XIV.

I am shocked at finding, just after this noble de-

claration of principles that in a little note-book which

at that time I carried about with me, the celebrated

city of Angers is denominated a "sell." I reproduce

this vulgar term with the greatest hesitation, and only

because it brings me more quickly to my point. This

point is that Angers belongs to the disagreeable class

of old towns that have been, as the English say, "done

up." Not the oldness, but the newness, of the place

is what strikes the sentimental tourist to-day, as he

wanders with irritation along second-rate boulevards,

looking vaguely about him for absent gables. "Black

Angers," in short, is a victim of modern improvements,

and quite unworthy of its admirable name, - a name

which, like that of Le Mans, had always had, to my

eyes, a highly picturesque value. It looks particularly

well on the Shakspearean page (in "King John"), where

we imagine it uttered (though such would not have

been the utterance of the period) with a fine old in-

sular accent. Angers figures with importance in early

English history: it was the capital city of the Plantagenet

race, home of that Geoffrey of Anjou who married, as

second husband, the Empress Maud, daughter of

Henry I. and competitor of Stephen, and became father

of Henry II., first of the Plantagenet kings, born, as we

have seen, at Le Mans. The facts create a natural

presumption that Angers will look historic; I turned

them over in my mind as I travelled in the train from

Le Mans, through a country that was really pretty, and

looked more like the usual English than like the usual

French scenery, with its fields cut up by hedges and

a considerable rotundity in its trees. On my way

from the station to the hotel, however, it became plain

that I should lack a good pretext for passing that night

at the Cheval Blanc; I foresaw that I should have con-

tented myself before th e end of the day. I remained

at the White Horse only long enough to discover that

it was an exceptionally good provincial inn, one of the

best that I encountered during six weeks spent in

these establishments.

"Stupidly and vulgarly rnodernized," - that is an-

other phrase from my note-book, and note-books are

not obliged to be reasonable. "There are some narrow

and tortuous-streets, with a few curious old houses," - I

continue to quote; "there is a castle, of which the ex-

terior is most extraordinary, and there is a cathedral

of moderate interest. It is fair to say that the

Chateau d'Angers is by itself worth a pilgrimage; the

only drawback is that you have seen it in a quarter of

an hour. You cannot do more than look at it, and

one good look does your business. It has no beauty,

no grace, no detail, nothing that charms or detains

you; it is simply very old and very big, - so big and

so old that this simple impression is enough, and it

takes its place in your recollections as a perfect specimen

of a superannuated stronghold. It stands at one end

of the town, surrounded by a huge, deep moat, which

originally contained the waters of the Maine, now

divided from it by a quay. The water-front of Angers

is poor, - wanting in color and in movement; and there

is always an effect of perversity in a town lying near a

great river and, yet not upon it. The Loire is a few

miles off; but Angers contents itself with a meagre

affluent of that stream. The effect was naturally much

better when the huge, dark mass of the castle, with its

seventeen prodigious towers, rose out of the protecting

flood. These towers are of tremendous girth and soli-

dity; they are encircled with great bands, or hoops, of

white stone, and are much enlarged at the base.

Between them hang vast curtains of infinitely old-look-

ing masonry, apparently a dense conglomeration of

slate, the material of which the town was originally

built (thanks to rich quarries in the neighborhood),

and to which it owed its appellation of the Black.

There are no windows, no apertures, and to-day no

battlements nor roofs. These accessories were removed

by Henry III., so that, in spite of its grimness and

blackness, the place has not even the interest of look-

ing like a prison; it being, as I supposed, the essence

of a prison not to be open to the sky. The only

features of the enormous structure are the black, sombre

stretches and protrusions of wall, the effect of which,

on so large a scale, is strange and striking. Begun by

Philip Augustus, and terminated by St. Louis, the

Chateau d'Angers has of course a great deal of history.

The luckless Fouquet, the extravagant minister of

finance of Louis XIV., whose fall from the heights of

grandeur was so sudden and complete, was confined

here in 1661, just after his arrest, which had taken

place at Nantes. Here, also, Huguenots and Vendeans

have suffered effective captivity.

I walked round the parapet which protects the

outer edge of the moat (it is all up hill, and the moat

deepens and deepens), till I came to the entrance

which faces the town, and which is as bare and

strong as the rest. The concierge took me into the

court; but there was nothing to see. The place is

used as a magazine of ammunition, and the yard con-

tains a multitude of ugly buildings. The only thing

to do is to walk round the bastions for the view; but

at the moment of my visit the weather was thick, and

the bastions began and ended with themselves. So I

came out and took another look at the big, black ex-

terior, buttressed with white-ribbed towers, and per-

ceived that a desperate sketcher might extract a

picture from it, especially if he were to bring in, as

they say, the little black bronze statue of the good

King Rene (a weak production of David d'Angers),

which, standing within sight, ornaments the melancholy

faubourg. He would do much better, however, with

the very striking old timbered house (I suppose of the

fifteenth century) which is called the Maison d'Adam,

and is easily the first specimen at Angers of the

domestic architecture of the past. This admirable

house, in the centre of the town, gabled, elaborately

timbered, and much restored, is a really imposing

monument. The basement is occupied by a linen-

draper, who flourishes under the auspicious sign of

the Mere de Famille; and above his shop the tall

front rises in five overhanging stories. As the house

occupies the angle of a little _place_, this front is double,

and the black beams and wooden supports, displayed

over a large surface and carved and interlaced, have

a high picturesqueness. The Maison d'Adam is quite

in the grand style, and I am sorry to say I failed to

learn what history attaches to its name. If I spoke just

above of the cathedral as "moderate," I suppose I

should beg its pardon; for this serious charge was

probably prompted by the fact that it consists only of

a nave, without side aisles. A little reflection now

convinces me that such a form is a distinction; and,

indeed, I find it mentioned, rather inconsistently, in

my note-book, a little further on, as "extremely simple

and grand." The nave is spoken of in the same

volume as "big, serious, and Gothic," though the choir

and transepts are noted as very shallow. But it is not

denied that the air of the whole thing is original and

striking; and it would therefore appear, after all, that

the cathedral of Angers, built during the twelfth and

thirteenth centuries, is a sufficiently honorable church;

the more that its high west front, adorned with a very

primitive Gothic portal, supports two elegant tapering

spires, between which, unfortunately, an ugly modern

pavilion has been inserted.

I remember nothing else at Angers but the curious

old Cafe Serin, where, after I had had my dinner at

the inn, I went and waited for the train which, at nine

o'clock in the evening, was to convey me, in a couple

of hours, to Nantes, - an establishment remarkable for

its great size and its air of tarnished splendor, its

brown gilding and smoky frescos, as also for the fact

that it was hidden away on the second floor of an un-

assuming house in an unilluminated street. It hardly

seemed a place where you would drop in; but when

once you had found it, it presented itself, with the

cathedral, the castle, and the Maison d'Adam, as one

of the historical monuments of Angers.