Pouilly-sur-Loire is next, with three thousand or more inhabitants wholly devoted to wine-growing, Pouilly being to the upper river what Vouvray is to Touraine. It is not a tourist point in any sense, nor is it very picturesque or attractive.
Some one has said that the pleasure of contemplation is never so great as when one views a noble monument, a great work of art, or a charming French town for the first time. Never was it more true indeed than of the two dissimilar towns of the upper Loire, Nevers, and La Charité-sur-Loire. The old towers of La Charité rise up in the sunlight and give that touch to the view which marks it at once as of the Nivernais, which all archæologists tell one is Italian and not French, in motive as well as sentiment.
It is remarkable, perhaps, that the name La Charité is so seldom met with in the accounts of English travellers in France, for in France it is invariably considered to be one of the most picturesque and famous spots in all mid-France.
It is an unprogressive, sleepy old place, with streets mostly unpaved, whose five thousand odd souls, known roundabout as Les Caritates, live apparently in the past.
![[Pouilly-sur-Loire]](#3662465787148151151_illus425.jpg.id-3705333404774728765.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
Below, a stone's throw from the windows of your inn, lies the Loire, its broad, blue bosom scarcely ruffled, except where it slowly eddies around the piers of the two-century-old dos d'ane bridge; a lovely old structure, built, it is recorded, by the regiment known as the "Royal Marine" in the early years of the eighteenth century.
The town is terraced upon the very edge of the river, with views up and down which are unusually lovely for even these parts. Below, almost within sight, is Nevers, while above are the heights of Sancerre, still visible in the glowing western twilight.
Beyond the bridge rises a giant column of blackened stone, festooned by four ranges of arcades, the sole remaining relic of the ancient church standing alone before the present structure which now serves the purposes of the church in La Charité.
The walls which surrounded the ancient town have disappeared or have been built into house walls, but the effect is still of a self-contained old burg.