The Château de Langeais is, for the most part, excellent Gothic, and so is the church near by. Loches has distinct and pure Gothic details both in its church and its château, quite apart from the Hôtel de Ville and that portion of the château now used as the Sous-Préfecture, which are manifestly Renaissance; hence here in Touraine steps were apparently taken to keep the style strictly non-ecclesiastical. A glance of the eye at the topography of this fair province stamps it at once as something quite different from any other traversed by the Loire. Two of the great "routes nationales" cross it, the one via Orleans, leading to Nantes, and the other via Chartres, going to Bordeaux. It is crossed and recrossed by innumerable "routes secondaires," "départementales," "vicinales" and "particulières," second to none of their respective classes in other countries, for assuredly the roads of France are the best in the world. Many of these great ways of communication replaced the ancient Roman roads, which were the pioneers of the magnificent roadways of the France of to-day. Almost invariably Touraine is flat or rolling, its highest elevation above the sea being but a hundred and forty-six metres, scarce four hundred and fifty feet, a fact which accounts also for the gentle flow of the Loire through these parts. All the fruits of the southland are found here, the olive alone excepted. Mortality, it is said, and proved by figures, is lower than in any other part of France, and for this reason many dwellers in the large cities, if they may not all have a mediæval château, have at least a villa, far away from "the madding crowd," and yet within four hours' travel of the capital itself. [Illustration: THE LOIRE IN TOURAINE] Touraine, properly speaking, has no natural frontiers, as it is not enclosed by rivers or mountains. It is, however, divided by the Loire into two distinct regions, the Méridionale and the Septentrionale; but the dress, the physiognomy, the language, and the predilections of the people are everywhere the same, though the two sections differ somewhat in temperament. In the south, the Tourangeau is timid and obliging, but more or less engrossed in his affairs; in the north, he is proud, egotistical, and a little arrogant, but, above all, he likes his ease and comfort, something after the manner of "mynheer" of Holland. These are the characteristics which are enumerated by Stanislas Bellanger of Tours, in "La Touraine Ancienne et Moderne," and they are traceable to-day, in every particular, to one who knows well the by-paths of the region. Formerly the peasant was, in his own words, "_sous la main de M. le comte_," but, with the coming of the eighteenth century, all this was changed, and the conditions which, in England, succeeded feudalism, are unknown in Touraine, as indeed throughout France.