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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/37211-8.txt b/37211-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c3787be --- /dev/null +++ b/37211-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9272 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine and +the Loire Country, by Francis Miltoun + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine and the Loire Country + +Author: Francis Miltoun + +Illustrator: Blanche McManus + +Release Date: August 25, 2011 [EBook #37211] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CASTLES, CHATEAUX OF OLD TOURAINE *** + + + + +Produced by Elizaveta Shevyakhova, Juliet Sutherland and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian +Libraries) + + + + + + + + + + + Castles and Châteaux of Old Touraine + and the Loire Country + + + + + _WORKS OF FRANCIS MILTOUN_ + + _The following, each 1 vol., library 12mo, cloth, gilt top, + profusely illustrated, $2.50_ + + _Rambles on the Riviera_ + _Rambles in Normandy_ + _Rambles in Brittany_ + _The Cathedrals and Churches of the Rhine_ + _The Cathedrals of Northern France_ + _The Cathedrals of Southern France_ + _The Cathedrals of Italy_ (_In preparation_) + + _The following, 1 vol., square octavo, cloth, gilt top, profusely + illustrated. $3.00_ + + _Castles and Châteaux of Old Touraine and the Loire Country_ + + _L. C. PAGE & COMPANY New England Building, Boston, Mass._ + + + + +[Illustration: A PEASANT GIRL OF TOURAINE] + + + + + Castles and Châteaux + OF + OLD TOURAINE + AND THE LOIRE COUNTRY + + BY FRANCIS MILTOUN + + Author of "Rambles in Normandy," "Rambles in Brittany," + "Rambles on the Riviera," etc. + + _With Many Illustrations + Reproduced from paintings made on the spot_ + + BY BLANCHE MCMANUS + + [Illustration] + + BOSTON + L. C. PAGE & COMPANY + 1906 + + + + + + _Copyright, 1906_ + BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY + (Incorporated) + + _All rights reserved_ + + First Impression, June, 1906 + + _COLONIAL PRESS_ + _Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co._ + _Boston, U. S. A._ + + + + +[Illustration: Ed VELAY] + + + + +By Way of Introduction + + +This book is not the result of ordinary conventional rambles, of +sightseeing by day, and flying by night, but rather of leisurely +wanderings, for a somewhat extended period, along the banks of the Loire +and its tributaries and through the countryside dotted with those +splendid monuments of Renaissance architecture which have perhaps a more +appealing interest for strangers than any other similar edifices +wherever found. + +Before this book was projected, the conventional tour of the château +country had been "done," Baedeker, Joanne and James's "Little Tour" in +hand. On another occasion Angers, with its almost inconceivably real +castellated fortress, and Nantes, with its memories of the "Edict" and +"La Duchesse Anne," had been tasted and digested _en route_ to a certain +little artist's village in Brittany. + +On another occasion, when we were headed due south, we lingered for a +time in the upper valley, between "the little Italian city of Nevers" +and "the most picturesque spot in the world"--Le Puy. + +But all this left certain ground to be covered, and certain gaps to be +filled, though the author's note-books were numerous and full to +overflowing with much comment, and the artist's portfolio was already +bulging with its contents. + +So more note-books were bought, and, following the genial Mark Twain's +advice, another fountain pen and more crayons and sketch-books, and the +author and artist set out in the beginning of a warm September to fill +those gaps and to reduce, if possible, that series of rambles along the +now flat and now rolling banks of the broad blue Loire to something like +consecutiveness and uniformity; with what result the reader may judge. + + + + +Contents + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION v + + I. A GENERAL SURVEY 1 + + II. THE ORLÉANNAIS 30 + + III. THE BLAISOIS AND THE SOLOGNE 56 + + IV. CHAMBORD 94 + + V. CHEVERNY, BEAUREGARD, AND CHAUMONT 110 + + VI. TOURAINE: THE GARDEN SPOT OF FRANCE 128 + + VII. AMBOISE 148 + + VIII. CHENONCEAUX 171 + + IX. LOCHES 188 + + X. TOURS AND ABOUT THERE 203 + + XI. LUYNES AND LANGEAIS 221 + + XII. AZAY-LE-RIDEAU, USSÉ, AND CHINON 241 + + XIII. ANJOU AND BRETAGNE 273 + + XIV. SOUTH OF THE LOIRE 301 + + XV. BERRY AND GEORGE SAND'S COUNTRY 313 + + XVI. THE UPPER LOIRE 330 + + INDEX 337 + + + + +List of Illustrations + + + PAGE + + A PEASANT GIRL OF TOURAINE _Frontispiece_ + + ITINERARY OF THE LOIRE (MAP) facing 1 + + A LACE-MAKER OF THE UPPER LOIRE facing 4 + + THE LOIRE CHÂTEAUX (MAP) 9 + + THE ANCIENT PROVINCES OF THE LOIRE VALLEY + AND THEIR CAPITALS (MAP) 15 + + THE LOIRE NEAR LA CHARITÉ facing 18 + + COIFFES OF AMBOISE AND ORLEANS facing 20 + + THE CHÂTEAUX OF THE LOIRE (MAP) facing 30 + + ENVIRONS OF ORLEANS (MAP) 39 + + THE LOIRET facing 42 + + THE LOIRE AT MEUNG facing 46 + + BEAUGENCY facing 50 + + ARMS OF THE CITY OF BLOIS 58 + + THE RIVERSIDE AT BLOIS facing 58 + + SIGNATURE OF FRANÇOIS PREMIER 60 + + CYPHER OF ANNE DE BRETAGNE, AT BLOIS 62 + + ARMS OF LOUIS XII. 65 + + CENTRAL DOORWAY, CHÂTEAU DE BLOIS facing 66 + + THE CHÂTEAUX OF BLOIS (DIAGRAM) 71 + + CYPHER OF FRANÇOIS PREMIER AND CLAUDE OF + FRANCE, AT BLOIS 72 + + NATIVE TYPES IN THE SOLOGNE 89 + + DONJON OF MONTRICHARD facing 92 + + ARMS OF FRANÇOIS PREMIER, AT CHAMBORD 99 + + PLAN OF CHÂTEAU DE CHAMBORD 103 + + CHÂTEAU DE CHAMBORD facing 104 + + CHÂTEAU DE CHEVERNY facing 110 + + CHEVERNY-SUR-LOIRE 113 + + CHAUMONT facing 116 + + SIGNATURE OF DIANE DE POITIERS 118 + + THE LOIRE IN TOURAINE facing 134 + + THE VINTAGE IN TOURAINE facing 142 + + CHÂTEAU D'AMBOISE facing 148 + + SCULPTURE FROM THE CHAPELLE DE ST. HUBERT facing 164 + + CYPHER OF ANNE DE BRETAGNE, HÔTEL DE + VILLE, AMBOISE 168 + + CHÂTEAU DE CHENONCEAUX facing 178 + + CHÂTEAU DE CHENONCEAUX (DIAGRAM) 179 + + LOCHES 189 + + LOCHES AND ITS CHURCH facing 192 + + SKETCH PLAN OF LOCHES 198 + + ST. OURS, LOCHES facing 198 + + TOURS facing 202 + + ARMS OF THE PRINTERS, _AVOCATS_, AND INNKEEPERS, + TOURS 205 + + SCENE IN THE QUARTIER DE LA CATHÉDRALE, + TOURS facing 208 + + PLESSIS-LES-TOURS IN THE TIME OF LOUIS XI. 213 + + ENVIRONS OF TOURS (MAP) 219 + + A VINEYARD OF VOUVRAY facing 222 + + MEDIÆVAL STAIRWAY AND THE CHÂTEAU DE + LUYNES facing 224 + + RUINS OF CINQ-MARS facing 228 + + CHÂTEAU DE LANGEAIS facing 232 + + ARMS OF LOUIS XII. AND ANNE DE BRETAGNE 237 + + CHÂTEAU D'AZAY-LE-RIDEAU facing 244 + + CHÂTEAU D'USSÉ facing 248 + + THE ROOF-TOPS OF CHINON facing 252 + + RABELAIS 255 + + CHÂTEAU DE CHINON facing 258 + + CUISINES, FONTEVRAULT 265 + + CHÂTEAU DE SAUMUR facing 276 + + THE PONTS DE CÉ facing 284 + + CHÂTEAU D'ANGERS facing 288 + + ENVIRONS OF NANTES (MAP) 297 + + DONJON OF THE CHÂTEAU DE CLISSON facing 306 + + BERRY (MAP) 313 + + LA TOUR, SANCERRE 317 + + CHÂTEAU DE GIEN facing 318 + + CHÂTEAU DE VALENÇAY facing 322 + + GATEWAY OF MEHUN-SUR-YEVRE facing 324 + + LE CARRIOR DORÉ, ROMORANTIN 325 + + ÉGLISE S. AIGNAN, COSNE 331 + + POUILLY-SUR-LOIRE facing 332 + + PORTE DU CROUX, NEVERS facing 334 + + + + + +[Illustration: ITINERARY OF THE LOIRE (MAP)] + + + + +Castles and Châteaux + +of Old Touraine + +and the Loire Country + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +A GENERAL SURVEY + + +Any account of the Loire and of the towns along its banks must naturally +have for its chief mention Touraine and the long line of splendid feudal +and Renaissance châteaux which reflect themselves so gloriously in its +current. + +The Loire possesses a certain fascination and charm which many other +more commercially great rivers entirely lack, and, while the element of +absolute novelty cannot perforce be claimed for it, it has the merit of +appealing largely to the lover of the romantic and the picturesque. + +A French writer of a hundred years ago dedicated his work on Touraine to +"Le Baron de Langeais, le Vicomte de Beaumont, le Marquis de Beauregard, +le Comte de Fontenailles, le Comte de Jouffroy-Gonsans, le Duc de +Luynes, le Comte de Vouvray, le Comte de Villeneuve, _et als._;" and he +might have continued with a directory of all the descendants of the +_noblesse_ of an earlier age, for he afterward grouped them under the +general category of "_Propriétaires des fortresses et châteaux les plus +remarquables--au point de vue historique ou architectural_." + +He was fortunate in being able, as he said, to have had access to their +"_papiers de famille_," their souvenirs, and to have been able to +interrogate them in person. + +Most of his facts and his gossip concerning the personalities of the +later generations of those who inhabited these magnificent +establishments have come down to us through later writers, and it is +fortunate that this should be the case, since the present-day aspect of +the châteaux is ever changing, and one who views them to-day is +chagrined when he discovers, for instance, that an iron-trussed, +red-tiled wash-house has been built on the banks of the Cosson before +the magnificent château of Chambord, and that somewhere within the +confines of the old castle at Loches a shopkeeper has hung out his +shingle, announcing a newly discovered dungeon in his own basement, +accidentally come upon when digging a well. + +Balzac, Rabelais, and Descartes are the leading literary celebrities of +Tours, and Balzac's "Le Lys dans la Vallée" will give one a more +delightful insight into the old life of the Tourangeaux than whole +series of guide-books and shelves of dry histories. + +Blois and its counts, Tours and its bishops, and Amboise and its kings, +to say nothing of Fontevrault, redolent of memories of the Plantagenets, +Nantes and its famous "Edict," and its equally infamous "Revocation," +have left vivid impress upon all students of French history. Others will +perhaps remember Nantes for Dumas's brilliant descriptions of the +outcome of the Breton conspiracy. + +All of us have a natural desire to know more of historic ground, and +whether we make a start by entering the valley of the Loire at the +luxurious midway city of Tours, and follow the river first to the sea +and then to the source, or make the journey from source to mouth, or +vice versa, it does not matter in the least. We traverse the same ground +and we meet the same varying conditions as we advance a hundred +kilometres in either direction. + +Tours, for example, stands for all that is typical of the sunny south. +Prune and palm trees thrust themselves forward in strong contrast to the +cider-apples of the lower Seine. Below Tours one is almost at the coast, +and the _tables d'hôte_ are abundantly supplied with sea-food of all +sorts. Above Tours the Orléannais is typical of a certain well-to-do, +matter-of-fact existence, neither very luxurious nor very difficult. + +Nevers is another step and resembles somewhat the opulence of Burgundy +as to conditions of life, though the general aspect of the city, as well +as a great part of its history, is Italian through and through. + +The last great step begins at Le Puy, in the great volcanic _Massif +Centrale_, where conditions of life, if prosperous, are at least harder +than elsewhere. + +Such are the varying characteristics of the towns and cities through +which the Loire flows. They run the whole gamut from gay to earnest and +solemn; from the ease and comfort of the country around Tours, almost +sub-tropical in its softness, to the grime and smoke of busy St. +Etienne, and the chilliness and rigours of a mountain winter at Le Puy. + +[Illustration: _A Lace-maker of the Upper Loire_] + +These districts are all very full of memories of events which have +helped to build up the solidarity of France of to-day, though the +Nantois still proudly proclaims himself a Breton, and the Tourangeau +will tell you that his is the tongue, above all others, which speaks the +purest French,--and so on through the whole category, each and every +citizen of a _petit pays_ living up to his traditions to the fullest +extent possible. + +In no other journey in France, of a similar length, will one see as many +varying contrasts in conditions of life as he will along the length of +the Loire, the broad, shallow river which St. Martin, Charles Martel, +and Louis XI., the typical figures of church, arms, and state, came to +know so well. + +Du Bellay, a poet of the Renaissance, has sung the praises of the Loire +in a manner unapproached by any other topographical poet, if one may so +call him, for that is what he really was in this particular instance. + +There is a great deal of patriotism in it all, too, and certainly no +sweet singer of the present day has even approached these lines, which +are eulogistic without being fulsome and fervent without being lurid. + +The verses have frequently been rendered into English, but the following +is as good as any, and better than most translations, though it is one +of those fragments of "newspaper verse" whose authors are lost in +obscurity. + + "Mightier to me the house my fathers made, + Than your audacious heads, O Halls of Rome! + More than immortal marbles undecayed, + The thin sad slates that cover up my home; + More than your Tiber is my Loire to me, + More Palatine my little Lyré there; + And more than all the winds of all the sea, + The quiet kindness of the Angevin air." + +In history the Loire valley is rich indeed, from the days of the ancient +Counts of Touraine to those of Mazarin, who held forth at Nevers. +Touraine has well been called the heart of the old French monarchy. + +Provincial France has a charm never known to Paris-dwellers. Balzac and +Flaubert were provincials, and Dumas was a city-dweller,--and there lies +the difference between them. + +Balzac has written most charmingly of Touraine in many of his books, in +"Le Lys dans la Vallée" and "Le Curé de Tours" in particular; not always +in complimentary terms, either, for he has said that the Tourangeaux +will not even inconvenience themselves to go in search of pleasure. This +does not bespeak indolence so much as philosophy, so most of us will not +cavil. George Sand's country lies a little to the southward of Touraine, +and Berry, too, as the authoress herself has said, has a climate +"_souple et chaud, avec pluie abondant et courte_." + +The architectural remains in the Loire valley are exceedingly rich and +varied. The feudal system is illustrated at its best in the great walled +château at Angers, the still inhabited and less grand château at +Langeais, the ruins at Cinq-Mars, and the very scanty remains of +Plessis-les-Tours. + +The ecclesiastical remains are quite as great. The churches are, many of +them, of the first rank, and the great cathedrals at Nantes, Angers, +Tours, and Orleans are magnificent examples of the church-builders' art +in the middle ages, and are entitled to rank among the great cathedrals, +if not actually of the first class. + +With modern civic and other public buildings, the case is not far +different. Tours has a gorgeous Hôtel de Ville, its architecture being +of the most luxuriant of modern French Renaissance, while the railway +stations, even, at both Tours and Orleans, are models of what railway +stations should be, and in addition are decoratively beautiful in their +appointments and arrangements,--which most railway stations are not. + +Altogether, throughout the Loire valley there is an air of prosperity +which in a more vigorous climate is often lacking. This in spite of the +alleged tendency in what is commonly known as a relaxing climate toward +_laisser-aller_. + +Finally, the picturesque landscape of the Loire is something quite +different from the harder, grayer outlines of the north. All is of the +south, warm and ruddy, and the wooded banks not only refine the +crudities of a flat shore-line, but form a screen or barrier to the +flowering charms of the examples of Renaissance architecture which, in +Touraine, at least, are as thick as leaves in Vallambrosa. + +Starting at Gien, the valley of the Loire begins to offer those +monumental châteaux which have made its fame as the land of castles. +From the old fortress-château of Gien to the Château de Clisson, or the +Logis de la Duchesse Anne at Nantes, is one long succession of florid +masterpieces, not to be equalled elsewhere. + +The true château region of Touraine--by which most people usually +comprehend the Loire châteaux--commences only at Blois. Here the +edifices, to a great extent, take on these superfine residential +attributes which were the glory of the Renaissance period of French +architecture. + +[Illustration: THE LOIRE CHÂTEAUX (MAP)] + +Both above and below Touraine, at Montrichard, at Loches, and Beaugency, +are still to be found scattering examples of feudal fortresses and +donjons which are as representative of their class as are the best +Norman structures of the same era, the great fortresses of Arques, +Falaise, Domfront, and Les Andelys being usually accounted as the types +which gave the stimulus to similar edifices elsewhere. + +In this same versatile region also, beginning perhaps with the +Orléannais, are a vast number of religious monuments equally celebrated. +For instance, the church of St. Benoit-sur-Loire is one of the most +important Romanesque churches in all France, and the cathedral of St. +Gatien, with its "bejewelled façade," at Tours, the twin-spired St. +Maurice at Angers, and even the pompous, and not very good Gothic, +edifice at Orleans (especially noteworthy because its crypt is an +ancient work anterior to the Capetian dynasty) are all wonderfully +interesting and imposing examples of mediæval ecclesiastical +architecture. + +Three great tributaries enter the Loire below Tours, the Cher, the +Indre, and the Vienne. The first has for its chief attractions the +Renaissance châteaux St. Aignan and Chenonceaux, the Roman remains of +Chabris, Thézée, and Larçay, the Romanesque churches of Selles and St. +Aignan, and the feudal donjon of Montrichard. The Indre possesses the +château of Azay-le-Rideau and the sombre fortresses of Montbazon and +Loches; while the Vienne depends for its chief interest upon the galaxy +of fortress-châteaux at Chinon. + +The Loire is a mighty river and is navigable for nearly nine hundred +kilometres of its length, almost to Le Puy, or, to be exact, to the +little town of Vorey in the Department of the Haute Loire. + +At Orleans, Blois, or Tours one hardly realizes this, much less at +Nevers. The river appears to be a great, tranquil, docile stream, with +scarce enough water in its bed to make a respectable current, leaving +its beds and bars of _sable_ and _cailloux_ bare to the sky. + +The scarcity of water, except at occasional flood, is the principal and +obvious reason for the absence of water-borne traffic, even though a +paternal ministerial department of the government calls the river +navigable. + +At the times of the _grandes crues_ there are four metres or more +registered on the big scale at the Pont d'Ancenis, while at other times +it falls to less than a metre, and when it does there is a mere rivulet +of water which trickles through the broad river-bottom at Chaumont, or +Blois, or Orleans. Below Ancenis navigation is not so difficult, but the +current is more strong. + +From Blois to Angers, on the right bank, extends a long dike which +carries the roadway beside the river for a couple of hundred kilometres. +This is one of the charms of travel by the Loire. The only thing usually +seen on the bosom of the river, save an occasional fishing punt, is one +of those great flat-bottomed ferry-boats, with a square sail hung on a +yard amidships, such as Turner always made an accompaniment to his Loire +pictures, for conditions of traffic on the river have not greatly +changed. + +Whenever one sees a barge or a boat worthy of classification with those +one finds on the rivers of the east or north, or on the great canals, it +is only about a quarter of the usual size; so, in spite of its great +navigable length, the waterway of the Loire is to be considered more as +a picturesque and healthful element of the landscape than as a +commercial proposition. + +Where the great canals join the river at Orleans, and from Chatillon to +Roanne, the traffic increases, though more is carried by the canal-boats +on the _Canal Latéral_ than by the barges on the Loire. + +It is only on the Loire between Angers and Nantes that there is any +semblance of river traffic such as one sees on most of the other great +waterways of Europe. There is a considerable traffic, too, which +descends the Maine, particularly from Angers downward, for Angers with +its Italian skies is usually thought of, and really is to be considered, +as a Loire town, though it is actually on the banks of the Maine some +miles from the Loire itself. + +One thousand or more bateaux make the ascent to Angers from the Loire at +La Pointe each year, all laden with a miscellaneous cargo of +merchandise. The Sarthe and the Loir also bring a notable agricultural +traffic to the greater Loire, and the smaller confluents, the Dive, the +Thouet, the Authion, and the Layon, all go to swell the parent stream +until, when it reaches Nantes, the Loire has at last taken on something +of the aspect of a well-ordered and useful stream, characteristics which +above Nantes are painfully lacking. Because of its lack of commerce the +Loire is in a certain way the most noble, magnificent, and aristocratic +river of France; and so, too, it is also in respect to its associations +of the past. + +It has not the grandeur of the Rhône when the spring freshets from the +Jura and the Swiss lakes have filled it to its banks; it has not the +burning activity of the Seine as it bears its thousands of boat-loads of +produce and merchandise to and from the Paris market; it has not the +prettiness of the Thames, nor the legendary aspect of the Rhine; but in +a way it combines something of the features of all, and has, in +addition, a tone that is all its own, as it sweeps along through its +countless miles of ample curves, and holds within its embrace all that +is best of mediæval and Renaissance France, the period which built up +the later monarchy and, who shall not say, the present prosperous +republic. + +Throughout most of the river's course, one sees, stretching to the +horizon, row upon row of staked vineyards with fruit and leaves in +luxuriant abundance and of all rainbow colours. The peasant here, the +worker in the vineyards, is a picturesque element. He is not +particularly brilliant in colouring, but he is usually joyous, and he +invariably lives in a well-kept and brilliantly environed habitation and +has an air of content and prosperity amid the well-beloved treasures of +his household. + +The Loire is essentially a river of other days. Truly, as Mr. James has +said, "It is the very model of a generous, beneficent stream ... a wide +river which you may follow by a wide road is excellent company." + +The Frenchman himself is more flowery: "_C'est la plus noble rivière de +France. Son domaine est immense et magnifique._" + +[Illustration: THE ANCIENT PROVINCES OF THE LOIRE VALLEY AND THEIR +CAPITALS (MAP)] + + THE ANCIENT + PROVINCES OF THE + LOIRE VALLEY + AND THEIR + CAPITALS + + Bretagne Rennes + Anjou Angers + Touraine Tours + Orléannais Orleans + Berry Bourges + Nivernais Nevers + Bourbonnais Moulins + Lyonnais Lyon + Bourgogne Dijon + Auvergne Clermont-Ferrand + Languedoc Toulouse + +The Loire is the longest river in France, and the only one of the four +great rivers whose basin or watershed lies wholly within French +territory. It moreover traverses eleven provinces. It rises in a fissure +of granite rock at the foot of the Gerbier-de-Jonc, a volcanic cone in +the mountains of the Vivarais, a hundred kilometres or more south of +Lyons. In three kilometres, approximately two miles, the little torrent +drops a thousand feet, after receiving to its arms a tiny affluent +coming from the Croix de Monteuse. + +For twelve kilometres the river twists and turns around the base of the +Vivarais mountains, and finally enters a gorge between the rocks, and +mingles with the waters of the little Lac d'Issarles, entering for the +first time a flat lowland plain like that through which its course +mostly runs. + +The monument-crowned pinnacles of Le Puy and the inverted bowl of +Puy-de-Dôme rise high above the plain and point the way to Roanne, where +such activity as does actually take place upon the Loire begins. + +Navigation, classed officially as "_flottable_," merely, has already +begun at Vorey, just below Le Puy, but the traffic is insignificant. + +Meantime the streams coming from the direction of St. Etienne and Lyons +have been added to the Loire, but they do not much increase its bulk. +St. Galmier, the _source_ dear to patrons of _tables d'hôte_ on account +of its palatable mineral water, which is about the only decent +drinking-water one can buy at a reasonable price, lies but a short +distance away to the right. + +At St. Rambert the plain of Forez is entered, and here the stream is +enriched by numberless rivulets which make their way from various +sources through a thickly wooded country. + +From Roanne onward, the _Canal Latéral_ keeps company with the Loire to +Chatillon, not far from Orleans. + +Before reaching Nevers, the _Canal du Nivernais_ branches off to the +left and joins the Loire with the Yonne at Auxerre. Daudet tells of the +life of the _Canal du Nivernais_, in "La Belle Nivernaise," in a manner +too convincingly graphic for any one else to attempt the task, in +fiction or out of it. Like the Tartarin books, "La Belle Nivernaise" is +distinctly local, and forms of itself an excellent guide to a little +known and little visited region. + +At Nevers the topography changes, or rather, the characteristics of the +life of the country round about change, for the topography, so far as +its profile is concerned, remains much the same for three-fourths the +length of this great river. Nevers, La Charité, Sancerre, Gien, and +Cosne follow in quick succession, all reminders of a historic past as +vivid as it was varied. + +From the heights of Sancerre one sees a wonderful history-making +panorama before him. Cæsar crossed the Loire at Gien, the Franks forded +the river at La Charité, when they first went against Aquitaine, and +Charles the Bald came sadly to grief on a certain occasion at Pouilly. + +It is here that the Loire rises to its greatest flood, and hundreds of +times, so history tells, from 490 to 1866, the fickle river has caused a +devastation so great and terrible that the memory of it is not yet dead. + +This hardly seems possible of this usually tranquil stream, and there +have always been scoffers. + +Madame de Sévigné wrote in 1675 to M. de Coulanges (but in her case +perhaps it was mere well-wishing), "_La belle Loire, elle est un peu +sujette à se déborder, mais elle en est plus douce_." + +Ancient writers were wont to consider the inundations of the Loire as a +punishment from Heaven, and even in later times the superstition--if it +was a superstition--still remained. + +[Illustration: _The Loire near La Charité_] + +In 1825, when thousands of charcoal-burners (_charbonniers_) were all +but ruined, they petitioned the government for assistance. The official +who had the matter in charge, and whose name--fortunately for his +fame--does not appear to have been recorded, replied simply that the +flood was a periodical condition of affairs which the Almighty brought +about as occasion demanded, with good cause, and for this reason he +refused all assistance. + +Important public works have done much to prevent repetitions of these +inundations, but the danger still exists, and always, in a wet season, +there are those dwellers along the river's banks who fear the rising +flood as they would the plague. + +Chatillon, with its towers; Gien, a busy hive of industry, though with a +historic past; Sully; and St. Benoit-sur-Loire, with its unique double +transepted church; all pass in rapid review, and one enters the ancient +capital of the Orléannais quite ready for the new chapter which, in +colouring, is to be so different from that devoted to the upper valley. + +From Orleans, south, one passes through a veritable wonderland of +fascinating charms. Châteaux, monasteries, and great civic and +ecclesiastical monuments pass quickly in turn. + +Then comes Touraine which all love, the river meantime having grown no +more swift or ample, nor any more sluggish or attenuated. It is simply +the same characteristic flow which one has known before. + +The landscape only is changing, while the fruits and flowers, and the +trees and foliage are more luxuriant, and the great châteaux are more +numerous, splendid, and imposing. + +Of his well-beloved Touraine, Balzac wrote: "Do not ask me _why_ I love +Touraine; I love it not merely as one loves the cradle of his birth, nor +as one loves an oasis in a desert, but as an artist loves his art." + +Blois, with its bloody memories; Chaumont, splendid and retired; +Chambord, magnificent, pompous, and bare; Amboise, with its great tower +high above the river, follow in turn till the Loire makes its regal +entrée into Tours. "What a spectacle it is," wrote Sterne in "Tristram +Shandy," "for a traveller who journeys through Touraine at the time of +the vintage." + +And then comes the final step which brings the traveller to where the +limpid waters of the Loire mingle with the salty ocean, and what a +triumphant meeting it is! + +[Illustration: _Coiffes of Amboise and Orleans_] + +Most of the cities of the Loire possess but one bridge, but Tours has +three, and, as becomes a great provincial capital, sits enthroned +upon the river-bank in mighty splendour. + +The feudal towers of the Château de Luynes are almost opposite, and +Cinq-Mars, with its pagan "_pile_" and the ruins of its feudal castle +high upon a hill, points the way down-stream like a mariner's beacon. +Langeais follows, and the Indre, the Cher, and the Vienne, all ample and +historic rivers, go to swell the flood which passes under the bridges of +Saumur, Ancenis, and Ponts de Cé. + +From Tours to the ocean, the Loire comes to its greatest amplitude, +though even then, in spite of its breadth, it is, for the greater part +of the year, impotent as to the functions of a great river. + +Below Angers the Loire receives its first great affluent coming from the +country lying back of the right bank: the Maine itself is a considerable +river. It rises far up in the Breton peninsula, and before it empties +itself into the Loire, it has been aggrandized by three great +tributaries, the Loir, the Sarthe, and the Mayenne. + +Here in this backwater of the Loire, as one might call it, is as +wonderful a collection of natural beauties and historical châteaux as on +the Loire itself. Châteaudun, Mayenne, and Vendôme are historic ground +of superlative interest, and the great castle at Châteaudun is as +magnificent in its way as any of the monuments of the Loire. Vendôme has +a Hôtel de Ville which is an admirable relic of a feudal edifice, and +the _clocher_ of its church, which dominates many square leagues of +country, is counted as one of the most perfectly disposed church spires +in existence, as lovely, almost, as Texier's masterwork at Chartres, or +the needle-like _flêches_ at Strasburg or Freiburg in Breisgau. + +The Maine joins the Loire just below Angers, at a little village +significantly called La Pointe. Below La Pointe are St. +Georges-sur-Loire, and three _châteaux de commerce_ which give their +names to the three principal Angevin vineyards: Château Serrand, +l'Epinay, and Chevigné. + +Vineyard after vineyard, and château after château follow rapidly, until +one reaches the Ponts de Cé with their _petite ville_,--all very +delightful. Not so the bridge at Ancenis, where the flow of water is +marked daily on a huge black and white scale. The bridge is quite the +ugliest wire-rope affair to be seen on the Loire, and one is only too +glad to leave it behind, though it is with a real regret that he parts +from Ancenis itself. + +Some years ago one could go from Angers to St. Nazaire by boat. It must +have been a magnificent trip, extraordinarily calm and serene, amid an +abundance of picturesque details; old châteaux and bridges in strong +contrast to the prairies of Touraine and the Orléannais. One embarked at +the foot of the stupendously towered château of King René, and for a +_petite heure_ navigated the Maine in the midst of great _chalands_, +fussy little _remorqueurs_ and _barques_ until La Pointe was reached, +when the Loire was followed to Nantes and St. Nazaire. + +To-day this fine trip is denied one, the boats going only so far as La +Pointe. + +Below Angers the Loire flows around and about a veritable archipelago of +islands and islets, cultivated with all the luxuriance of a back-yard +garden, and dotted with tiny hamlets of folk who are supremely happy and +content with their lot. + +Some currents which run behind the islands are swift flowing and +impetuous, while others are practically elongated lakes, as dead as +those _lômes_ which in certain places flank the Saône and the Rhône. + +All these various branches are united as the Loire flows between the +piers of the ungainly bridge of the Chemin-de-fer de Niort as it crosses +the river at Chalonnes. + +Champtocé and Montjean follow, each with an individuality all its own. +Here the commerce takes on an increased activity, thanks to the great +national waterway known as the "Canal de Brest à Nantes." Here at the +busy port of Montjean--which the Angevins still spell and pronounce +_Montéjean_--the Loire takes on a breadth and grandeur similar to the +great rivers in the western part of America. Montjean is dominated by a +fine ogival church, with a battery of arcs-boutants which are a joy in +themselves. + +On the other bank, lying back of a great plain, which stretches away +from the river itself, is Champtocé, pleasantly situated on the flank of +a hill and dominated by the ruins of a thirteenth-century château which +belonged to the cruel Gilles de Retz, somewhat apocryphally known to +history as "Barbe-bleu"--not the Bluebeard of the nursery tale, who was +of Eastern origin, but a sort of Occidental successor who was equally +cruel and bloodthirsty in his attitude toward his whilom wives. + +From this point on one comes within the sphere of influence of Nantes, +and there is more or less of a suburban traffic on the railway, and the +plodders cityward by road are more numerous than the mere vagabonds of +the countryside. + +The peasant women whom one meets wear a curious bonnet, set on the head +well to the fore, with wings at the side folded back quite like the +pictures that one sees of the mediæval dames of these parts, a survival +indeed of the middle ages. + +The Loire becomes more and more animated and occasionally there is a +great tow of boats like those that one sees continually passing on the +lower Seine. Here the course of the Loire takes on a singular aspect. It +is filled with long flat islands, sometimes in archipelagos, but often +only a great flat prairie surrounded by a tranquil canal, wide and deep, +and with little resemblance to the mistress Loire of a hundred or two +kilometres up-stream. All these isles are in a high state of +cultivation, though wholly worked with the hoe and the spade, both of +them of a primitiveness that might have come down from Bible times; rare +it is to see a horse or a harrow on these "bouquets of verdure +surrounded by waves." + +Near Oudon is one of those monumental follies which one comes across +now and then in most foreign countries: a great edifice which serves no +useful purpose, and which, were it not for certain redeeming features, +would be a sorry thing indeed. The "Folie-Siffait," a citadel which +perches itself high upon the summit of a hill, was--and is--an +_amusette_ built by a public-spirited man of Nantes in order that his +workmen might have something to do in a time of a scarcity of work. It +is a bizarre, incredible thing, but the motive which inspired its +erection was most worthy, and the roadway running beneath, piercing its +foundation walls, gives a theatrical effect which, in a way, makes it +the picturesque rival of many a more famous Rhine castle. + +The river valley widens out here at Oudon, practically the frontier of +Bretagne and Anjou. The railroad pierces the rock walls of the river +with numerous tunnels along the right bank, and the Vendean country +stretches far to the southward in long rolling hills quite unlike any of +the characteristics of other parts of the valley. Finally, the vast +plain of Mauves comes into sight, beautifully coloured with a white and +iron-stained rocky background which is startlingly picturesque in its +way, if not wholly beautiful according to the majority of standards. + +Next comes what a Frenchman has called a "tumultuous vision of Nantes." +To-day the very ancient and historic city which grew up from the Portus +Namnetum and the Condivicnum of the Romans is indeed a veritable tumult +of chimneys, masts, and locomotives. But all this will not detract one +jot from its reputation of being one of the most delightful of +provincial capitals, and the smoke and activity of its port only tend to +accentuate a note of colour that in the whole itinerary of the Loire has +been but pale. + +Below Nantes the Loire estuary has turned the surrounding country into a +little Holland, where fisherfolk and their boats, with sails of red and +blue, form charming symphonies of pale colour. In the _cabarets_ along +its shores there is a strange medley of peasants, sea-farers, and fisher +men and women. Not so cosmopolitan a crew as one sees in the harbourside +_cabarets_ at Marseilles, or even Le Havre, but sufficiently strange to +be a fascination to one who has just come down from the headwaters. + +The "Section Maritime," from Nantes to the sea, is a matter of some +sixty kilometres. Here the boats increase in number and size. They are +known as _gabares_, _chalands_, and _alléges_, and go down with the +river-current and return on the incoming ebb, for here the river is +tidal. + +Gray and green is the aspect at the Loire's source, and green and gray +it still is, though of a decidedly different colour-value, at St. +Nazaire, below Nantes, the real deep-water port of the Loire. + +By this time the river has amplified into a broad estuary which is lost +in the incoming and outgoing tides of the Bay of Biscay. + +For nearly a thousand kilometres the Loire has wound its way gently and +broadly through rocky escarpments, fertile plains, populous and +luxurious towns,--all of it historic ground,--by stately châteaux and +through vineyards and fruit orchards, with a placid grandeur. + +Now it becomes more or less prosaic and matter-of-fact, though in a way +no less interesting, as it takes on some of the attributes of the +outside world. + +This outline, then, approximates somewhat a portrait of the Loire. It is +the result of many pilgrimages enthusiastically undertaken; a long +contemplation of the charms of perhaps the most beautiful river in +France, from its source to its mouth, at all seasons of the year. + +The riches and curios of the cities along its banks have been +contemplated with pleasure, intermingled with a memory of many stirring +scenes of the past, but it is its châteaux that make it famous. + +The story of the châteaux has been told before in hundreds of volumes, +but only a personal view of them will bring home to one the manners and +customs of one of the most luxurious periods of life in the France of +other days. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE ORLÉANNAIS + + +Of the many travelled English and Americans who go to Paris, how few +visit the Loire valley with its glorious array of mediæval and +Renaissance châteaux. No part of France, except Paris, is so accessible, +and none is so comfortably travelled, whether by road or by rail. + +At Orleans one is at the very gateway of this splendid, bountiful +region, the lower valley of the Loire. Here the river first takes on a +complexion which previously it had lacked, for it is only when the Loire +becomes the boundary-line between the north and the south that one comes +to realize its full importance. + +The Orléannais, like many another province of mid-France, is a region +where plenty awaits rich and poor alike. Not wholly given over to +agriculture, nor yet wholly to manufacturing, it is without that +restless activity of the frankly industrial centres of the north. In +spite of this, though, the Orléannais is not idle. + +[Illustration: THE CHÂTEAUX OF THE LOIRE (MAP)] + +Orleans is the obvious _pointe de départ_ for all the wonderland of the +Renaissance which is to follow, but itself and its immediate +surroundings have not the importance for the visitor, in spite of the +vivid historical chapters which have been written here in the past, that +many another less famous city possesses. By this is meant that the +existing monuments of history are by no means as numerous or splendid +here as one might suppose. Not that they are entirely lacking, but +rather that they are of a different species altogether from that array +of magnificently planned châteaux which line the banks of the Loire +below. + +To one coming from the north the entrance to the Orléannais will be +emphatically marked. It is the first experience of an atmosphere which, +if not characteristically or climatically of the south, is at least +reminiscent thereof, with a luminosity which the provinces of old France +farther north entirely lack. + +As Lavedan, the Académicien, says: "Here all focuses itself into one +great picture, the combined romance of an epoch. Have you not been +struck with a land where the clouds, the atmosphere, the odour of the +soil, and the breezes from afar, all comport, one with another, in true +and just proportions?" This is the Orléannais, a land where was +witnessed the morning of the Valois, the full noon of Louis XIV., and +the twilight of Louis XVI. + +The Orléannais formed a distinct part of mediæval France, as it did, +ages before, of western Gaul. Of all the provinces through which the +Loire flows, the Orléannais is as prolific as any of great names and +greater events, and its historical monuments, if not so splendid as +those in Touraine, are no less rare. + +Orleans itself contains many remarkable Gothic and Renaissance +constructions, and not far away is the ancient church of the old abbey +of Notre Dame de Cléry, one of the most historic and celebrated shrines +in the time of the superstitious Louis XI.; while innumerable mediæval +villes and ruined fortresses plentifully besprinkle the province. + +One characteristic possessed by the Orléannais differentiates it from +the other outlying provinces of the old monarchy. The people and the +manners and customs of this great and important duchy were allied, in +nearly all things, with the interests and events of the capital itself, +and so there was always a lack of individuality, which even to-day is +noticeably apparent in the Orleans capital. The shops, hotels, cafés, +and the people themselves might well be one of the _quartiers_ of Paris, +so like are they in general aspect. + +The notable Parisian character of the inhabitants of Orleans, and the +resemblance of the people of the surrounding country to those of the Ile +of France, is due principally to the fact that the Orléannais was never +so isolated as many others of the ancient provinces. It was virtually a +neighbour of the capital, and its relations with it were intimate and +numerous. Moreover, it was favoured by a great number of lines of +communication by road and by water, so that its manners and customs +became, more or less unconsciously, interpolations. + +The great event of the year in Orleans is the Fête de Jeanne d'Arc, +which takes place in the month of May. Usually few English and American +visitors are present, though why it is hard to reason out, for it takes +place at quite the most delightful season in the year. Perhaps it is +because Anglo-Saxons are ashamed of the part played by their ancestors +in the shocking death of the maid of Domremy and Orleans. Innumerable +are the relics and reminders of the "Maid" scattered throughout the +town, and the local booksellers have likewise innumerable and +authoritative accounts of the various episodes of her life, which saves +the necessity of making further mention here. + +There are several statues of Jeanne d'Arc in the city, and they have +given rise to the following account written by Jules Lemaitre, the +Académicien: + +"I believe that the history of Jeanne d'Arc was the first that was ever +told to me (before even the fairy-tales of Perrault). The 'Mort de +Jeanne d'Arc,' of Casimir Delavigne, was the first fable that I learned, +and the equestrian statue of the 'Maid,' in the Place Martroi, at +Orleans, is perhaps the oldest vision that my memory guards. + +"This statue of Jeanne d'Arc is absurd. She has a Grecian profile, and a +charger which is not a war-horse but a race-horse. Nevertheless to me it +was noble and imposing. + +"In the courtyard of the Hôtel de Ville is a _petite pucelle_, very +gentle and pious, who holds against her heart her sword, after the +manner of a crucifix. At the end of the bridge across the Loire is +another Jeanne d'Arc, as the maid of war, surrounded by swirling +draperies, as in a picture of Juvenet's. This to me tells the whole +story of the reverence with which the martyred 'Maid' is regarded in the +city of Orleans by the Loire." + +One can appreciate all this, and to the full, for a Frenchman is a stern +critic of art, even that of his own countrymen, and Jeanne d'Arc, along +with some other celebrities, is one of those historical figures which +have seldom had justice done them in sculptured or pictorial +representations. The best, perhaps, is the precocious Lepage's fine +painting, now in America. What would not the French give for the return +of this work of art? + +The Orléannais, with the Ile de France, formed the particular domain of +the third race of French monarchs. From 1364 to 1498 the province was an +appanage known as the Duché d'Orleans, but it was united with the Crown +by Louis XII., and finally divided into the Departments of Loir et Cher, +Eure et Loir, and Loiret. + +Like the "pardons" and "benedictions" of Finistère and other parts of +Bretagne, the peasants of the Loiret have a quaint custom which bespeaks +a long handed-down superstition. On the first Sunday of Lent they hie +themselves to the fields with lighted fagots and chanting the following +lines: + + "Sortez, sortez d'ici mulots! + Où je vais vous brûler les crocs! + Quittez, quittez ces blés; + Allez, vous trouverez + Dans la cave du curé + Plus à boire qu' à manger." + +Just how far the curé endorses these sentiments, the author of this book +does not know. The explanation of the rather extraordinary proceeding +came from one of the participants, who, having played his part in the +ceremony, dictated the above lines over sundry _petits verres_ paid for +by the writer. The day is not wound up, however, with an orgy of eating +and drinking, as is sometimes the case in far-western Brittany. The +peasant of the Loiret simply eats rather heavily of "_mi_," which is +nothing more or less than oatmeal porridge, after which he goes to bed. + +The Loire rolls down through the Orléannais, from Châteauneuf-sur-Loire +and Jargeau, and cuts the banks of _sable_, and the very shores +themselves, into little capes and bays which are delightful in their +eccentricity. Here cuts in the _Canal d'Orleans_, which makes possible +the little traffic that goes on between the Seine and the Loire. + +A few kilometres away from the right bank of the Loire, in the heart of +the Gatanais, is Lorris, the home of Guillaume de Lorris, the first +author of the "Roman de la Rose." For this reason alone it should become +a literary shrine of the very first rank, though, in spite of its claim, +no one ever heard of a literary pilgrim making his way there. + +Lorris is simply a big, overgrown French market-town, which is +delightful enough in its somnolence, but which lacks most of the +attributes which tourists in general seem to demand. + +At Lorris a most momentous treaty was signed, known as the "Paix de +Lorris," wherein was assured to the posterity of St. Louis the heritage +of the Comte de Toulouse, another of those periodical territorial +aggrandizements which ultimately welded the French nation into the whole +that it is to-day. + +From the juncture of the _Canal d'Orleans_ with the Loire one sees +shining in the brilliant sunlight the roof-tops of Orleans, the +Aurelianum of the Romans, its hybrid cathedral overtopping all else. It +was Victor Hugo who said of this cathedral: "This odious church, which +from afar holds so much of promise, and which near by has none," and +Hugo undoubtedly spoke the truth. + +Orleans is an old city and a _cité neuve_. Where the river laps its +quays, it is old but commonplace; back from the river is a strata which +is really old, fine Gothic house-fronts and old leaning walls; while +still farther from the river, as one approaches the railway station, it +is strictly modern, with all the devices and appliances of the newest of +the new. + +The Orleans of history lies riverwards,--the Orleans where the heart of +France pulsed itself again into life in the tragic days which were +glorified by "the Maid." + +"The countryside of the Orléannais has the monotony of a desert," said +an English traveller some generations ago. He was wrong. To do him +justice, however, or to do his observations justice, he meant, probably, +that, save the river-bottom of the Loire, the great plain which begins +with La Beauce and ends with the Sologne has a comparatively +uninteresting topography. This is true; but it is not a desert. La +Beauce is the best grain-growing region in all France, and the Sologne +is now a reclaimed land whose sandy soil has proved admirably adapted to +an unusually abundant growth of the vine. So much for this old-time +point of view, which to-day has changed considerably. + +The Orléannais is one of the most populous and progressive sections of +all France, and its inhabitants, per square kilometre, are constantly +increasing in numbers, which is more than can be said of every +_département_. There are multitudes of tiny villages, and one is +scarcely ever out of sight and sound of a habitation. + +[Illustration: _ENVIRONS of ORLEANS_ (MAP)] + +In the great forest, just to the west of Orleans, are two small +villages, each a celebrated battle-ground, and a place of a patriotic +pilgrimage on the eighth and ninth of November of each year. They are +Coulmiers and Bacon, and here some fugitives from Metz and Sedan, with +some young troops exposed to fire for the first time, engaged with the +Prussians (in 1870) who had occupied Orleans since mid-October. There is +the usual conventional "soldiers' monument,"--with considerably more art +about it than is usually seen in America,--before which Frenchmen +seemingly never cease to worship. + +This same _Forêt d'Orleans_, one of those wild-woods which so +plentifully besprinkle France, has a sad and doleful memory in the +traditions of the druidical inhabitants of a former day. Their practices +here did not differ greatly from those of their brethren elsewhere, but +local history is full of references to atrocities so bloodthirsty that +it is difficult to believe that they were ever perpetrated under the +guise of religion. + +Surrounding the forest are many villages and hamlets, war-stricken all +in the dark days of seventy-one, when the Prussians were overrunning the +land. + +Of all the cities of the Loire, Orleans, Blois, Tours, Angers, and +Nantes alone show any spirit of modern progressiveness or of likeness +to the capital. The rest, to all appearances, are dead, or at least +sleeping in their pasts. But they are charming and restful spots for all +that, where in melancholy silence sit the old men, while the younger +folk, including the very children, are all at work in the neighbouring +vineyards or in the wheat-fields of La Beauce. + +Meung-sur-Loire and Beaugency sleep on the river-bank, their proud +monuments rising high in the background,--the massive tower of Cæsar and +a quartette of church spires. Just below Orleans is the juncture of the +Loiret and the Loire at St. Mesmin, while only a few kilometres away is +Cléry, famed for its associations of Louis XI. + +The Loiret is not a very ample river, and is classed by the Minister of +Public Works as