the last century (having been arranged at that
period), and a beautiful sweep of view over the surrounding country, and
especially of the course of the little river Clain, which winds about a
part of the base of the big mound of Poitiers. The limit of this dear
little garden is formed, on the side that turns away from the town, by
the rampart erected in the fourteenth century and by its big
semicircular bastions. This rampart, of great length, has a low parapet;
you look over it at the charming little vegetable-gardens with which the
base of the hill appears exclusively to be garnished. The whole prospect
is delightful, especially the details of the part just under the walls,
at the end of the walk. Here the river makes a shining twist which a
painter might have invented, and the side of the hill is terraced into
several hedges--a sort of tangle of small blooming patches and little
pavilions with peaked roofs and green shutters. It is idle to attempt to
reproduce all this in words; it should be reproduced only in
water-colours. The reader, however, will already have remarked that
disparity in these ineffectual pages, which are pervaded by the attempt
to sketch without a palette or brushes. He will doubtless also be struck
with the grovelling vision which, on such a spot as the ramparts of
Poitiers, peoples itself with carrots and cabbages rather than with
images of the Black Prince and the captive king. I am not sure that in
looking out from the Promenade de Blossac you command the old
battle-field; it is enough that it was not far off, and that the great
rout of Frenchmen poured into the walls of Poitiers, leaving on the
ground a number of the fallen equal to the little army (eight thousand)
of the invader. I did think of the battle. I wondered, rather
helplessly, where it had taken place; and I came away (as the reader
will see from the preceding sentence) without finding out. This
indifference, however, was a result rather of a general dread of
military topography than of a want of admiration of this particular
victory, which I have always supposed to be one of the most brilliant
on record. Indeed, I should be almost ashamed, and very much at a loss,
to say what light it was that this glorious day seemed to me to have
left for ever on the horizon, and why the very name of the place had
always caused my blood gently to tingle. It is carrying the feeling of
race to quite inscrutable lengths when a vague American permits