Clovis assisted the recluses who had chosen this retreat as their abode, and granted them land and wood; a monastery was soon formed and the town grew round it.
There is a fine cascade near La Ceuille, of which, or rather of the stream which flowed from it, we caught a glimpse on approaching St.
Maixant; it falls from the _coteau_ called Puy d'Enfer, and it is one of the wonders of the neighbourhood.

The old walls of the town now appear to enclose gardens, and all looks smiling and gay; but they have sustained many a rude siege at different periods, and suffered much during the wars of La Vendee.
At mid-day we reached Niort, a fine, clean, good-looking new town, with scarcely any antiquity left, though of ancient renown: a Celtic city with a Celtic name; a castle whose date cannot be ascertained; a palace inhabited by the great heroine of the country, Elionor; and convents and monasteries of infinite wealth and celebrity.

That singular and famous community established by the Troubadour Count of Poitou, Guillaume IX., was at Niort, and was replaced by the holy Capuchin brothers, who must have been sufficiently scandalized at the conduct of the fair devotees who preceded them in their cells.
The Duchess Elionor was married to Henry II.

at Niort, and lived here frequently.

We hoped to see some remains of her palace, but found only a large square building which might have formed a part of it; though its form, which is an isolated tower, makes it difficult to imagine how it could be in any way connected with the rest of the palace; this tower is now used as the Hotel de Ville; its lozenge and circle ornaments appear not to be of older date than Francis I.; and we could scarcely persuade ourselves, however ready to believe in antiquities, that the all-powerful lady of Aquitaine, or her warrior husband, ever sat within these walls.
A curious privilege was granted by the pope, in 1461, to the mayor, aldermen, sheriffs, councillors, peers, and citizens of Niort, to be buried in the habit, and with the cord round their waists, of the Cordeliers: it is not recorded that the ladies of the town petitioned to be dressed as well in their coffins as the nuns whose beauty delighted William the Ninth, or they might have gone to their last fete in-- "A charming chintz and Brussels lace." The most remarkable recollection connected with Niort, is that, in the prison of the town, called La Conciergerie, where her father was confined for the crime of forgery, was born Francoise D'Aubigne, afterwards the wife of Scarron, and by the favour of Louis XIV., Marquise de Maintenon, in whom the triumph of hypocrisy was complete.
One of the streets is called by her name; but it is not recorded that she ever did anything for her native town; probably she was not anxious to perpetuate the memory of any part of her early life, not seeing fit to be quite so communicative on the subject as her brother, whose tongue she had so much difficulty in keeping quiet.
Niort is a very pleasant, lively-looking town--that is, for a French town, where the nearest approach to gaiety is the crowd which a weekly market brings, or the groups of laughing, talking women, which the ceaseless occupation of washing collects on the banks of the river.