In their novel "Par les champs et par les grèves", Gustave Flaubert and Maxime Du Camp recount their trip to Montsoreau on 8 May 1847: "Anjou smells of Italy. Is it a memory? remains of influence? or the effect of the gentle Loire, the most sensual of rivers? [...] In Montsoreau, we turn left and take the road () that stretches all the way to Saumur between the Loire and the hillsides. [...] So we go like this, walking joyfully and carefree, talkative and silent, singing and smoking; it was for us one of those days that make you love life, one of those days when the fog spreads a little to let you see a bright corner of the horizon ".