navigable for but four kilometres of its length. This, +better than anything else, should define its relative importance among +the great waterways of France. Navigation, as it is known elsewhere, is +practically non-existent. + +The course of the Loiret is perhaps twelve kilometres all told, but it +has given its name to a great French _département_, though it is +doubtless the shortest of all the rivers of France thus honoured. + +It first comes to light in the dainty park of the Château de la Source, +where there are two distinct sources. The first forms a small circular +basin, known as the "Bouillon," which leads into another semicircular +basin called the "Bassin du Miroir," from the fact that it reflects the +façade of the château in its placid surface. Of course, this is all very +artificial and theatrical, but it is a pretty conceit nevertheless. The +other source, known as the "Grande Source," joins the rivulet some +hundreds of yards below the "Bassin du Miroir." + +The Château de la Source is a seventeenth-century edifice, of no great +architectural beauty in itself, but sufficiently sylvan in its +surroundings to give it rank as one of the notable places of pilgrimage +for tourists who, said a cynical French writer, "take the châteaux of +the Loire _tour à tour_ as they do the morgue, the Moulin Rouge, and the +sewers of Paris." + +In the early days the château belonged to the Cardinal Briçonnet, and it +was here that Bolingbroke, after having been stripped of his titles in +England, went into retirement in 1720. In 1722 he received Voltaire, who +read him his "Henriade." + +[Illustration: THE LOIRET] + +In 1815 the invading Prince Eckmühl, with his staff, installed himself +in the château, when, after Waterloo, the Prussian and French armies +were separated only by a barrier placed midway on the bridge at Orleans. +It was here also that the Prussian army was disbanded, on the agreement +of the council held at Angerville, near Orleans. + +There are three other châteaux on the borders of the Loiret, which are +of more than ordinary interest, so far as great country houses and their +surroundings go, though their histories are not very striking, with +perhaps the exception of the Château de la Fontaine, which has a +remarkable garden, laid out by Lenôtre, the designer of the parks at +Versailles. + +Leaving Orleans by the right bank of the Loire, one first comes to La +Chapelle-St. Mesmin. La Chapelle has a church dating from the eleventh +century and a château which is to-day the _maison de campagne_ of the +Bishop of Orleans. On the opposite bank was the Abbaye de Micy, founded +by Clovis at the time of his conversion. A stone cross, only, marks the +site to-day. + +St. Ay follows next, and is usually set down in the guide-books as +"celebrated for good wines." This is not to be denied for a moment, and +it is curious to note that the city bears the same name as the famous +town in the champagne district, celebrated also for good wine, though +of a different kind. The name of the Orléannais Ay is gained from a +hermitage founded here by a holy man, who died in the sixth century. His +tomb was discovered in 1860, under the choir of the church, which makes +it a place of pilgrimage of no little local importance. + +At Meung-sur-Loire one should cross the river to Cléry, five kilometres +off, seldom if ever visited by casual travellers. But why? Simply +because it is overlooked in that universal haste shown by most +travellers--who are not students of art or architecture, or deep lovers +of history--in making their way to more popular shrines. One will not +regret the time taken to visit Cléry, which shared with Our Lady of +Embrun the devotions of Louis XI. + +Cléry's three thousand pastoral inhabitants of to-day would never give +it distinction, and it is only the Maison de Louis XI. and the Basilique +de Notre Dame which makes it worth while, but this is enough. + +In "Quentin Durward" one reads of the time when the superstitious Louis +was held in captivity by the Burgundian, Charles the Bold, and of how +the French king made his devotions before the little image, worn in his +hat, of the Virgin of Cléry; "the grossness of his superstition, none +the less than his fickleness, leading him to believe Our Lady of Cléry +to be quite a different person from the other object of his devotion, +the Madonna of Embrun, a tiny mountain village in southwestern France. + +"'Sweet Lady of Cléry,' he exclaimed, clasping his hands and beating his +breast as he spoke, 'Blessed Mother of Mercy! thou who art omnipotent +with omnipotence, have compassion with me, a sinner! It is true I have +sometimes neglected you for thy blessed sister of Embrun; but I am a +king, my power is great, my wealth boundless; and were it otherwise, I +would double my _gabelle_ on my subjects rather than not pay my debts to +you both.'" + +Louis endowed the church at Cléry, and the edifice was built in the fine +flamboyant style of the period, just previous to his death, which De +Commines gives as "_le samedy pénultième jour d'Aoust, l'an mil quatre +cens quatre-vingtz et trois, à huit heures du soir_." + +Louis XI. was buried here, and the chief "sight" is of course his tomb, +beside which is a flagstone which covers the heart of Charles VIII. The +Chapelle St. Jacques, within the church, is ornamented by a series of +charming sculptures, and the Chapelle des Dunois-Longueville holds the +remains of the famous ally of Jeanne d'Arc and members of his family. + +In the choir is the massive oaken statue of Our Lady of Cléry +(thirteenth century); the very one before which Louis made his vows. +There is some old glass in the choir and a series of sculptured stalls, +which would make famous a more visited and better known shrine. There is +a fine sculptured stone portal to the sacristy, and within there are +some magnificent old _armoires_, and also two chasubles, which saw +service in some great church, perhaps here, in the times of Louis +himself. + +The "Maison de Louis XI.," near the church, is a house of brick, +restored in 1651, and now--or until a very recent date--occupied by a +community of nuns. In the Grande Rue is another "Maison de Louis XI.;" +at least it has his cipher on the painted ceiling. It is now occupied by +the Hôtel de la Belle Image. Those who like to dine and sleep where have +also dined and slept royal heads will appreciate putting up at this +hostelry. + +[Illustration: _The Loire at Meung_] + +Meung-sur-Loire was the birthplace of Jehan Clopinel, better known as +Jean de Meung, who continued Guillaume de Lorris's "Roman de la Rose," +the most famous bit of verse produced by the _trouvères_ of the +thirteenth century. The voice of the troubadour was soon after hushed +for ever, but that thirteenth-century masterwork--though by two hands +and the respective portions unequal in merit--lives for ever as the +greatest of its kind. In memory of the author, Meung has its Rue Jehan +de Meung, for want of a more effective or appealing monument. + +Dumas opens the history of "Les Trois Mousquétaires" with the following +brilliantly romantic lines anent Meung: "_Le premier lundi du mois +d'Avril, 1625, le bourg de Meung, où naquit l'auteur du 'Roman de la +Rose.'_" (One of the authors, he should have said, but here is where +Dumas nodded, as he frequently did.) + +Continuing, one reads: "The town was in a veritable uproar. It was as if +the Huguenots were up in arms and the drama of a second Rochelle was +being enacted." Really the description is too brilliant and entrancing +to be repeated here, and if any one has forgotten his Dumas to the +extent that he has forgotten D'Artagnan's introduction to the hostelry +of the "Franc Meunier," he is respectfully referred back to that +perennially delightful romance. + +Meung was once a Roman fortress, known as Maudunum, and in the eleventh +century St. Liphard founded a monastery here. + +In the fifteenth century Meung was the prison of François Villon. Poor +vagabond as he was then, it has become the fashion to laud both the +personality and the poesy of Maître François Villon. + +By the orders of Thibaut d'Aussigny, Bishop of Orleans, Villon was +confined in a strong tower attached to the side of the _clocher_ of the +parish church of St. Liphard, and which adjoined the _château de +plaisance_ belonging to the bishop. Primarily this imprisonment was due +to a robbery in which the poet had been concerned at Orleans. He spent +the whole of the summer in this dungeon, which was overrun with rats, +and into which he had to be lowered by ropes. As his food consisted of +bread and water only, his sufferings at this time were probably greater +than at any other period in his life. Here the burglar-poet remained +until October, 1461, when Louis XI. visited Meung, and, to mark the +occasion, ordered the release of all prisoners. For this delivery, +Villon, according to the accounts of his life, appears to have been +genuinely grateful to the king. + +At Beaugency, seven kilometres from Meung, one comes upon an +architectural and historical treat which is unexpected. + +In the eleventh century Beaugency was a fief of the bishopric of Amiens, +and its once strong château was occupied by the Barons de Landry, the +last of whom died, without children, in the thirteenth century. +Philippe-le-Bel bought the fief and united it with the Comté de Blois. +It was made an independent _comté_ of itself in 1569, and in 1663 became +definitely an appanage of Orleans. The Prince de Galles took Beaugency +in 1359, the Gascons in 1361, Duguesclin in 1370 and again in 1417; in +1421 and in 1428 it was taken by the English, from whom it was delivered +by Jeanne d'Arc in 1429. Internal wars and warfares continued for +another hundred and fifty years, finally culminating in one of the +grossest scenes which had been enacted within its walls,--the bloody +revenge against the Protestants, encouraged doubtless by the affair of +St. Bartholomew's night at Paris. + +The ancient square donjon of the eleventh century, known as the Tour de +César, still looms high above the town. It must be one of the hugest +keeps in all France. The old château of the Dunois is now a charitable +institution, but reflects, in a way, the splendour of its +fourteenth-century inception, and its Salle de Jeanne d'Arc, with its +great chimneypiece, is worthy to rank with the best of its kind along +the Loire. The spiral staircase, of which the Loire builders were so +fond, is admirable here, and dates from 1530. + +The Hôtel de Ville of Beaugency is a charming edifice of the very best +of Renaissance, which many more pretentious structures of the period are +not. It dates from 1526, and was entirely restored--not, however, to its +detriment, as frequently happens--in the last years of the nineteenth +century. Its charm, nevertheless, lies mostly in its exterior, for +little remains of value within except a remarkable series of old +embroideries taken from the choir of the old abbey of Beaugency. + +The Église de Notre Dame is a Romanesque structure with Gothic +interpolations. It is not bad in its way, but decidedly is not +remarkable as mediæval churches go. + +The old streets of Beaugency contain a dazzling array of old houses in +wood and stone, and in the Rue des Templiers is a rare example of +Romanesque civil architecture; at least the type is rare enough in the +Orléannais, though more frequently seen in the south of France. The Tour +St. Firmin dates from 1530, and is all that remains of a church which +stood here up to revolutionary times. The square ruined towers known +as the Porte Tavers are relics of the city's old walls and gates, and +are all that are left to mark the ancient enclosure. + +[Illustration: _Beaugency_] + +The Tour du Diable and the house of the ruling abbot remain to suggest +the power and magnificence of the great abbey which was built here in +the tenth century. In 1567 it was burned, and later restored, but beyond +the two features just mentioned there is nothing to indicate its former +uses, the remaining structures having passed into private hands and +being devoted to secular uses. + +The old bridge which crosses the Loire at this point is most curious, +and dates from various epochs. It is 440 metres in length, and is +composed of twenty-six arches, one of which dates from the fourteenth +century, when bridge-building was really an art. Eight of the +present-day arches are of wood, and on the second is a monolith +surmounted by a figure of Christ in bronze, replacing a former chapel to +St. Jacques. A chapel on a bridge is not a unique arrangement, but few +exist to-day, one of the most famous being, perhaps, that on the ruined +bridge of St. Bénezet at Avignon. + +Altogether, Beaugency, as it sleeps its life away after the strenuous +days of the middle ages, is more lovable by far than a great +metropolis. + +The traveller is well repaid who makes a stop at Beaugency a part of a +three days' gentle ramble among the usually neglected towns and villages +of the Orléannais and the Blaisois, instead of rushing through to Blois +by express-train, which is what one usually does. + +Southward one's route lies through pleasant vineyards, on one side the +Sologne, and on the other the Coteau de Guignes, which latter ranks as +quite the best among the vine-growing districts of the Orléannais. + +Near Tavers is a natural curiosity in the shape of the "Fontaine des +Sables Mouvants," where the sands of a tiny spring boil and bubble like +a miniature geyser. + +Mer, another small town, follows, twelve kilometres farther on. Like +Beaugency it is a somnolent bourg, and the life of the peasant folk +round about, who go to market on one day at Beaugency and on another at +Blois, and occasionally as far away as Orleans, is much the same as it +was a century ago. + +There is a Boulevard de la Gare and a Grande Rue at Mer, the latter +leading to a fine Gothic church with a fifteenth-century tower, which is +admirable in every way, and forms a beacon by land for many miles +around. The primitive church at Mer dates from the eleventh century, the +side walls, however, being all that remain of that period. There is a +sculptured pulpit of the seventeenth century, and a great painting, +which looks ancient and is certainly a masterful work of art, +representing an "Adoration of the Magi." + +When all is said and done, it is its irresistible and inexpressible +charm which makes Mer well-beloved, rather than any great wealth of +artistic atmosphere of any nature. + +Away to the south, across the Loire to Muides, runs the route to +Chambord, through the Sologne, where immediately the whole aspect of +life changes from that on the borders of the rich grain-lands of the +Orléannais and La Beauce. + +All the way from Beaugency to Blois the Loire threads its way through a +lovely country, whose rolling slopes, back from the river, are +surmounted here and there by windmills, a not very frequent adjunct to +the landscape of France, except in the north. + +Near Mer is Menars, with its eighteenth-century château of La Pompadour; +Suèvres, the site of an ancient Roman city; the lowlands lying before +Chambord; St. Die; Montlivault; St. Claude, and a score of little +villages which are entrancing in their old-world aspect even in these +days of progress. This completes the panorama to Blois which, with the +Blaisois, forms the borderland between the Orléannais and Touraine. + +Before reaching Blois, Menars, at any rate, commands attention. It +fronts upon the Loire, but is practically upon the northern border of +the Forêt de Blois, hence properly belongs to the Blaisois. Menars was +made a rendezvous for the chase by the wily and pleasure-loving La +Pompadour, who quartered herself at the château, which afterward passed +to her brother, De Marigny. + +Before the Revolution, Menars was the seat of a marquisate, of which the +land was bought by Louis XV. for his famous, or infamous, _maîtresse_. +The property has frequently changed hands since that day, but its +gardens and terraces, descending toward the river-bank, mark it as one +of those _coquette_ establishments, with which France was dotted in the +eighteenth century. + +These establishments possessed enough of luxurious appointments to be +classed as fitting for the butterflies of the time, but in no way, so +far as the architectural design or the artistic details were concerned, +were any of them worthy to be classed with the great domestic châteaux +of the early years of the Renaissance. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE BLAISOIS AND THE SOLOGNE + + +The Blésois or Blaisois was the ancient name given to the _petit pays_ +which made a part of the government of the Orléannais. It was, and is, +the borderland between the Orléannais and Touraine, and, with its +capital, Blois, the city of counts, was a powerful territory in its own +right, in spite of the allegiance which it owed to the Crown. Twenty +leagues in length by thirteen in width, it was bounded on the north by +the Dunois and the Orléannais, on the east by Berry, on the south by +Touraine, and on the west by Touraine and the Vendomois. + +Blois, its capital, was famed ever in the annals of the middle ages, and +to-day no city in the Loire valley possesses more sentimental interest +for the traveller than does Blois. + +To the eastward lay the sands of the Sologne, and southward the ample +and fruitful Touraine, hence Blois's position was one of supreme +importance, and there is no wonder that it proved to be the scene of so +many momentous events of history. + +The present day Department of the Loir et Cher was carved out from the +Blaisois, the Vendomois, and the Orléannais. The Baisois was, in olden +time, one of the most important of the _petits gouvernements_ of all the +kingdom, and gave to Blois a line of counts who rivalled in power and +wealth the churchmen of Tours and the dukes of Brittany. Gregory of +Tours is the first historian who makes mention of the ancient _Pagus +Blensensis_. + +One must not tell the citizen of Blois that it is at Tours that one +hears the best French spoken. Everybody knows this, but the inhabitant +of the Blaisois will not admit it, and, in truth, to the stranger there +is not much apparent difference. Throughout this whole region he +understands and makes himself understood with much more facility than in +any other part of France. + +For one thing, not usually recalled, Blois should be revered and +glorified. It was the native place of Lenoir, who invented the +instrument which made possible the definite determination of the metric +system of measurement. + +One reads in Bernier's "Histoire de Blois" that the inhabitants are +"honest, gallant, and polite in conversation, and of a delicate and +diffident temperament." This was written nearly a century ago, but there +is no excuse for one's changing the opinion to-day unless, as was the +misfortune of the writer, he runs up against an unusually importunate +vender of post-cards or an aggressive _garçon de café_. + +[Illustration: ARMS OF THE CITY OF BLOIS] + +Blois, among all the cities of the Loire, is the favourite with the +tourist. Why this should be is an enigma. It is overburdened, at times, +with droves of tourists, and this in itself is a detraction in the eyes +of many. + +Perhaps it is because here one first meets a great château of state; and +certainly the Château de Blois lives in one's memory more than any other +château in France. + +[Illustration: _The Riverside at Blois_] + +Much has been written of Blois, its counts, its château, and its many +and famous _hôtels_ of the nobility, by writers of all opinions and +abilities, from those old chroniclers who wrote of the plots and +intrigues of other days to those critics of art and architecture who +have discovered--or think they have discovered--that Da Vinci designed +the famous spiral staircase. + +From this one may well gather that Blois is the foremost château of all +the Loire in popularity and theatrical effect. Truly this is so, but it +is by no manner of means the most lovable; indeed, it is the least +lovable of all that great galaxy which begins at Blois and ends at +Nantes. It is a show-place and not much more, and partakes in every form +and feature--as one sees it to-day--of the attributes of a museum, and +such it really is. All of its former gorgeousness is still there, and +all the banalities of the later period when Gaston of Orleans built his +ugly wing, for the "personally conducted" to marvel at, and honeymoon +couples to envy. The French are quite fond of visiting this shrine +themselves, but usually it is the young people and their mammas, and +detached couples of American and English birth that one most sees +strolling about the courts and apartments were formerly lords and ladies +and cavaliers moved and plotted. + +The great château of the Counts of Blois is built upon an inclined rock +which rises above the roof-tops of the lower town quite in fairy-book +fashion,-- + + "... Bâtie en pierre et d'ardoise converte, + Blanche et carrée au bas de la colline verte." + +Commonly referred to as the Château de Blois, it is really composed of +four separate and distinct foundations; the original château of the +counts; the later addition of Louis XII.; the palace of François I., and +the most unsympathetically and dismally disposed _pavillon_ of Gaston of +Orleans. + +[Illustration: _Signature of François Premier_] + +The artistic qualities of the greater part of the distinct edifices +which go to make up the château as it stands to-day are superb, with the +exception of that great wing of Gaston's, before mentioned, which is as +cold and unfeeling as the overrated palace at Versailles. + +The Comtes de Chatillon built that portion just to the right of the +present entrance; Louis XII., the edifice through which one enters the +inner court and which extends far to the left, including also the chapel +immediately to the rear; while François Premier, who here as elsewhere +let his unbounded Italian proclivities have full sway, built the +extended wing to the left of the inner court and fronting on the present +Place du Château, formerly the Place Royale. + +Immediately to the left, in the Basse Cour de Château, are the Hôtel +d'Amboise, the Hôtel d'Épernon, and farther away, in the Rue St. Honore, +the Hôtel Sardini, the Hôtel d'Alluye, and a score of others belonging +to the nobility of other days; all of them the scenes of many stirring +and gallant events in Renaissance times. + +This is hardly the place for a discussion of the merits or demerits of +any particular artistic style, but the frequently repeated expression of +Buffon's "_Le style, c'est l'homme_" may well be paraphrased into +"_L'art, c'est l'époque._" In fact one finds at all times imprinted upon +the architectural style of any period the current mood bred of some +historical event or a passing fancy. + +At Blois this is particularly noticeable. As an architectural monument +the château is a picturesque assemblage of edifices belonging to many +different epochs, and, as such, shows, as well as any other document of +contemporary times, the varying ambitions and emotions of its builders, +from the rude and rough manners of the earliest of feudal times through +the highly refined Renaissance details of the imaginative brain of +François, down to the base concoction of the elder Mansart, produced at +the commands of Gaston of Orleans. + +[Illustration: CYPHER OF ANNE D'BRETANGE CHÂTEAU DE BLOIS] + +The whole gamut, from the gay and winsome to the sad and dismal, is +found here. + +The escutcheons of the various occupants are plainly in evidence,--the +swan pierced by an arrow of the first Counts of Blois; the ermine of +Anne de Bretagne; the porcupine of the Ducs d'Orleans, and the +salamander of François Premier. + +In the earliest structure were to be seen all the attributes of a feudal +fortress, towers and walls pierced with narrow loopholes, and damp, dark +dungeons hidden away in the thick walls. Then came a structure which was +less of a fortress and more habitable, but still a stronghold, though +having ample and decorative doorways and windows, with curious +sculptures and rich framings. Then the pompous Renaissance with +_escaliers_ and _balcons à jour_, balustrades crowning the walls, +arabesques enriching the pilasters and walls, and elaborate cornices +here, there, and everywhere,--all bespeaking the gallantry and taste of +the _roi-chevalier_. Finally came the cold, classic features of the +period of the brother of Louis XIII., decidedly the worst and most +unlivable and unlovely architecture which France has ever produced. All +these features are plain in the general scheme of the Château de Blois +to-day, and doubtless it is this that makes the appeal; too much +loveliness, as at Chenonceaux or Azay-le-Rideau, staggers the modern +mortal by the sheer impossibility of its modern attainment. + +In plan the Château de Blois forms an irregular square situated at the +apex of a promontory high above the surface of the Loire, and +practically behind the town itself. The building has a most picturesque +aspect, and, to those who know, gives practically a history of the +château architecture of the time. Abandoned, mutilated, and dishonoured +from time to time, the structure gradually took on new forms until the +thick walls underlying the apartment known to-day as the Salle des +États--probably the most ancient portion of all--were overshadowed by +the great richness of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. One early +fragment was entirely enveloped in the structure which was built by +François Premier, the ancient Tour de Château Regnault, or De Moulins, +or Des Oubliettes, as it was variously known, and from the outside this +is no longer visible. + +From the platform one sees a magnificent panorama of the city and the +far-reaching Loire, which unrolls itself southward and northward for +many leagues, its banks covered by rich vineyards and crowned by thick +forests. + +The building of Louis XII. presents its brick-faced exterior in black +and red lozenge shapes, with sculptured window-frames, squarely upon the +little tree-bordered _place_ of to-day, which in other times formed a +part of that magnificent terrace which looked down upon the roof of the +Église St. Nicolas, and the Jesuit