Spain, 208
Ambleteuse, 25
Amboise, 82, 105, 107-110
Amfreville, 44
Amfreville-les-Champs, 415
Andance, 351, 353, 354
Andelle, River, 393
Andely, Le Grand, 408-410
”    Le Petit, 410-415
Andoain, 215
Anet, 88
Angoulême, 152, 154-156
Anjou, Counts of, 107, 131
Anne de Bretagne, 104, 132
”  of France (daughter of Louis XI.), 367
Annonay, 348, 353
Antibes, 306, 309-311
Apricale, 307, 321
Arc, Joan of, 40-43, 76, 79, 85, 142, 369, 385
Arc, River, 297
Arga, River, 213
Arize, River, 249
Arles, 273, 285-289
Arques-la-Bataille, 418
Arques, River, 23
Arras, 348, 353
Artenay, 74
Attila, 76
Aude, River, 257, 260, 262, 266
Auvergne Mountains, 355, 360, 362
Avignon, 329-337, 350
Avre, River, 57
Azay-sur-Indre, 125

Baigts, 219, 221
Balbigny, 360
Balne, Cardinal de la, 53, 130
Barbaira, 255, 261
Barbazan-Debat, 239
Barère, 239
Baring-Gould, the Rev. S., 221, 238
Barry, Madame du, 388
Bartholdi, 277
Basques, the, 180, 181, 196-198, 213
Bayonets, invention of, 186
Bayonne, 176, 180-187, 219
{436}Béarn, Pierre de, 223
Beaucaire, 325, 327, 328
”      Canal, 277
Beauce, Jean de, 66
Beaugency, 81, 83-85
Beaulieu, 306, 316
”      Abbey of, 141
Beauregard, 81
Beauvais, 418
Beauvronne, River, 160
Bèbre, River, 362
Bedford, John, Duke of, 34
Béhobie, 195, 203-205, 217
Belesme, Robert de, 402
Bellegarde, 283
Benedict XII., Pope, 335
Bergerac, 166-169
”      Cyrano de, 168
Bernadotte, King of Sweden, 233, 234
Bernay-en-Ponthieu, 22
Berneval, Alexandre de, 39
Berri, Counts of, 107
Berthier, General, 350
”      Madame, 90
Berwick, James FitzJames, Duke of, 368
Bessay, 363
Béziers, 255, 266-269
Biarritz, 176, 187-192
Bidart, 200
Bidassoa, River, 203, 204, 217
Biscay, Bay of, 180
Black Prince, the, 140
Bléré, 114
Bleriot, M., 24
Blois, 81, 93-104
”    Stephen, Count of, 103
Blosseville Bonsecours, 416
Bohier, Antoine, 112
”    Thomas, 112
Bois d’Enemets, Château de, 408
Boivre, River, 140
Bolbec, River, 9
Bonheur, Rosa, 409
Bonny-sur-Loire, 374
Boos, 416
Bordighera, 307, 321
Bossuet, Jacques, Bishop of Meaux, 394
Bouconvilliers, 397
Boulogne, 21, 26
Bourbon Condé, Duchesse de, 59
”    Antoine de, 231
”    Dukes of, 367
Bourg-Argental, 348, 354
Bourgogne, Agnes de, 367
Boussière, La, 376
Bouteville, Comte de, 407, 408
”      Madame de, 408
Bracieux, 81, 90
Brantôme, 153, 159, 160
Brézé, Louis de, 34, 130
”    Pierre de, 35
Briare, 115, 374, 376, 377
Briçonnet, Cardinal, 265
Bridan, 68
Brignoles, 293, 299, 303
Brittany, 40
Broglie, Princesse de, 106
Brougham, Henry, Lord, 304, 308
Bruce, David, 414
Buckingham, Duke of, 202
Burgundy, Marguerite of, 414

