It is here that the Loire rises to its greatest flood, and hundreds of times, so history tells, from 490 to 1866, the fickle river has caused a devastation so great and terrible that the memory of it is not yet dead. This hardly seems possible of this usually tranquil stream, and there have always been scoffers. Madame de Sévigné wrote in 1675 to M. de Coulanges (but in her case perhaps it was mere well-wishing), "_La belle Loire, elle est un peu sujette à se déborder, mais elle en est plus douce_." Ancient writers were wont to consider the inundations of the Loire as a punishment from Heaven, and even in later times the superstition--if it was a superstition--still remained. [Illustration: _The Loire near La Charité_] In 1825, when thousands of charcoal-burners (_charbonniers_) were all but ruined, they petitioned the government for assistance. The official who had the matter in charge, and whose name--fortunately for his fame--does not appear to have been recorded, replied simply that the flood was a periodical condition of affairs which the Almighty brought about as occasion demanded, with good cause, and for this reason he refused all assistance. Important public works have done much to prevent repetitions of these inundations, but the danger still exists, and always, in a wet season, there are those dwellers along the river's banks who fear the rising flood as they would the plague. Chatillon, with its towers; Gien, a busy hive of industry, though with a historic past; Sully; and St. Benoit-sur-Loire, with its unique double transepted church; all pass in rapid review, and one enters the ancient capital of the Orléannais quite ready for the new chapter which, in colouring, is to be so different from that devoted to the upper valley. From Orleans, south, one passes through a veritable wonderland of fascinating charms. Châteaux, monasteries, and great civic and ecclesiastical monuments pass quickly in turn. Then comes Touraine which all love, the river meantime having grown no more swift or ample, nor any more sluggish or attenuated. It is simply the same characteristic flow which one has known before. The landscape only is changing, while the fruits and flowers, and the trees and foliage are more luxuriant, and the great châteaux are more numerous, splendid, and imposing. Of his well-beloved Touraine, Balzac wrote: "Do not ask me _why_ I love Touraine; I love it not merely as one loves the cradle of his birth, nor as one loves an oasis in a desert, but as an artist loves his art." Blois, with its bloody memories; Chaumont, splendid and retired; Chambord, magnificent, pompous, and bare; Amboise, with its great tower high above the river, follow in turn till the Loire makes its regal entrée into Tours. "What a spectacle it is," wrote Sterne in "Tristram Shandy," "for a traveller who journeys through Touraine at the time of the vintage."