size, a tree of a circumference so vast and so perfect
that the whole population of Loches might sit in con-
centric rows beneath its boughs. The gem of the place,
however, is neither the big _marronier_, nor the collegial
church, nor the mighty dungeon, nor the hideous prisons
of Louis XI.; it is simply the tomb of Agnes Sorel, _la
belle des belles_, so many years the mistress of Charles VII.
She was buried, in 1450, in the collegial church,
whence, in the beginning of the present century, her
remains, with the monument that marks them, were
transferred to one of the towers of the castle. She has
always, I know not with what justice, enjoyed a fairer
fame than most ladies who have occupied her position,
and this fairness is expressed in the delicate statue
that surmounts her tomb. It represents her lying there
in lovely demureness, her hands folded with the best
modesty, a little kneeling angel at either side of her
head, and her feet, hidden in the folds of her decent
robe, resting upon a pair of couchant lambs, innocent
reminders of her name. Agnes, however, was not
lamb-like, inasmuch as, according to popular tradition
at least, she exerted herself sharply in favor of the ex-
pulsion of the English from France. It is one of the
suggestions of Loches that the young Charles VII.,
hard put to it as he was for a treasury and a capital,
- "le roi de Bourges," he was called at Paris, - was
yet a rather privileged mortal, to stand up as he does
before posterity between the noble Joan and the _gentille
Agnes_; deriving, however much more honor from one
of these companions than from the other. Almost as