Church of the Immaculate Conception, +and the silvery belt of the Loire itself. + +[Illustration: ARMS OF LOIS XII] + +On the west façade of this vast conglomerate structure one sees the +effigy of the porcupine, that weird symbol adopted by the family of +Orleans. + +The choice of this ungainly animal--in spite of which it is most +decorative in outline--was due to the first Louis, who was Duc +d'Orleans. In the year 1393 Louis founded the order of the porcupine, +in honour of the birth of Charles, his eldest son, who was born to him +by Valentine de Milan. The legend which accompanied the adoption of the +symbol--though often enough it was missing in the sculptured +representations--was _Cominus et eminus_, which had its origin in the +belief that the porcupine could defend himself in a near attack, but +that when he himself attacked, he fought from afar by launching forth +his spines. + +Naturalists will tell you that the porcupine does no such thing; but in +those days it was evidently believed that he did, and in many, if not +all, of the sculptured effigies that one sees of the beast there is a +halo of detached spines forming a background as if they were really +launching themselves forth in mid-air. + +Above this central doorway, or entrance to the courtyard, is a niche in +which is a modern equestrian statue of Louis XII., replacing a more +ancient one destroyed at the Revolution. This old statue, it is claimed, +was an admirable work of art in its day, and the present statue is +thought to be a replica of it. + +It originally bore the following inscription--a verse written by Fausto +Andrelini, the king's favourite poet. + +[Illustration: _Central Doorway, Château de Blois_] + + "Hic ubi natus erat dextro Lodoicus Olympo, + Sumpsit honorata Regia sceptra manu; + Felix quæ tanti fulfit lux nuntia Regis; + Gallia non alio Principe digna fuit. + + FAUSTUS 1498." + +According to an old French description this old statue was: "_très beau +et très agréable ainsy que tous ses portraits l'ont représenté, comme +celui qui est au grand portail de Bloys_." + +Above rises a balustrade with fantastic gargoyles with the pinnacles and +fleurons of the window gables all very ornate, the whole topped off with +a roofing of slate. + +Blois, in its general aspect, is fascinating; but it is not sympathetic, +and this is not surprising when one remembers men and women who worked +their deeds of bloody daring within its walls. + +The murders and other acts of violence and treason which took place here +are interesting enough, but one cannot but feel, when he views the +chimneypiece before which the Duc de Guise was standing when called to +his death in the royal closet, that the men of whom the bloody tales of +Blois are told quite deserved their fates. + +One comes away with the impression of it all stamped only upon the +mind, not graven upon the heart. Political intrigue to-day, if quite as +vulgar, is less sordid. Bigotry and ambition in those days allowed few +of the finer feelings to come to the surface, except with regard to the +luxuriance of surroundings. Of this last there can be no question, and +Blois is as characteristically luxurious as any of the magnificent +edifices which lodged the royalty and nobility of other days, throughout +the valley of the Loire. + +A numismatic curiosity, connected with the history of the Château de +Blois, is an ancient piece of money which one may see in the local +museum. It is the oldest document in existence in which, or on which, +the name of Blois is mentioned. On one side is a symbolical figure and +the legend _Bleso Castro_, and on the other a _croix haussée_ and the +name of the officer of the mint at Blois, _Pre Cistato, monetario_. + +The plan of the Château de Blois here given shows it not as it is +to-day, but as it was at the death of Gaston d'Orleans in 1660. The +constructions of the different epochs are noted on the plan as follows: + + ERECTED BY THE COMTES DE CHATILLON + + 1. Tour de Donjon, Château-Regnault, Moulins, or des + Oubliettes. + + 2. Salle des États. + + 3. Tour du Foix or Observatory. + + + ERECTED BY THE DUCS D'ORLEANS + + 4. Portico and Galerie d'Orleans. (Destroyed in part by the + military.) + + 5. Galerie des Cerfs. (Built in part by Gaston, but made away + with by the city of Blois when the Jardins du Roi were built.) + + + ERECTED BY LOUIS XII. + + 6. Chapelle St. Calais. (Destroyed in part by the military.) + + 7. La Grande Vis, or Grand Escalier of Louis XI. + + 8. La Petite Vis, or Petit Escalier, in one chamber of which + the corpse of the Duc de Guise was burned. + + 9. Portico and Galerie de Louis XII. + + 10. Portico. + + 11. Salle des Gardes,--of the queen on the ground floor and of + the king on the first floor. + + 12. Bedchamber,--of the queen on the ground floor and of the + king on the first floor. + + 13. Corps de Garde. + + 14. Kitchen. (To-day Salle de Réception for visitors.) + + + ERECTED FROM THE TIME OF FRANÇOIS I. TO HENRI III. + + 15 and 16. Portico and Terrace Henri II. (In part built over by + Gaston.) + + 17. Grand Staircase. + + 18. Galerie de François I. + + 19. Staircase of the Salle des États. (Destroyed by the + military.) + + 20. First floor, Salle des Gardes of the queen; second floor, + Salle des Gardes of the king. + + 21. Staircase leading to the apartments of the queen mother. + Here also Henri III. had made the cells destined for the use + of the Capucins, and here were closeted "_pour s'assurer de + leur discretion_," the "_Quarante-Cinq_" who were to kill the + Duc de Guise. + + 22. Cabinet Neuf of Henri III. (Second floor.) + + 23. Gallery where was held the reunion of the Tiers Etats of + 1576. + + 24. First floor, bedchamber of the king; second floor, + bedchamber of the queen. + + 25. Oratory. + + 26. Cabinet. + + 27. Passage to the Tour de Moulins. + + 28. Passage to the Cabinet Vieux, where the Duc de Guise was + struck down. + + 29. Cabinet Vieux. + + 30. Oratory, where the two chaplains of the king prayed during + the perpetration of the murder. + + 31. Garde-robe, where was first deposited the body of De Guise. + + + ERECTED BY GASTON D'ORLEANS + + 32. Peristyle. (Destroyed by the military.) + + 33. Dome. + + 34. Pavilion des Jardins. + + 35. Pavilion du Foix. + + 36. Petit Pavilion of the Méridionale façade. (Destroyed in + 1825.) + + 37. Terraces. + + 38. Bastions du Foix and des Jardins. + + 39. L'Eperon. + + 40. Le Jardin Haut, or Jardin du Roi. + +[Illustration: _The_ CHÂTEAUX _of_ BLOIS (DIAGRAM)] + +The interior court is partly surrounded by a colonnade, quite +cloister-like in effect. At the right centre of the François I. wing is +that wonderful spiral staircase, concerning the invention of which so +much speculation has been launched. Leonardo da Vinci, the protégé of +François, has been given the honour, and a very considerable volume has +been written to prove the claim. + +[Illustration: _Cypher of François Premier and Claude of France, at +Blois_] + +Within this "_tour octagone"--"qui fait à ses huit pans hurler un +gorgone_"--is built this marvellous openwork stairway,--an _escalier à +jour_, as the French call it,--without an equal in all France, and for +daring and decorative effect unexcelled by any of those Renaissance +motives of Italy itself. Its ascent turns not, as do most _escaliers_, +from left to right, but from right to left. It is the prototype of those +supposedly unique outside staircases pointed out to country cousins in +the abodes of Fifth Avenue millionaires. + +It is as impossible to catalogue the various apartments and their +accessories here, as it is to include a chronology of the great events +which have passed within their walls. One thing should be remembered, +and that is, that the architect Duban restored the château throughout in +recent years. In spite of this restoration one may readily enough +reconstruct the scene of the murder of the Duc de Guise from the great +fireplace on the second floor before which De Guise was standing when +summoned by a page to the kingly presence, from the door through which +he entered to his death, and from the wall where hung the tapestry +behind which he was to pass. All this is real enough, and also the "Tour +des Oubliettes," in which the duke's brother, the cardinal, suffered, +and of which many horrible tales are still told by the attendants. + +Duban, the architect, came with his careful restorations and pictured +with a most exact fidelity the decorations and the furnishings of the +times of François, of Catherine, and of Henri III. The ornate +chimneypieces have been furbished up anew, the walls and ceilings +covered with new paint and gold; nothing could be more opulent or +glorious, but it gives the impression of a city dwelling or a great +hotel, "newly done up," as the house renovators express it. + +One contrasting emotion will be awakened by a contemplation of the two +great Salles des Gardes and the apartments of Catherine de Medici; here, +at least for the moment, is a relief from the intrigues, massacres, and +assassinations which otherwise went on, for one recalls that, at one +period, "_danses, ballets et jeux_" took place here continuously. + +In the apartments of Catherine there is much to remind one of "the base +Florentine," as it has been the fashion of latter-day historians to +describe the first of the Medici queens. Nothing could be more sumptuous +than the Galerie de la Reine, her _Cabinet de Toilette_, or her _Chambre +à Coucher_, with its secret panels, where she died on the 5th of +January, 1589, "adored and revered," but soon forgotten, and of no more +account than "_une chèvre mort_," says one old chronicler. + +The apartments of Catherine de Medici were directly beneath the +guard-room where the Balafré was murdered, and that event, taking place +at the very moment when the "queen-mother" was dying, cannot be said to +have been conducive to a peaceful demise. + +Here, on the first floor of the François Premier wing, the _reine-mère_ +held her court, as did the king his. The great gallery overlooked the +town on the side of the present Place du Château. It was, and is, a +truly grand apartment, with diamond-paned windows, and rich, dark, wall +decorations on which Catherine's device, a crowned C and her monogram in +gold, frequently appears. There was, moreover, a great oval window, +opposite which stood her altar, and a doorway, half concealed, led to +her writing-closet, with its secret drawers and wall-panels which well +served her purposes of intrigue and deceit. A hidden stairway led to the +floor above, and there was a _chambre à coucher_, with a deep recess for +the bed, the same to which she called her son Henri as she lay dying, +admonishing him to give up the thought of murdering Guise. "What," said +Henri, on this embarrassing occasion, "spare Guise, when he, triumphant +in Paris, dared lay his hand on the hilt of his sword! Spare him who +drove me a fugitive from the capital! Spare them who never spared me! +No, mother, I will _not_." + +As the queen-mother drew near her end, and was lying ill at Blois, +great events for France were culminating at the château. Henri III. had +become King of France, and the Balafré, supported by Rome and Spain, was +in open rebellion against the reigning house, and the word had gone +forth that the Duc de Guise must die. The States General were to be +immediately assembled, and De Guise, once the poetic lover of +Marguerite, through his emissaries canvassed all France to ensure the +triumph of the party of the Church against Henri de Navarre and his +queen,--the Marguerite whom De Guise once professed to love,--who soon +were to come to the throne of France. + +The uncomfortable Henri III. had been told that he would never be king +in reality until De Guise had been made away with. + +The final act of the drama between the rival houses of Guise and Valois +came when the king and his council came to Blois for the Assembly. The +sunny city of Blois was indeed to be the scene of a momentous affair, +and a truly sumptuous setting it was, the roof-tops of its houses +sloping downward gently to the Loire, with the chief accessory, the +coiffed and turreted château itself, high above all else. + +Details had been arranged with infinite pains, the guard doubled, and a +company of Swiss posted around the courtyard and up and down the +gorgeous staircase. Every nook and corner has its history in connection +with this greatest event in the history of the Château of Blois. + +As Guise entered the council-chamber he was told that the king would see +him in his closet, to reach which one had to pass through the guard-room +below. The door was barred behind him that he might not return, when the +trusty guards of the "Forty-fifth," under Dalahaide, already hidden +behind the wall-tapestry, sprang upon the Balafré and forced him back +upon the closed door through which he had just passed. Guise fell +stabbed in the breast by Malines, and "lay long uncovered until an old +carpet was found in which to wrap his corpse." + +Below, in her own apartments, lay the queen-mother, dying, but listening +eagerly for the rush of footsteps overhead, hoping and praying that +Henri--the hitherto effeminate Henri who played with his sword as he +would with a battledore, and who painted himself like a woman, and put +rings in his ears--would not prejudice himself at this time in the eyes +of Rome by slaying the leader of the Church party. + +Guise died as Henri said he would die, with the words on his lips: "_A +moi, mes amis!--trahison!--à moi, Guise,--je me meurs_," but the revenge +of the Church party came when, at St. Cloud, the monk, Jacques Clément, +poignarded the last of the Valois, and put the then heretical Henri de +Navarre on the throne of France. + +Within the southernmost confines of the château is the Tour de Foix, so +called for the old faubourg near by. The upper story and roof of this +curious round tower was the work of Catherine de Medici, who installed +there her astrologer and maker of philtres, Cosmo Ruggieri. + +Ruggieri was a most versatile person; he was astrologer, alchemist, and +philosopher alike, besides being many other kinds of a rogue, all of +which was very useful to the Medici now that she had come to power. + +Catherine built an outside stairway up to the platform of this tower, +and a great, flat, stone table was placed there to form a foundation for +Ruggieri's cabalistic instruments. Even this stone table itself was an +uncanny affair, if we are to believe the old chronicles. It rang out in +a clear sharp note whenever struck with some hard body, and on its +surface was graven a line which led the eye directly toward the golden +_fleur-de-lys_ on the cupola of Chambord's château, some three leagues +distant on the other side of the Loire. What all this symbolism actually +meant nobody except Catherine and her astrologer knew; at least, the +details do not appear to have come down to enlighten posterity. Over the +doorway of the observatory were graven the words, "_Vraniæ Sacrum_," _i. +e._, consecrated to Uranius. + +Wherever Catherine chose to reside, whether in Touraine or at Paris, her +astrologer and his "_observatoire_" formed a part of her train. She had +brought Cosmo from Italy, and never for a moment did he leave her. He +was a sort of a private demon on whom Catherine could shoulder her +poisonings and her stabs, and, as before said, he was an exceedingly +busy functionary of the court. + +That part of the structure built by Mansart for Gaston d'Orleans appears +strange, solemn, and superfluous in connection with the sumptuousness of +the earlier portions. With what poverty the architectural art of the +seventeenth century expressed itself! What an inferiority came with the +passing of the sixteenth century and the advent of the following! One +finds a certain grandeur in the outlines of this last wing, with its +majestic cupola over the entrance pavilion, but the general effect of +the decorations is one of a great paucity of invention when compared to +the more brilliant Renaissance forerunners on the opposite side of the +courtyard. + +It was under the régime of Gaston d'Orleans that the gardens of the +Château de Blois came to their greatest excellence and beauty. In 1653 +Abel Brunyer, the first physician of Gaston's suite, published a +catalogue of the fruits and flowers to be found here in these gardens, +of which he was also director. More than five hundred varieties were +included, three-quarters of which belonged to the flora of France. + +Among the delicacies and novelties of the time to be found here was the +Prunier de Reine Claude, from which those delicious green plums known to +all the world to-day as "Reine Claudes" were propagated, also another +variety which came from the Prunier de Monsieur, somewhat similar in +taste but of a deep purple colour. The _pomme de terre_ was tenderly +cared for and grown as a great novelty and delicacy long before its +introduction to general cultivation by Parmentier. The tomato was +imported from Mexico, and even tobacco was grown; from which it may be +judged that Gaston did not intend to lack the good things of life. + +All these facts are recounted in Brunyer's "Hortus Regius Blesensis," +and, in addition, one Morrison, an expatriate Scotch doctor, who had +attached himself to Gaston, also wrote a competing work which was +published in London in 1669 under the title of "Preludia Botanica," and +which dealt at great length with the already celebrated gardens of the +Château de Blois. + +Morrison placed at the head of his work a Latin verse which came in time +to be graven over the gateway of the gardens. This--as well as pretty +much all record of it--has disappeared, but a repetition of the lines +will serve to show with what admiration this paradise was held: + + "Hinc, nulli biferi miranda rosaria Pesti, + Nec mala Hesperidum, vigili servata dracone. + Si paradisiacis quicquam (sine crimine) campis + Conferri possit, Blaesis mirabile specta. + Magnifici Gastonis opus! Qui terra capaci ... + + * * * * * + + JACOBUS METELANUS SCOTUS." + +Not merely in history has the famous château at Blois played its part. +Writers of fiction have more than once used it as an accessory or the +principal scenic background of their sword and cloak novels; none more +effectively than Dumas in the D'Artagnan series. + +The opening lines of "Le Vicomte de Bragelonne" are laid here. "It +should have been a source of pride to the city of Blois," says Dumas, +"that Gaston of Orleans had chosen it as his residence, and held his +court in the ancient château of the States." + +Here, too, in the second volume of the D'Artagnan romances, is the scene +of that most affecting meeting between his Majesty Charles II., King of +England, and Louis XIV. + +Altogether one lives here in the very spirit of the pages of Dumas. Not +only Blois, but Langeais, Chambord, Cheverny, Amboise, and many other +châteaux figure in the novels with an astonishing frequency, and, +whatever the critics may say of the author's slips of pen and memory, +Dumas has given us a wonderfully faithful picture of the life of the +times. + +In 1793 all the symbols and emblems of royalty were removed from the +château and destroyed. The celebrated bust of Gaston, the chief artistic +attribute of that part of the edifice built by him, was decapitated, and +the statue of Louis XII. over the entrance gateway was overturned and +broken up. Afterward the château became the property of the "domaine" +and was turned into a mere barracks. The Pavilion of Queen Anne became a +"_magasin des subsistances militaires_," the Tour de l'Observatoire, a +powder-magazine, and all the indignities imaginable were heaped upon the +château. + +In 1814 Blois became the last capital of Napoleon's empire, and the +château walls sheltered the prisoners captured by the imperial army. + +Blois's most luxurious church edifice was the old abbey church of St. +Sauveur, which was built from 1138 to 1210. It lost the royal favour in +1697, when Louis XIV. made Blois a city of bishops as well as of counts, +and transferred the chapter of St. Sauveur's to the bastard Gothic +edifice first known as St. Solenne, but which soon took on the name of +St. Louis. In spite of the claims of the old church, this cold, +unfeeling, and ugly mixture of tomblike Renaissance became, and still +remains, the bishop's church of Blois. + +One must not neglect or forget the magnificent bridge which crosses the +Loire at Blois. A work of 1717-24, it bears the Rue Denis Papin across +its eleven solidly built masonry piers. Above the central arch is +erected a memorial pyramid and tablet which states the fact that it was +one of the first works of the reign of Louis XV. + +Blois altogether, then, offers a multitudinous array of attractions for +the tourist who makes his first entrance to the châteaux country through +its doors. The town itself has not the appeal of Tours, of Angers, or of +Nantes; but, for all that, its abundance of historic lore, the admirable +preservation of its chief monument, and the general picturesqueness of +its site and the country round about make up for many other qualities +that may be lacking. + +The Sologne, lying between Blois, Vierzon, and Châteauneuf-sur-Loire, is +a great region of lakelets, sandy soil, and replanted Corsican pines, +which to-day has taken on a new lease of life and a prosperity which was +unknown in the days when the Comtes de Blois first erected that _maison +de plaisance_, on its western border which was afterward to aggrandize +itself into the later Château de Chambord. The soil has been drained and +the vine planted to a hitherto undreamed of extent, until to-day, if the +land does not exactly blossom like the rose, it at least somewhat +approaches it. + +The _chaumières_ of the Sologne have disappeared to a large extent, and +their mud walls and thatched roofs are not as frequent a detail of the +landscape as formerly, but even now there is a distinct individuality +awaiting the artist who will go down among these vineyard workers of the +Sologne and paint them and their surroundings as other parts have been +painted and popularized. It will be hot work in the summer months, and +lonesome work at all times, but there is a new note to be sounded if one +but has the ear for it, and it is to be heard right here in this tract +directly on the beaten track from north to south, and yet so little +known. + +The peasant of the Sologne formerly ate his _soupe au poireau_ and a +morsel of _fromage maigre_ and was as content and happy as if his were a +more luxurious board, as it in reality became when a stranger demanded +hospitality. Then out from the _armoire_--that ever present adjunct of a +French peasant's home, whether it be in Normandy, Touraine, or the +Midi--came a bottle of _vin blanc_, bought in the wine-shops of +Romorantin or Vierzon on some of his periodical trips to town. + +To-day all is changing, and the peasant of the Sologne nourishes himself +better and trims his beard and wears a round white collar on fête-days. +He is proud of his well-kept appearance, but his neighbours to the +north and the south will tell you that all this hides a deep malice, +which is hard to believe, in spite of the well recognized saying, "_Sot +comme un Solognat_." The women have a physiognomy more passive; when +young they are fresh and lip-lively, but as they grow older their charms +pass quickly. + +The Sologne in most respects has changed greatly since the days of +Arthur Young. Then this classic land was reviled and vehement +imprecations were launched upon the proprietors of its soil,--"those +brilliant and ambitious gentlemen" who figure so largely in the +ceremonies of Versailles. To-day all is changed, and the gentleman +farmer is something more than a _bourgeois parisien_ who hunts and rides +and apes "_le sport_" of the English country squire. + +The jack-rabbit and the hare are the pests of the Sologne now that its +sandy soil has been conquered, but they are quite successfully kept down +in numbers, and the insects which formerly ravaged the vines are +likewise less offensive than they used to be, so the Sologne may truly +be said to have been transformed. + +To-day, as in the days of the royal hunt, when Chambord was but a +shooting-box of the Counts of Blois, the Sologne is rife with small +game, and even deer and an occasional _sanglier_. + +"_La chasse_" in France is no mean thing to-day, and the Sologne, La +Beauce, and the great national forests of Lyons and Rambouillet draw--on +the opening of the season, somewhere between the 28th of August and the +2d of September of each year--their hundreds of thousands of Nimrods and +disciples of St. Hubert. The bearer of the gun in France is indeed a +most ardent sportsman, and in no European country can one buy in the +open market a greater variety of small game,--all the product of those +who pay their twenty francs for the privilege of bagging rabbits, hares, +partridges, and the like. The hunters of France enjoy one superstition, +however, and that is that to accidentally bag a crow on the first shot +means a certain and sudden death before the day is over. + +La Motte-Beuvron is celebrated in the annals of the Sologne; it is, in +fact, the metropolis of the region, and the centre from which radiated +the influences which conquered the soil and made of it a prosperous +land, where formerly it was but a sandy, arid desert. La Motte-Beuvron +is a long-drawn-out _bourgade_, like some of the populous centres of the +great plain of Hungary, and there is no great prosperity or +"up-to-dateness" to be observed, in spite of its constantly increasing +importance, for La Motte-Beuvron and the country round about is one of +the localities of France which is apparently not falling off in its +population. + +La Motte has a most imposing Hôtel de Ville, a heavy edifice of brick +built by Napoleon III.