Along France's river of romance: . d vineyards,intersected by highways ruled with geometrical pre-cision, I knew at once that I should never have thepatience to get away from it by walking. The inn was a large square house built of stone,newly fitted up, and filled with commis-voyageurs. Justopposite my room, across the narrow street, was anold stone house with a beautifully carved fa9ade andhigh dormer windows, occupied by a chemist. Alas ! with terrible celerity I explored Gien. Iwalked on that first afternoon through all its winding,crooked old streets (in most of which are fifteenth-centur
Along France's river of romance: . d vineyards,intersected by highways ruled with geometrical pre-cision, I knew at once that I should never have thepatience to get away from it by walking. The inn was a large square house built of stone,newly fitted up, and filled with commis-voyageurs. Justopposite my room, across the narrow street, was anold stone house with a beautifully carved fa9ade andhigh dormer windows, occupied by a chemist. Alas ! with terrible celerity I explored Gien. Iwalked on that first afternoon through all its winding,crooked old streets (in most of which are fifteenth-century houses with charming carved woodwork andcurious gables to delight the eye). I stood in themiddle of the beautiful stone bridge of twelve archeswhich dates from the end of the sixteenth century,and admired the way the old town clustered roundthe base of the chateau which Anne of Beaujeu recon- GIEN 147 structed, and the joyous way it seemed to break intoa wide smile along the river-bank. Unlike most Loire ^W^ \<^ J^^ LI, ^^ Ml. Gien towns, Gien does not turn its back on the river, butfaces it and crowds down to it as eagerly as Brighton 148 THE LOIRE faces and crowds to the sea. A long line of prettyhouses looks across to the faubourg of Berri; shadyrows of plane trees run the length of the quay andmirror themselves in the swift yet placid washerwomens boats, like seedy college barges,are moored at the base of the steep stone embank-ment, which, high though it is, is insufficient to holdin the waters of the river during the floods. On thebridge, on the walls of the houses facing the Loire, andon the wall of the little seventeenth-century church ofSaint Louis that backs on to it, lines are painted ornotches cut, each marked with a date— Crue de1856 ; Crue de 1864 —grim reminders of thesleeping enemys power. Several times before the sacred hour of dinner, Iclimbed the steep knoll on which the fantastic, turretedchateau is situated, with the parish church of St.
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookidalongfrances, bookyear1913
