es, in the months of July and
August, as a _station de bains_ for a modest provincial society; and,
putting aside the question of inns, it must be charming on summer
afternoons.

[Illustration]

Chapter xvii

[Poitiers]

It is an injustice to Poitiers to approach her by night, as I did some
three hours after leaving La Rochelle; for what Poitiers has of best, as
they would say at Poitiers, is the appearance she presents to the
arriving stranger who puts his head out of the window of the train. I
gazed into the gloom from such an aperture before we got into the
station, for I remembered the impression received on another occasion;
but I saw nothing save the universal night, spotted here and there with
an ugly railway lamp. It was only as I departed, the following day, that
I assured myself that Poitiers still makes something of the figure she
ought on the summit of her considerable hill. I have a kindness for any
little group of towers, any cluster of roofs and chimneys, that lift
themselves from an eminence over which a long road ascends in zigzags;
such a picture creates for the moment a presumption that you are in
Italy, and even leads you to believe that if you mount the winding road
you will come to an old town-wall, an expanse of creviced brownness, and
pass under a gateway surmounted by the arms of a mediaeval despot. Why I
should find it a pleasure in France to imagine myself in Italy, is more
than I can say; the illusion has never lasted long enough to be
analysed. From the bottom of its perch Poitiers looks large and high;
and indeed, the evening I reached it, the interminable climb of the
omnibus of the hotel I had selected, which I found at the station, gave
me the measure of its commanding position. This hotel, "magnifique
construction ornee de statues," as the Guide-Joanne, usually so
reticent, takes the trouble to announce, has an omnibus, and, I suppose,
has statues, though I didn't perceive them; but it has very little else
save immemorial accumulations of dirt. It is magnificent, if you will,
but it is not even relatively proper; and a dirty inn has always seemed
to me the dirtiest of human things--it has so many opportunities to
betray itself.

Poitiers covers a large space, and is as crooked and straggling as you
please; but these advantages are not accompanied with any very salient
features or any great wealth of architecture. Although there are few
picturesque houses, however, there a