very singularly divided into two parishes and two churches: all
gentlemen, all military officers, all landed proprietors who possessed
honorary fiefs, and all strangers who were temporary residents, were
considered as belonging to one parish, and the people and the bourgeois
were attached to the other. The Revolution has annihilated these absurd
distinctions, and every one now belongs to the parish in which he
resides, or has property.

We visited the chateau, or castle, which is indeed well worthy of the
particular attention of travellers. It is built upon a lofty and craggy
rock, and overhangs the Loire, which flows at the bottom; the side on
the Loire is perpendicular, and of great height, so as to render it
almost inaccessible. This vast structure was not all the work of one
time, or of one author. The present castle was built upon the ruins of
one which was destroyed by the Normans in the year 882, but having gone
into decay, was repaired and enlarged by Francis the First and Charles
the Eighth. The latter prince was born in this castle, and during his
whole reign it was the constant summer residence of the court. The most
remarkable part of this structure is what is called the oratory of Louis
the Wicked; it is at a great depth beneath the foundation of the castle,
and the descent to it is by spiral or well-stairs. It is literally
nothing more than a dungeon, on a platform, in which is a prostrate
statue representing the dead body of our Lord, as taken from the Cross,
covered with streaks of blood, and the skin in welts, as if fresh from
the scourge. According to the tradition of the neighbourhood, this was
the daily scene of the private devotions of Louis the Eleventh; and the
character of the place and of the images around, have certainly some
symphony with the known disposition of that monarch. No one, even in the
horrible Revolution, has disturbed these relics; it is still exhibited
as the tyrant's dungeon, and no one enters or leaves it without feeling
a renewed idea of the character of that execrable monster.

The conspiracy of Amboise having originated in this city, the walls and
dungeons of the castle still retain some relics of the ferocious
cruelties exercised by the triumphant party of the Guises. Spikes,
nails, and short iron gibbets and chains, are still shewn on the walls,
on which were suspended the bodies of the prisoners who fell into their
hands. How difficult is it to reconcile such ferocity to