Loire

“ For nearly a thousand kilometres the Loire has wound its way gently and broadly through rocky escarpments, fertile plains, populous and luxurious towns,—all of it historic ground,—by stately châteaux and through vineyards and fruit orchards, with a placid grandeur. ”

“ Of all the cities of the Loire, Orleans, Blois, Tours, Angers, and Nantes alone show any spirit of modern progressiveness or of likeness41 to the capital. The rest, to all appearances, are dead, or at least sleeping in their pasts. But they are charming and restful spots for all that, where in melancholy silence sit the old men, while the younger folk, including the very children, are all at work in the neighbouring vineyards or in the wheat-fields of La Beauce. ”

“ The scenery along the Loire has a character which I should think could not be found in any other kingdom, and on any other river. Towns, windmills, steeples, ancient castles and abbeys still entire, and others with nothing remaining but their lofty walls; hills covered with vines, and alternate woods and corn-fields—altogether form a landscape, or rather a chain of landscapes, which remind one of a poem, and successively refresh, delight, animate, and exalt the imagination. ”

“ Finally, the picturesque landscape of the Loire is something quite different from the harder, grayer outlines of the north. All is of the south, warm and ruddy, and the wooded banks not only refine the crudities of a flat shore-line, but form a screen or barrier to the flowering charms of the examples of Renaissance architecture which, in Touraine, at least, are as thick as leaves in Vallambrosa. ”

“ THE HOME OF OUR ANGEVIN KINGS.
For those who possess historic tastes, slender purses, and an exemption from Alpine mania, few holidays are more pleasant than a lounge along the Loire. There is always something refreshing in the companionship of a fine river, and whatever one may think of its summer sands Loire through the spring and the autumn is a very fine river indeed. There is, besides, the pleasantest variety of scenery as one wanders along from the sombre granite of Brittany to the volcanic cinder-heaps of Auvergne. ”

“ And this was true—true as it is that Tours has always had its feet in the Loire, like a pretty girl who bathes herself and plays with the water, making a flick-flack, by beating the waves with her fair white hands; for the town is more smiling, merry, loving, fresh, flowery, and fragrant than all the other towns of the world, which are not worthy to comb her locks or to buckle her waistband. And be sure if you go there you will find, in the centre of it, a sweet place, in which is a delicious street where everyone promenades, where there is always a breeze, shade, sun, rain, and love. ”

“ Along the banks of the Loire, moreover, France has woodlands, and lawns, and an, intermixture of wood and water, and of every possible variety of surface, which no country in the world but France can produce. The Loire is perhaps the only river in Europe which is bordered by hills and hillocks, and which, in so long a course, so seldom passes through a mere dead level. ”

“ Historic France is there! Auvergne is Auvergne, Languedoc is only Languedoc; but Touraine is France; the most national river for Frenchmen is the Loire, which waters Touraine. For this reason we ought not to be surprised at the great number of historically noble buildings possessed by those departments which have taken the name, or derivations of the name, of the Loire. At every step we take in this land of enchantment we discover a new picture, bordered, it may be, by a river, or a tranquil lake reflecting in its liquid depths a castle with towers, and woods and sparkling waterfalls. ”

“ Our way lay for some miles by Loire, first on one bank and then on the other. This flat country, with its wide reaches of meadow land and distant horizon lines, has a charm of its own, its restfulness suits the drowsy autumn days, and no trees could be better fitted to border these roadsides and river banks than the tall slim Lombardy poplars, with their odd bunches of foliage atop like the plumes and pompons on soldiers' caps. Down by some of the streams large white poplars have spread out their branches, making coverts from the sunshine for man and beast. ”

“ The glittering waters of the princely Loire studded with its numerous little green Isles, and white sails of commerce, are seen rapidly coursing in intricate windings through the broad, rich plain of corn-fields, for many miles in extent, both to the east and west, and which is bordered by bold elevations, and cliffs of chalk and calcareous sandstone, surmounted by a succession of beautiful vineyards. ”

“ The pages of Alfred de Vigny and Balzac answer this emphatically, and to the contrary, and every returning traveller apparently sides with them and not with Stendahl.
How can one not love its prairies, gently sloping to the caressing Loire, its rolling hills and dainty ravines? The broad blue Loire is always vague and tranquil here, at least one seems always to see it so, but the beauty of Touraine is, after all, a quiet beauty which must be seen to be appreciated, and lived with to be loved. ”

“ It rises precipitously from the northern bank of the Loire; and many of its streets are so steep as to be almost impassable for carriages. On the brow of the hill, overlooking the roofs of the city, and commanding a fine view of the Loire and its noble bridge, and the surrounding country, sprinkled with cottages and châteaux, runs an ample terrace, planted with trees, and laid out as a public walk. The view from this terrace is one of the most beautiful in France. But what most strikes the eye of the traveler at Blois is an old, tho still unfinished, castle. ”

“ As far as the eye can reach, one swelling line of hill-top rises and falls behind another; and if you climb an eminence, it is only to see new and farther ranges behind these. Many little rivers run from all sides in cliffy valleys; and one of them, a few miles from Monastier, bears the great name of Loire. The mean level of the country is a little more than three thousand feet above the sea, which makes the atmosphere proportionally brisk and wholesome. There is little timber except pines, and the greater part of the country lies in moorland pasture. ”

“ Over the side of the bridge, where the carriage had come to a stand, the traveler looks along a line of cliffs stretching as far as Tours. Nature in some freakish mood must have raised these barriers of rock, undermined incessantly by the rippling Loire at their feet, for a perpetual wonder for spectators. The village of Vouvray nestles, as it were, among the clefts and crannies of the crags, which begin to describe a bend at the junction of the Loire and Cise. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To-day most travellers are content to rush over its apartments, gaze at its great round tower, view the Loire, which is here quite at its best, from the battlements, and, after a brief admiration of the wonderfully sculptured portal of its chapel, make their way to Chenonceaux, or to the gay little metropolis of Tours. ”

