The Loire rolls down through the Orléannais, from Châteauneuf-sur-Loire and Jargeau, and cuts the banks of sable, and the very shores themselves, into little capes and bays which are delightful in their eccentricity. Here cuts in the Canal d'Orleans, which makes possible the little traffic that goes on between the Seine and the Loire.
A few kilometres away from the right bank of the Loire, in the heart of the Gatanais, is Lorris, the home of Guillaume de Lorris, the first author of the "Roman de la Rose." For this reason alone it should become a literary shrine of the very first rank, though, in spite of its claim, no one ever heard of a literary pilgrim making his way there.
Lorris is simply a big, overgrown French market-town, which is delightful enough in its somnolence, but which lacks most of the attributes which tourists in general seem to demand.
At Lorris a most momentous treaty was signed, known as the "Paix de Lorris," wherein was assured to the posterity of St. Louis the heritage of the Comte de Toulouse, another of those periodical territorial aggrandizements which ultimately welded the French nation into the whole that it is to-day.
From the juncture of the Canal d'Orleans with the Loire one sees shining in the brilliant sunlight the roof-tops of Orleans, the Aurelianum of the Romans, its hybrid cathedral overtopping all else. It was Victor Hugo who said of this cathedral: "This odious church, which from afar holds so much of promise, and which near by has none," and Hugo undoubtedly spoke the truth.
Orleans is an old city and a cité neuve. Where the river laps its quays, it is old but commonplace; back from the river is a strata which is really old, fine Gothic house-fronts and old leaning walls; while still farther from the river, as one approaches the railway station, it is strictly modern, with all the devices and appliances of the newest of the new.
The Orleans of history lies riverwards,—the Orleans where the heart of France pulsed itself again into life in the tragic days which were glorified by "the Maid."
"The countryside of the Orléannais has the monotony of a desert," said an English traveller some generations ago. He was wrong. To do him justice, however, or to do his observations justice, he meant, probably, that, save the river-bottom of the Loire, the great plain which begins with La Beauce and ends with the Sologne has a comparatively uninteresting topography. This is true; but it is not a desert. La Beauce is the best grain-growing region in all France, and the Sologne is now a reclaimed land whose sandy soil has proved admirably adapted to an unusually abundant growth of the vine. So much for this old-time point of view, which to-day has changed considerably.
The Orléannais is one of the most populous and progressive sections of all France, and its inhabitants, per square kilometre, are constantly increasing in numbers, which is more than can be said of every département. There are multitudes of tiny villages, and one is scarcely ever out of sight and sound of a habitation.