--who has never been accused of having had the +artistic appreciation of his greater ancestor--after the model of the +Arsenal at Venice. + +This is all La Motte has to warrant remark unless one is led to +investigate the successful agricultural experiment which is still being +carried out hereabouts. La Motte's hôtels and cafés are but ordinary, +and there is no counter attraction of boulevard or park to place the +town among those lovable places which travellers occasionally come upon +unawares. + +To realize the Sologne at its best and in its most changed aspect, one +should follow the roadway from La Motte to Blois. He may either go by +tramway _à vapeur_, or by his own means of communication. In either case +he will then know why the prosperity of the Sologne and the contentment +of the Solognat is assured. + +Romorantin, still characteristic of the Sologne and its historic +capital, is famous for its asparagus and its paternal château of +François Premier, where that prince received the scar upon his face, at +a tourney, which compelled him ever after to wear a beard. + +To-day the Sous-Préfecture, the Courts and their prisoners, the +Gendarmerie, and the Theatre are housed under the walls that once formed +the château royal of Jean d'Angoulême; within whose apartments the +gallant François was brought up. + +[Illustration: _Native Types in the Sologne_] + +The Sologne, like most of the other of the _petits pays_ of France, is +prolific in superstitions and traditionary customs, and here for some +reason they deal largely of the marriage state. When the _paysan +solognais_ marries, he takes good care to press the marriage-ring well +up to the third joint of his spouse's finger, "else she will be the +master of the house," which is about as well as the thing can be +expressed in English. It seems a simple precaution, and any one so +minded might well do the same under similar circumstances, provided he +thinks the proceeding efficacious. + +Again, during the marriage ceremony itself, each of the parties most +interested bears a lighted wax taper, with the belief that whichever +first burns out, so will its bearer die first. It's a gruesome thought, +perhaps, but it gives one an inkling of who stands the best chance of +inheriting the other's goods, which is what matches are sometimes made +for. + +The marriage ceremony in the Sologne is a great and very public +function. Intimates, friends, acquaintances, and any of the neighbouring +populace who may not otherwise be occupied, attend, and eat, drink, and +ultimately get merry. But they have a sort of process of each paying his +or her own way; at least a collection is taken up to pay for the +entertainment, for the Sologne peasant would otherwise start his married +life in a state of bankruptcy from which it would take him a long time +to recover. + +The collection is made with considerable _éclat_ and has all the +elements of picturesqueness that one usually associates with the wedding +processions that one sees on the comic-opera stage. A sort of nuptial +bouquet--a great bunch of field flowers--is handed round from one guest +to another, and for a sniff of their fragrance and a participation in +the collation which is to come, they make an offering, dropping much or +little into a golden (not gold) goblet which is passed around by the +bride herself. + +In the Sologne there is (or was, for the writer has never seen it) +another singular custom of the marriage service--not really a part of +the churchly office, but a sort of practical indorsement of the +actuality of it all. + +The bride and groom are both pricked with a needle until the blood runs, +to demonstrate that neither the man nor the woman is insensible or +dreaming as to the purport of the ceremony about to take place. + +As every French marriage is at the Mairie, as well as being held in +church, this double ceremony (and the blood-letting as well) must make a +very hard and fast agreement. Perhaps it might be tried elsewhere with +advantage. + +Montrichard, on the Cher, is on the borderland between the Blaisois and +Touraine. Its donjon announces itself from afar as a magnificent feudal +ruin. The town is moreover most curious and original, the great +rectangular donjon rising high into the sky above a series of +cliff-dwellers' chalk-cut homes, in truly weird fashion. + +There is nothing so very remarkable about cliff-dwellers in the Loire +country, and their aspect, manners, and customs do not differ greatly +from those of their neighbours, who live below them. + +Curiously enough these rock-cut dwellings appear dry and healthful, and +are not in the least insalubrious, though where a _cave_ has been +devoted only to the storage of wine in vats, barrels, and bottles the +case is somewhat different. + +Montrichard itself, outside of these scores of homes burrowed out of the +cliff, is most picturesque, with stone-pignoned gables and +dormer-windows and window-frames cut or worked in wood or stone into a +thousand amusing shapes. + +Montrichard, with Chinon, takes the lead in interesting old houses in +these parts; in fact, they quite rival the ruinous lean-to houses of +Rouen and Lisieux in Normandy, which is saying a good deal for their +picturesque qualities. + +[Illustration: _Donjon of Montrichard_] + +One-third of Montrichard's population live underground or in houses +built up against the hillsides. Even the lovely old parish church backs +against the rock. + +Everywhere are stairways and _petits chemins_ leading upward or +downward, with little façades, windows, or doorways coming upon one in +most unexpected and mysterious fashion at every turn. + +The magnificent donjon is a relic of the work of that great +fortress-builder, Foulques Nerra, Comte d'Anjou, who dotted the land +wherever he trod with these masterpieces of their kind, most of them +great rectangular structures like the donjons of Britain, but quite +unlike the structures of their class mostly seen in France. + +Richard Coeur de Lion occupied the fortress in 1108, but was obliged to +succumb to his rival in power, Philippe-Auguste, who in time made a +breach in its walls and captured it. Thereafter it became an outpost of +his own, from whence he could menace the Comte d'Anjou. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +CHAMBORD + + +Chambord is four leagues from Blois, from which point it is usually +approached. To reach it one crosses the Sologne, not the arid waste it +has been pictured, but a desert which has been made to blossom as the +rose. + +A glance of the eye, given anywhere along the road from Blois to +Chambord, will show a vineyard of a thousand, two thousand, or even more +acres, where, from out of a soil that was once supposed to be the +poorest in all wine-growing France, may be garnered a crop equalling a +hundred dozen of bottles of good rich wine to the acre. + +This wine of the Sologne is not one of the famous wines of France, to be +sure, but what one gets in these parts is pure and astonishingly +palatable; moreover, one can drink large portions of it--as do the +natives--without being affected in either his head or his pocket-book. + +From late September to early December there is a constant harvest going +on in the vineyards, whose labourers, if not as picturesque and joyous +as we are wont to see them on the comic-opera stage, are at least +wonderfully clever and industrious, for they make a good wine crop out +of a soil which previously gave a living only to charcoal-burners and +goat-keepers. + +François was indeed a rare devotee of the building mania when he laid +out the wood which surrounds Chambord and which ultimately grew to some +splendour. The nineteenth century saw this great wood cut and sold in +huge quantities, so that to-day it is rather a scanty copse through +which one drives on the way from Blois. + +The country round about is by no means impoverished,--far from it. It is +simply unworked to its fullest extent as yet. As it is plentifully +surrounded by water it makes an ideal land for the growing of asparagus, +strawberries, and grapes, and so it has come to be one of the most +prosperous and contented regions in all the Loire valley. + +The great white Château de Chambord, with its turrets and its +magnificent lantern, looms large from whatever direction it is +approached, though mostly it is framed by the somewhat stunted pines +which make up the pleasant forest. The vistas which one sees when coming +toward Chambord, through the drives and alleys of its park, with the +château itself brilliant in the distance, are charming and fairy-like +indeed. Straight as an arrow these roadways run, and he who traverses +one of those centring at the château will see a tiny white fleck in the +sunlight a half a dozen kilometres away, which, when it finally is +reached, will be admitted to be the greatest triumph of the art-loving +monarch. + +François Premier was foremost in every artistic expression in France, +and the court, as may be expected, were only too eager to follow the +expensive tastes of their monarch,--when they could get the means, and +when they could not, often enough François supplied the wherewithal. + +François himself dressed in the richest of Italian velvets, the more +brilliant the better, with a preponderant tendency toward pink and sky +blue. + +A dozen years after François came to the throne, a dozen years after the +pleasant life of Amboise, when mother, daughter, and son lived together +on the banks of the Loire in that "Trinity of love," the monarch and +his wife, Queen Claude of France, the daughter of Louis XII. and Anne of +Brittany, came to live at Chambord on the edge of the sandy Sologne +waste. + +Here, too, came Marguerite d'Alençon, the ever faithful and devoted +sister of François, the duke, her husband, and all the gay members of +the court. The hunt was the order of the day, for the forest tract of +the Sologne, scanty though it was in growth, abounded in small game. + +Chambord at this time had not risen to the grand and ornate proportions +which we see to-day, but set snugly on the low, swampy banks of the tiny +river Cosson, a dull, gloomy mediæval fortress, whose only aspect of +gaiety was that brought by the pleasure-loving court when it assembled +there. In size it was ample to accommodate the court, but François's +artistic temperament already anticipated many and great changes. The +Loire was to be turned from its course and the future pompous palace was +to have its feet bathed in the limpid Loire water rather than in the +stagnant pools of the morass which then surrounded it. + +As a triumph of the royal château-builder's art, Chambord is far and +away ahead of Fontainebleau or Versailles, both of which were built in +a reign which ended two hundred years later than that which began with +the erection of Chambord. As an example of the arts of François I. and +his time compared with those of Louis XIV. and his, Chambord stands +forth with glorious significance. + +On the low banks of the Cosson, François achieved perhaps the greatest +triumph that Renaissance architecture had yet known. + +It was either Chambord, or the reconstruction by François of the edifice +belonging to the Counts of Blois, which resulted in the refinement of +the Renaissance style less than a quarter of a century after its +introduction into France by Charles VIII.,--if he really was responsible +for its importation from Italy. François lacked nothing of daring, and +built and embellished a structure which to-day, in spite of numerous +shortcomings, stands as the supreme type of a great Renaissance domestic +edifice of state. Every device of decoration and erratic suggestion +seems to have been carried out, not only structurally, as in the great +double spiral of its central stairway, but in its interpolated details +and symbolism as well. + +It was at this time, too, that François began to introduce the famous +salamander into his devices and ciphers; that most significant emblem +which one may yet see on wall and ceiling of Chambord surrounded by the +motto: "_Je me nourris et je meurs dans le feu._" + +[Illustration: _Arms of François Premier, at Chambord_] + +Chambord, first of all, gives one a very high opinion of François +Premier, and of the splendours with which he was wont to surround +himself. The apartments are large and numerous and are admirably planned +and decorated, though, almost without exception, bare to-day of +furniture or furnishings. + +To quote the opinion of Blondel, the celebrated French architect: "The +Château de Chambord, built under François I. and Henri II., from the +designs of Primatice, was never achieved according to the original plan. +Louis XIII. and Louis XIV. contributed a certain completeness, but the +work was really pursued afterward according to the notions of one +Sertio." + +The masterpiece of its constructive elements is its wonderful doubly +spiralled central staircase, which permits one to ascend or descend +without passing another proceeding in the opposite direction at the same +time. Whatever may have been the real significance of this great double +spiral, it has been said that it played its not unimportant part in the +intrigue and scandal of the time. It certainly is a wonder of its kind, +more marvellous even than that spiral at Blois, attributed, with some +doubt perhaps, to Leonardo da Vinci, and certainly far more beautiful +than the clumsy round tower up which horses and carriages were once +driven at Amboise. + +At all events, it probably meant something more than mere constructive +ability, and a staircase which allows one individual to mount and +another to descend without knowing of the presence of the other may +assuredly be classed with those other mediæval accessories, sliding +panels, hidden doorways, and secret cabinets. + +Beneath the dome which terminates the staircase in the Orleans wing are +three caryatides representing--it is doubtfully stated--François +Premier, La Duchesse d'Étampes, and Madame la Comtesse de +Châteaubriand,--a trinity of boon companions in intrigue. + +In reality Chambord presents the curiously contrived arrangement of one +edifice within another, as a glance of the eye at the plan will show. + +The fosse, the usual attribute of a great mediæval château--it may be a +dry one or a wet one, in this case it was a wet one--has disappeared, +though Brantôme writes that he saw great iron rings let into the walls +to which were attached "_barques et grands bateaux_," which had made +their way from the Loire via the dribbling Cosson. + +The Cosson still dribbles its life away to-day, its moisture having, to +a great part, gone to irrigate the sandy Sologne, but formerly it was +doubtless a much more ample stream. + +From the park the ornate gables and dormer-windows loom high above the +green-swarded banks of the Cosson. It was so in François's time, and it +is so to-day; nothing has been added to break the spread of lawn, except +an iron-framed wash-house with red tiles and a sheet-iron chimney-pot +beside the little river, and a tin-roofed garage for automobiles +connected with the little inn outside the gates. + +The rest is as it was of yore, at least, the same as the old engravings +of a couple of hundreds of years ago picture it, hence it is a great +shame, since the needs of the tiny village could not have demanded it, +that the foreground could not have been left as it originally was. + +The town, or rather village, or even hamlet, of Chambord is about the +most abbreviated thing of its kind existent. There is practically no +village; there are a score or two of houses, an inn of the frankly +tourist kind, which evidently does not cater to the natives, the +aforesaid wash-house by the river bank, the dwellings of the +gamekeepers, gardeners, and workmen on the estate, and a diminutive +church rising above the trees not far away. These accessories +practically complete the make-up of the little settlement of Chambord, +on the borders of the Blaisois and Touraine. + +Chambord has been called top-heavy, but it is hardly that. Probably the +effect is caused by its low-lying situation, for, as has been intimated +before, this most imposing of all of the Loire châteaux has the least +desirable situation of any. There is a certain vagueness and foreignness +about the sky-line that is almost Eastern, though we recognize it as +pure Renaissance. Perhaps it is the magnitude and lonesomeness of it all +that makes it seem so strange, an effect that is heightened when one +steps out upon its roof, with the turrets, towers, and cupolas still +rising high above. + +[Illustration: _PLAN OF CHAMBORD_] + +The ground-plan is equally magnificent, flanked at every corner by a +great round tower, with another quartette of them at the angles of the +interior court. + +Most of the stonework of the fabric is brilliant and smooth, as if it +were put up but yesterday, and, beyond the occasional falling of a tile +from the wonderful array of chimney-pots, but little evidences are seen +exteriorly of its having decayed in the least. On the tower which flanks +the little door where one meets the _concierge_ and enters, there are +unmistakable marks of bullets and balls, which a revolutionary or some +other fury left as mementoes of its passage. + +Considering that Chambord was not a product of feudal times, these +disfigurements seem out of place; still its peaceful motives could +hardly have been expected to have lasted always. + +The southern façade is not excelled by the elevation of any residential +structure of any age, and its outlines are varied and pleasing enough to +satisfy the most critical; if one pardons the little pepper-boxes on the +north and south towers, and perforce one has to pardon them when he +recalls the magnificence of the general disposition and sky-line of this +marvellously imposing château of the Renaissance. + +François Premier made Chambord his favourite residence, and in fact +endowed Pierre Nepveu--who for this work alone will be considered one of +the foremost architects of the French Renaissance--with the +inspiration for its erection in 1526. + +[Illustration: _Château de Chambord_] + +A prodigious amount of sculpture by Jean Cousin, Pierre Bontemps, Jean +Goujon, and Germain Pilon was interpolated above the doorways and +windows, in the framing thereof, and above the great fireplaces. Inside +and out, above and below, were vast areas to be covered, and François +allowed his taste to have full sway. + +The presumptuous François made much of this noble residence, perhaps +because of his love of _la chasse_, for game abounded hereabouts, or +perhaps because of his regard for the Comtesse Thoury, who occupied a +neighbouring château. + +For some time before his death, François still lingered on at Chambord. +Marguerite and her brother, both now considerably aged since the happier +times of their childhood in Touraine, always had an indissoluble +fondness for Chambord. Marguerite had now become Queen of Navarre, but +her beauty had been dimmed with the march of time, and she no longer was +able to comfort and amuse her kingly brother as of yore. His old +pleasures and topics of conversation irritated him, and he had even +tired of poetry, art, and political affairs. + +Above all, he shamefully and shamelessly abused women, at once the prop +and the undermining influence of his kingly power in days gone by. There +is an existing record to the effect that he wrote some "window-pane" +verse on the window of his private apartment to the following effect: + + "Souvent femme varie; + Mal habile quis'y fie!" + +If this be not apocryphal, the incident must have taken place long years +before that celebrated "window-pane" verse of Shenstone's, and François +is proven again a forerunner, as he was in many other things. + +Without doubt the Revolution did away with this square of glass, +which--according to Piganiol de la Force--existed in the middle of the +eighteenth century. Perhaps François's own jealous humour prompted him +to write these cynical lines, and then again perhaps it is merely one of +those fables which breathe the breath of life in some unaccountable +manner, no one having been present at its birth, and hearsay and +tradition accounting for it all. + +François, truly, was failing, and he and his sister discussed but +sorrowful subjects: the death of his favourite son, Charles, the +inheritor of the throne, at Abbeville, where he became infected with the +plague, and also the death of him whom he called "his old friend," Henry +VIII. of England, a monarch whose amours were as numerous and celebrated +as his own. + +Henri II. preferred the attractions of Anet to Chambord, while Catherine +de Medici and Charles IX. cared more for Blois, Chaumont, and +Chenonceaux. Louis XIII. and Louis XIV. only considered it as a +rendezvous for the chase, and the latter's successor, Louis XV., gave it +to the illustrious Maurice de Saxe, the victor of Fontenoy, who spent +his old age here, amid fêtes, pleasures, and military parades. Near by +are the barracks, built for the accommodation of the regiment of horse +formed by the maréchal and devoted to his special guardianship and +pleasure, and paid for by the king, who in turn repaid himself--with +interest--from the public treasury. The exercising of this "little army" +was one of the chief amusements of the illustrious old soldier. + + "A de feints combats + Lui-même en se jouant conduit les vieux soldats"-- + +wrote the Abbé de Lille in contemporary times. + +King Stanislas of Poland lived here from 1725 to 1733, and later it was +given to Maréchal Berthier, by whose widow it was sold in 1821. + +It was bought by national subscription for a million and a half of +francs and given to the Duc de Bordeaux, who immediately commenced its +restoration, for it had been horribly mutilated by Maréchal de Saxe, and +the surrounding wood had been practically denuded under the Berthier +occupancy. + +The Duc de Bordeaux died in 1883, and his heirs, the Duc de Parme and +the Comte de Bardi, are now said to spend a quarter of a million +annually in the maintenance of the estate, the income of which +approximates only half that sum. + +There are thirteen great staircases in the edifice, and a room for every +day in the year. On the ground floor is the Salle des Gardes, from which +one mounts by the great spiral to another similar apartment with a +barrel-vaulted roof, which in a former day was converted into a theatre, +where in 1669-70 were held the first representations of "Pourceaugnac" +and "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme," and where Molière himself frequently +appeared. + +The second floor is known as the "_grandes terrasses_" and surrounds the +base of the great central lantern so admired from the exterior. On this +floor, to the eastward, were the apartments of François Premier. The +chapel was constructed by Henri II., but the tribune is of the era of +Louis XIV. This tribune is decorated with a fine tapestry, made by +Madame Royale while imprisoned in the Temple. At the base of the altar +is also a tapestry made and presented to the Comte de Chambord by the +women of the Limousin. + +The apartments of Louis XIV. contain portraits of Madame de Maintenon +and Madame de Lafayette, a great painting of the "Bataille de Fontenoy," +and another of the Comte de Chambord on horseback. