The valley of the Charente waters a considerable region to the southward of Poitiers. "_Le bon Roi_" Henri IV. called the stream the most charming in all his kingdom. The chief cities on its banks are La Rochelle, the Huguenot stronghold; Rochefort, famed in worldly fashion for its cheeses; and Angoulême, famed for its "_Duchesse_," who was also worldly, and more particularly for its great domed cathedral of St. Pierre. With Auvergne one comes upon a topographical aspect quite different from anything seen elsewhere. Most things of this world are but comparative, and so with Auvergne. It is picturesque, certainly. Le Puy has indeed been called "by one who knows," "the most picturesque place in the world." Clermont-Ferrand is almost equally attractive as to situation; while Puy de Dôme, Riom, and St. Nectaire form a trio of naturally picturesque topographical features which it would be hard to equal within so small a radius elsewhere. The country round about is volcanic, and the face of the landscape shows it plainly. Clermont-Ferrand, the capital, was a populous city in Roman times, and was the centre from which the spirit of the Church survived and went forth anew after five consecutive centuries of devastation and bloodshed of Vandals, Visigoths, Franks, Saracens, Carlovingians and Capetians. Puy de Dôme, near Clermont-Ferrand, is a massive rocky mount which rises nearly five thousand feet above the sea-level, and presents one of those uncommon and curious sights which one can hardly realize until he comes immediately beneath their spell. Throughout this region are many broken volcanic craters and lava streams. At Mont Doré-le-Bains are a few remains of a Roman thermal establishment; an indication that these early settlers found--if they did not seek--these warm springs of a unique quality, famous yet throughout the world. An alleged "Druid's altar," more probably merely a _dolmen_, is situated near St. Nectaire, a small watering-place which is also possessed of an impressively simple, though massive, Romanesque church. At Issiore is the _Eglise de St. Pol_, a large and important church, built in the eleventh century, in the Romanesque manner. Another most interesting great church is _La Chaise Dieu_ near Le Puy, a remarkable construction of the fourteenth century. It was originally the monastery of the _Casa Dei_. It has been popularly supposed heretofore that its floor was on a level with the summit of Puy de Dôme, hence its appropriate nomenclature; latterly the assertion has been refuted, as it may be by any one who takes the trouble to compare the respective elevations in figures. This imposing church ranks, however, unreservedly among the greatest of the mediæval monastic establishments of France.