Chapter 14

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