Cæsar, Julius, 25, 74, 301
Cagnes, 309
Calais, 23, 24
Calvin, 230
Calvinus, Sextius, 294
Campagne, 176
Camporosso, 320
Cannes, 306-309
Cannet, Le, 309
Canterbury, Archbishop of, 17
Carcassonne, 162, 254-261
Carinus, Emperor, 263
Carmargue, the, 277, 285
Carnutes, tribe of, 75
Carrara marble, 68, 367
Carus, Emperor, 263
Casimere, Marie, 104
Casteljaloux, 168, 171, 172
Castellane, Marquise de, 336, 337
{437}Castile, Blanche of, 393, 403, 405
Cauchon, Bishop, 42
Caudebec-en-Caux, 11-14
Caux, Plateau of, 416
Cénon, 134
Cevennes (mountains), 261, 276, 348, 353
Chabannes, Jacques de, 362
Chalon sur Saône, 346
Chambiges, Pierre, 389
Chambord, Château de, 86-91
Chambourg, 125
Champaigne, Philippe de, 394
Chancelade, 161
Chapelles, Comte de, 407, 408
Charente, River, 149, 151, 154
Charité, La, 373
Charlemagne, 30, 69
Charles V., Emperor of Germany, 108
”    the Bad of Navarre, 223, 414
”    the Bald, 45, 49
”    le Bel, Blanche, wife of, 414
”    the Bold, 127
”    VII., 16, 35, 128, 132
”    VIII., 36, 107, 120, 132
”    IX., 39, 88, 182, 204, 224, 231
”    Martel, 135
Chars, 397
Chartres, 62-71
Châteaubourg, 347, 352
Chateaubriand, F. R., Vicomte de, 409
Château Gaillard, 277, 403, 411-415
Château l’Évêque, 153, 160, 161
Châteauneuf-sur-Loire, 115
Châtellerault, 117, 134-137
Chatenay, 387
Châtillons, the, 103
Chaumont-en-Vexin, 397, 398
Chaumont-sur-Loire, 81, 105
Chaunay, 149
Chécy, 115
Chenonceaux, 110-114
Cher, River, 111
Cheverny, 91, 92
Choisy-le-Roi, 386, 387
Ciran, 132, 133
Clain, River, 135, 137, 140, 148
Clarendon, Lord, 368
Clement V., Pope, 332
”    VI., Pope, 336
”    VIII., Pope, 77
Clermont, 249
Clermont-de-Beauregard, 166
Colbert, 6
Coligny, Admiral, 60
Condé, Princes of, 5, 60, 281
Condeau, River, 166
Conflans-St. Honorine, 7, 392
Constantine IV., 136
Conti, Princes of, 5
Cormeilles-en-Vexin, 396
Cormery, 125
Cornas, 351
Corniche d’Or, 294, 303
Corniche, the upper road, 314-316
Cosne, 374
Couhé-Vérac, 149
Coursan, 266
Crau, the, 289, 290
Crécy, 22
Creuse, River, 133
Crusades, the, 56, 277, 405, 406
Crussol, Château of, 348
Cussay, 133

D’Albret, Henri, 230, 232
”      Jeanne, 224, 230-233
D’Amboise, Cardinal Georges, 35-37, 106
Dangé, 134
Dangu, Château of, 407, 408
D’Arc, Jeanne, 369, 385
Dax, 179
Dearmer, the Rev. P., 407
Denis-Dupont, 102
Depuis, Charles Fr., 399
Descartes, 133
{438}Devereux, family of, 55
Diane de Poitiers, 35, 106, 112, 114, 131
Dieppe, 21
Dieulafoy, M., 412
Dignac, 156
Dijon, 347
Dolceacqua, 320
Donzère, 342, 343
Dordogne, River, 166, 168, 169
Doux, River, 352
Dreux, 57-60
”    de Mello, 128
Dronne, River, 159
Drot, River, 169
Duclair, 18
Du Guesclin, Bertrand, 140, 141
Dunois, the Bastard of Orleans, 83-85, 103
Dupin, Fermier Général, 113
Durance, River, 325
Duval, Nicholas, Seigneur de Viennois, 409

Edward the Confessor, 17
”  III., 22, 140
”  VII., 184, 189, 191
Elbeuf, 45
Eleanor of Aquitaine, 141
Elizabeth, Queen of Spain, 182-204
Epte, River, 393, 402-404, 407
Estérels, the, 315
Eugénie, Empress, 187
Eure, River, 48, 49
Evreux, 48, 49-55
Eymet, 169
Eze, 314

