The chief characteristic of Nevers is that it is Italian in nearly, if not quite all, its aspects; its monuments and its history. Its ancient ducal château, part of which dates from the feudal epoch, was the abode of the Italian dukes who came in the train of Mazarin, the last of whom was the nephew of the cardinal, "who himself was French if his speech was not." Nevers has also a charming Gothic cathedral (St. Cyr) with a double Romanesque apse (in itself a curiosity seldom, if ever, seen out of Germany), and, in addition to the cathedral, can boast of St. Etienne, one of the most precious of all the Romanesque churches of France. The old walls at Nevers are not very complete, but what remain are wonderfully expressive. The Tour Gouguin and the Tour St. Eloi are notable examples, but they are completely overshadowed by the Porte du Croux, which is one of the best examples of the city gates which were so plentiful in the France of another day. Above Nevers, Decize, Bourbon-Lancy, Gilly, and Digoin are mere names which mean nothing to the traveller by rail. They are busy towns of central France, where the bustle of their daily lives is of quite a different variety from that of the Ile de France, of Normandy, or of the Pas de Calais. From Digoin to Roanne the Loire is followed by the Canal Latéral. Roanne is a not very pleasing, overgrown town which has become a veritable _ville des ouvriers_, all of whom are engaged in cloth manufacture. Virtually, then, Roanne is not much more than a guide-post on the route to Le Puy--"the most picturesque place in the world"--and the wonderfully impressive region of the Cevennes and the Vivaris, where shepherds guard their flocks amid the solitudes. Far above Le Puy, in a rocky gorge known as the Gerbier-de-Jonc, near Ste. Eulalie, in the Ardeche, rises the tiny Liger, which is the real source of the mighty Loire, that natural boundary which divides the north from the south and forms what the French geographers call "_la bassin centrale de France_." THE END. INDEX Abbeville, 107. _Abd-el-Kader, Emir_, 165. _Abelard_, 293. _Absalom_, 281. Acheneau, The, 298. _Adams, John_, 124. _Alaric_, 149. _Alcuin, Abbé_, 206. _Alençon, Ducs d'_, 195, 334. _Alençon, Marguerite d'_, 97, 150, 151-152. Allier, The, 330. Amboise and Its Château, 3, 20, 82, 96, 100, 123, 130-131, 137, 140, 148-169, 172, 181, 186, 194, 249. _Amboise, Family of_, 118, 120-122. Amboise, Forêt d', 169. Amiens, 210. Ancenis and Its Château, 11, 21-23, 291. _Andrelini, Fausto_, 66. Anet, Château d', 107, 177, 322. _Ange, Michel_, 208, 249. Angers and Its Château, 7, 10-13, 15, 21-23, 40, 84, 275, 278, 280, 283-284, 286-290, 304, 308. Angoulême, 194, 304. _Angoulême, Isabeau d'_, 267. _Angoulême, Jean d'_, 89. _Angoulême, Louise de Savoie, Duchesse d'_ (See _Savoie, Louise de_). Anjou, 15, 26, 142, 161, 273, 274, 284, 289-290, 292, 306, 322.