f time have, both for our
pleasure and our pain, invented the fashion of special terms, and I am
afraid that even common decency obliges me to pay some larger tribute
than this to the architectural gem of Touraine. Fortunately I can
discharge my debt with gratitude. In going from Tours you leave the
valley of the Loire and enter that of the Cher, and at the end of about
an hour you see the turrets of the castle on your right, among the
trees, down in the meadows, beside the quiet little river. The station
and the village are about ten minutes' walk from the chateau, and the
village contains a very tidy inn, where, if you are not in too great a
hurry to commune with the shades of the royal favourite and the jealous
queen, you will perhaps stop and order a dinner to be ready for you in
the evening. A straight, tall avenue leads to the grounds of the castle;
what I owe to exactitude compels me to add that it is crossed by the
railway-line. The place is so arranged, however, that the chateau need
know nothing of passing trains--which pass, indeed, though the grounds
are not large, at a very sufficient distance. I may add that the trains
throughout this part of France have a noiseless, desultory, dawdling,
almost stationary quality, which makes them less of an offence than
usual. It was a Sunday afternoon and the light was yellow save under the
trees of the avenue, where, in spite of the waning of September, it was
duskily green. Three or four peasants, in festal attire, were strolling
about. On a bench at the beginning of the avenue sat a man with two
women. As I advanced with my companions he rose, after a sudden stare,
and approached me with a smile in which (to be Johnsonian for a moment)
certitude was mitigated by modesty and eagerness was embellished with
respect. He came toward me with a salutation that I had seen before, and
I am happy to say that after an instant I ceased to be guilty of the
brutality of not knowing where. There was only one place in the world
where people smile like that, only one place where the art of salutation
has that perfect grace. This excellent creature used to crook his arm,

[Illustration: CHENONCEAUX]

in Venice, when I stepped into my gondola; and I now laid my hand on
that member with the familiarity of glad recognition; for it was only
surprise that had kept me even for a moment from accepting the genial
Francesco as an ornament of the landscape of Touraine. What on
earth--the phrase