finest specimens of the ancient Gothic castle to be found in Europe.
The little river Cosson fills its deep and ample moat, and above
it the huge towers and heavy battlements rise in stern and solemn
grandeur, moss-grown with age, and blackened by the storms of three
centuries. Within, all is mournful and deserted. The grass has
overgrown the pavement of the courtyard, and the rude sculpture upon
the walls is broken and defaced....

My third day's journey brought me to the ancient city of Blois, the
chief town of the department of Loire-et-Cher. This city is celebrated
for the purity with which even the lower classes of its inhabitants
speak their native tongue. It rises precipitously from the northern
bank of the Loire; and many of its streets are so steep as to be
almost impassable for carriages. On the brow of the hill, overlooking
the roofs of the city, and commanding a fine view of the Loire and its
noble bridge, and the surrounding country, sprinkled with cottages and
châteaux, runs an ample terrace, planted with trees, and laid out as a
public walk. The view from this terrace is one of the most beautiful
in France. But what most strikes the eye of the traveler at Blois is
an old, tho still unfinished, castle. Its huge parapets of hewn stone
stand upon either side of the street; but they have walled up the wide
gateway, from which the colossal drawbridge was to have sprung high in
air, connecting together the main towers of the building, and the two
hills upon whose slope its foundations stand. The aspect of this vast
pile is gloomy and desolate. It seems as if the strong hand of the
builder had been arrested in the midst of his task by the stronger
hand of death; and the unfinished fabric stands a lasting monument
both of the power and weakness of man--of his vast desires, his
sanguine hopes, his ambitious purposes--and of the unlooked-for
conclusion, where all these desires, and hopes, and purposes are so