Faisans, Île des, 203
Fanjeaux, 253
Félibres, the, of Périgord, 157
Feurs, 359, 360
Flassans, 300
Foix, 248
”  Gaston Phœbus, Count of, 174
”  Louis de, 181
Fontainebleau, 380
”        Forest of, 380
”        Palace of, 381
Fontenay, 378
Fontenelle, 14
Forges-les-Eaux, 418
Fouillouse, La, 359
François I., 88, 89, 93, 104, 107, 112, 130, 132, 181, 381, 389, 409
”    II., 109, 113
Fréjus, 301, 302
Frenaye, La, 11
Freycinet, 344
Froissart, 222
Fuentarrabia, 217
Fulbert, Bishop, 64

Gabriel, 77, 102
Gamaches, Plains of, 413
Garonne, River, 171, 240-244
Gaston Phœbus, Count of Foix, 222, 223, 230, 232
German troops in France, 14, 76, 120
Gers, River, 239
Gien, 115
Gigean, 255
Gisors, 47, 396, 397, 399, 402-407
Goujon, Jean, 40, 46
Gournay-en-Bray, 418
Graham, General Sir T., 216
Grappin, Robert, 405
Grasse, 309
Graville, 6, 7, 392
Grégoire, M., 39
Grisnez, Cape, 25
Guillaume le Tellier, 13
Guillon le Roy, 4
Guise, Cardinal de, 96
”    François, Duc de, 59
”    Henri, Duc de, 45, 66-100, 104

Harfleur, 4, 7-9
Harquency, 408
{439}Havre, 3-6, 8
Headlam, Cecil, 64
Henri II., 35, 39, 88, 112, 113, 114, 381, 389, 406
”  III., 39, 96, 344, 380
”  IV., 6, 13, 39, 45, 46, 54, 60, 76, 77, 100, 120, 231, 381, 411, 418
Henry Plantagenet, 34
”  I., 53, 55, 56
”  II., 114, 120, 141
”  V., 7, 14, 384
”  IV., of Castile, 204
Hérault, River, 270
Hers, River, 252
Heuqueville, 415
Hilduard, 69
Hill, Sir Rowland, 182
Holy Land, the, 17, 277, 405, 406
Hope, Sir John, 182-184, 191
Houeillès, 168, 172
Hugo, Victor, 409
Huguenots, the, 6, 29, 76, 84, 120, 163, 168, 202, 222, 224, 238, 243, 341, 380
Hugues IV., 156
Hundred Years’ War, 48, 171
Huns, the, 76
Hurault de Cheverny, Philippe, 92

Ibos, 237
Igoville, 45
Indre, River, 125
Innocent VI., Pope, 332, 336
Irene, Empress, 69
Irun, 217
Irurita, 207
Isère, River, 352
Isle, River, 160, 161, 165
Isolabona, 321
Iton, River, 49, 51, 54
Ivry, Battle of, 54, 58, 60

James II., 25
”  Colonel W. H., 185-186
Jean de Berry, 147
”  of France, 415
Jeanne D’Arc, 40-43, 76, 79, 369, 385
John, King of England, 55, 128, 141, 413
John XXII., Pope, 333
Jumièges, 15-18, 132

La Beauce, Plain of, 72
La Belle Rivière, 157
La Borde, 265
La Boussière, 376
La Charité, 373
La Fouillouse, 359
La Haye-Descartes, 133
La Houssoye, 418
La Mortola, 319
La Napoule, 294, 304
La Pacaudière, 361
La Palisse, 362
La Rochebeaucourt, 156
La Tricherie, 137
La Turbie, 315
La Vacherie, 415
Lacave, 245
Lacy, Roger de, 413
Laffolye, M., 243
Lambesc, 325
Lamonzie-Montastruc, 153
Landes, Les, 176-180
Lannemezan, 239-240
Lapalud, 342
Lascarte, 215
Laville, the Jesuit, 165
Le Boullay-Mivoye, 61
Le Cannet, 309
Le Loup, 309
Le Luc, 300
Le Muy, 300
Le Roulx, 20, 43
Le Veneur, Bishop Ambroise, 54
“ ” Gabriel, 54
Les Grandes Ventes, 418
Les Thilliers-en-Vexin, 408
Legasa, 207
Lemercier, Jacques, 395
{440}”      Pierre, 395
Leo III., Pope, 136
Leonardo da Vinci, 108
Lérins, Îles de, 311
Lescure, 248
Lèze, River, 250
Lézignan, 262
Lhez, 239
L’Hôpital, 360
Lierville, 397
Lieusaint, 386
Ligueil, 132, 133
Lillebonne, 9-11
Lisieux, 12
Livron, 344
Loches, 16, 127-132
Loing, River, 377, 379, 380
Loire, River, 82, 93, 105, 360
Longboël, Forest of, 416
Longueville, Duke of, 5, 86
Loriol, 344
Louis VII., 120
”  IX. (St.), 277, 389, 393, 394, 403
”  XI., 106, 107, 110, 128, 130, 132, 204, 404
”  XII., 36, 46-48, 93, 100, 103, 104, 107, 132
”  XIII., 39, 88, 177, 368, 397, 407, 408
”  XIV., 88, 200, 204, 388, 394
”  XV., 386, 387, 388, 394
”  XVI., 132, 387, 388
”  le Gros, 83
”  le Jeune, 381
”  Philippe, 39, 58, 59, 380
Lourdes, 234-237, 372
Louviers, 28
”      Treaty of, 402, 411
Lunel, 276
Lyon, 346

