In the fourteenth century, during the Hundred Years' War, the town was frequently besieged. In 1429 Jeanne d'Arc, coming from her success at St. Pierre-le-Moutier, here met with practically a defeat, as she was able to sustain the siege for only but a month, when she withdrew.

La Charité played an important part in the religious wars of the sixteenth century, and Protestants and Catholics became its occupants in turn. Virtually La Charité-sur-Loire became a Protestant stronghold in spite of its Catholic foundation.

In 1577 it bade defiance to the royal arms of the Duc d'Alençon, as is recounted by the following lines:

"Ou allez-vous, hélas! furieux insensés
Cherchant de Charité la proie et la ruine,
Qui sans l'ombre de Foy abbatre la pensez!
. . . . . . . . .
Le canon ne peut rien contre la Charité,
Plus tot vous détruira la peste et la famine,
Car jamais sans Foy n'aurez la Charité."

In spite of this defiance it capitulated, and, on the 15th of May, at the château of Plessis-les-Tours on the Loire, Henri III. celebrated the victory of his brother by a fête "ultra-galante," where, in place of the usual pages, there were employed "des dames vestues en habits d'hommes...." Surely a fantastic and immodest manner of celebrating a victory against religious opponents; but, like many of the customs of the time, the fête was simply a fanatical debauch.

[Porte du Croux, Nevers]

At Nevers one meets the Canal du Nivernais, which recalls Daudet's "La Belle Nivernaise" to all readers of fiction, who may accept it without question as a true and correct guide to the region, its manners, and customs.

The chief characteristic of Nevers is that it is Italian in nearly, if not quite all, its aspects; its monuments and its history. Its ancient ducal château, part of which dates from the feudal epoch, was the abode of the Italian dukes who came in the train of Mazarin, the last of whom was the nephew of the cardinal, "who himself was French if his speech was not."

Nevers has also a charming Gothic cathedral (St. Cyr) with a double Romanesque apse (in itself a curiosity seldom, if ever, seen out of Germany), and, in addition to the cathedral, can boast of St. Etienne, one of the most precious of all the Romanesque churches of France.