Chapter 10 - Page 2

impressive little collegial church, with its romanesque
atrium or narthex, its doorways covered with primitive
sculpture of the richest kind, its treasure of a so-called
pagan altar, embossed with fighting warriors, its three
pyramidal domes, so unexpected, so sinister, which I
have not met elsewhere, in church architecture; or the
huge square keep, of the eleventh century, - the most
cliff-like tower I remember, whose immeasurable thick-
ness I did not penetrate; or the subterranean mysteries
of two other less striking but not less historic dungeons,
into which a terribly imperative little cicerone intro-
duced us, with the aid of downward ladders, ropes,
torches, warnings, extended hands; and, many, fearful
anecdotes, - all in impervious darkness. These horrible
prisons of Loches, at an incredible distance below the
daylight, were a favorite resource of Louis XI., and
were for the most part, I believe, constructed by him.
One of the towers of the castle is garnished with the
hooks or supports of the celebrated iron cage in which
he confined the Cardinal La Balue, who survived so
much longer than might have been expected this extra-
ordinary mixture of seclusion and exposure. All these
things form part of the castle of Loches, whose enorm-
ous _enceinte_ covers the whole of the top of the hill, and
abounds in dismantled gateways, in crooked passages,
in winding lanes that lead to postern doors, in long
facades that look upon terraces interdicted to the
visitor, who perceives with irritation that they com-
mand magnificent views. These views are the property
of the sub-prefect of the department, who resides at
the Chateau de Loches, and who has also the enjoy-
ment of a garden - a garden compressed and curtailed,
as those of old castles that perch on hill-tops are apt
to be - containing a horse-chestnut tree of fabulous
size, a tree of a circumference so vast and so perfect
that the whole population of Loches might sit in con-
centric rows beneath its boughs. The gem of the place,
however, is neither the big _marronier_, nor the collegial
church, nor the mighty dungeon, nor the hideous prisons
of Louis XI.; it is simply the tomb of Agnes Sorel, _la
belle des belles_, so many years the mistress of Charles VII.
She was buried, in 1450, in the collegial church,
whence, in the beginning of the present century, her
remains, with the monument that marks them, were
transferred to one of the towers of the castle. She has
always, I know not with what justice, enjoyed a fairer
fame than most ladies who have occupied her position,
and this fairness is expressed in the delicate statue
that surmounts her tomb. It represents her lying there
in lovely demureness, her