That the sporting qualities of the district have not yet been destroyed is proved by the frequency with which one hears the sound of the horn across the watery levels, and sees the very excited hunting folk clattering through the village streets and along the highways and byways.

Turning to the left in the village of Cour Cheverny, and to the right at a fork just afterwards, one reaches the village of

CHEVERNY

Opposite the curious little church, with its Norman door and wide wooden verandah sheltering a few mendicants, is the entrance to the Château. It is open to visitors from April 1 to October, and not during the other months of the year, as it is the home of the present owner, the Marquis Henri Hurault de Vibraye, who is a descendant of that Philippe Hurault de Cheverny whose son built the present château in 1634. This Philippe Hurault had been Chancellor under Henri III. and Henri IV., and died in 1599 in the house destroyed when the existing one was built.

The corridor and dining-room are decorated with paintings on Cordova leather illustrating the life of Don Quixote. Jean Mosnier, of Blois, born in 1600, was the artist who painted all the pictures in the château. A beautifully carved stone staircase leads to the upper floor, where one can see the Salle des Gardes—a splendid room in perfect condition—decorated with armour, paintings, and rich tapestries, and the Chambre du Roi, with its old bed and more tapestry.

The tomb of Chancellor Hurault is in the chapel in the château, and others of the family are buried in the church (already mentioned) outside the gates of the park.

Returning to Cour Cheverny, where the church has a tall and slender spire, and an early Pointed doorway with a toothed moulding, one goes straight on through the village and the forest of Russy (passing on the left the Château Beauregard) to the picturesque and historic town of

BLOIS

On crossing the bridge over the Loire one looks upward at the great castle on its inaccessible rock, the centre of a vast feudal power in the Middle Ages, and the scene of callous intrigue and murder in the latter part of the sixteenth century.

It is not difficult to find the way up to the Château, which is a national monument, and is open to the public at all reasonable hours.