At the summit of the hill is _Le Puit qui parle_, the Talking
Well. It is 140 feet deep, and is shaped like a bottle. If any one
speaks near the mouth, it soon after repeats in an extraordinary
articulate manner the last two syllables uttered, a veritable "Jocosa
Imago." Drop in a pin, and after eight seconds its click is heard as it
touches the water. A stone produces a veritable detonation.

There is another Troglodyte town, also formerly walled, Les Roches,
above Montoire. It is occupied by six hundred souls, and most of the
houses are dug out of the rock. There is hardly space for the road to
run between the Loir and the crags, and the church has to curl itself
like a dog going to sleep to fit the area allowed it. This rock forms
perpendicular bluffs of chalk tufa, and masses of fallen stone lie at
their feet. Some rocks overhang, and the whole of this cliff and the
fallen blocks have been drilled with openings and converted into
habitations for man and for beast. Doors and windows have been cut in
the stone, which has been hollowed out as maggots clear out the kernel
of a nut. Rooms, kitchens, cellars, stables have been thus contrived.
The chimneys run up the rocks, and through them; and on the plateau
above open as wells, but are surrounded by a breastwork of bricks to
protect them against the rain, which might form a rill that would
decant playfully down the opening in a waterfall. In winter, when all
hearths are lighted, the smoke issuing from all these little structures
has the effect of a series of steaming saucepans.

A little way up the river outside the walls is the Chateau de Boydan,
half scooped out of the cliff, with pretty sixteenth century mullioned
and transomed windows. At right angles to the rock a wing was thrown
out to contain the state apartments with their fireplaces and chimneys.
But unfortunately it was tacking on of new cloth to the old garment,