surely be supposed to treat of some charitable institution in France, or
of charity as worked out in the abstract, for this first of Christian
virtues has given the place its name, presumably perpetuating the
charitableness of its abbatial founders. Just upon two thousand years
ago, some pious monks of the order of Cluny settled here, calling their
foundation La Charite. Gradually a town grew around the abbey walls, and
what better name for any than this? So La Charite it was in early feudal
times, and La Charite it remains in our own.

The place itself is as antiquated and behindhand as any I have seen in
France, which is saying a good deal. A French gentleman, native of these
parts, told me that in his grandfather's time our Hotel du Grand
Monarque enjoyed a fine reputation. In many respects it deserves the
same still, excellent beds, good cooking, quietude and low prices not
being so common as they might be in French provincial inns. The house,
too, is curious, what with its spiral stone staircases, little passages
leading to one room here, to another there--as if in former days
travellers objected to walls that adjoined those of other people--and
unaccountable levels, it is impossible to understand whether you were on
the first floor or the second floor, house-top, or basement. Our
bedrooms, for instance, reached by one of the spiral stone staircases
just named never used by myself without apprehension, landed us on the
edge of a poultry yard; I suppose a wide bit of roof had been converted
into this use, but it was quite impossible to make out any architectural
plan. These rooms adjoining this _basse-cour_, hens and chicks would
enter unceremoniously and pick up the crumbs we threw to them.
Fastidious tourists might resent so primitive a state of things, the
hotel, I should say, remaining exactly what it was under the Ancien
Regime. The beauty and interest of various kinds around, more than make
up for small drawbacks. Here the archaeologist will not grudge several