looking masonry, apparently a dense
conglomeration of slate, the material of which the town was originally
built (thanks to rich quarries in the neighbourhood), and to which it
owed its appellation of the Black. There are no windows, no apertures,
and to-day no battlements nor roofs. These accessories were removed by
Henry III., so that, in spite of its grimness and blackness, the place
has not even the interest of looking like a prison; it being, as I
suppose, the essence of a prison not to be open to the sky. The only
features of the enormous structure are the blank, sombre stretches and
protrusions of wall, the effect of which, on so large a scale, is
strange and striking. Begun by Philip Augustus and terminated by St.
Louis, the Chateau d'Angers has of course a great deal of history. The
luckless Fouquet, the extravagant minister of finance of Louis XIV.,
whose fall from the heights of grandeur was so sudden and complete, was
confined here in 1661, just after his arrest, which had taken place at
Nantes. Here also Huguenots and Vendeans suffered effective captivity.

I walked round the parapet which protects the outer edge of the moat (it
is all up-hill, and the moat deepens and deepens), till I came to the
entrance which faces the town, and which is as bare and strong as the
rest. The concierge took me into the court; but there was nothing to
see. The place is used as a magazine of ammunition, and the yard
contains a multitude of ugly buildings. The only thing to do is to walk
round the bastions for the view; but at the moment of my visit the
weather was thick, and the bastions began and ended with themselves. So
I came out and took another look at the big, black exterior, buttressed
with white-ribbed towers, and perceived that a desperate sketcher might
extract a picture from it, especially if he were to bring in, as they
say, the little black bronze statue of the good King Rene (a weak
production of

[Illustration: ANGERS--OLD TIMBERED HOUSES]

David d'Angers), which, standing within sight, ornaments the melancholy
faubourg. He would do much better, however, with the very striking old
timbered house (I suppose of the fifteenth century) which is called the
Maison d'Adam and is easily the first specimen at Angers of the domestic
architecture of the past. This admirable house, in the centre of the
town, gabled, elaborately timbered, and much restored, is a really
imposing monument. The basement is occupied by a lin