THE landlady was full of apologies for the dulness of the town. The band always played on Sunday afternoons on the Place in front of her house, she said; but now the troops were away for the autumn manoeuvres, and Montargis was sad in their absence. We thought, however, she might better have apologised for the lateness of her dinner-hour.—But it was, after all, fortunate, for it so chanced we saw more of Montargis than we expected.

Though little is said about it in guide and other books, it is one of the prettiest towns in all France. A river, an old church, and a mediÆval castle are always elements of picturesqueness, and these Montargis has used to the very best advantage.—We found the church grey and weather-worn of course.

The castle, closed about with high walls, stood gloomily apart, and overlooked the town. A narrow hilly street, lined with little houses, led to its heavy gateway, against and above which leaned the poor and shabby roofs of the nearest dwellings.

But we took greatest pleasure in the river, which wandered around and through the town, as if bent on seeing as much of city life as possible;—now flowing between stone embankments, from which men and boys for ever fished and caught nothing, while the castle frowned down upon it; now, tired

already of city ways and sights, running peacefully between green banks and trees whose branches met above; again, crossing the street and making its way by old ruinous houses. We stood on a near bridge while a funeral passed. Two men carried a coffin, adorned with one poor wreath, and so small we knew the body of a child lay within; for mourners there were half-a-dozen women in white caps. The very simplicity of the little procession made it the more solemn. At its approach voices were hushed and hats lifted. And yet, as they went over the bridge, the acolytes and the chanters, even the priest himself, stole a momentary inquiring glance at J——’s stockings.

It was in Montargis the English drowned Joan of Arc. My authority is an eminently respectable stationer on the right-hand side of the principal street as you enter the town from the north. He assured us of the truth of his statement; and as he had always lived in Montargis and we were strangers, we did not see our way to dispute it.

In Montargis we heard for the first time the story of the lady tricycler, afterwards repeated at almost every stage of our journey. The landlady served it to us with the dessert.—Only a few days before, it seemed, two gentlemen arrived, each riding a velocipede, and each wearing long stockings and short pantaloons, like Monsieur.——

Show these gentlemen to No. 14, she said to the chambermaid. Take these towels up to ces messieurs in No. 14, she said to the same chambermaid a few minutes later. When the dinner-bell rang there came down from No. 14, not two gentlemen, but a gentleman and a lady; and, if we would believe it, the lady had on a black silk dress. And the next morning, my faith, two gentlemen rode away!

—In the cafÉ, after dinner, we watched four citizens of Montargis gamble recklessly at corks. One, an old fat man in a blouse, who stood on one leg and waved the other in the air when he played, ran great risks, with his sous, and usually won, to the discomfiture of a small man who hit feebly and lost steadily.——

“It is that you are wanting in courage, my child,” his successful rival kept telling him.

—The few soldiers left in Montargis were making the rounds of the town with great blowing of bugle and beating of drum when we went to our room in the HÔtel de la Poste.