But I did not find Orleans answer to my expectations. It is a dull town, very modern in appearance, but with that measly and decrepit look which is so general in French towns. There was a PlaceJeanne d'Arc, with an equestrian statue of her in the midst, flourishing a banner. There was thehouse that the Maid had occupied after the taking of the city, but, with the exception of the wallsand rafters, it had undergone so much alteration and modernisation as to have lost its interest. Amuseum of memorials of la Pucelle had been formed, but possessed no genuine relics, only armsand tapestries of a later date.The city walls she had besieged, the gate through which she had burst, had been levelled, and theirplaces taken by boulevards. The very cathedral in which she had knelt to return thanks for hervictory was not the same. That had been blown up by the Huguenots, and the cathedral that nowstands was erected on its ruins in 1601.There was an ormolu figure of Jeanne on the clock-never wound up-upon the mantelshelf in myroom at the hotel, and there were chocolate figures of her in the confectioners' shop-windows forchildren to suck. When I sat down at 7 p.m. to table d'hote, at my inn, I was out of heart. The resultof my exploration of sites had been unsatisfactory; but I trusted on the morrow to be able to findmaterial to serve my purpose in the municipal archives of the town library.