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +CHEVERNY, BEAUREGARD, AND CHAUMONT + + +From Chambord and its overpowering massiveness one makes his way to +Chaumont, on the banks of the Loire below Blois, by easy stages across +the plain of the Sologne. + +One leaves the precincts of Chambord by the back entrance, as one might +call it, through six kilometres of forest road, like that by which one +enters, and soon passes the little townlet of Bracieux. + +One gets glimpses of more or less modern residential châteaux once and +again off the main road, but no remarkably interesting structures of any +sort are met with until one reaches Cheverny. Just before Cheverny one +passes Cour-Cheverny, with a curious old church and a quaint-looking +little inn beside it. + +[Illustration: _Château de Cheverny_] + +Cheverny itself is, however, the real attraction, two kilometres away. +Here the château is opened by its private owners from April to +October of each year, and, while not such a grand establishment as many +of its contemporaries round about, it is in every way a perfect +residential edifice of the seventeenth century, when the flowery and +ornate Renaissance had given way to something more severely classical, +and, truth to tell, far less pleasing in an artistic sense. + +Cheverny belongs to-day to the Marquis de Vibraye, one of those undying +titles of the French nobility which thrive even in republican France and +uphold the best traditions of the _noblesse_ of other days. + +The château was built much later than most of the neighbouring châteaux, +in 1634, by the Comte de Cheverny, Philippe Hurault. It sits +green-swarded in the midst of a beautifully wooded park, and the great +avenue which faces the principal entrance extends for seven kilometres, +a distance not excelled, if equalled, by any private roadway elsewhere. + +In its constructive features the château is more or less of rectangular +outlines. The pavilions at each corner have their openings _à la +impériale_, with the domes, or lanterns, so customary during the height +of the style under Louis XIV. An architect, Boyer by name, who came from +Blois, where surely he had the opportunity of having been well +acquainted with a more beautiful style, was responsible for the design +of the edifice at Cheverny. + +The interior decorations in Cordovan leather, the fine chimneypieces, +and the many elaborate historical pictures and wall paintings, by +Mosnier, Clouet, and Mignard, are all of the best of their period; while +the apartments themselves are exceedingly ample, notably the Appartement +du Roi, furnished as it was in the days of "Vert Galant," the Salle des +Gardes, the library and an elaborately traceried staircase. In the +chapel is an altar-table which came from the Église St. Calais, in the +château at Blois. + +Just outside the gates is a remarkable crotchety old stone church, with +a dwindling, toppling spire. It is poor and impoverished when compared +with most French churches, and has a most astonishing timbered veranda, +with a straining, creaking roof running around its two unobstructed +walls. The open rafters are filled with all sorts of rubbish, and the +local fire brigade keeps its hose and ladders there. A most suitable old +rookery it is in which to start a first-class conflagration. + +[Illustration: _Cheverny-sur-Loire_] + +Within are a few funeral marbles of the Hurault family, and the daily +offices are conducted with a pomp most unexpected. Altogether it +forms, as to its fabric and its functions, as strong a contrast of +activity and decay as one is likely to see in a long journey. + +The town itself is a sleepy, unprogressive place, where automobilists +may not even buy _essence à pétrole_, and, though boasting--if the +indolent old town really does boast--a couple of thousand souls, one +still has to journey to Cour-Cheverny to send a telegraphic despatch or +buy a daily paper. + +Between Cheverny and Blois is the Forêt de Russy, which will awaken +memories of the boar-hunts of François I., which, along with art in all +its enlightening aspects, appears to have been one of the chief +pleasures of that monarch. Perhaps one ought to include also the love of +fair women, but with them he was not so constant. + +On the road to Blois, also, one passes the Château de Beauregard; that +is, one usually passes it, but he shouldn't. It is built, practically, +within the forest, on the banks of the little river Beauvron. An iron +_grille_ gives entrance to a beautiful park, and within is the château, +its very name indicating the favour with which it was held by +its royal owner. It was in 1520 that François I. established it +as a _rendezvous de chasse_. Under his son, Henri II., it was +reconstructed, in part; entirely remodelled in the seventeenth century; +and "modernized"--whatever that may mean--in 1809, and again, more +lately, restored by the Duc de Dino. It belongs to-day to the Comte de +Cholet, who has tried his hand at "restoration" as well. + +The history of this old château is thus seen to have been most varied, +and it is pretty sure to have lost a good deal of its original character +in the transforming process. + +The interior is more attractive than is the exterior. There is a grand +gallery of portraits of historical celebrities, more than 350, executed +between 1617 and 1638 by Paul Ardier, Counsellor of State, who thus +combined the accomplishment of the artist with the sagacity of the +statesman. + +The ceilings of the great rooms are mostly elaborate works in enamel and +carved oak, and there is a tiled floor (_carrelage_) in the portrait +gallery, in blue faïence, representing an army in the order of battle, +which must have delighted the hearts of the youthful progeny who may +have been brought up within the walls of the château. This pavement is +moreover an excellent example of the craftsmanship of tile-making. + +One gains admission to the château freely from the _concierge_, who in +due course expects her _pourboire_, and sees that she gets it. But what +would you, inquisitive traveller? You have come here to see the sights, +and Beauregard is well worth the price of admission, which is anything +you like to give, certainly not less than a franc. + +One may return to Blois through the forest, or may continue his way down +the river to Chaumont on the left bank. + +At Chaumont the Loire broadens to nearly double the width at Blois, its +pebbles and sandbars breaking the mirror-like surface into innumerable +pools and _étangs_. There is a bridge which connects Chaumont with the +railway at Onzain and the great national highway from Tours to Blois. +The bridge, however, is so hideous a thing that one had rather go miles +out of his way than accept its hospitality. It is simply one of those +unsympathetic wire-rope affairs with which the face of the globe is +being covered, as engineering skill progresses and the art instinct dies +out. + +[Illustration: _Chaumont_] + +The Château de Chaumont is charmingly situated, albeit it is not very +accessible to strangers after one gets there, as it is open to the +public only on Thursdays, from July to December. It is exactly what one +expects to find,--a fine riverside establishment of its epoch, and in +architectural style combining the well-recognized features of late +Gothic and the early Renaissance. It is not moss-grown or decrepit in +any way, which fact, considering its years, is perhaps remarkable. + +The park of the château is only of moderate extent, but the structure +itself is, comparatively, of much larger proportions. The ideal view of +the structure is obtained from midway on that ungainly bridge which +spans the Loire at this point. Here, in the gold and purple of an autumn +evening, with the placid and far-reaching Loire, its pools and its bars +of sand and pebble before one, it is a scene which is as near idyllic as +one is likely to see. + +The town itself is not attractive; one long, narrow lane-like street, +lined on each side by habitations neither imposing nor of a tumble-down +picturesqueness, borders the Loire. There is nothing very picturesque, +either, about the homes of the vineyard workers round about. Below and +above the town the great highroad runs flat and straight between Tours +and Blois on either side of the river, and automobilists and cyclists +now roll along where the state carriages of the court used to roll when +François Premier and his sons journeyed from one gay country house to +another. + +It is to be inferred that the aspect of things at Chaumont has not +changed much since that day,--always saving that spider-net wire bridge. +The population of the town has doubtless grown somewhat, even though +small towns in France sometimes do not increase their population in +centuries; but the topographical aspect of the long-drawn-out village, +backed by green hills on one side and the Loire on the other, is much as +it always has been. + +[Illustration: _Signature of Diane de Poitiers_] + +The château at Chaumont had its origin as far back as the tenth century, +and its proprietors were successively local seigneurs, Counts of Blois, +the family of Amboise, and Diane de Poitiers, who received it from +Catherine in exchange for Chenonceaux. This was not a fair exchange, and +Diane was, to some extent, justified in her complaints. + +Chaumont was for a time in the possession of Scipion Sardini, one of +the Italian partisans of the Medici, "whose arms bore _trois sardines +d'argent_," and who had married Isabelle de la Tour, "_la Demoiselle de +Limieul_" of unsavoury reputation. + +The "_Demoiselle de Limieul_" was related, too, to Catherine, and was +celebrated in the gallantries of the time in no enviable fashion. She +was a member of that band of demoiselles whose business it was--by one +fascination or another--to worm political secrets from the nobles of the +court. One horrible scandal connected the unfortunate lady with the +Prince de Condé, but it need not be repeated here. The Huguenots +ridiculed it in those memorable verses beginning thus: + + "Puella illa nobilis + Quæ erat tam amabilis." + +After the reign of Sardini and of his direct successors, the house of +Bullion, Chaumont passed through many hands. Madame de Staël arrived at +the château in the early years of the nineteenth century, when she had +received the order to separate herself from Paris, "by at least forty +leagues." She had made the circle of the outlying towns, hovering about +Paris as a moth about a candle-flame; Rouen, Auxerre, Blois, Saumur, all +had entertained her, but now she came to establish herself in this +Loire citadel. As the story goes, journeying from Saumur to Tours, by +post-chaise, on the opposite side of the river, she saw the imposing +mass of Chaumont rising high above the river-bed, and by her good graces +and winning ways installed herself in the affections of the then +proprietor, M. Leray, and continued her residence "and made her court +here for many years." + +Chaumont is to-day the property of the Princesse de Broglie, who has +sought to restore it, where needful, even to reëstablishing the ancient +fosse or moat. This last, perhaps, is not needful; still, a moated +château, or even a moated grange has a fascination for the sentimentally +inclined. + +At the drawbridge, as one enters Chaumont to-day, one sees the graven +initials of Louis XII. and Anne de Bretagne, the arms of Georges +d'Amboise, surmounted by his cardinal's hat, and those of Charles de +Chaumont, as well as other cabalistic signs: one a representation of a +mountain (apparently) with a crater-like summit from which flames are +breaking forth, while hovering about, back to back, are two C's: [IMAGE +OF TWO JOINED LETTER 'C' POSITIONED LIKE THIS: )(]. The Renaissance +artists greatly affected the rebus, and this perhaps has some reference +to the etymology of the name Chaumont, which has been variously given +as coming from _Chaud Mont_, _Calvus Mont_, and _Chauve Mont_. + +Georges d'Amboise, the first of the name, was born at Chaumont in 1460, +the eighth son of a family of seventeen children. It was a far cry, as +distances went in those days, from the shores of the shallow, limpid +Loire to those of the forceful, turgent Seine at Rouen, where in the +great Cathedral of Notre Dame, this first Georges of Amboise, having +become an archbishop and a cardinal, was laid to rest beneath that +magnificent canopied tomb before which visitors to the Norman capital +stand in wonder. The mausoleum bears this epitaph, which in some small +measure describes the activities of the man. + + "Pastor eram cleri, populi pater; aurea sese + Lilia subdebant, quercus et ipsa mihi. + + "Martuus en jaceo, morte extinguunter honores, + Et virtus, mortis nescia, mort viret." + +His was not by any means a life of placidity and optimism, and he had +the air and reputation of doing things. There is a saying, still current +in Touraine: "_Laissez faire à Georges._" + +The second of the same name, also an Archbishop of Rouen and a +cardinal, succeeded his uncle in the see. He also is buried beneath the +same canopy as his predecessor at Rouen. + +The main portal of the château leads to a fine quadrilateral court with +an open gallery overlooking the Loire, which must have been a +magnificent playground for the nobility of a former day. The interior +embellishments are fine, some of the more noteworthy features being a +grand staircase of the style of Louis XII.; the Salle des Gardes, with a +painted ceiling showing the arms of Chaumont and Amboise; the Salle du +Conseil, with some fine tapestries and a remarkable tiled floor, +depicting scenes of the chase; the Chambre de Catherine de Medici (she +possessed Chaumont for nine years), containing some of the gifts +presented to her upon her wedding with Henri II.; and the curious +Chambre de Ruggieri, the astrologer whom Catherine brought from her +Italian home, and who was always near her, and kept her supplied with +charms and omens, good and bad, and also her poisons. + +Ruggieri's observatory was above his apartment. It was at Chaumont that +the astrologer overstepped himself, and would have used his magic +against Charles IX. He did go so far as to make an image and inflict +certain indignities upon it, with the belief that the same would befall +the monarch himself. Ruggieri went to the galleys for this, but the +scheming Catherine soon had him out again, and at work with his poisons +and philtres. + +Finally there is the Chambre de Diane de Poitiers, Catherine's more than +successful rival, with a bed (modern, it is said) and a series of +sixteenth-century tapestries, with various other pieces of contemporary +furniture. A portrait of Diane which decorates the apartment is supposed +to be one of the three authentic portraits of the fair huntress. The +chapel has a fine tiled pavement and some excellent glass. + +Chaumont is eighteen kilometres from Blois and the same distance from +Amboise. It has not the splendour of Chambord, but it has a greater +antiquity, and an incomparably finer situation, which displays its +coiffed towers and their _mâchicoulis_ and cornices in a manner not +otherwise possible. It is one of those picture châteaux which tell a +silent story quite independent of guide-book or historical narrative. + +It was M. Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont, the superintendent of the forests +of Berry and the Blaisois, under Louis XVI., who gave hospitality to +Benjamin Franklin, and turned over to the first American ambassador to +France the occupancy of his house at Passy, where Franklin lived for +nine consecutive years. + +Of this same M. de Chaumont Americans cannot have too high a regard, for +his timely and judicious hospitality has associated his name, only less +permanently than Franklin's, with the early fortunes of the American +republic. + +Besides his other offices, M. de Chaumont was the intendant of the Hôtel +des Invalides, at Paris, holding confidential relations with the +ministry of the young king, and was in the immediate enjoyment of a +fortune which amounted to two and a half million of francs, besides +owning, in addition to Chaumont on the Loire, another château in the +Blaisois. This château he afterward tendered to John Adams, who declined +the offer in a letter, written at Passy-sur-Seine, February 25, 1779, in +the following words: "... To a mind as much addicted to retirement as +mine, the situation you propose would be delicious indeed, provided my +country were at peace and my family with me; but, separated from my +family and with a heart bleeding with the wounds of its country, I +should be the most miserable being on earth...." + +The potteries, which now form the stables of the château at Chaumont, +are somewhat reminiscent of Franklin. M. de Chaumont had established a +pottery here, where he had found a clay which had encouraged him to hope +that he could compete with the English manufacturers of the time. Here +the Italian Nini, who was invited to Chaumont, made medallions much +sought for by collectors, among others one of Franklin, which was so +much admired as a work of art, and became so much in demand that in +later years replicas were made and are well known to amateurs. + +The family of Le Ray de Chaumont were extensively known in America, +where they became large landholders in New York State in the early +nineteenth century, and the head of the family seems to have been an +amiable and popular landlord. The towns of Rayville and Chaumont in New +York State still perpetuate his name. + +The two male members of the family secured American wives; Le Ray +himself married a Miss Coxe, and their son a Miss Jahel, both of New +York. + +From an anonymous letter to the New York _Evening Post_ of November 19, +1885, one quotes the following: + +"It was in Blois that I first rummaged among these shops, whose +attractions are almost a rival to those of the castle, though this is +certainly one of the most interesting in France. The traveller will +remember the long flight of stone steps which climbs the steep hill in +the centre of the town. Near the foot of this hill there is a +well-furnished book-shop; its windows display old editions and rich +bindings, and tempt one to enter and inquire for antiquities. Here I +found a quantity of old notarial documents and diplomas of college or +university, all more or less recently cleared out from some town hall, +or unearthed from neighbouring castle, and sold by a careless owner, as +no longer valuable to him. This was the case with most of the parchments +I found at Blois; they had been acquired within a few years from the +castle of Madon, and from a former proprietor of the neighbouring castle +of Chaumont (the _calvus mons_ of mediæval time), and most of them +pertained to the affairs of the _seigneurie de Chaumont_. Contracts, +executions, sales of vineyards and houses, legal decisions, _actes de +vente_, loans on mortgages, the marriage contract of a M. Lubin,--these +were the chief documents that I found and purchased." + +The traveller may not expect to come upon duplicates of these treasures +again, but the incident only points to the fact that much documentary +history still lies more or less deeply buried. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +TOURAINE: THE GARDEN SPOT OF FRANCE + + "C'est une grande dame, une princesse altière, + Chacun de ses châteaux, marqué du sceau royal, + Lui fait une toilette en dentelle de pierre + Et son splendide fleuve un miroir de cristal." + + +It is difficult to write appreciatively of Touraine without echoing the +words of some one who has gone before, and it is likely that those who +come after will find the task no easier. + +Truly, as a seventeenth-century geographer has said: "Here is the most +delicious and the most agreeable province of the kingdom. It has been +named the garden of France because of the softness of its climate, the +affability of its people, and the ease of its life." + +The poets who have sung the praises of Touraine are many, Ronsard, Remy +Belleau, Du Bellay, and for prose authors we have at the head, Rabelais, +La Fontaine, Balzac, and Alfred de Vigny. Merely to enumerate them all +would be impossible, but they furnish a fund of quotable material for +the traveller when he is writing home, and are equally useful to the +maker of guide-books. + +One false note on Touraine, only, has ever rung out in the world of +literature, and that was from Stendahl, who said: "_La Belle Touraine +n'existe pas!_" The pages of Alfred de Vigny and Balzac answer this +emphatically, and to the contrary, and every returning traveller +apparently sides with them and not with Stendahl. + +How can one not love its prairies, gently sloping to the caressing +Loire, its rolling hills and dainty ravines? The broad blue Loire is +always vague and tranquil here, at least one seems always to see it so, +but the beauty of Touraine is, after all, a quiet beauty which must be +seen to be appreciated, and lived with to be loved. + +It is a land of most singular attractions, neither too hot nor too cold, +too dry nor too damp, with a sufficiency of rain, and an abundance of +sunshine. Its market-gardens are prolific in their product, its orchards +overflowing with plenitude, and its vineyards generous in their harvest. + +Touraine is truly the region where one may read history without books, +with the very pages of nature punctuated and adorned with the marvels of +the French Renaissance. Louis XI. gave the first impetus to the alliance +of the great domestic edifice--which we have come to distinguish as the +residential château--with the throne, and the idea was amplified by +Charles VIII. and glorified by François Premier. + +In the brilliant, if dissolute, times of the early sixteenth century +François Premier and his court travelled down through this same Touraine +to Loches and to Amboise, where François's late gaoler, Charles Quint, +was to be received and entertained. It was after François had returned +from his involuntary exile in Spain, and while he was still in residence +at the Louvre, that the plans for the journey were made. To the Duchesse +d'Étampes François said,--the duchess who was already more than a rival +of both Diane and the Comtesse de Châteaubriant,--"I must tear myself +away from you to-morrow. I shall await my brother Charles at Amboise on +the Loire." + +"Shall you not revenge yourself upon him, for his cruel treatment of +you?" said the wily favourite of the time. "If he, like a fool, comes +to Touraine, will you not make him revoke the treaty of Madrid or shut +him up in one of Louis XI.'s oubliettes?" + +"I will persuade him, if possible," said François, "but I shall never +force him." + +In due time François did receive his brother king at Amboise and it was +amid great ceremony and splendour. His guest could not, or would not, +mount steps, so that great inclined plane, up which a state coach and +its horses might go, was built. Probably there was a good reason for the +emperor's peculiarity, for that worthy or unworthy monarch finally died +of gout in the monastery of San Juste. + +The meeting here at Amboise was a grand and ceremonious affair and the +Spanish monarch soon came to recognize a possible enemy in the royal +favourite, Anne de Pisselieu. The emperor's eyes, however, melted with +admiration, and he told her that only in France could one see such a +perfection of elegance and beauty, with the result that--as is popularly +adduced--the susceptible, ambitious, and unfaithful duchess betrayed +François more than once in the affairs attendant upon the subsequent +wars between France, England, and Spain. + +From Touraine, in the sixteenth century, spread that influence which +left its impress even on the capital of the kingdom itself, not only in +respect to architectural art, but in manners and customs as well. + +Whatever may be the real value of the Renaissance as an artistic +expression, the discussion of it shall have no place here, beyond the +qualifying statement that what we have come to know as the French +Renaissance--which undeniably grew up from a transplanted Italian +germ--proved highly tempting to the mediæval builder for all manner of +edifices, whereas it were better if it had been confined to civic and +domestic establishments and left the church pure in its full-blown +Gothic forms. + +Curiously enough, here in Touraine, this is just what did happen. The +Renaissance influence crept into church-building here and there--and it +is but a short step from the "_gothique rayonnant_" to what are +recognized as well-defined Renaissance features; but it is more +particularly in respect to the great châteaux, and even smaller +dwellings, that the superimposed Italian details were used. A notable +illustration of this is seen in the Cathedral of St. Gatien at Tours. It +is very beautiful and has some admirable Gothic features, but there are +occasional constructive details, as well as those for decorative effect +alone, which are decidedly not good Gothic; but, as they are, likewise, +not Renaissance, they hence cannot be laid to its door, but rather to +the architect's eccentricity. + +In the smaller wayside churches, such as one sees at Cormery, at +Cheverny, and at Cour-Cheverny, there is scarcely a sign of Renaissance, +while their neighbouring châteaux are nothing else, both in construction +and in decoration. + +The Château de Langeais is, for the most part, excellent Gothic, and so +is the church near by. Loches has distinct and pure Gothic details both +in its church and its château, quite apart from the Hôtel de Ville and +that portion of the château now used as the Sous-Préfecture, which are +manifestly Renaissance; hence here in Touraine steps were apparently +taken to keep the style strictly non-ecclesiastical. + +A glance of the eye at the topography of this fair province stamps it at +once as something quite different from any other traversed by the Loire. +Two of the great "routes nationales" cross it, the one via Orleans, +leading to Nantes, and the other via Chartres, going to Bordeaux. It is +crossed and recrossed by innumerable "routes secondaires," +"départementales," "vicinales" and "particulières," second to none of +their respective classes in other countries, for assuredly the roads of +France are the best in the world. Many of these great ways of +communication replaced the ancient Roman roads, which were the pioneers +of the magnificent roadways of the France of to-day. + +Almost invariably Touraine is flat or rolling, its highest elevation +above the sea being but a hundred and forty-six metres, scarce four +hundred and fifty feet, a fact which accounts also for the gentle flow +of the Loire through these parts. + +All the fruits of the southland are found here, the olive alone +excepted. Mortality, it is said, and proved by figures, is lower than in +any other part of France, and for this reason many dwellers in the large +cities, if they may not all have a mediæval château, have at least a +villa, far away from "the madding crowd," and yet within four hours' +travel of the capital itself. + +[Illustration: THE LOIRE IN TOURAINE] + +Touraine, properly speaking, has no natural frontiers, as it is not +enclosed by rivers or mountains. It is, however, divided by the Loire +into two distinct regions, the Méridionale and the Septentrionale; but +the dress, the physiognomy, the language, and the predilections of +the people are everywhere the same, though the two sections differ +somewhat in temperament. In the south, the Tourangeau is timid and +obliging, but more or less engrossed in his affairs; in the north, he is +proud, egotistical, and a little arrogant, but, above all, he likes his +ease and comfort, something after the manner of "mynheer" of Holland. + +These are the characteristics which are enumerated by Stanislas +Bellanger of Tours, in "La Touraine Ancienne et Moderne," and they are +traceable to-day, in every particular, to one who knows well the +by-paths of the region. + +Formerly the peasant was, in his own words, "_sous la main de M. le +comte_," but, with the coming of the eighteenth century, all this was +changed, and the conditions which, in England, succeeded feudalism, are +unknown in Touraine, as indeed throughout France. + +The two great divisions which nature had made of Touraine were further +cut up into five _petits pays_; les Varennes, le Veron, la Champeigne, +la Brenne, and les Gâtines; names which exist on some maps to-day, but +which have lost, in a great measure, their former distinction. + +There is a good deal to be said in favour of the physical and moral +characteristics of the inhabitants of Touraine. Just as the descendants +of the Phoceans, the original settlers of Marseilles, differ from the +natives of other parts of France, so, too, do the Tourangeaux differ +from the inhabitants of other provinces. The people of Touraine are a +mixture of Romans, Visigoths, Saracens, Alains, Normans and Bretons, +Anglais and Gaulois; but all have gradually been influenced by local +conditions, so that the native of Touraine has become a distinct variety +all by himself. The deliciousness of the "garden of France" has altered +him so that he stands to-day as more distinctly French than the citizen +of Paris itself. + +Touraine, too, has the reputation of being that part of France where is +spoken the purest French. This, perhaps, is as true of the Blaisois, for +the local bookseller at Blois will tell one with the most dulcet and +understandable enunciation that it is at Blois that one hears the best +accent. At any rate, it is something found within a charmed circle, of +perhaps a hundred miles in diameter, that does not find its exact +counterpart elsewhere. As Seville stands for the Spanish tongue, +Florence for the