THE RIVER LOIRE. 237 



English bosoms glow with the honest pride which such 

 recollections are well calculated to excite, we are obliged 

 to lament that so much life and valour should have been 

 wasted in a contest, which, from the very nature of the 

 case, must ultimately prove hopeless, and from which our 

 countrymen derived nothing, and could expect nothing, 

 more solid than the honour of an imperishable renown. 



But the plains of Poitiers have furnished laurels for 

 other than English brows. In the year 752, the celebrated 

 Charles Martel "le Marteau des Sarrasins" arrested, 

 near this town, the progress of Mahommedan fanaticism, 

 and gave the advancing Saracens that memorable defeat, 

 which saved the religion and growing civilisation of 

 Europe from entire annihilation. The fates of the Gospel 

 and the Koran hung suspended, to all human appearance, 

 on the event; and it was not until after a long and 

 doubtful contest, in which the field was "cumbered with 

 the slain," that, to use the fanciful words of an old 

 historian, " the clouds of Oriental cavaliers, armed with 

 huge scimetars, broke in pieces against the icy walls of 

 the foot soldiers of the North, armed with pikes and 

 battle-axes." 



About ten miles below the town of Chatellerault, the 

 Vienne receives a powerful accession to its waters from 

 the river Creuse, which runs a distance not far short of 

 two hundred miles from its source, near the small town 

 of Aubusson, in the department of the Creuse, on the 

 borders of Old Auvergne. This is a splendid fishing 

 stream, and traverses a part of the country peculiarly rich 

 in romantic and picturesque scenery. From Aubusson to 

 the town of Le Blanc, the river will be found well calcu- 

 lated for the fly, abounding in good streams, and clear 

 and rippling waters. Le Blanc, which the river separates 



