But the scene was
shrouded by the heavy drifting mist, through which I could trace but
indistinctly the graceful sweep of the Loire, and the spires and roofs
of the city far below me.
The city of Tours and the delicious plain in which it lies have been
too often described by other travelers to render a new description,
from so listless a pen as mine, either necessary or desirable. After a
sojourn of two cloudy and melancholy days, I set out on my return to
Paris, by the way of Vendome and Chartres. I stopt a few hours at
the former place, to examine the ruins of a chateau built by Jeanne
d'Albret, mother of Henry the Fourth. It stands upon the summit of a
high and precipitous hill, and almost overhangs the town beneath. The
French Revolution has completed the ruin that time had already begun;
and nothing now remains, but a broken and crumbling bastion, and here
and there a solitary tower dropping slowly to decay. In one of these
is the grave of Jeanne d'Albret. A marble entablature in the wall
above contains the inscription, which is nearly effaced, tho enough
still remains to tell the curious traveler that there lies buried the
mother of the "Bon Henri.
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