Italian, and Dresden for the German, so Tours stands +for the French. + +The history of the Loire in Touraine, as is the case at Le Puy, at +Nevers, at Sancerre, or at Orleans, is abundant and vivid, and the +monuments which line its banks are numerous and varied, from the +fortress-château of Amboise to the Cathedral of St. Gatien at Tours with +its magnificent bejewelled façade. The ruined towers of the castle of +Cinq-Mars, with its still more ancient Roman "pile," and the feudal +châteaux of the countryside are all eloquent, even to-day, in their +appeal to all lovers of history and romance. + +There are some verses, little known, in praise of the Loire, as it comes +through Touraine, written by Houdon des Landes, who lived near Tours in +the eighteenth century. The following selection expresses their quality +well and is certainly worthy to rank with the best that Balzac wrote in +praise of his beloved Touraine. + + "La Loire enorgueillit ses antiques cités, + Et courounne ses bords de coteaux enchantés; + Dans ses vallons heureux, sur ses rives aimées, + Les prés ont déployé leurs robes parfumées; + Le saule humide et souple y lance ses rameaux. + Ses coteaux sont peuplés, et le rocher docile + A l'homme qui le creuse offre un champêtre asile. + De notre vieille Gaule, ô fleuve paternel! + Fleuve des doux climats! la Vallière et Sorel + Sur tes bords fortunés naquirent, et la gloire + A l'une dût l'amour, à l'autre la victoire." + +Again and again Balzac's words echo in one's ears from his "Scène de la +Vie de Province." The following quotations are typical of the whole: + +"The softness of the air, the beauty of the climate, all tend to a +certain ease of existence and simplicity of manner which encourages an +appreciation of the arts." + +"Touraine is a land to foster the ambition of a Napoleon and the +sentiment of a Byron." + +Another writer, A. Beaufort, a publicist of the nineteenth century, +wrote: + +"The Tourangeaux resemble the good Adam in the garden of Eden. They +drink, they eat, they sleep and dream, and care not what their neighbour +may be doing." + +Touraine was indeed, at one time, a veritable Eden, though guarded by +fortresses, _hallebardes_, and arquebuses, but not the less an Eden for +all that. In addition it was a land where, in the middle ages, the +seigneurs made history, almost without a parallel in France or +elsewhere. + +Touraine, truly enough, was the centre of the old French monarchy in +the perfection of its pomp and state; but it is also true that Touraine +knew little of the serious affairs of kings, though some all-important +results came from events happening within its borders. + +Paris was the law-making centre in the sixteenth century, and Touraine +knew only the domestic life and pleasures of royalty. Etiquette, form, +and ceremony were all relaxed, or at least greatly modified, and the +court spent in the country what it had levied in the capital. + +Curiously enough, the monarchs were omnipotent and influential here, +though immediately they quartered themselves in Paris their powers waned +considerably; indeed, they seemed to lose their influence upon ministers +and vassals alike. + +Louis XIII., it is true, tried to believe that Paris was France,--like +the Anglo-Saxon tourists who descend upon it in such great numbers +to-day,--and built Versailles; but there was never much real glory about +its cold and pompous walls. + +The fortunes of the old châteaux of Touraine have been most varied. +Chambord is vast and bare, elegant and pompous; Blois, just across the +border, is a tourist sight of the first rank whose salamanders and +porcupines have been well cared for by the paternal French government. +Chaumont, Chenonceaux, Langeais, Azay-le-Rideau, and half a dozen others +are still inhabited, and are gay with the life of twentieth-century +luxury; Amboise is a possession of the Orleans family; Loches is, in +part, given over to the uses of a sous-préfecture; and Chinon's châteaux +are but half-demolished ruins. Besides these there are numerous smaller +residential châteaux of the nobility scattered here and there in the +Loire watershed. + +There have been writers who have sought to commiserate with "the poor +peasant of Touraine," as they have been pleased to think of him, and +have deplored the fact that his sole possession was a small piece of +ground which he and his household cultivated, and that he lived in a +little whitewashed house, built with his own hands, or those of his +ancestors. Though the peasant of Touraine, as well as of other parts of +the countryside, works for an absurdly small sum, and for considerably +less than his brother nearer Paris, he sells his produce at the nearest +market-town for a fair price, and preserves a spirit of independence +which is as valuable as are some of the things which are thrust upon him +in some other lands under the guise of benevolent charity, really +patronage of a most demeaning and un-moral sort. At night the Touraine +peasant returns to his own hearthstone conscious that he is a man like +all of his fellows, and is not a mere atom ground between the upper and +nether millstones of the landlord and the squire. He cooks his +"_bouillie_" over three small sticks and retires to rest with the fond +hope that on the next market-day following the prices of eggs, chickens, +cauliflowers, or tomatoes may be higher. He is the stuff that successful +citizens are made of, and is not to be pitied in the least, even though +it is only the hundredth man of his community who ever does rise to more +wealth than a mere competency. + +Touraine, rightly enough, has been called the garden of France, but it +is more than that, much more; it is a warm, soft land where all products +of the soil take on almost a subtropical luxuriance. Besides the great +valley of the Loire, there are the valleys of the tributaries which run +into it, in Touraine and the immediate neighbourhood, all of which are +fertile as only a river-bottom can be. It is true that there are +numerous formerly arid and sandy plateaux, quite unlike the abundant +plains of La Beauce, though to-day, by care and skill, they have been +made to rival the rest of the region in productiveness. + +The Département d'Indre et Loire is the richest agricultural region in +all France so far as the variety and abundance of its product goes, +rivalling in every way the opulence of the Burgundian hillsides. Above +all, Touraine stands at the head of the vine-culture of all the Loire +valley, the _territoire vinicole_ lapping over into Anjou, where are +produced the celebrated _vins blancs_ of Saumur. + +The vineyard workers of Touraine, in the neighbourhood of Loches, have +clung closely to ancient customs, almost, one may say, to the +destruction of the industry, though of late new methods have set in, +and, since the blight now some years gone by, a new prosperity has come. + +The day worker, who cares for the vines and superintends the picking of +the grapes by the womenfolk and the children, works for two francs fifty +centimes per day; but he invariably carries with him to the scene of his +labours a couple of cutlets from a young and juicy _brebis_, or even a +_poulet rôti_, so one may judge from this that his pay is ample for his +needs in this land of plenty. + +[Illustration: _The Vintage in Touraine_] + +In the morning he takes his bowl of soup and a cup of white wine, and of +course huge hunks of bread, and finally coffee, and on each Sunday he +has his _rôti à la maison_. All this demonstrates the fact that the +French peasant is more of a meat eater in these parts than he is +commonly thought to be. + +Touraine has no peculiar beauties to offer the visitor; there is nothing +_outré_ about it to interest one; but, rather, it wins by sheer charm +alone, or perhaps a combination of charms and excellencies makes it so +truly a delectable land. + +The Tourangeaux themselves will tell you, when speaking of Rabelais and +Balzac, that it is the land of "_haute graisse, féconde et +spirituelle_." It is all this, and, besides its spirituelle components, +it will supply some very real and substantial comforts. It is the Eden +of the gourmandiser of such delicacies as _truffes_, _rilettes_, and +above all, _pruneaux_, which you get in one form or another at nearly +every meal. Most of the good things of life await one here in abundance, +with kitchen-gardens and vineyards at every one's back door. Truly +Touraine is a land of good living. + +Life runs its course in Touraine, "_facile et bonne_," without any +extremes of joy or sorrow, without chimerical desires or infinite +despair, and the agreeable sensations of life predominate,--the first +essential to real happiness. + +Some one has said, and certainly not without reason, that every +Frenchman has a touch of Rabelais and of Voltaire in his make-up. This +is probably true, for France has never been swept by a wave of +puritanism such as has been manifest in most other countries, and _le +gros rire_ is still the national philosophy. + +In a former day a hearty laugh, or at least an amused cynicism, diverted +the mind of the martyr from threatened torture and even violent death. +Brinvilliers laughed at those who were to torture her to death, and De +la Barre and Danton cracked jokes and improvised puns upon the very edge +of their untimely graves. + +Touraine has the reputation of being a wonderfully productive field for +the book collector, though with books, like many other treasures of a +past time, the day has passed when one may "pick up" for two sous a MS. +worth as many thousands of francs; but still bargains are even now +found, and if one wants great calf-covered tomes, filled with fine old +engravings, bearing on the local history of the _pays_, he can generally +find them at all prices here in old Touraine. + +There was a more or less apocryphal story told us and the landlady of +our inn concerning a find which a guest had come upon in a little +roadside hamlet at which he chanced to stop. He was one of those +omnipresent _commis voyageurs_ who thread the French provinces up and +down, as no other country in the world is "travelled" or "drummed." He +was the representative for a brandy shipper, one of those substantial +houses of the cognac region whose product is mostly sold only in France; +but this fact need not necessarily put the individual very far down in +the social scale. Indeed, he was a most amiable and cultivated person. + +Our fellow traveller had come to a village where all the available +accommodations of the solitary inn were already engaged; therefore he +was obliged to put up with a room in the town, which the landlord hunted +out for him. Repairing to his room without any thought save that of +sleep, the traveller woke the next morning to find the sun streaming +through the opaqueness of a brilliantly coloured window. Not stained +glass here, surely, thought the stranger, for his lodging was a most +humble one. It proved to be not glass at all; merely four great vellum +leaves, taken from some ancient tome and stuck into the window-framing +where the glass ought to have been. Daylight was filtering dimly through +the rich colouring, and it took but a moment to become convinced that +the sheets were something rare and valuable. He learned that the pages +were from an old Latin MS., and that the occupant of the little dwelling +had used "_the paper_" in the place of the glass which had long since +disappeared. The vellum and its illuminations had stood the weather +well, though somewhat dimmed in comparison with the brilliancy of the +remaining folios, which were found below-stairs. There were in all some +eighty pages, which were purchased for a modest forty sous, and +everybody satisfied. + +The volume had originally been found by the father of the old dame who +then had possession of it in an old château in revolutionary times. +Whether her honoured parent was a pillager or a protector did not come +out, but for all these years the possession of this fine work meant no +more to this Tourangelle than a supply of "paper" for stopping up broken +window-panes. + +"She parted readily enough with the remaining leaves," said our +Frenchman, "but nothing would induce her to remove those which filled +the window." "No, we have no more glass, and these have answered quite +well for a long time now," she said. And such is the simplicity of the +French provincial, even to-day--_sometimes_. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +AMBOISE + + +As one approaches Amboise, he leaves the comparatively insalubrious +plain of the Sologne and the Blaisois and enters Touraine. + +Amboise! What history has been made there; what a wealth of action its +memories recall, and what splendour, gaiety, and sadness its walls have +held! An entire book might be written about the scenes which took place +under its roof. + +To-day most travellers are content to rush over its apartments, gaze at +its great round tower, view the Loire, which is here quite at its best, +from the battlements, and, after a brief admiration of the wonderfully +sculptured portal of its chapel, make their way to Chenonceaux, or to +the gay little metropolis of Tours. + +[Illustration: _Château d'Amboise_] + +No matter whither one turns his steps from Amboise, he will not soon +forget this great fortress-château and the memories of the _petite +bande_ of blondes and brunettes who followed in the wake of François +Premier. + +Here, and at Blois, the recollections of this little band are strong in +the minds of students of romance and history. Some one has said that +along the corridors of Amboise one still may meet the wraiths of those +who in former days went airily from one pleasure to another, but this of +course depends upon the mood and sentiment of the visitor. + +Amboise has a very good imitation of the climate of the south, and the +glitter of the Loire at midday in June is about as torrid a picture as +one can paint in a northern clime. It is not that it is so very hot in +degree, but that the lack of shade-trees along its quays gives Amboise a +shimmering resemblance to a much warmer place than it really is. The +Loire is none too ample here, and frets its way, as it does through most +of its lower course, through banks of sand and pebbles in a more or less +vain effort to look cool. + +Amboise is old, for, under the name of Ambatia, it existed in the fourth +century, at which epoch St. Martin, the patron of Tours, threw down a +pagan pyramidal temple here and established Christianity; and Clovis and +Alaric held their celebrated meeting on the Ile St. Jean in 496. It was +not long after this, according to the ancient writers, that some sort +of a fortified château took form here. Louis-le-Bègue gave Amboise to +the Counts of Anjou, and Hughes united the two independent seigneuries +of the château and the bourg. After the Counts of Anjou succeeded the +Counts of Berry, Charles VII., by appropriation, confiscation, seizure, +or whatever you please to call it,--history is vague as to the real +motive,--united Amboise to the possessions of the Crown in 1434. Louis +XI. lived for a time at this strong fortress-château, before he turned +his affections so devotedly to Plessis-les-Tours. Charles VIII. was born +and died here, and it was he who added the Renaissance details, or at +least the first of them, upon his return from Italy. Indeed, it is to +him and to the nobles who followed in his train during his Italian +travels that the introduction of the Renaissance into France is commonly +attributed. + +It was at Amboise that Charles VIII., forgetful of the miseries of his +Italian campaign, set about affairs of state with a renewed will and +vigour. He was personally superintending some alterations in the old +castle walls, and instructing the workmen whom he brought from Italy +with him as to just how far they might introduce those details which the +world has come to know as Renaissance, when, in passing beneath a low +overhanging beam, he struck his head so violently that he expired almost +immediately (April 17, 1498). + +Louis XII., the superstitious, lived here for some time, and here +occurred some of the most important events in the life of the great +François, the real popularizer of the new architectural Renaissance. + +It was in the old castle of Amboise, the early home of Louis XII., that +his appointed successor, his son-in-law and second cousin, François, was +brought up. Here he was educated by his mother, Louise de Savoie, +Duchesse d'Angoulême, together with that bright and shining light, that +Marguerite who was known as the "Pearl of the Valois," poetess, artist, +and court intriguer. Here the household formed what in the early days +François himself was pleased to call a "trinity of love." + +Throughout the structure may yet be seen the suggestions of François's +artistic instincts, traced in the window-framings of the façade, in the +interior decorations of the long gallery, and on the terrace hanging +high above the Loire. + +In the park and in the surrounding forest François and his sister +Marguerite passed many happy days of their childhood. Marguerite, who +had already become known as the "tenth muse," had already thought out +her "Heptameron," whilst François tried his prentice hand at +love-rhyming, an expression of sentiment which at a later period took +the form of avowals in person to his favourites. + +One recalls those stanzas to the memory of Agnes Sorel, beginning: + + "Gentille Agnès plus de loz tu mérite, + La cause était de France recouvrir; + Que ce que peut dedans un cloître ouvrir + Close nonnaine? ou bien dévot hermite?" + +François was more than a lover of the beautiful. His appreciation of +architectural art amounted almost to a passion, and one might well claim +him as a member of the architectural guild, although, in truth, he was +nothing more than a generous patron of the craftsmen of his day. + +François was the real father of the French Renaissance, the more +splendid flower which grew from the Italian stalk. He had no liking for +the Van Eycks and Holbeins of the Dutch school, reserving his favour for +the frankly languid masters from the south. He brought from Italy +Cellini, Primaticcio, and the great Leonardo, who it is said had a hand +in that wonderful shell-like spiral stairway in the château at Blois. + +By just what means Da Vinci was inveigled from Italy will probably never +be known. The art-loving François visited Milan, and among its +curiosities was shown the even then celebrated "Last Supper" of +Leonardo. The next we know is that, "_François repasse les Alpes ayant +avec lui Mon Sieur Lyonard, son peintre_." Leonardo was given a pension +of seven _ecus de France_ per year and a residence near Amboise. Vasari +recounts very precisely how Leonardo expired in the arms of his kingly +patron at Amboise, but on the other hand, the court chronicles have said +that François was at St. Germain on that day. Be this as it may, the +intimacy was a close one, and we may be sure that François felt keenly +the demise of this most celebrated painter of his court. + +It was during those early idyllic days at Amboise that the character of +François was formed, and the marvel is that the noble and endearing +qualities did not exceed the baser ones. To be sure his after lot was +hard, and his real and fancied troubles many, and they were not made the +less easy to bear because of his numerous female advisers. + +In his youth at Amboise his passions still slumbered, but when they did +awaken, they burst forth with an unquenchable fury. Meantime he was +working off any excess of imagination by boar-hunts and falconry in the +neighbouring forest of Chanteloup, and had more than one hand-to-hand +affray with resentful citizens of the town, when he encroached upon what +they considered their traditional preserves. So he grew to man's estate, +but the life that he lived in his youth under the kingly roof of the +château at Amboise gave him the benefits of all the loyalty which his +fellows knew, and it helped him carry out the ideas which were +bequeathed to him by his uncle. + +It was at a sitting of the court at Amboise, when François was still +under his mother's wing,--at the age of twenty only,--that the Bourbon +affair finally came to its head. Many notables were mixed up in it as +partisans of the ungrateful and ambitious Bourbon, Charles de +Montpensier, Connétable de France. It was an office only next in power +to that of the sovereign himself, and one which had been allowed to die +out in the reign of Louis XI. The final outcome of it all was that +François became a prisoner at Pavia, through the treachery of the +Connétable and his followers, who went over _en masse_ to François's +rival, Charles V., who, as Charles II., was King of Spain. + +Of the subsequent meeting with the Emperor Charles on French soil, +François said to the Duchesse d'Étampes: "It is with regret that I leave +you to meet the emperor at Amboise on the Loire." And he added: "You +will follow me with the queen." His queen at this time was poor Eleanor +of Portugal, herself a Spanish princess, Claude of France, his first +wife, having died. "These two," says Brantôme, "were the only virtuous +women of his household." + +The Emperor Charles was visibly affected by the meeting, though, it is +true, he had no love for his old enemy, François. Perhaps it was on +account of the duchess, for whom François had put aside Diane. At any +rate, the emperor was gallant enough to say to her: "It is only in +France that I have seen such a perfection of elegance and beauty. My +brother, your king, should be the envy of all the sovereigns of Europe. +Had I such a captive at my palace in Madrid, there were no ransom that I +would accept for her." + +François cared not for the lonely Spanish princess whom he had made his +queen; but he was somewhat susceptible to the charms of his +daughter-in-law, Catherine de Medici, the wife of his son Henri, who, +when at Amboise, was his ever ready companion in the chase. + +François was inordinately fond of the hunt, and made of it a most +strenuous pastime, full of danger and of hard riding in search of the +boar and the wolf, which abounded in the thick underwood in the +neighbourhood. One wonders where they, or, rather, their descendants, +have disappeared, since nought in these days but a frightened hare, a +partridge, or perhaps a timid deer ever crosses one's path, as he makes +his way by the smooth roads which cross and recross the forest behind +Amboise. + +When François II. was sixteen he became the nominal king of France. To +Amboise he and his young bride came, having been brought thither from +Blois, for fear of the Huguenot rising. The court settled itself +forthwith at Amboise, where the majestic feudal castle piled itself high +up above the broad, limpid Loire, feeling comparatively secure within +the protection of its walls. Here the Loire had widened to the +pretensions of a lake, the river being spanned by a bridge, which +crossed it by the help of the island, as it does to-day. + +Over this old stone bridge the court approached the castle, the retinue +brilliant with all the trappings of a luxurious age, archers, pages, +and men-at-arms. The king and his new-found bride, the winsome Mary +Stuart, rode well in the van. In their train were Catherine, the +"queen-mother" of three kings, the Cardinal de Lorraine, the Duc de +Guise, the Duc de Nemours, and a vast multitude of gay retainers, who +were moved about from place to place like pawns upon the chess-board, +and with about as much consideration. + +The gentle Mary Stuart, born in 1542, at Linlithgow, in stern Caledonia, +of a French mother,--Marie de Lorraine,--was doomed to misfortune, for +her father, the noble James V., prophesied upon his death-bed that the +dynasty would end with his daughter. + +At the tender age of five Mary was sent to France and placed in a +convent. Her education was afterward continued at court under the +direction of her uncle, the Cardinal de Lorraine. By ten she had become +well versed in French, Latin, and Italian, and at one time, according to +Brantôme, she gave a discourse on literature and the liberal arts--so +flourishing at the time--before the king and his court. Ronsard was her +tutor in versification, which became one of her favourite pursuits. + +Mary Stuart's charms were many. She was tall and finely formed, with +auburn hair shining like an aureole above her intellectual forehead, and +with a skin of such dazzling whiteness--a trite saying, but one which is +used by Brantôme--"that it outrivalled the whiteness of her veil." + +In the spring of 1558, when she was but sixteen, Mary Stuart was married +to the Dauphin, the weak, sickly François II., himself but a youth. He +was, however, sincerely and deeply fond of his young wife. + +Unexpectedly, through the death of Henri II. at the hands of Montgomery +at that ever debatable tournament, François II. ascended the throne of +France, and Mary Stuart saw herself exalted to the dizzy height which +she had not so soon expected. She became the queen of two kingdoms, and, +had the future been more propitious, the whole map of Europe might have +been changed. + +Disease had marked the unstable François for its own, and within a year +he passed from the throne to the grave, leaving his young queen a widow +and an orphan. + +Shortly afterward "_la reine blanche_" returned to her native Scotland, +bidding France that long, last, sad adieu so often quoted: + + "Farewell, beloved France, to thee! + Best native land, + The cherished strand + That nursed my tender infancy! + Farewell my childhood's happy day! + The bark, which bears me thus away, + Bears but the poorer moiety hence, + The nobler half remains with thee, + I leave it to thy confidence, + But to remind thee still of me!" + +The young sovereigns had had a most stately suite of apartments prepared +for them at Amboise, the lofty windows reaching from floor to ceiling +and overlooking the river and the vast terrace where was so soon to be +enacted that bloody drama to which they were to be made unwilling +witnesses. + +This gallery was wainscoted with old oak and hung with rich leathers, +and the lofty ceiling was emblazoned with heraldic emblems and +monograms, as was the fashion of the day. Brocades and tapestries, set +in great