Now, with the coming of autos, all that is gone. This hotel is one of the most expensive in France and the city roars with the passing machines. There are twenty in and around this house now, making it at times difficult to be heard and most unpleasant. This is on the highway to Spain and the châteaux bring many travellers to Touraine. It is a singular sight to see an auto puffing and snorting just within the arch of an ancient castle with the teeth of the portcullis projecting above and seemingly about to descend upon it,--but--letters and papers from home drive thoughts of Europe off and away and I spend the rest of the day back in my own land once more and dream of it all night long. CHAPTER XVIII RIDE TO LOCHES--AN ACCIDENT--THE CASTLE OF LOCHES--ITS HISTORY--THE CAGES OF LOUIS XI.--THEIR COST TO THE KING--AGNES OF SOREL--THE MISTRESSES OF FRENCH KINGS VERSUS THEIR QUEENS Life is all sparkle to-day in this fair city of Tours, her people are evidently happy and we are not the least so as the car flies down the wide avenues, through her Champs-Élysées, and crossing the river, turns south-eastward through smiling meadows, where the sheep are grazing and the people wave at us as we pass. Some miles out on a long stretch of highway we are rapidly approaching a train of a dozen empty carts, each bearing a man and a woman, and, between the rattle of the carts and the clattering tongues of their occupants, I fancy the outer world and its sounds are completely drowned. However, we have a clear stretch to their left, can easily pass without danger, and are skimming onward with little thought of a catastrophe when, as we reach the last cart but one forward, it quietly draws out immediately across our track, evidently to allow the occupants to gossip with greater ease with those of the cart in front. Jean shuts off all power, puts on all breaks, we all shriek and horn and trumpet, to the utter confusion of the peasants, who drive in every direction save the right one, like a flock of chickens. There is no averting a collision, but we minimise as far as possible its danger and it results in nothing worse than a bent lamp as we bang into the tail-board of the cart, causing the old lady and gentleman therein to turn complete somersaults and land by the wayside,--reeds shaken by the winds, as it were,--but the winds of heaven were like unto a dead calm when compared with the clatter and shrieks which arose around us. I am afraid the remarks were personal, though the ancient dame who was dumped into the grass, when I told her her tongue was as long as her arm and had caused all the damage, looked at me in grand amaze and said--nothing. She knew that it was true and she knew also that the others would tell her that it _was_ true after we had vanished. At least I think the unfortunates of her village will be safe from the organ for a day or so. [Illustration: THE CHÂTEAU OF LOCHES From a photograph]