that the rain stopped before we got there, leaving be-
hind it a moist mildness of temperature and a cool
and lowering sky, which were in perfect agreement
with the gray old city. Loches is certainly one of the
greatest impressions of the traveller in central France,
- the largest cluster of curious things that presents
itself to his sight. It rises above the valley of the
Indre, the charming stream set in meadows and sedges,
which wanders through the province of Berry and
through many of the novels of Madame George Sand;
lifting from the summit of a hill, which it covers to
the base, a confusion of terraces, ramparts, towers, and
spires. Having but little time, as I say, we scaled
the hill amain, and wandered briskly through this
labyrinth of antiquities. The rain had decidedly
stopped, and save that we had our train on our minds,
we saw Loches to the best advantage. We enjoyed
that sensation with which the conscientious tourist is
- or ought to be - well acquainted, and for which, at
any rate, he has a formula in his rough-and-ready
language. We "experienced," as they say, (most odious
of verbs!) an "agreeable disappointment." We were
surprised and delighted; we had not suspected that
Loches was so good.

I hardly know what is best there: the strange and
impressive little collegial church, with its romanesque
atrium or narthex, its doorways covered with primitive
sculpture of the richest kind, its treasure of a so-called
pagan altar, embossed with fighting warriors, its three