ccount of Nantes, not to mention the
inn called the Hotel of Henry the Fourth. It is one of the largest and
most magnificently furnished in Europe. It makes up 60 beds, and can
take in 100 horses, and an equal proportion of servants. The rooms are
let very cheap, considering their quality: two neat rooms may be had for
four shillings a day; and a traveller may live very comfortably in the
house, and be provided with every thing, for about two guineas per week.
Horses are charged at the rate of two shillings only for a day and
night. And one thing which ought not to be forgotten, the beds are made,
and ladies are attended, by female servants, all of whom are neat, and
many of them very pretty girls. The contrary practice, which is almost
universal in France, is one of the most unpleasant circumstances to a
man educated in old English habits; for my own part, I never could
divest myself of my first disgust, at the sight of a huge, bearded,
raw-boned fellow, having access to the chamber at all hours, and making
the beds, and removing any of the usual appendages of a chamber, in the
presence of the ladies.

Having seen enough of Nantes, and exchanged our coach for a kind of open
barouche, particularly adapted for the French cross roads, being very
narrow, and composed entirely of cane, with removable wheels, so as to
take to pieces in an instant, we resumed the line of our Tour, and took
the road along the Loire for Ancennis.

It was a beautiful morning, and there being a fair at Mauves, a village
on the road, nothing could be more gay than our journey at its
commencement. I have forgotten to mention, that Mr. Younge and myself,
at the proposal of the ladies, had sent our horses forwards, and
therefore had taken our seats in the landau. The conversation of the
ladies was so pleasing and so intelligent, that hereafter I adopted this
proposal as often as it was offered, and as seldom as possible had
recourse to my horse.

Mauves, which was our first stage, is most romantically situated on a
hill, which forms one of the banks of the Loire. The country about it,
in the richness of its woods, and the verdure of its meadows, most
strongly reminded me of England; but I know of no scenery in England,
which together with this richness and variety of woodland and meadow,
has such a beautiful river as the Loire to complete it in all the
qualities of landscape. On each side of this river, from Nantes, are
hills, which are wooded to