I. and
competitor of Stephen, and became father of Henry II., first of the
Plantagenet kings, born, as we have seen, at Le Mans. These facts create
a natural presumption that Angers will look historic; I turned them over
in my mind as I travelled in the train from Le Mans, through a country
that was really pretty and looked more like the usual English than like
the usual French scenery, with its fields cut up by hedges and a
considerable rotundity in its trees. On my way from the station to the
hotel, however, it became plain that I should lack a good pretext for
passing that night at the Cheval Blanc; I foresaw that I should have
contented myself before the end of the day. I remained at the White
Horse only long enough to discover that it was an exceptionally good
provincial inn, one of the best that I encountered during six weeks
spent in these establishments.

"Stupidly and vulgarly modernised"--that is another flower from my
note-book, and note-books are not obliged to be reasonable. "There are
some narrow and tortuous streets, with a few curious old houses," I
continue to quote; "there is a castle, of which the exterior is most
extraordinary, and there is a cathedral of moderate interest." It is
fair to say that the Chateau d'Angers is by itself worth a pilgrimage;
the only drawback is that you have seen it in a quarter of an hour. You
cannot do more than look at it, and one good look does your business. It
has no beauty, no grace, no detail, nothing that charms or detains you;
it is simply very old and very big--so big and so old that this simple
impression is enough, and it takes its place in your recollections as a
perfect specimen of a superannuated stronghold. It stands at one end of
the town, surrounded by a huge, deep moat, which originally contained
the waters of the Maine, now divided from it by a quay. The water-front
of Angers is poor--wanting in colour and in movement; and there is
always an effect of perversity in a town lying near a great river and
yet not upon it. The Loire is a few miles off; but Angers contents
itself with a meagre affluent of that stream. The effect was naturally
much better when the vast dark bulk of the castle, with its seventeen
prodigious towers, rose out of the protecting flood. These towers are of
tremendous girth and solidity; they are encircled with great bands, or
hoops, of white stone, and are much enlarged at the base. Between them
hang high curtains of infinitely old-