beautiful as art," and again he dwells upon the charm of the sleepy
little town memorialized in "Ursule Mirouet."

The delicious valley of Loing indeed fascinated Balzac almost as much as
his beloved Touraine.

As his recently published letters to Madame Hanska have shown us,
several of his greatest novels were written in this neighbourhood,
whilst in the one named above we have a setting as striking as that of
"Eugenie Grandet" or "Beatrix." A ten minutes' railway journey brings us
to Nemours, one of the few French towns, by the way, in which Arthur
Young lost his temper. Here is his own account of the incident:--

"Sleep at Nemours, where we met with an innkeeper who exceeded in
knavery all we had met with, either in France or Italy: for supper, we
had a _soupe maigre_, a partridge and a chicken roasted, a plate of
celery, a small cauliflower, two bottles of poor _vin du Pays_, and a
dessert of two biscuits and four apples: here is the bill:--Potage 1
liv. 10f.--Perdrix 2 liv. 10f.--Poulet 2 liv.--Celeri 1 liv.
4f.--Choufleur 2 liv.--Pain et dessert 2 liv.--Feu et appartement 6
liv.--Total 19 liv. 8f. Against so impudent an extortion we remonstrated
severely but in vain. We then insisted on his signing the bill, which,
after many evasions, he did, _a l'etoile, Foulliare_. But having been
carried to the inn, not as the star, but the _ecu de France_, we
suspected some deceit: and going out to examine the premises, we found
the sign to be really the _ecu_, and learned on enquiry that his own
name was Roux, instead of _Foulliare_: he was not prepared for this
detection, or for the execration we poured on such infamous conduct; but
he ran away in an instant and hid himself till we were gone. In justice
to the world, however, such a fellow ought to be marked out."