esiastical
architecture, some turreted manor, some lonely tower, some gabled
village, some scene of something. Yet even if you do everything--which
was not my case--you cannot hope to tell everything, and, fortunately
for you, the excursions divide themselves into the greater and the less.
You may achieve most of the greater in a week or two; but a summer in
Touraine (which, by the way, must be a

[Illustration: BLOIS]

delectable thing) would hold none too many days for the others. If you
come down to Tours from Paris your best economy is to spend a few days
at Blois, where a clumsy but rather attractive little inn on the edge of
the river will offer you a certain amount of that familiar and
intermittent hospitality which a few weeks spent in the French provinces
teaches you to regard as the highest attainable form of accommodation.
Such an economy I was unable to practise. I could only go to Blois (from
Tours) to spend the day; but this feat I accomplished twice over. It is
a very sympathetic little town, as we say nowadays, and a week there
would be sociable even without company. Seated on the north bank of the
Loire, it presents a bright, clean face to the sun and has that aspect
of cheerful leisure which belongs to all white towns that reflect
themselves in shining waters. It is the water-front only of Blois,
however, that exhibits this fresh complexion; the interior is of a
proper brownness, as old sallow books are bound in vellum. The only
disappointment is perforce the discovery that the castle, which is the
special object of one's pilgrimage, does not overhang the river, as I
had always allowed myself to understand. It overhangs the town, but is
scarcely visible from the stream. That peculiar good fortune is reserved
for Amboise and Chaumont.

The Chateau de Blois is one of the most beautiful and elaborate of all
the old royal residences of this part of France, and I suppose it should
have all the honours of my description. As you cross its threshold you
step straight into the sunshine and storm of the French Renaissance. But
it is too rich to describe--I can only pick out the high lights. It must
be premised that in speaking of it as we see it to-day we speak of a
monument unsparingly restored. The work of restoration has been as
ingenious as it is profuse, but it rather chills the imagination. This
is perhaps almost the first thing you feel as you approach the castle
from the streets of the town. These lit