CHATEAU OF CLAIRMONT,

perched upon a steep which dominates for a considerable distance the course of the Loire. The castle is supposed to have been built in the fourteenth century, but very little is known on the subject. The styles of the proprietors in the year 1510, and under Louis XIV, are known; but there is not a single association either of history or romance recalled by its name. This is the more remarkable, as the edifice stands on one of the most picturesque and commanding sites in the whole country; being built on a mass of rock, which looks like the advanced guard of the magnificent Côteaux de Mauves.

A portion of the superb panorama presented by the banks of the river known under this name, is given in the annexed view. The village of Mauve itself, and that of Cellier, form a part of the picture; but Seilleraie is invisible from the river. The last is situated on the great road to Nantes, and near it is the château interesting to many persons as the abode of Madame de Sevigné. “I saw her apartment," writes a French author, "such as it was in her own time, together with her portrait as the huntress Diana, and an autograph letter, bearing all the character of originality peculiar to this celebrated woman. A gallery of pictures is still shown to amateurs-or rather, of portraits; among which are observed those of the Lebruns, the Mignards, and the Jouvenets. The chapel is remarkable for its dome, ornamented with paintings in fresco. The gardens of the château, planted by Lenotre, its vast park, and beautiful sheets of water, contribute, with its situation near the right bank of the Loire, to

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CHATEAU DE MAUVES.

render it a delightful residence, still more embellished by the hereditary hospitality of its owners."

"Why," exclaims the same writer, "are not all our châteaux inhabited like the

CHATEAU DE MAUVES?

Why are they, in some cases, rendered inaccessible by the presence of the proprietors, and in others, the most numerous, abandoned to the care of a concierge, who in turn abandons them to the ravages of time? Formerly the châteaux were the ornaments of France. Are those which have been spared by the revolution destined to crumble away through carelessness ?"

Passing the village of Barbechet and the bourg of Chapelle-basse-Mer, we arrive at Loroux-Bottereau, an ancient town of five thousand inhabitants.

Many parts of the canton of Loroux-Bottereaux are filled with ancient tombs; bones are turned up with every spadeful of earth; and the husbandmen make their livelihood, like sextons, by digging in graves. It is conjectured, from the etymology of the word Loroux, that the town was formerly one of those places set apart for lepers: and if this be correct, the origin of the bones may be conjectured which lie so thickly beneath the soil. The remains of a château of the middle ages are still visible near the house; and in a garden, at the foot of its mouldering wall, there is a subterranean passage which has never been explored.

The scenery of the river already softens down, as we approach one of the great congregations of the human kind. At the bourg of Thouaré, where we are not tempted to pause, fine meadows and cultivated fields sweep swellingly away from the water's edge; and at Doulon everything begins to speak of the neighbourhood of a city.