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country gentlemen. Surely the two Abbayes, called the Abbaye aux hommes, and the Abbaye aur dames, the one founded by William the Conqueror, the other by his consort Matilda, deserved some scrap of mention in the enumeration of the chief objects of curiosity at Caen.

Finding fault, however, is not the prevailing tone of our criticism, and we gladly change the key. Mrs. Carey occasionally writes with good sense and acuteness. Her description of Tours, a city which is a great favourite with English residents, is tolerably accurate, and may be found useful to those who meditate a sejour in France. We wish, however, that she had omitted the absurd account of an English criminal trial, which, as she relates it, could never have happened.

• The situation of Tours is low, but the town appears to great advantage from the entrance over the bridge into the Rue Royale, which is one of the finest streets in France. The houses are built of white stone, and are large, handsome, and uniform. It is paved with flat stones, and a broad space left on each side for people to walk upon, which is not a common case ; for in most places, pedestrians are obliged to keep in the middle of the street, as the edges are subject to receive a variety of articles from the windows above, and are, besides, full of lumber, of mechanics at work, or of children at play.

• The streets in the old part of the town are narrow, and the houses high. No magnificent public edifices appear, to impress the mind with an image of ancient grandeur, and yet Tours was the favourite place of residence of several of the kings of France; and the palace of Plessis les Tours, standing in a low situation, at the distance of a quarter of mile from the town, still remains. But far from filling the imagination with ideas of the pomp and circumstance of courts, this house, built with brick, and with sinall windows, is so very mean and homely in appearance, that one finds some difficulty in believing that it ever could have been the abode of royalty. Louis XI., of wicked memory, spent much of his time in it. During his last illness, the walls were defended with iron spikes, and only one wicket left in the court, to admit those who came to the palace. This single entrance still remains, but the spikes are gone, Louis XI. died in 1481, and gave a proof of his penetration and soundness of judgment, by the choice he made of a regent; he appointed his eldest daughter, Anne, lady of Beaujeu, to that office, under the title of governess. She was a woman of high endowments; and though young, being then only in her twenty-second year, well qualified to discharge the important trust. She governed France, during the minority of her brother, Charles VIII., with a steadiness, vigour, and wisdom, that would have dope credit to the ablest of its kings.

• In the palace of Plessis Henry III. held his court,when negotiating a treaty with the king of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV. The two kings met in the pleasure grounds on the opposite side of the river, about two miles below the bridge, on a knoll shaded with trees, and there the treaty was signed. This favoured knoll is an object of

beauty to the surrounding country, and its summit commands a lovely prospect. To the west the eye traces the course of the Loire as far as the sight can reach; to the east it rests on a more bounded scene, terminated by the bridge, the town, and the beautiful towers of the cathedral. There are few more elegant specimens of gothic architecture than the cathedral; and it escaped uninjured from the devastations of the revolutionists, whilst the church of St. Martin fell by their destructive hands. St. Martin was the tutelar saint of Tours, and much honoured throughout the kingdom: his church was the largest in France; and his shrine was enriched with the offerings of kings and nobles. Louis XI. enclosed it with a railing of silver, which Francis I. contrived, by some means or other, to appropriate to his own use; substituting, in its stead, one of baser metal. Of the body of this church not one stone is now left upon another: two of its towers remain; and the distance between them marks the great extent of space the building occupied.

Tours, according to popular tradition, was so named from the great number of towers on the ramparts: the only one remaining stands near the quay, and is that where the young Duc de Guise was confined when his father and uncle were assassinated by the command of Henry III., and from which he made his escape after three years imprisonment.

An old history of Tours mentions, that the town was originally built with twelve gates, in imitation of Jerusalem, as described by St. John in the book of Revelation. In more recent times one of its entrances was called the Gate of Hugo; and the Calvinists, from always passing through it to their private meetings, which were held in that quarter, obtained the name of Hugonots in the year 1560.

