From this one infers that the abbey's original functions are performed no more.
In the middle ages (thirteenth century) it was one of the most powerful institutions of its class, and its church one of the most beautiful in Touraine. The tower and donjon are the only substantial remains of this early edifice.
A curious chapel, called the "Chapelle des Sept Dormants," is here cut in the form of a cross into the rock of the hillside, where are buried the remains of the Seven Sleepers, the disciples of St. Martin, who, as the holy man had predicted, all died on the same day.
Beyond Marmoutier, a stairway of 122 steps, cut also in the rock, leads to the plateau on which stands the gaunt and ugly Lanterne de Rochecorbon, a fourteenth-century construction with a crenelated summit, an unlovely companion of that even more enigmatic erection known as "La Pile," a few miles down the Loire at Cinq-Mars.
CHAPTER XI.
LUYNES AND LANGEAIS
Below Tours, and before reaching Saumur, are a succession of panoramic surprises which are only to be likened to those of our imagination, but they are very real nevertheless.
As one leaves Tours by the road which skirts the right bank of the Loire, he is once more impressed by the fact that the cailloux de Loire are the river's chief product, though fried fish, of a similar variety to those found in the Seine, are found on the menus of all roadside taverns and restaurants.
Still, the effect of the uncovered bed of the Loire, with its variegated pebbles and mirror-like pools, is infinitely more picturesque than if it were mud flats, and its tree-bordered banks are for ever opening great alleyed vistas such as are only known in France.
The hills on either bank are not of the stupendous and magnificently scenic order of those of the Seine above and below Rouen; but, such as they are, they are of much the same composition, a soft talcy formation which here serves admirably the purposes of cliff-dwellings for the vineyard and wine-press workers, who form practically the sole population of the Loire villages from Vouvray, just above Tours, to Saumur far below.