Macon, 346
Macquoid, Mrs., 13
Maeterlinck, Maurice, 14
Maintenon, Marie de, 388
Malaunay, 21
Mane, 245
Mansard, François, 100, 104
Mansle, 150
Mareuil-sur-Belle, 157
”    Arnant de, 157
Marguerite de Valois, 100, 156, 230
Marie Antoinette, 387
Marie Casimire, 104
Marie-Thérèse, Infanta of Spain, 200
Marines, 396
Marius, 295, 297
Marmande, 170, 171
Maromme, 2
Marot, Clément, 230
Marquise, 2
Marsillargues, 277
Martin, Cap, 315, 317
Marville-Moutier-Brulé, 60
Mary, Queen of Scots, 109, 113
Mas d’Azil, 249, 250
Massieu, Maître Jean, 42
Matilda, Empress, 39
Maure Mountains, 300
Maurice, Archbishop of Rouen, 34
Maurilius, Archbishop, 31
Mayenne, 60, 418
Mazarin, Cardinal, 5
Medici, Catherine de, 88, 96, 104, 106, 109, 113, 182, 204
”    Marie de, 394
Mediterranean Sea, 270
Melun, 382, 384, 386
Menay, 250
Mentone, 317-319
Mercœur, Françoise de Lorraine, Duchesse de, 113
Merdanzo, River, 321
Mesves, 374
Meung-sur-Loire, 81, 83
Meylieu-Montrond, 359
Mèze, 271
Midi, Canal de, 269
Midouze, River, 177
{441}Mirabeau, statue of, 377
Miramont, 170
Mirepoix, 252
Mistletoe, 105, 378
Mistral, family of, 350
Molière, Jean B. P., 270
Monaco, 306, 316, 317
Monsec, 159
Mont-de-Marsan, 171, 173, 176
Mont Pilat, 355
Montagnac, 270
Montagne, Étienne de, 120
Montargis, 377
Montastruc, 166
Montbard, 347
Montdragon, 341
Monte Carlo, 317
Montélimar, 343, 344
Montfort, Simon de, 258, 260, 268
Montgéron, 386
Montgomery, Gabriel, Comte de, 113, 173, 222, 224, 231, 238
Montlhéry, Battle of, 35
Montmorenci, Henri, Duc de, 59, 60, 368
Montpellier, 274-276
Montréal, 253
”      Château de, 220
Montrejeau, 240
Montreuil-sur-Mer, 2, 21
Morin, Pierre, 110
Mormant, 376
Mornas, 341
Mortola, La, 319
Mosnier, Jean, 92
Moulins, 365-368
Moux, 261
Myennes, 374

Naintré, 134
Nampont St. Martin, 22
Napoleon I., Emperor, 302, 350, 381, 382
”    Prince Louis, 26
”    III., 189
Napoule, La, 304
Narbonne, 262-266
Narvate, 207
Neaufles, Château de, 402, 403, 407
Nemours, 379, 380
”    Duc de, 380
Nepveu, Pierre, 88
Neufchâtel-en-Bray, 23
Neulise, 360
Nevers, 369-372
”    Counts of, 371
Nice, 310-314
Nicholas, Abbot, 39
Nîmes, 278-283
Nivelle, River, 200, 201, 202
Nogent-sur-Vernisson, 376
Nonancourt, 50, 56
Norsemen, the, 4, 15, 17, 29, 30, 38, 118
Nouan sur-Loire, 86
Numerian, Emperor, 263