The province of Touraine is highly extolled, and is called by the French themselves the garden of France. Its principal feature of beauty is the Loire; this great river, which rises in the mountains of the Cevennes, after flowing through the Bourbonois and the Nivernois, to Orleans, pursues its course to Angers, in a narrow flat valley, bounded on each side by a ridge of low hills, and varying in width from two to five miles, the river approaching sometimes to one ridge and sometimes to the other, as it sweeps along. Formerly, in rainy seasons, its waters spread over the whole of the intervening space; and near Angers, where the valley widens to a considerable extent, the overflowing of the Loire occasioned great damage to the country, making it a perfect swamp. In the year 809, Louis le Debonnaire, son of Charlemagne, passing through Angers, the inhabitants represented to him the mischief they suffered from these frequent inundations; and he formed the plan of raising a great dam on the north bank of the river, to keep it within bounds, directed his son Pepin, king of Aquitaine, to send a skilful engineer to overlook the work, and encouraged the inhabitants in the undertaking, by granting them great privileges. It does not, however, appear to have been proceed. ed in so far as to answer entirely the end proposed, till Henry II., King of England, Compte d'Anjou, undertook its completion. He obliged his troops to labour with the inhabitants, allowed them exempVOL. XXIII. N.S. 2 F

tions from military duties, and other immunities, to stimulate their exertions, and at length finished this great work. In the reign of Philip of Valois the mound was repaired, paved on the top, and formed into a public road, and such it continues to be to this day: it is called Charlemagne's Causeway, though the credit of first projecting it belongs properly to his son Louis.

The valley is cultivated through its whole length like a garden; rich meadows are interspersed with fields of wheat, French beans, and other products, and intersected with rows of willows. The ridges on cach side are covered with vineyards, villages, towns, and single houses; so that the number of habitations which have the general appearance of comfort and prosperity creates a degree of astonishment in the mind of the traveller. No alteration has taken place in the face of the country since the year 1802, when we descended the Loire in a boat from Orleans to Nantes; and I conclude it was, if possible, in a still more flourishing state in the year 1777, from the account given by the Emperor of Germany, Joseph II. (brother of the unfortunate Marie Antoinette), who made a tour through France incognito, taking the title of Count of Falkeinsteren. He said, on his return to Paris, that nothing in his whole journey had struck him so much as the causeway on the bank of the Loire, and the number of towns, churches, villages, religious establishments, noble mansions, and farm houses, which extended on the north border of the Loire, from Tours to Angers, and formed almost a street of nearly ninety miles in length.

Tours is built in a flat valley on the south border of the Loire, and is secured from its incursions by a mound; but the country behind the town is subject to be flooded by the river Cher, which runs for a considerable way almost parallel with the Loire, at the distance of nearly two miles, and afterwards joins it.' pp. 22—27.

Lyons has been often enough described; but some useful hints as to the principal objects within its limits, may be derived from the following passage.

There are many remains of Roman architecture in the vicinity of Lyons. In the suburb of St. Irénée, where the original town stood, which was burnt in the reign of Nero, several arches are perfect of an aqueduct, constructed by Anthony to supply the troops of Julius Caesar with water, from the small river Furens. This aqueduct may be traced by numerous vestiges between four and five leagues; and within a few miles of Lyons a row of several noble arches is still in a state of great preservation. A church is built on the summit of Mont Fourvières, from the ruins of a monument erected by Trajan, called Forum Vetus, and in old French, For Viel, which is now changed into Fourvières. Not far distant is the site of the palace where Germanicus was born. A monastery took its place; and that is now converted into an hospital for lunatics; and the building is so extremely ugly and conspicuous, that it is a blot in the scenery of this delightful hill, which, covered with woods, gardens, chateaux, and

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vineyards, the church of Fourvières on its highest point, and the venerable cathedral at its base, forms a border of matchless beauty to the Saône. Several streets lead from the bank of the river to the brow of this hill, but the ascent is very steep and laborious. The view it commands of Lyons, its rivers, and surrounding country, is bounded by the Alps, which appear in the horizon like the white and massive clouds" charged with Jove's thunder."

