latter.

The banks of the Loire immediately below Tours grow the only grape in
France--perhaps in all the world--which is able to produce a
satisfactory substitute for champagne.

Vineyard after vineyard line the banks for miles on either side and
give great crops of the celebrated _vin mosseaux_, the most of which
finds its way to Paris, to be sold by second-rate dealers as the
"vrai vin de champagne." There's no reason why it shouldn't be sold
on its own merits; it is quite good enough; but commerce bows down to
American millionaires, English dukes, and the German emperor, and the
king of wines of to-day must be labelled champagne.

From Tours to Niort is 170 kilometres, and we stopped not on the way
except to admire some particularly entrancing view, to buy gasoline
for the automobile, and for lunch at Poitiers.

The whole aspect of things was changing; there was a breath of the
south already in the air; and there was an unspeakable tendency on
the part of everybody to go to sleep after the midday meal.

We passed Chatellerault and its quaint old turreted and bastioned
bridge at just the hour of noon, and were tempted to stop, for we had
just heard of the latest thing in the way of a hotel which was
brand-new, with steam heat, and hot and cold water, electric lights,
baths, etc. Nothing was said about the bill of fare, though no doubt
it was equally excellent. The combination didn't appeal, however; we
were out after novelty and local colour, and so we rolled on and into
Poitiers's Hotel de l'Europe and lunched well in the most charmingly
cool garden-environed dining-room that it were possible to conceive.
We had made a wise choice, though on a hit-or-miss formula, and we
were content.

Here at least the dim echo of the rustle and bustle of Paris, which
drifts down the valley of the Loire from Orleans to the sea, was left
behind; a whole new chromatic scale was being built up. No one
hurried or rushed about, and one drank a "_tilleuil_" after _dejeuner_,
instead of coffee, with the result that he got sleepy forthwith.

There are five magnificent churches at Poitiers, dating from Roman
and mediaeval times, but we saw not one of them as we passed through
the town. Again we had decided we were out after local manners and
customs, and, for the moment, churches were not in the category of
our demands.

We had only faint glimmerings as to where Niort was, or what it stood
for, but we were bound thither for the ni