In its curving watercourse, the Loire encompasses vast areas of central France—Touraine, Blésois, Sologne, Berry—former provinces, all closely related, where one travelled from one town to another by imperceptible degrees, a whole district which since time immemorial, has been, above all, French. The towns there have remained as they were in olden times: peaceful populous villages which are quiet and slow-moving although their organisation is complex, standing on an unpretentious historic substructure whose only outcrops are familiar remains: Here a still-imposing castle; there a church, frequently of outstanding beauty; and sometimes public monuments dating from the first onset of community awareness—they consist of such things as a wash-house, a fountain, a bridge over a river, a shady square, or covered market…