It Rises Above The Valley Of The
Indre, The Charming Stream Set In Meadows And Sedges,
Which Wanders Through The
Province of Berry and
through many of the novels of Madame George Sand;
lifting from the summit of a hill,
Which it covers to
the base, a confusion of terraces, ramparts, towers, and
spires. Having but little time, as I say, we scaled
the hill amain, and wandered briskly through this
labyrinth of antiquities. The rain had decidedly
stopped, and save that we had our train on our minds,
we saw Loches to the best advantage. We enjoyed
that sensation with which the conscientious tourist is
- or ought to be - well acquainted, and for which, at
any rate, he has a formula in his rough-and-ready
language. We "experienced," as they say, (most odious
of verbs!) an "agreeable disappointment." We were
surprised and delighted; we had not suspected that
Loches was so good.
I hardly know what is best there: the strange and
impressive little collegial church, with its romanesque
atrium or narthex, its doorways covered with primitive
sculpture of the richest kind, its treasure of a so-called
pagan altar, embossed with fighting warriors, its three
pyramidal domes, so unexpected, so sinister, which I
have not met elsewhere, in church architecture; or the
huge square keep, of the eleventh century, - the most
cliff-like tower I remember, whose immeasurable thick-
ness I did not penetrate; or the subterranean mysteries
of two other less striking but not less historic dungeons,
into which a terribly imperative little cicerone intro-
duced us, with the aid of downward ladders, ropes,
torches, warnings, extended hands; and, many, fearful
anecdotes, - all in impervious darkness.
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