we love without knowing why.

The Château is reached by a slight incline which leads to a garden
elevated like a terrace, from which the view extends on the whole
surrounding country. It was of a delicate green; poplar trees lined the
banks of the river; the meadows advanced to its edge, mingling their
grey border with the bluish and vapourous horizon, vaguely enclosed by
indistinct hills. The Loire flowed in the middle, bathing its islands,
wetting the edge of the meadows, turning the wheels of the mills and
letting the big boats glide peacefully, two by two, over its silvery
surface, lulled to sleep by the creaking of the heavy rudders; and in
the distance two big white sails gleamed in the sun.

Birds flew from the tops of the towers and the edge of the
machicolations to some other spot, described circles in the air,
chirped, and soon passed out of sight. About a hundred feet below us
were the pointed roofs of the city, the empty courtyards of the old
mansions, and the black holes of the smoky chimneys. Leaning in the
niche of a battlement, we gazed and listened, and breathed it all in,
enjoying the beautiful sunshine and balmy air impregnated with the
pungent odour of the ruins. And there, without thinking of anything in
particular, without even phrasing inwardly about something, I dreamed of
coats of mail as pliable as gloves, of shields of buffalo hide soaked
with sweat, of closed visors through which shot bloodthirsty glances, of
wild and desperate night attacks with torches that set fire to the
walls, and hatchets that mutilated the bodies; and of Louis XI, of the
lover's war, of D'Aubigné and of the charlocks, the birds, the polished
ivy, the denuded brambles, tasting in my pensive and idle occupation--what
is greatest in men, their memory;--and what is most beautiful in nature,
her ironical encroachments and eternal youth.