From Langeais, one's obvious route lies towards Chinon, via Azay-le-Rideau and Ussé. These latter are practically within the forest, though the Forêt de Chinon proper does not actually begin until one leaves Azay behind, when for twenty kilometres or more one of the most superb forest roads in France crosses many hills and dales until it finally descends into Chinon itself. Like most forest roads in France, this highway is not flat; it rises and falls with a sheer that is sometimes precipitous, but always with a gravelled surface that gives little dust, and which absorbs water as the sand from the pounce-box of our forefathers dried up ink. This simile calls to mind the fact that in twentieth-century France the pounce-box is still in use, notably at wayside railway stations, where the agent writes you out your ticket and dries it off in a box, not of sand, but of sawdust. To partake of the hospitality of Azay-le-Rideau one must arrive before four in the afternoon, and not earlier than midday. From the photographs and post-cards by which one has become familiar with Azay-le-Rideau, it appears like a great country house sitting by itself far away from any other habitation. In England this is often the case, in France but seldom. Clustered around the walls of the not very great park which surrounds the château are all manner of shops and cafés, not of the tourist order,--for there is very little here to suggest that tourists ever come, though indeed they do, by twos and threes throughout all the year,--but for the accommodation of the population of the little town itself, which must approximate a couple of thousand souls, all of whom appear to be engaged in the culture of the vine and its attendant pursuits, as the wine-presses, the coopers' shops, and other similar establishments plainly show. There is, moreover, the pleasant smell of fermented grape-juice over all, which, like the odour of the hop-fields of Kent, is conducive to sleep; and there lies the charm of Azay-le-Rideau, which seems always half-asleep. The Hôtel du Grand Monarque is a wonderfully comfortable country inn, with a dining-room large enough to accommodate half a hundred persons, but which, most likely, will serve only yourself. One incongruous note is sounded,--convenient though it be,--and that is the electric light which illuminates the hotel and its dependencies, including the stables, which look as though they might once have been a part of a mediæval château themselves. However, since posting days and tallow dips have gone for ever, one might as well content himself with the superior civilization which confronts him, and be comfortable at least. The Château d'Azay-le-Rideau is one of the gems of Touraine's splendid collection of Renaissance art treasures, though by no means is it one of the grandest or most imposing.