eyes he praised. On he went, chuckling
that his defective sight had not been
discovered: his little wife winking to us
meantime with an air of entire satisfaction.
Madame Tricot endeavoured to excite Achille
to study the guide pittoresque and make himself
acquainted with the notable objects of the
place. The lovers, who had doubtless much
zeal in the same cause, proposed to him that
they should all three mount the hill at a quick
pace, and find out the points of view ready for
us on arrival at the top. By a curious chance
we never managed to find the couple again
until our return; and Achille reported that
he had not seen them since he observed them to
have "joined their heads" over the tomb of
Agnes Sorel, the chief lion of the spot.

It seems that Charles the Seventh came to
Loches to hunt, when he was visited by the
disconsolate wife of the troubadour King
René of Anjou, who came to solicit his aid in
favour of her imprisoned husband. Agnes
was in her train—one of those dangerous
maids of honour whose eyes have done such
fatal mischief to the susceptible hearts of
incautious monarchs—but when the duchess quitted
Loches, her beautiful companion accompanied
her not, she remained in the service of Mary
d' Anjou, the wife of Charles the Seventh.

It would be curious to know in what
chamber of this wild old castle the love tale
was first told which has furnished France
with a ceaseless romance. All that remains
of Agnes now is her white marble tomb, on
which she lies with her hands clasped on her
breast, her beautiful, delicate, and expressive
head guarded by two winged kneeling
cherubs, and her draperied feet supported by
two lambs. The tomb is in perfect
preservation, and is one of the most exquisite
morceaux in France. Agnes was the châtelaine
of the castle, and loved to live here above all
other places, although the munificence of her
lover gave her the choice of several abodes.

Here, it is said that the ill-nurtured Prince
Dauphin, afterwards Louis the Eleventh,
performed an act very much in conformity with
his usual brutality. In one of these saloons
he struck the beautiful favourite of his father;
but he who could beat his own chosen little
effigy of the Virgin Mary, because she
refused some of his requests, might well begin
his career by an outrage like this. Happy,
no doubt, were both the angry beauty and her
royal lover, when they saw the last draw-
bridge of the castle of Loches fall and shut
out for ever from their presence the gloomy
prince, who disapproved of their luxuries,
and who spurred his steed onwards, nor
stopped till he had reached the dominions of
the Duke of Burgundy.

Louis came back eventually, however, to
these walls, and either late repentance or a
sense of justice caused him to respect the
tomb of Agnes, which he refused to let the
monks of Loches remove.

Monsieur Faye was very anxious to ascertain
—for he was rather a phrenologist—the form
of the celebrated beauty's head, and felt it
through the bars which protect the lovely
marble statue to his heart's content, discovering
bumps which would have disclosed the
whole of her character, had history been
silent on the subject. There was, besides,
not a cornice nor a balustrade in the building
that he did not feel; his hand being guided
by that of Mathurine. I was amazed at the
accuracy of his notions of the places we
inspected; and more so at the unwearied
patience of his guide; who had no enjoyment
which he did not feel, and who had acquired
a habit of description so accurate that I felt at
last inclined to let her see for the whole party.

The towers of the castle rise above a hundred
and fifty feet from the gigantic rock upon which
they are built. Some of them appear light and
graceful at a distance, although really massive.
The castle is divided into two unequal
portions: in one is a huge church, the spires
of which peer up between enclosing turrets
in a way quite original: the other is chiefly
composed of a huge tower, which looks like
the spiteful ogre of a fairy tale, bending over
a mountain and watching to snap up unwary
knights or merchants who ventured near his
stronghold. Century after century this grim
old place has been the abode of personages
famous in the romance of history. Joan of
Arc came here on a visit; Anne of Brittany
and her two husbands made it their favourite
abode, and her oratory still exists, covered
with ermine spots and cordelières in stone,
which encrust the walls, and were very sensible
to the touch of my blind friend. Mary Stuart
here tuned her lute; and here, several ages
before, our John Lackland feasted and
revelled; here Philip Augustus came to
receive the castle as a bribe for the assistance he
was to render him against CÅ“ur de Lion, who
afterwards besieged and took it. Here Jean
of France resided, before the great battle
which sent him the prisoner of the Black
Prince to England, and in the fine Lady
Chapel—whose delicate columns Monsieur
Faye felt with his hands—was instituted a
perpetual mass for the souls of the identical
King John of France, and all the Kings and
Dukes that had preceded him here. Here
Francis the First and the fair and
inappropriately named Diana, lived and loved a great
part of their hours away.

When one sees the dark, dreary, gloomy,
rugged walls, it is difficult to fancy Loches a
dwelling for beauty and love, and it would
require loads of bright tapestry and gilt
furniture to fill up the black and blank nooks
which yawn on all sides. In these chambers,
however, once all was revel and luxury, as
the court of the profligate Medici could testify:
and the be-puffed and be-hooped ladies, and
the be-slashed and be-jewelled lords, danced
many a branle and pavane over the dungeons,
where howled and groaned the victims of their
tyranny and cruel luxury.