Poitiers is a crazy old town, but contains one of the most admirable specimens of the architecture immediately preceding the pointed, or ogivale, and which the French savans call "the Romane." I allude to the church called "the Notre Dame de Poitiers." The west front is highly ornamented, and unites all the peculiar richness with the quaintness and simplicity of design which characterize that fine old style. I must not omit the forest of Chatellerault, passed through on leaving that town. It is famous as the scene of the picnic given to the ladies of the neighbouring city by the officers of a Polish regiment quartered there, immediately before the breaking out of the Peninsular war. It is related that Polish gallantry overstepped etiquette to such a degree,--and _that_ by premeditation,--as to urge these cavaliers, by force of bayonet, and sentries, to separate all the husbands, and other male relatives, from the fairer portion of the guests. The consequences of such a termination of the festivities may easily be imagined; Bonaparte, a rigid judge with regard to all divorces except his own, on receiving the complaint of the insulted town, condemned the officers _en masse_ to be decimated, and the survivors degraded from their rank. He relented, however, afterwards, on an understanding that they were to regain their sullied laurels in the Peninsula; where, in fact, in consequence of his orders, such opportunities were afforded them, that scarcely a man in the regiment survived the earliest campaigns. The inhabitants of Chatellerault are said to take great offence on being asked their age, suspecting the inquirer of a malicious calculation.