life of Sancerre. There wine is shipped and oak staves are landed,
with all the produce brought from the upper and lower Loire. At the
period when this story begins the suspension bridges at Cosne and at
Saint-Thibault were already built. Travelers from Paris to Sancerre by
the southern road were no longer ferried across the river from Cosne
to Saint-Thibault; and this of itself is enough to show that the great
cross-shuffle of 1830 was a thing of the past, for the House of
Orleans has always had a care for substantial improvements, though
somewhat after the fashion of a husband who makes his wife presents
out of her marriage portion.

Excepting that part of Sancerre which occupies the little plateau, the
streets are more or less steep, and the town is surrounded by slopes
known as the Great Ramparts, a name which shows that they are the
highroads of the place.

Outside the ramparts lies a belt of vineyards. Wine forms the chief
industry and the most important trade of the country, which yields
several vintages of high-class wine full of aroma, and so nearly
resembling the wines of Burgundy, that the vulgar palate is deceived.
So Sancerre finds in the wineshops of Paris the quick market
indispensable for liquor that will not keep for more than seven or
eight years. Below the town lie a few villages, Fontenoy and
Saint-Satur, almost suburbs, reminding us by their situation of the
smiling vineyards about Neuchatel in Switzerland.

The town still bears much of its ancient aspect; the streets are
narrow and paved with pebbles carted up from the Loire. Some old
houses are to be seen there. The citadel, a relic of military power
and feudal times, stood one of the most terrible sieges of our