From Tours to Saumur by the right bank of the Loire--one of the most superb stretches of automobile roadway in the world--lay the road of which Madame de Sévigné wrote in "Lettre CCXXIV." (to her mother), which begins: "_Nous arrivons ici, nous avons quitté Tours ce matin._" It was a good day's journey for those times, whether by _malle-post_ or the private conveyance which, likely enough, Madame de Sévigné used at the time (1630). To-day it is a mere morsel to the hungry road-devouring maw of a twentieth-century automobile. It's almost worth the labour of making the journey on foot to know the charms of this delightful river-bank bordered with historic shrines almost without number, and peopled by a class of peasants as picturesque and gay as the Neapolitan of romance. [Illustration: _Château de Saumur_] "_Saumur est, ma foi! une jolie ville_," said a traveller one day at a _table d'hôte_ at Tours. And so indeed it is. Its quays and its squares lend an air of gaiety to its proud old _hôtel de ville_ and its grim château. Old habitations, commodious modern houses, frowning machicolations, church spires, grand hotels, innumerable cafés, and much military, all combine in a blend of fascinating interest that one usually finds only in a great metropolis. The chief attraction is unquestionably the old château. To-day it stands, as it has always stood, high above the Quai de Limoges, with scarce a scar on its hardy walls and never a crumbling stone on its parapet. The great structure was begun in the eleventh century, replacing an earlier monument known as the Tour du Tronc. It was completed in the century following and rebuilt or remodelled in the sixteenth. Outside of its impressive exterior there is little of interest to remind one of another day. To literary pilgrims Saumur suggests the homestead of the father of Eugenie Grandet, and the _bon-vivant_ reveres it for its soft pleasant wines. Others worship it for its wonders of architecture, and yet others fall in love with it because of its altogether delightful situation. Below Saumur are the cliff-dwellers, who burrow high in the chalk cliff and stow themselves away from light and damp like bottles of old wine. The custom is old and not indigenous to France, but here it is sufficiently in evidence to be remarked by even the traveller by train. Here, too, one sees the most remarkable of all the _coiffes_ which are worn by any of the women along the Loire. This Angevin variety, like Angevin architecture, is like none of its neighbours north, east, south, or west. Students of history will revere Saumur for something more than its artistic aspect or its wines, for it was a favourite residence of the Angevin princes and the English kings, as well as being the capital of the _pape des Huguenots_.