rough a lattice of clipped twigs. Beyond this is a garden, and beyond
the garden are the other buildings of the convent, where the placid
sisters keep a school--a test, doubtless, of placidity. The imperfect
arcade, which dates from the beginning of the sixteenth century (I know
nothing of it but what is related in Mrs. Pattison's "Renaissance in
France"), is a truly enchanting piece of work; the cornice and the
angles of the arches being covered with the daintiest sculpture of
arabesques, flowers, fruit, medallions, cherubs, griffins, all in the
finest and most attenuated relief. It is like the chasing of a bracelet
in stone. The taste, the fancy, the elegance, the refinement, are of the
order that straightens up again our drooping standard of distinction.
Such a piece of work is the purest flower of the French Renaissance;
there is nothing more delicate in all Touraine.

[Tours: Saint Julian]

There is another fine thing at Tours which is not particularly delicate,
but which makes a great impression--the very interesting old church of
Saint Julian, lurking in a crooked corner at the right of the Rue
Royale, near the point at which this indifferent thoroughfare emerges,
with its little cry of admiration, on the bank of the Loire. Saint
Julian stands to-day in a kind of neglected hollow, where it is much
shut in by houses; but in the year 1225, when the edifice was begun, the
site was doubtless, as the architects say, more eligible. At present
indeed, when once you have caught a glimpse of the stout, serious
Romanesque tower--which is not high, but strong--you feel that the
building has something to say and that you must stop to listen to it.
Within, it has a vast and splendid nave, of immense height, the nave of
a cathedral, with a shallow choir and transepts and some admirable old
glass. I spent half an hour there one morning, listening to what the
church had to say, in perfect solitude. Not a worshipper entered, not
even an old man with a broom. I have always thought there be a sex in
fine buildings; and Saint Julian, with its noble nave, is of the gender
of the name of its patron.

It was that same morning, I think, that I went in search of the old
houses of Tours; for the town contains several goodly specimens of the
domestic architecture of the past. The dwelling to which the average
Anglo-Saxon will most promptly direct his steps, and the only one I have
space to mention, is the so-called Maison de Tristan l'He