

Transcribed from the 1864 Chapman and Hall “Tales of All Countries”
edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org





                     THE CHÂTEAU OF PRINCE POLIGNAC.


FEW Englishmen or Englishwomen are intimately acquainted with the little
town of Le Puy.  It is the capital of the old province of Le Velay, which
also is now but little known, even to French ears, for it is in these
days called by the imperial name of the Department of the Haute Loire.
It is to the south-east of Auvergne, and is nearly in the centre of the
southern half of France.

But few towns, merely as towns, can be better worth visiting.  In the
first place, the volcanic formation of the ground on which it stands is
not only singular in the extreme, so as to be interesting to the
geologist, but it is so picturesque as to be equally gratifying to the
general tourist.  Within a narrow valley there stand several rocks,
rising up from the ground with absolute abruptness.  Round two of these
the town clusters, and a third