La Charité is a very picturesque and cheerful little town with several good old houses, and an old stone bridge across the river. The extremely interesting and beautiful Romanesque church belonged to one of the most important Cluniac priories in France, so famed for its good deeds that the place received the name it now bears. A town sprang up round the abbey, and ramparts defended with several towers were built in 1184, but the fortifications standing to-day were rebuilt in 1364. It is surprising that there are any of the defences left when one reads of the frequent sieges and sackings the town endured, particularly during the religious wars of the sixteenth century.
The Church of Ste. Croix, just mentioned, was consecrated in 1107 by Pope Pascal II., but not finished until some years later. The nave and south-west tower were ruined in 1557 during the religious wars. The choir, with picturesque stilted arches, the transepts, and the central tower, are all that remain of one of the finest Romanesque basilicas in France.
The road goes northwards through the mossy-roofed village of Mesves, which has a twelfth-century barn, and for mile after mile the Loire appears on the left as a blue ribbon threaded through the lacework of the intervening trees.
Pouilly is a cheerful little town with high-pitched roofs and stone walls, a seventeenth-century château, and a partially Gothic church. The white wine of the neighbourhood is considered exceedingly good.
COSNE
is a considerable town with iron foundries, barracks, and a hospital. The church of St. Aignan has a fine Romanesque apse with richly carved capitals to its pillars, and a greatly enriched west door of the same period. Pope Pius VII., when in France under Napoleon’s orders, stayed at the Hôtel du Grand Cerf.
One passes through the village of Myennes, with the houses standing back from the road, and two or three hamlets, including Bonny-sur-Loire, with the oddest spire to its church, and then enters the village of Briare, where the road to Orleans goes off to the left.
The quaint Hôtel de France, with a courtyard, can furnish a modest déjeuner.
SECTION XXIV
BRIARE TO MELUN, 64 MILES
(103 KILOMETRES)
DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE