ABSTRACT
ORLEANS is a very antient town, built, or rather rebuilt, by the Emperor Aurelian, upon ruins of another town, called Genabium. takes its present name of Orleans, or the golden city, from the Emperor Aurelian. This town is large and handsome. The principal street, which extends the whole length of the town, is regularly built, and is clean, cheerful, and well lighted every night, by lamps hung across it. Here is a noble cathedral of exquisite workmanship, and of which the first stone was laid by Henry the Fourth; a circumstance which makes me contemplate the building with additional pleasure. Henry the Fourth is, you know, the only hero, ancient or modern, of whom I am at all enamoured; and my admiration of him has been lately considerably increased by the perusal of a charming little book, entitled,* “De l’Amour de Henri quatre pour les Lettres.”—There was but this wanting to complete my enthusiasm for Henry the Fourth. I should find it difficult, indeed, to avoid loving a hero who united a taste for letters with all the great, and all the amiable qualities. A little incident, which I have just heard, is one proof, among many others, of the love and veneration in which his memory has long been held in France.—Ten 138years before the revolution, a gentleman walking along the Pont Neuf, was accosted by a beggar, who implored his charity.* “Au nomde Dieu! Monsieur,” said the beggar—“de la Sainte Vierge!”—The gentleman walked on: the beggar called upon half the faints in the calendar; the gentleman remained inexorable. At length they passed the statue Henry the Fourth, † “Au nom de Henri quatre! Monsieur,” said the beggar. “Au nom de Henri quatre!” repeated the gentleman, liar ting from his reverie: “voici un louis, mon ami.”—But I must lead you from the Pont Neuf to a magnificent bridge built within these few years, at Orleans, across the river Loire. This river, which, in general, glides slowly and gently along its beautiful banks, sometime receiving in its bosom the torrents which fall from the mountains of Auvergne, assumes a very different character, overflows its banks, bears away bridges in its course, spreads itself over the adjacent country, and not only fills the streets in the lower part of the town of Orleans, but even the houses; and the poor people who inhabit them have been sometimes obliged to save themselves in their garrets, and receive provisions brought to them in boats, and handed up to them upon the point of pikes, Usually, however, in order to prevent-these evils, whenever the Loire begins to rise, a courier is dispatched to give notice of its approach. The courier, in general, gallops saster 139than the river, and by this means the people are prepared for its reception.