• We had remarked on our journey a great difference in the temperature of the air after we had left the mountains of Tarare behind

At Lyons, on Sunday, the 29th of September, the heat was so oppressive, that we did not venture to walk out in the middle of the day; but it did not prevent the natives from enjoying their usual promenade. Our windows opened to a street, leading from the Bellecour to the bridge over the Rhone, and we were amused by observing the crowd passing that way to their favourite walk, the Broteaux, on the other side of the river. The street was thronged most part of the day. In the evening, when others were beginning to return, we set out; some were still going, and we soon found ourselves in the midst of the concourse, with just convenient space to walk in, for there was no confusion or jostling; and we proceeded a mile without room to stir to the right or to the left, when finding that we had not reached the place of rendezvous, we turned back, with the same allowance of space to the end of our walk. We halted on the centre of the bridge, to take a view of the myriads of people who filled the road each way as far as we could see, and who appeared to have left their cares at honie ; for they all looked cheerful, and were decently dressed. We went a day or two afterwards, to ascertain what attractions the Broteaux possessed, and found, besides walks between rows of trees, a number of little public gardens, with seats and bowers, where refreshments of fruit and lemonade might be purchased. The trees bestow but a scanty shade, as they have been planted since the Revolution, when the ancient wood was cut down. Here and there one giant tree escaped the general massacre, and remains, a noble specimen of the shade-giving phalanx which perished by its side. The nearest way from the town is over a very handsome wooden bridge, Pont Morand; but a toll of a sou is demanded of every passenger; so that the Sunday throng prefer going round by the stone bridge near the Bellecour.

• T'he famous Roman shield, curiously ornamented with figures, representing part of the history of Scipio, was found under one of the arches of this bridge, by some fishermen, who accidentally discovered it in the sand. It was given to Louis XIV., and is now deposited in the Museum of the Botanic Garden at Paris.

• Besides a stand of very excellent hackney coaches at Lyops, a number of other carriages, called carrioles, constantly ply in the streets. They are nearly as large as a coach, and within have a sort of platform, round which the company sit; some looking out of the windows before, some out of the large door cases on each side, having their feet supported in a basket fastened on the outside of the carriole. Though these carriages will hold five or six persons, they are generally drawn by one horse, and are often driven by women. The women here not only fill the situation of coachmen, but likewise that of boatmen. All the pleasure boats on the Saône are under their management. This branch of trade is, I believe, secured to them by charter; at all events, they are in possession of it by custom. These boat-women sit in groupes at needle-work on the quay, to be ready when called. One day, on our inquiring for a boat to convey us to l’Isle Barbe, five or six of them jumped up in a moment to offer their services. A gentleman of our party fixed on a very handsome woman, who demanded three francs, ten sous for the fare ; and he whispered her that he gave her ten sous more than the others had asked, because she was so much prettier than the rest. He maintained afterwards, that she was better pleased with the compliment than with the money: but I believe the woman had more wit in this instance than he gave her credit for. She rowed us with skill and dexterity about two miles up the river to this celebrated island. It is mentioned in Guillon's “ Tableau de Lyon,” that Charlemagne was so delighted with its beauty when he visited an abbey there, that he conceived the scheme of retiring from the world to this charming spot; and was so determined to put his plan in execution, (which however he never did,) that he collected an excellent library for his own use, which, as well as the abbey itself, was burnt by the Calvinists in the year 1562.' pp. 69–72.

The sex and matron-like character of Mrs. Carey must give authority to her remarks on female education, which we subjoin.

• The French have been in a great dilemma in regard to the education of their daughters, since the abolition of convents. The schools which have been established in their stead possess none of their ad. vantages. In convents children were instructed, not by“ persons hired with an insignificant salary, with which necessity alone could compel them to be contented, but by ladies who were adorned with all the accomplishments to which they were to form their pupils, and wlio devoted themselves to the education of youth from the purest and noblest of motives-motives of religion; considering themselves as answerable to God for the negligence which might endanger either the health or morals of the children entrusted to their care, and the children seeing in their mistresses persons their equals, and sometimes greatly their superiors in birth, were grateful for the marks of affection and interest they received from them, and beholding them invested with a sacred character, paid more attention to the lessons they gave, listening with a sort of religious respect."

But in my opinion, the greatest advantage that belonged to a convent, as a place of education, was its perfect security from all intrusion, and the general protection which its walls afforded from the nature of the institution; so that children, safe within its precincts, enjoyed more individual liberty, and were less watched and guarded