or
the site of a town, standing as it does at the point of junction of the
roads from various parts of Central and Northern Gaul and from the
Constantine and Armorican peninsulas. It stands on a gently sloping
height, with a wide view over the flatter land to the south, and over
the Cenomannian hills more to the east, the peak of Montaigu, namesake
of our own Montacute, forming a prominent object. The traveller coming
along the road from Mayenne, the most likely point of approach, will
hardly notice anything remarkable till he reaches the parish church, a
building of no special importance, but which has a bell-gable of a type
more familiar in Britain than in Gaul. Here, if he has any eyes at all,
he will see that the church is built on the foundations of some much
larger and earlier building. The masses of Roman masonry are clear
enough, with two round projections near the two western angles of the
church. These are the remains of the _thermae_ of Naeodunum, and the
traveller has in fact passed through the greater part of the ancient
city to reach them. There are plenty of other and far greater remains;
but this is the only one which lies immediately on the road by which the
traveller is likely to come. The enclosed space of the town was an
irregular four-sided figure, with no distinct four streets of a
_chester_, but rather with a greater number of ways meeting together,
like our Godmanchester. The whole eastern side of the town is full of
remains among the fields and gardens; not far from the northern
entrance, a field or two away from the road, are the very distinct
foundations of a temple locally known as that of Fortune. A walk over
two or three more fields, crossed by traces of foundations at almost
every step, brings the traveller to a more singular object, known
locally as _La Tonnelle_, which looks very much like the foundation of a
round temple, such as that of Hercules (late Vesta) at Rome. And
something like the effect of such a temple is accidentally preserved. A
line of trees follows the circular sweep of the foundations, and their
trunks really make no bad representatives of the columns of the temple.
In short, when the traveller is once put upon the scent, he finds scraps
of ancient Naeodunum at every step of his walk through Jublains and its
fields.

But the most important remains of all lie in the south-western part of
the old enclosure. To the extreme south of the city lies the theatre.
This is happi