To-day the monastery is the property of a M. de Marsay, and therefore not open to the public; but the Chapelle du Liget, near by, is a fine contemporary church of the thirteenth century, well worth the admiration too infrequently bestowed upon it. The first view of Loches must really be much as it was in François's time, except, perhaps, that the roadway down from the forest has improved, as roads have all over France, and fruit-trees and vineyards planted out, which, however, in no way change the aspect when the town is first seen in the dim haze of an early November morning. It is the sky-line _ensemble_ of the châteaux of the Renaissance period which is their most varied feature. No two are alike, and yet they are all wonderfully similar in that they cut the sky with turret, tower, and chimney in a way which suggests nothing as much as the architecture of fairy-land. The artists who illustrated the old fairy-tale books and drew castles wherein dwelt beautiful maidens could nowhere have found more real inspiration than among the châteaux of the Loire, the Cher, and the Indre. Loches is a veritable mediæval town, and it is even more than that, for its history dates back into the earliest years of feudal times. Loches is one of those _soi-disant_ French towns not great enough to be a metropolis, and yet quite indifferent to the affairs of the outside world. The only false notes are those sounded by the various hawkers and cadgers for the visitor's money, who have hired various old mediæval structures, within the walls, and assure one that in the basement of their establishment there are fragments "recently discovered,"--this in English,--quite worth the price of admission which they charge you to peer about in a gloomy hole of a cellar, littered with empty wine-bottles and rubbish of all sorts. All this is delightful enough to the simon-pure antiquarian; but even he likes to dig things out for himself, and the householders can't all expect to find _cachots_ in their sub-cellars or iron cages in their garrets unless they manufacture them. The old town, in spite of its lack of modernity, is full of surprises and contrasts that must make it very livable to one who cares to spend a winter within its walls. He may walk about on the ramparts on sunny days; may fish in the Indre, below the mill; and, if he is an artist, he will find, within a comparatively small area, much more that is exceedingly "paintable" than is usually found in the fishing-villages of Brittany or on the sand-dunes of the Pas de Calais, "artist's sketching-grounds" which have been pretty well worked of late. [Illustration: _Loches and Its Church_]