“ Meung-sur-Loire and Beaugency sleep on the river-bank, their proud monuments rising high in the background,—the massive tower of Cæsar and a quartette of church spires. Just below Orleans is the juncture of the Loiret and the Loire at St. Mesmin, while only a few kilometres away is Cléry, famed for its associations of Louis XI.
The Loiret is not a very ample river, and is classed by the Minister of Public Works as navigable for but four kilometres of its length. This, better than anything else, should define its relative importance among the great waterways of France. ”

“ On the skirts of Le Berry stands a town which, watered by the Loire, infallibly attracts the traveler’s eye. Sancerre crowns the topmost height of a chain of hills, the last of the range that gives variety to the Nivernais. The Loire floods the flats at the foot of these slopes, leaving a yellow alluvium that is extremely fertile, excepting in those places where it has deluged them with sand and destroyed them forever, by one of those terrible risings which are also incidental to the Vistula—the Loire of the northern coast. ”

“ Thence he saw the Loire, the beautiful slopes of Saint-Cyr, the gloomy marvels of Plessis, where lights were gleaming in the deep recesses of a few windows. Far in the distance lay the beautiful meadows of Touraine and the silvery stream of her river. Every point of this lovely nature had, at that moment, a mysterious grace; the windows, the waters, the roofs of the houses shone like diamonds in the trembling light of the moon. ”

“ No view along the whole course of the Loire can compare with the rich landscape of Touraine, here outspread beneath the traveler’s eyes. The triple picture, thus barely sketched in outline, is one of those scenes which the imagination engraves for ever upon the memory; let a poet fall under its charm, and he shall be haunted by visions which shall reproduce its romantic loveliness out of the vague substance of dreams.
As the carriage stopped on the bridge over the Cise, white sails came out here and there from among the islands in the Loire to add new grace to the perfect view. ”

“ The Loire becomes more and more animated and occasionally there is a great tow of boats like those that one sees continually passing on the lower Seine. Here the course of the Loire takes on a singular aspect. It is filled with long flat islands, sometimes in archipelagos, but often only a great flat prairie surrounded by a tranquil canal, wide and deep, and with little resemblance to the mistress Loire of a hundred or two kilometres up-stream. ”

“ Throughout most of the river's course, one sees, stretching to the horizon, row upon row of staked vineyards with fruit and leaves in luxuriant abundance and of all rainbow colours. The peasant here, the worker in the vineyards, is a picturesque element. He is not particularly brilliant in colouring, but he is usually joyous, and he invariably lives in a well-kept and brilliantly environed habitation and has an air of content and prosperity amid the well-beloved treasures of his household.
The Loire is essentially a river of other days. ”

“ My main guide through France was the Loire, which led me by a meandering route of nearly five hundred miles to the neighbourhood of Lyons.
Knowing, at that time, so little of the language of those who surrounded me, as actually to envy the fluency of a parrot which I heard chattering with, I suspect, the true Parisian accent, I can scarcely account for the feeling of thorough nonchalance with which I commenced my pilgrimage, and which ever accompanied me to its conclusion. ”

“ By this time we had coasted along the moat till we came to the Loire, where a whole swarm of boatmen, honest fellows in red caps and striped shirts, came up, shouting, ‘Vive Monsieur!’ ‘Vive Mademoiselle!’ and declaring that it was a shame to lock her out of her fathers own town. ”

“ I had now passed the provinces of Bretagne and Poitou, as they border the Loire; and, in point of beautiful and romantic scenery, this district can scarcely be surpassed. The left bank of the river, running along the country of Le Bocage, from Nantes to Angers, a distance of seventy-two miles, is a continued range of lofty hills, agreeably diversified with corn lands, and studded with vineyards. The opposite bank is a more flat and variegated country, with pleasant eminences and broad plains, watered by branches of the Loire, which in many parts contains small islands covered with trees. ”

“ Look away from these works of man to the feathered poplars, the vineyards, the gentle waters, and see the earth's countenance, smiling and serene. Decorous it is always; only the irregularities of the Loire and its channel seem to bear any reference to the conduct of those beautiful historic ladies who dispersed their reputations in the vicinity. Even man did not always build a Langeais or a Loches. Urbane and gracious amid their parks or on their bluffs rise those dwellings planned when France's architectural genius was in its happiest mood—though not its loftiest. ”

“ Yet the Loire cannot boast of equal beauty with the Seine; its raging waters inundate the country in winter, leaving dry shoals in summer; and near its mouth, the district called the Marais is an uninteresting tract of sand, salt marshes, and ponds. It is of this unpromising scene that we would write, where ten thousand persons find occupation in the making of salt.
The interest attaching to the people arises from their extreme simplicity. Thanks to the salubrity of the country, they are a fine hardy race, the men tall and well-proportioned, the women celebrated for their fresh complexions. ”

“ To go to Chambord, you cross the Loire, leave it on one side, and strike away through a country in which salient features become less and less numerous, and which at last has no other quality than a look of intense, and peculiar rurality, - the characteristic, even when it is not the charm, of so much of the landscape of France. This is not the appearance of wildness, for it goes with great cultivation; it is simply the presence of the delving, drudging, economizing peasant. But it is a deep, unrelieved rusticity. It is a peasant's landscape ”

“ If one has the time and so desires, he may follow the Indre, the next confluent of the Loire south of the Cher, from Loches to "George Sand's country," as literary pilgrims will like to think of the pleasant valleys of the ancient province of Berry. ”