1936 On the Continent

château.
    Saumur, which is the next town down the Loire Valley, is a small place of some 16,000 inhabitants, chiefly famous for its delicious wines. Its only claim to social distinction is the existence of a well-known cavalry school. In the Rue Montcel there is an admirably conserved fifteenth-century house. You will also find the Church of Saint-Pierre of the twelfth century worth a visit or two, and the château is mainly interesting as typical of the transition between the military architecture of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance style. The best hotel in the region is the Roi René, on the island between the two forks of the Loire.
    Finally, bordering on Brittany and outside the valley of the Loire properly so called, there is Angers, a big and beautiful old town of 86,000 inhabitants. Like Saumur, it has kept its old quarters intact amid the houses of the new town, under the protection of its château and cathedral.
    Among the many interesting things to see in Angers, handed down from the days when it was the capital of the Dukes of Anjou, who subsequently became the kings of England, there is the Tour Saint Aubi, which was once the keep of a Benedictine abbey now occupied by the Préfecture. You should also look at the Tour de Villebon, dating from the ninth century, the Gothic cathedral of Saint-Maurice, and the château built in the time of SaintLouis, and which is one of the finest medieval fortresses in France. Finally, there is an interesting museum devoted to the works of the sculptor, David of Angers. For good food and wine and comfortable lodging, I heartily recommend the Hôtel du Cheval Blanc near the cathedral.

NORMANDY
    As soon as the spring really begins to set in and Paris leaves me a few days of freedom, lovely as the city itself is in that season, I like to slip away to some quiet spot in the countryside of Normandy.
    Normandy, “la Verte Normandie,” is truly one of the most charming of all the French provinces. With its green meadows, clusters of trees and wooded hills and valleys, it has something of the same attraction as the typical countrysides of England and conjures up here and there inevitable memories of Sussex, Hampshire and even in certain spots of Somerset and Devon. The analogy must not, of course, be carried too far. Normandy is no mere replica of some other country. It is utterly itself and utterly French. But I have found that my English friends are more at home there and need less effort to adjust themselves to their new surroundings than practically anywhere else in France.
    It is a province particularly rich, too, in works of art, and you will find some lovely or curious building in every little village and corner of its countryside, a silent witness to its long and deeply eventful past.
    For me, of course, who live and work in Paris, it has another and by no means negligible attraction, and that is its closeness to the capital. It is practically at the gates of Paris with modern means of transport, and in less than an hour by train or bus you are already among its fields and woods. The same advantage holds good for the Englishman as well; he has only to cross the Channel to Dieppe and there he is!
    The whole of Normandy turns on the Seine as its axis, and with its wide extent of coast-line on the Channel it is the natural gateway to France, magnificently decorated and embellished by the genius of its inhabitants.
    It was from the coast of Normandy that Julius Caesar set out to conquer Britain. It was up the Seine that the Norsemen penetrated to the heart of France in the Middle Ages. And it was on the banks of the Seine that they finally settled down, tired of their distant raids, and gave their name to the country.
    Nowadays it is possible to trace with almost complete accuracy which parts of Normandy were chosen for settlement by each of the Viking nations, the Danes and the Norwegians (or, if you will, Norsemen). Thus the Norwegian emigrants preferred Upper Normandy and the right bank of the Seine, whilst the Danes fixed on Lower Normandy on the left bank as well as on the peninsula of Cotentin up as far as Couesnon, which is the frontier of Brittany.
    In Upper Normandy, a region relatively drier, more split up into compartments, crossed with forests and moderately high and fertile plains, certain characteristics inherited from the ancient Norsemen still remain. For instance, the farms are usually some way back from the roads and are composed of several separate