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several times heard afterwards on our route, who had created some sensation in this part of the world. They were Englishmen and pedestrians. They travelled en blouse, carrying their wallets and drawing materials, in the guise of artists, but were shrewdly suspected of being milors in disguise. They were château hunting.

They traversed the whole country and would not miss a château, managing to coax permission to visit those which were not open to the public, and carefully examining all. We could not help forming a wish that they may be authors as well as designers, and that the result of their interesting rambles may some day be generally known. We could not discover who they were, their names not having transpired, but if they had, we should not have been much nearer our end, as an English name is to a French person, like the name of Allah to a Mussulman not to be mentioned lightly, though the reason is not the same.

At the village of la Pointe, the Maine joins the Loire; the whole country round was formerly a Roman camp, where not less than one hundred thousand men were accustomed to manœuvre at ease; occasional remains may be discovered, and Roman coins are continually turned up in the soil. A more obvious remain

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of Roman power exists in the famous Ponts de Cé, a construction of four flat bridges of great extent, which form a singular feature at this part of the river. Louis XIII. fought on this spot, in 1620, a famous battle against his mother, Marie de Medici, and in 1793 another fearful struggle took place between the inhabitants and the Vendéeans.

Another remarkable work commences about this part of the river, at la Daguenière, where the famous Levées de la Loire is first met with. This immortal undertaking, which keeps the waters of that widely-wandering river in check, and restrains, with a giant arm, its desolating ravages, has rescued from annihilation, and rendered rich and fertile that part of the banks called la Grande Vallée de la Loire. This wonderful raised road is twenty-two French feet high, and twenty-four feet wide, constructed with such solid masonry that no force can injure it. It runs along an extent of forty leagues, and is, from its extraordinary strength and utility, one of the most surprising works in Europe. The first projection of so magnificent an undertaking, is attributed to Charlemagne, but Louis le Debonnaire, in 819, issued an edict respecting its formation of course, at that early period, it was imperfectly executed, and not till the beginning

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CATACOMBS.

of the eleventh century, was the part which connects Angers and Saumur begun. It was about 1160, that Henry II. of England, that enlightened monarch, so superior to his age, whose wisdom and foresight are shown in all the benefits he bestowed by his public works on his subjects in different provinces, terminated the great labour so well begun. At this period, however, the object was, not to afford a communication from town to town, but to secure the country on that side from inundation. A century later this improvement took place, and since then, no pains have been spared to preserve this glorious monument of the industry and perseverance of man.

The Levée is now a fine broad-paved road by the side of the river, bordered with rows of poplars and passing through towns and villages and rich meadows. One village, that of Tuffeaux, is remarkable for its immense quarries of sandstone (tuffa), which have been worked for twelve centuries, for the construction of most of the edifices on each side of the Loire. These quarries are at the present day actual catacombs, and it is unsafe to attempt to explore them. From this spot begins a very remarkable feature of these shores, and one which, when first seen, excites the greatest surprise. I allude to those

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subterranean habitations scooped in the rock, whose mysterious and picturesque appearance I at first thought a work of nature, but their frequent recurrence convinced me that the hand of man had formed them, and, as for leagues they constantly appear, not only by the river, but spread over the interior of the country, they ceased, of course, to excite astonishment, but had always the same interest, for nothing can be so romantic and curious as these caverns at every imaginable distance along the face of the rock, inhabited by all classes of people, from the beggar who finds a mere shelter, and the peasant who scantily furnishes his sylvan apartment, to the rich bourgeois who builds himself a summer retreat and ornaments his wild haunt in every variety of way which his taste or fancy may suggest.

CHAPTER XXII.

Saumur.-The Traveller from Pau.-Quays.-Place de l'Hôtel de Ville.-Fine Castle.-La Butte des Moulins.-The Farmer.-Churches.-Archbishop of Tyre.-King René.—La Nourice.-N. Dame des Ardilliers.-The Figure.-The Brides. The Forlorn Lady.-The Warning Bride. The Restored Lover.-N. D. de Bon Secours -Celtic Monuments.

UR companion from Angers along the Levée was a young French traveller, who was on his return to Paris from Pau, and who held in sovereign contempt all towns, villages,

and cities, churches, cathedrals, and castles which were situated as far north as the Loire: he laughed at all hills Norman or Breton, for he had wandered amongst the snow-crowned mountains of Berne, he had seen the châteaux where the infancy and childhood of Henri Quatre were passed he had rocked the tortoise-shell cradle in which the little hero reposed, and had heard