From the heights of Sancerre one sees a wonderful history-making panorama before him. Cæsar crossed the Loire at Gien, the Franks forded the river at La Charité, when they first went against Aquitaine, and Charles the Bald came sadly to grief on a certain occasion at Pouilly.

It is here that the Loire rises to its greatest flood, and hundreds of times, so history tells, from 490 to 1866, the fickle river has caused a devastation so great and terrible that the memory of it is not yet dead.

This hardly seems possible of this usually tranquil stream, and there have always been scoffers.

Madame de Sévigné wrote in 1675 to M. de Coulanges (but in her case perhaps it was mere well-wishing), "La belle Loire, elle est un peu sujette à se déborder, mais elle en est plus douce."

Ancient writers were wont to consider the inundations of the Loire as a punishment from Heaven, and even in later times the superstition—if it was a superstition—still remained.

[The Loire near La Charité]

In 1825, when thousands of charcoal-burners (charbonniers) were all but ruined, they petitioned the government for assistance. The official who had the matter in charge, and whose name—fortunately for his fame—does not appear to have been recorded, replied simply that the flood was a periodical condition of affairs which the Almighty brought about as occasion demanded, with good cause, and for this reason he refused all assistance.

Important public works have done much to prevent repetitions of these inundations, but the danger still exists, and always, in a wet season, there are those dwellers along the river's banks who fear the rising flood as they would the plague.

Chatillon, with its towers; Gien, a busy hive of industry, though with a historic past; Sully; and St. Benoit-sur-Loire, with its unique double transepted church; all pass in rapid review, and one enters the ancient capital of the Orléannais quite ready for the new chapter which, in colouring, is to be so different from that devoted to the upper valley.