Oise, River, 392, 393
Ondres, 180
Orange, 337, 340
Orb, River, 267, 269
Orgon, 328
Oriflamme, banner of the, 393
Orleans, 74-79, 83
”    Charles d’, 103
”    Duc d’, 109
”    Duchesse d’, 58, 59
”    Gaston d’, 94, 104
”    Louis d’, 103
Orthez, 222-225
Ospedaletti, 322
Ouzouer-sur-Loire, 115

Pacaudière, La, 361
Pactius, Prior Thomas, 131
Pailhès, 250
Palisse, La, 362
Pamiers, 251
Pamplona, 210-213, 223
Paris, distant view of, 392
Pascal II., Pope, 373
Patay, Bishop Gilles de, 77
Pau, 227-234
{442}”  Gave de, 221, 222, 226, 228
Pavia, Battle of, 362
Pelisanne, 291
Périgueux, 160, 161-165
Petrarch, 332
Peyrehorade, 220
Pézenas, 270
Philibert of Châlons, 340
Philip III. of Spain, 392
”  IV. of Spain, 392
Philippe I., 392
”    Auguste, 53, 55, 56, 128, 141, 393, 402, 406, 413, 414
”    de Savoie, 130
”    de Valois, 76
”    le Hardi, 277
Phocæan Greeks, 286
Phœnicians, the, 287, 290
Pierre-Trouée (Cromlech), 398
Pierrelatte, 342
Pilat, Mont, 355
Pinas, 240
Piolenc, 341
Pius VI., Pope, 349
“ VII., Pope, 374
“ IX., Pope, 237
Plaine du Forez, 359
Plessis-les-Tours, 107
Pliny, 270
Poitiers, 139-148
“ Anne de, 389
“ Battle of, 415
Poland, Stanislas Leczinska, King of, 90, 104
Pommeréval, 418
Pompogne, 172
Pontacq, 234
Pont de l’Arche, 45, 46
Pontoise, 392-396
Pontoux, 178
Pougues-les-Eaux, 372-373
Pouilly, 374
Poulain, Nicholas, 404
Pourrières, 293, 297
Poussin, Nicholas, 410
Provence, Marguerite de, 393
Puy, Le, 353
Puyôo, 221
Pyrenees, the, 177, 180, 228, 234, 239, 251, 253

Quirinus, 63

Ratuma, 28
Reignac, 125
René, King of Provence, 295, 296, 328
”  of Nassau-Dillenburg, Count, 340
Rey, General, 216
Rhé, Île de, 202
Rhone, River, 285, 332, 341, 348, 352-355
Richard I., 17, 34, 39, 55, 56, 128, 403, 411, 412
Richelieu, Cardinal, 6, 408
Riquet, Pierre-Paul, 268
Roanne, 360
Robert de Croixmare, Archbishop of Rouen, 36
Robert, Archbishop of Rouen (1037), tomb of, 69
”    of Jumièges, Abbot, 17
Rollo, 4, 29, 30, 33, 34
Romans, the, 161, 262, 279, 280, 281, 286, 287, 307
Roquebrune, 315
Roquemaure, 337
Rouen, 28-44
Roussel, Abbot Jean, 39
Ruffec, 139, 149, 150
”    Ph. de Voivre, Marquis de, 155

