In all France I do not know a richer study in warm, red roof-colours than towered Arnay, seen at sunset from the high land on the road to Saulieu, nor a more satisfying example of the outlines of a ramparted Gothic-Renaissance town. Nor, as is sometimes the case, does close acquaintance disenchant you. Wander through its streets, and prove for yourself that it is one of the most unspoiled places in all Burgundy. There is something good at every turn--a high-pitched, pierced, white gable, from which black window-eyes look out upon a dark, brown-green, mottled roof touched with red; a wall with a warm tiled hood; a glimpse, through a trefoiled gate, of a miniature Renaissance garden, with box and ivy edged borders, fruit trees jewelled with white blossom, and a lovely, pierced balustrade, leading up to a Kate-Greenaway House. But these are the town's less substantial, and less obvious attractions. Plain for all to see are the flamboyant church with its octagonal lantern, and, at the back of it--best approached by a charming staircase such as we have neither time nor skill to design now-a-days--the old round tower of the Motte Forte. In the central _Place_ is a charming white, turretted, and gabled house, reminding one of the Colombier at Beaune, and close to it, beside the Marché, are fifteenth-century, cupid-bow windows, and an old Gothic arch leading into a Gothic courtyard. Some of the houses have curious stone benches before them, with lovely round and square-edged mouldings, and everywhere are quaintly designed handles and knockers of forged ironwork. The women, too, it seemed to us, were less heavy in feature, and more spirituelle, than in other parts of Burgundy. The naughtiest of all the naughty children who crowded and criticised round my wife's easel, was a beautiful blonde girl. We reproved her pranks more often than those of the others--because she looked so lovely when she blushed. [Illustration: ·CORNER HOUSE·ARNAY·LE·DUC·] Another attractive spot in Arnay is the walk, by a red path, between the towering, moss-grown, grey-brown ramparts, where in autumn the wallflowers blow. Good company, too, are the willow-fringed, elder-shaded stream, across which you have a glimpse of garden and orchard, and the green slopes over which anxious ganders take their fluffy yellow children out for exercise. But I have not yet mentioned the building that many of the locals, including the landlord of the Cheval Blanc at Bligny, regard as the crowning glory of Arnay; and that is the splendid, transitional, Gothic-Renaissance manoir of the Ducs de Burgogne; though, of course, the landlord of the Cheval Blanc does not know it is anything of the kind. For him it is the Limier or file-factory--the best in all France. For us it is a defiled manoir--still showing traces of ancient loveliness, in slated turret, snake-skin roof, and daintily-carved friezes above the ruined dormer-windows.