Sabarat, 250
St. Aignan, 77
St. André, 56, 60
St. Armand de Rouen, Abbesses of, 416
St. Arnoult, 11
St. Austreberthe, Abbey of, 21
St. Bartholomew, Massacre of, 40, 182, 224
{443}St. Blaise, 124
St. Cannat, 291, 324, 325
St. Crespin, 45
St. Cyr, 348, 353
St. Étienne, 355-357
St. Euverte, 77
St. Front, 162
St. Gaudens, 242-244
St. Gautier, Abbé of Meulan, 396
St. Georges-de-Boscherville, 19
St. Géours-de-Marenne, 179
St. Germain-en-Laye, 388
St. Germain-en-Laye, Château de, 389
St. Gilles, 283
St. Girons, 247, 248
St. Hilaire, 141
St. Honorat, Île de, 311
St. Honorine, 6, 7
St. Ignatius de Loyola, 212
St. Jean de Luz, 186, 194, 200-202
St. Justin, 173
St. Laurent-des-Eaux, 85
St. Laurent-l’Aigouze, 277
St. Liphard, 83
St. Lizier, 246, 247
St. Maclou, 40
St. Marguerite, Île de, 311
St. Martin Boscherville, 19, 20
”      Omonville, 23
”      of Tours, 107, 118, 121
St. Martory, 244, 245
St. Maximin, 298
St. Mellon, 28, 29
St. Nicholas-de-Pont-St. Pierre, 415
St. Ours, 127
St. Pé-de-Bigorre, 227
St. Péray, 350
St. Philibert, 17, 18
St. Pierre-le-Moutier, 369
St. Raphaël, 302, 303
St. Rémy, 325, 326
St. Romain, Archbishop of Rouen, 29
St. Romain de Colbosc, 9
St. Sebastian, 263
St. Sennoch, Château de, 133
St. Vallier, 353
”      Conte de, 131
St. Victoire, Mont, 293, 297
St. Victrice, 29, 30
St. Vincent-de-Tyrosse, 180
St. Wandrille, 9, 13-15, 17
St. Wulmer, Abbey of, 21
Salat, River, 245
Salon, 290-291
Samer, 21
San Ampeglio, Capo, 322
San Remo, 307, 322
San Sebastian, 215-217
Sangatte, 24
Sanqueville, 21
Sant’ Esteban, 207
Saracens, the, 135, 141
Sarras, 353
Saulce, 340
Saxe, Marshal M. de, 89
Scott, Sir Walter, 409
Seine, River, 4, 7, 11, 14, 18, 19, 28, 44, 288, 291, 292, 293
Selby Abbey, 32
Sénas, 325
Sens, 347
Seyches, 171
Sforza, Ludovic, Duke of Milan, 130
Sichel, E., 97, 232
Sillory, Chancellor, 396
Smollett, Tobias, 313
Sologne, the, 88, 91
Sorel, Agnes, 16, 128, 132
Soubirous, Bernadette, 235-237, 372
Soult, Marshal, 182, 217, 221, 224
Soumoulou, 234
Souppes, 379
Southampton, 4
Stopford, Major-General, 184
Strabo, 290
Syrian castles, 277-412

Tancarville, Raoul de, 19
Tarascon, 327, 328
{444}Tarbes, 234, 237-239
Tartas, 176
Terry, Mr. (of Chenonceaux), 114
Texier, Jean, 65
Thau, Etang-de-, 270
Théoule, 304
Thibaut le Tricheur, 103
Thierry, Bishop, 65
Thomer, 56
Tiberius, Emperor, 338
Tolosa, 239
Tonnere, 347
Torcy-le-Grand, 418
Tôtes, 2
Tournay, 239
Tournon, 351, 352
Tourriers, 159
Tours, 110-127
”    Battle of, 135, 136, 141
Tourves, 299
Touvre, River, 151
Trencavel, Vicomtes de, 257, 258
Trianons, Les, 388
Trie-Château, 398
Truyes, 125
Turks, the, 313
Tyre, Archbishop of, 406

Urban II., Pope, 348
”  V., Pope, 332
Urrugne, 203

Valence, 348-350
Valescure, 302
Varennes-sur-Allier, 363
Varin, Quentin, 410
Vauban, 6
Velate, Col de, 195, 208, 209
Veliocassians, the, 28
Vence, 309
Vendranges, 360
Ventimiglia, 319, 320
Vera, 217
Versailles, 387
Veuves, 107
Vexin, old province of, 392, 393
Vibraye, Marquis de, 92
Victoria, Queen, 187
Vienne, 346
”    River, 134, 135
Vigorce, Simon, Archbishop of Narbonne, 260
Villava, 210
Villefranche, 315
Villeneuve-les-Avignon, 336
Villeneuve, St. Georges, 386
Viollet-le-Duc, 258, 265, 367, 409
Visigoths, the, 118, 243, 257, 259
Vivarais Mountains, 348
Vivonne, 139, 148
Vonne, River, 148

Webster, Dr., 197
Wellington, Duke of, 181, 182, 201, 213, 224, 225
William Longsword, 17, 33
”    the Norman, 31
”    II. (Rufus), 402
”    I., Stadtholder, 340
”    III.,  Prince  of Orange, 340
Wimereux Harbour, 25, 26
Winchester Cathedral, 20

Yainville, 18
Ymonville, 73
Young, Arthur, 244, 269

Zurbaran, Francisco, 392