gold frames, lined the walls, and, in a boudoir or +retiring-room beyond, still definitely to be recognized, was a +remarkable series of embroidered wall decorations, a tapestry of flowers +and fruits with an arabesque border of white and gold, truly a queenly +apartment, and one that well became the luxurious and dainty Mary, who +came from Scotland to marry the youthful François. + +Mary Stuart knew little at the time as to why they had so suddenly +removed from Blois, but François soon told her, something after this +wise: "Our mother," said he, "is deeply concerned with affairs of state. +There is some conspiracy against her and your uncles, the Guises." + +"Tell me," she demanded, "concerning this dreadful conspiracy." + +"Were you not suspicious," he asked, querulously, "when we left for +Amboise so suddenly?" + +"_Ah, non, mon François_, methought that we came here to hold a jousting +tourney and to hunt in the forest...." + +"Well, at any rate, we are secure here from Turk, or Jew, or Huguenot, +my queen," replied the king. + +Within a short space a council was called in the great hall of Amboise, +which the Huguenot chiefs, Condé, Coligny, the Cardinal de +Chatillon,--who appears to have been a sort of a religious +renegade,--were requested to attend. A conciliatory edict was to be +prepared, and signed by the king, as a measure for gaining time and +learning further the plans of the conspirators. + +This edict ultimately was signed, but it was in force but a short time +and was a subterfuge which the youthful king deep in his heart--and he +publicly avowed the fact--deeply resented. Furthermore it did +practically nothing toward quelling the conspiracy. + +Through the plains of Touraine and over the hills from Anjou the +conspirators came in straggling bands, to rendezvous for a great _coup +de main_ at Amboise. They halted at farms and hid in vineyards, but the +royalists were on the watch and one after another the wandering bands +were captured and held for a bloody public massacre when the time should +become ripe. In all, two thousand or more were captured, including Jean +Barri de la Renaudie. This man was the leader, but he was merely a bold +adventurer, seeking his own advantage, and caring little what cause +employed his peculiar talents. This was his last affair, however, for +his corpse soon hung in chains from Amboise's bridge. Condé, Coligny, +and the other Calvinists soon learned that the edict was not worth the +paper on which it was written. + +After the two thousand had been dispersed or captured the +"queen-mother" threw off the mask. She led the trembling child-king and +queen toward the southern terrace, where, close beneath the windows of +the château, was built a scaffold, covered with black cloth, before +which stood the executioner clothed in scarlet. The prisoners were +ranged by hundreds along the outer rampart, guarded by archers and +musketeers. The windows of the royal apartment were open and here the +company placed themselves to witness the butchery to follow. + +Speechless with horror sat the young king and queen, until finally, as +another batch of mutilated corpses were thrown into the river below, the +young queen swooned. + +"My mother," said François, "I, too, am overcome by this horrible sight. +I crave your Highness's permission to retire; the blood of my subjects, +even of my enemies, is too horrible to contemplate." + +"My son," said the bloodthirsty Catherine, "I command you to stay. Duc +de Guise, support your niece, the Queen of France. Teach her her duty as +a sovereign. She must learn how to govern those hardy Scots of hers." + +It was on the very terraced platform on which one walks to-day that, +between two ranks of _hallebardiers_ and arquebusiers, moved that long +line of bareheaded and bowed men whose prayers went up to heaven while +they awaited the fate of the gallows. + +Either the cord or the sword-blade quickly accounted for the lives of +this multitude, and their blood flowed in rivulets, while above in the +gallery the willing and unwilling onlookers were gay with laughter or +dumb with sadness. + +When all this horrible murdering was over the Loire was literally a +reeking mass of corpses, if we are to believe the records of the time. +The chief conspirators were hung in chains from the castle walls, or +from the bridge, and the balustrades which overhang the street, which +to-day flanks the Loire beneath the castle walls, were filled with a +ribald crew of jeering partisans who knew little and cared less for +religion of any sort. + +Some days after the execution of the Calvinists the "Protestant poet" +and historian passed through the royal city with his _précepteur_ and +his father, and was shown the rows of heads planted upon pikes, which +decorated the castle walls, and thereupon vowed, if not to avenge, at +least to perpetuate the infamy in prose and verse, and this he did most +effectually. + +An odorous garden of roses, lilacs, honeysuckle, and hawthorn framed the +joyous architecture of the château, then as now, in adorable fashion; +but it could not purify the malodorous reputation which it had received +until the domain was ceded by Louis XIV. to the Duc de Penthièvre and +made a _duché-pairie_. + +It would be possible to say much more, but this should suffice to stamp +indelibly the fact that Touraine, in general, and the château of +Amboise, in particular, cradled as much of the thought and action of the +monarchy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as did the capital +itself. At any rate the memory of it all is so vivid, and the tangible +monuments of the splendour and intrigue of the court of those days are +so very numerous and magnificent, that one could not forget the parts +they played--once having seen them--if he would. + +After the assassination of the Duc de Guise at Blois, Amboise became a +prison of state, where were confined the Cardinal de Bourbon and César +de Vendôme (the sons of Henri IV. and Gabrielle d'Estrées), also Fouquet +and Lauzun. In 1762 the château was given by Louis XV. to the Duc de +Choiseul, and the great Napoleon turned it over to his ancient +colleague, Roger Ducos, who apparently cared little for its beauties +or associations, for he mutilated it outrageously. + +[Illustration: _Sculpture from the Chapelle de St. Hubert_] + +In later times the history of the château and its dependencies has been +more prosaic. The Emir Abd-el-Kader was imprisoned here in 1852, and +Louis Napoleon stayed for a time within its walls upon his return from +the south. To-day it belongs to the family of Orleans, to whom it was +given by the National Assembly in 1872, and has become a house of +retreat for military veterans. This is due to the generosity of the Duc +d'Aumale into whose hands it has since passed. The restoration which has +been carried on has made of Amboise an ideal reproduction of what it +once was, and in every way it is one of the most splendid and famous +châteaux of its kind, though by no means as lovable as the residential +châteaux of Chenonceaux or Langeais. + +The Chapelle de St. Hubert, which was restored by Louis Philippe, is the +chief artistic attraction of Amboise; a bijou of full-blown Gothic. It +is a veritable architectural joy of the period of Charles VIII., to whom +its erection was due. Its portal has an adorable bas-relief, +representing "La Chasse de St. Hubert," and showing St. Hubert, St. +Christopher, and St. Anthony, while above, in the tympanum, are +effigies of the Virgin, of Charles VIII., and of Anne de Bretagne. The +sculpture is, however, comparatively modern, but it embellishes a shrine +worthy in every way, for there repose the bones of Leonardo da Vinci. +Formerly Da Vinci's remains had rested in the chapel of the château +itself, dedicated to St. Florentin. + +Often the Chapelle de St. Hubert has been confounded with that described +by Scott in "Quentin Durward," but it is manifestly not the same, as +that was located in Tours or near there, and his very words describe the +architecture as "of the rudest and meanest kind," which this is not. +Over the arched doorway of the chapel at Tours there was, however, a +"statue of St. Hubert with a bugle-horn around his neck and a leash of +greyhounds at his feet," which may have been an early suggestion of the +later work which was undertaken at Amboise. + +All vocations came to have their protecting saints in the middle ages, +and, since "_la chasse_" was the great recreation of so many, +distinction was bestowed upon Hubert as being one of the most devout. +The legend is sufficiently familiar not to need recounting here, and, +anyway, the story is plainly told in this sculptured panel over the +portal of the chapel at Amboise. + +In this Chapel of St. Hubert was formerly held "that which was called a +hunting-mass. The office was only used before the noble and powerful, +who, while assisting at the solemnity, were usually impatient to +commence their favourite sport." + +The ancient Salle des Gardes of the château, with the windows giving on +the balcony overlooking the river, became later the Logis du Roi. From +this great chamber one passes on to the terrace near the foot of the +Grosse Tour, called the Tour des Minimes. It is this tower which +contains the "_escalier des voitures_." The entrance is through an +elegant portico leading to the upper stories. Above another portico, +leading from the terrace to the garden, is to be seen the emblem of +Louis XII., the porcupine, so common at Blois. + +In the fosse, which still remains on the garden side, was the +universally installed _jeu-de-paume_, a favourite amusement throughout +the courts of Europe in the middle ages. + +At the base of the château are clustered numerous old houses of the +sixteenth century, but on the river-front these have been replaced with +pretentious houses, cafés, automobile garages, and other modern +buildings. + +Near the Quai des Violettes are a series of subterranean chambers known +as the Greniers de César, dating from the sixteenth century. + +[Illustration: _Cipher of Anne de Bretagne, Hôtel de Ville, Amboise_] + +Even at this late day one can almost picture the great characters in the +drama of other times who stalked majestically through the apartments, +and over the very flagstones of the courts and terraces which one treads +to-day; Catherine de Medici with her ruffs and velvets; Henri de Guise +with all his wiles; Condé the proud; the second François, youthful but +wise; his girl queen, loving and sad; and myriads more of all ranks and +of all shades of morality,--all resplendent in the velvets and gold of +the costume of their time. + +Near the château is the Clos Luce, a Gothic habitation in whose oratory +died Leonardo da Vinci, on May 2, 1519. + +Immediately back of the château is the Forêt d'Amboise, the scene of +many gay hunting parties when the court was here or at Chenonceaux, +which one reaches by traversing the forest route. On the edge of this +forest is Chanteloup, remembered by most folk on account of its +atrocious Chinese-like pagoda, built of the débris of the Château de la +Bourdaisière, by the Duc de Choiseul, in memory of the attentions he +received from the nobles and bourgeois of the ville upon the fall of his +ministry and his disgrace at the hands of Louis XV. and La Du Barry. It +is a curious form to be chosen when one had such beautiful examples of +architectural art near by, only equalled, perhaps, in atrociousness by +the "Royal Pavilion" of England's George IV. + +La Bourdaisière, near Amboise, of which only the site remains, if not +one of the chief tourist attractions of the château country, has at +least a sentimental interest of abounding importance for all who recall +the details of the life of "La Belle Gabrielle." + +Here in Touraine Gabrielle d'Estrées was born in 1565. She was +twenty-six years old when Henri IV. first saw her in the château of her +father at Coeuvres. So charmed was he with her graces that he made her +his _maîtresse_ forthwith, though the old court-life chronicles of the +day state that she already possessed something more than the admiration +of Sebastian Zamet, the celebrated financier. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +CHENONCEAUX + +"The castle of Chenonceaux is a fine place on the river Cher, in a fine +and pleasant country." + + FRANÇOIS PREMIER. + +"The castle of Chenonceaux is one of the best and most beautiful of our +kingdom." + + HENRI II. + + +The average visitor will come prepared to worship and admire a château +so praised by two luxury-loving Kings of France. + +Chenonceaux is noted chiefly for its château, but the little village +itself is charming. The houses of the village are not very new, nor very +old, but the one long street is most attractive throughout its length, +and the whole atmosphere of the place, from September to December, is +odorous with the perfume of red-purple grapes. The vintage is not the +equal of that of the Bordeaux region, perhaps, nor of Chinon, nor +Saumur; but the _vin du pays_ of the Cher and the Loire, around Tours, +is not to be despised. + +Most tourists come to Chenonceaux by train from Tours; others drive over +from Amboise, and yet others come by bicycle or automobile. They are not +as yet so numerous as might be expected, and accordingly here, as +elsewhere in Touraine, every facility is given for visiting the château +and its park. + +If you do not hurry off at once to worship at the abode of the +fascinating Diane, one of the brightest ornaments of the court of +François Premier and his son Henri, you will enjoy your dinner at the +Hôtel du Bon Laboureur, though most likely it will be a solitary one, +and you will be put to bed in a great chamber overlooking the park, +through which peep, in the moonlight, the turrets of the château, and +you may hear the purling of the waters of the Cher as it flows below the +walls. + +Jean Jacques Rousseau, like François I., called Chenonceaux a beautiful +place, and he was right; it is all of that and more. Here one comes into +direct contact with an atmosphere which, if not feudal, or even +mediæval, is at least that of several hundred years ago. + +Chenonceaux is moored like a ship in the middle of the rapidly running +Cher, a dozen miles or more above where that stream enters the Loire. +As a matter of fact, the château practically bridges the river, which +flows under its foundations and beneath its drawbridge on either side, +besides filling the moat with water. The general effect is as if the +building were set in the midst of the stream and formed a sort of island +château. Round about is a gentle meadow and a great park, which give to +this turreted architectural gem of Touraine a setting which is equalled +by no other château. + +What the château was in former days we can readily imagine, for nothing +is changed as to the general disposition. Boats came to the water-gate, +as they still might do if such boats still existed, in true, pictorial +legendary fashion. To-day, the present occupant has placed a curiosity +on the ornamental waters in the shape of a gondola. It is out of keeping +with the grand fabric of the château, and it is a pity that it does not +cast itself adrift some night. What has become of the gondolier, who was +imported to keep the craft company, nobody seems to know. He is +certainly not in evidence, or, if he is, has transformed himself into a +groom or a _chauffeur_. + +The Château of Chenonceaux is not a very ample structure; not so ample +as most photographs would make it appear. It is not tiny, but still it +has not the magnificent proportions of Blois, of Chambord, or even of +Langeais. It was more a habitation than it was a fortress, a _maison de +campagne_, as indeed it virtually became when the Connétable de +Montmorency took possession of the structure in the name of the king, +when its builder, Thomas Bohier, the none too astute minister of +finances in Normandy, came to grief in his affairs. + +François I. came frequently here for "_la chasse_," and his memory is +still kept alive by the Chambre François Premier. François held +possession till his death, when his son made it over to the "admired of +two generations," Diane de Poitiers. + +Diane's memory will never leave Chenonceaux. To-day it is perpetuated in +the Chambre de Diane de Poitiers; but the portrait by Leonardo da Vinci, +which was supposed to best show her charms, has now disappeared from the +"long gallery" at the château. This portrait was painted at the command +of François, before Diane transferred her affections to his son. + +No one knows when or how Diane de Poitiers first came to fascinate +François, or how or why her power waned. At any rate, at the time +François pardoned her father, the witless Comte de St. Vallier, for the +treacherous part he played in the Bourbon conspiracy, he really believed +her to be the "brightest ornament of a beauty-loving court." + +Certainly, Diane was a powerful factor in the politics of her time, +though François himself soon tired of her. Undaunted by this, she +forthwith set her cap for his son Henri, the Duc d'Orleans, and won him, +too. Of her beauty the present generation is able to judge for itself by +reason of the three well-known and excellent portraits of contemporary +times. + +Diane's influence over the young Henri was absolute. At his death her +power was, of course, at an end, and Chenonceaux, and all else possible, +was taken from her by the orders of Catherine, the long-suffering wife, +who had been put aside for the fascinations of the charming huntress. + +It must have been some satisfaction, however, to Diane, to know that, in +his fatal joust with Montgomery, Henri really broke his lance and met +his death in her honour, for the records tell that he bore her colours +on his lance, besides her initials set in gold and gems on his shield. + +Catherine's eagerness to drive Diane from the court was so great, that +no sooner had her spouse fallen--even though he did not actually die for +some days--than she sent word to Diane, "who sat weeping alone," to +instantly quit the court; to give up the crown jewels--which Henri had +somewhat inconsiderately given her; and to "give up Chenonceaux in +Touraine," Catherine's Naboth's vineyard, which she had so long admired +and coveted. She had known it as a girl, when she often visited it in +company with her father-in-law, the appreciative but dissolute François, +and had ever longed to possess it for her own, before even her husband, +now dead, had given it to "that old hag Diane de Poitiers, Duchesse de +Valentinois." + +Diane paid no heed to Catherine's command. She simply asked: "Is the +king yet dead?" + +"No, madame," said the messenger, "but his wound is mortal; he cannot +live the day." + +"Tell the queen, then," replied Diane, "that her reign is not yet come; +that I am mistress still over her and the kingdom as long as the king +breathes the breath of life." + +Henri was more or less an equivocal character, devoted to Diane, and +likewise fondone says it with caution--of his wife. He caused to be +fashioned a monogram (seen at Chenonceaux) after this wise: [MONOGRAM +DEPICTING TWO CAPITAL LETTERS "D", THE SECOND OF WHICH IS INVERTED; THE +LETTERS ARE INTERWOVEN IN THEIR "(" AND ")" PARTS, AND THERE IS A +HORIZONTAL BAR CROSSING THEM IN THE MIDDLE] supposedly indicating his +attachment for Diane and his wife alike. The various initials of the +cipher are in no way involved. Diane returned the compliment by +decorating an apartment for the king, at her Château of Anet, with the +black and white of the Medici arms. + +The Château of Chenonceaux, so greatly coveted by Catherine when she +first came to France, and when it was in the possession of Diane, still +remains in all the regal splendour of its past. It lies in the lovely +valley of the Cher, far from the rush and turmoil of cities and even the +continuous traffic of great thoroughfares, for it is on the road to +nowhere unless one is journeying cross-country from the lower to the +upper Loire. This very isolation resulted in its being one of the few +monuments spared from the furies of the Revolution, and, "half-palace +and half-château," it glistens with the purity of its former glory, as +picturesque as ever, with turrets, spires, and roof-tops all mellowed +with the ages in a most entrancing manner. + +Even to-day one enters the precincts of the château proper over a +drawbridge which spans an arm of the Loire, or rather, a moat which +leads directly from the parent stream. On the opposite side are the +bridge piers supporting five arches, the work of Diane when she was the +fair chatelaine of the domain. This ingenious thought proved to be a +most useful and artistic addition to the château. It formed a flagged +promenade, lovely in itself, and led to the southern bank of the Cher, +whence one got charming vistas of the turrets and roof-tops of the +château through the trees and the leafy avenues which converged upon the +structure. + +[Illustration: CHÂTEAU DE CHENONCEAUX] + +When Catherine came she did not disdain to make the best use of Diane's +innovation that suggested itself to her, which was simply to build the +"Long Gallery" over the arches of this lovely bridge, and so make of it +a veritable house over the water. A covering was made quite as beautiful +as the rest of the structure, and thus the bridge formed a spacious wing +of two stories. The first floor--known as the "Long Gallery"--was +intended as a banqueting-hall, and possessed four great full-length +windows on either side looking up and down stream, from which was +seen--and is to-day--an outlook as magnificently idyllic as is possible +to conceive. Jean Goujon had designed for the ceiling one of those +wonder-works for which he was famous, but if the complete plan was ever +carried out, it has disappeared, for only a tiny sketch of the whole +scheme remains to-day. + +[Illustration: _Château of CHENONCEAUX_ (DIAGRAM)] + +Catherine came in the early summer to take possession of her +long-coveted domain. Being a skilful horsewoman, she came on horseback, +accompanied by a "_petite bande_" of feminine charmers destined to +wheedle political secrets from friends and enemies alike,--a real +"_escadron volant de la reine_," as it was called by a contemporary. + +It was a gallant company that assembled here at this time,--the young +King Charles IX., the Duc de Guise, and "two cardinals mounted on +mules,"--Lorraine, a true Guise, and D'Este, newly arrived from Italy, +and accompanied by the poet Tasso, wearing a "gabardine and a hood of +satin." Catherine showed the Italian great favour, as was due a +countryman, but there was another poet among them as well, Ronsard, the +poet laureate of the time. The Duc de Guise had followed in the wake of +Marguerite, unbeknownst to Catherine, who frowned down any possibility +of an alliance between the houses of Valois and Lorraine. + +A great fête and water-masque had been arranged by Catherine to take +place on the Cher, with a banquet to follow in the Long Gallery in +honour of her arrival at Chenonceaux. + +When twilight had fallen, torches were ignited and myriads of lights +blazed forth from the boats on the river and from the windows of the +château. Music and song went forth into the night, and all was as gay +and lovely as a Venetian night's entertainment. The hunting-horns echoed +through the wooded banks, and through the arches above which the château +was built passed great highly coloured barges, including a fleet of +gondolas to remind the queen-mother of her Italian days,--the ancestors +perhaps of the solitary gondola which to-day floats idly by the +river-bank just before the grand entrance to the château. From +_parterre_ and _balustrade_, and from the clipped yews of the ornamental +garden, fairy lamps burned forth and dwindled away into dim infinity, as +the long lines of soft light gradually lost themselves in the forest. It +was a grand affair and idyllic in its unworldliness. One may not see its +like to-day, for electric lights and "rag-time" music, which mostly +comprise the attractions of such _al fresco_ pleasures, will hardly +produce the same effect. + +Among the great fêtes at Chenonceaux will always be recalled that given +by the court upon the coming of the youthful François II. and Mary +Stuart, after the horrible massacres at Amboise. + +All the Renaissance skill of the time was employed in the erection of +pompous accessories, triumphal arches, columns, obelisks, and altars. +There were innumerable tablets also, bearing inscriptions in Latin and +Greek,--which nobody read,--and a fountain which bore the following: + + "Au saint bal des dryades, + A Phoebus, ce grand dieu, + Aux humides nyades, + J'ai consacré ce lieu." + +Of Chenonceaux and its glories what more can be said than to quote the +following lines of the middle ages, which in their quaint old French +apply to-day as much as ever they did: + + "Basti si magnifiquement + II est debout, comme un géant, + Dedans le lit de la rivière, + C'est-à-dire dessus un pont + Qui porte cent toises de long." + +The part of the edifice which Bohier erected in 1515 is that through +which the visitor makes his entrance, and is built upon the piers of an +old mill which was destroyed at that time. + +Catherine bequeathed Chenonceaux to the wife of Henri III., Louise de +Vaudémont, who died here in 1601. For a hundred years it still belonged +to royalty, but in 1730 it was sold to M. Dupin, who, with his wife, +enriched and repaired the fabric. They gathered around them a company so +famous as to be memorable in the annals of art and literature. This is +best shown by the citing of such names as Fontenelle, Montesquieu, +Buffon, Bolingbroke, Voltaire, and Rousseau, all of whom were +frequenters of the establishment, the latter being charged with the +education of the only son of M. and Madame Dupin. + +Considering Rousseau's once proud position among his contemporaries, and +the favour with which he was received by the nobility, it is somewhat +surprising that his struggle for life was so hard. The Marquise de +Créquy wrote in her "Souvenirs:" "Rousseau left behind him his +_Mémoires_, which I think for the sake of his memory and fame ought to +be much curtailed." And undoubtedly she was right. Rousseau wrote in his +"Confessions:" "In 1747 we went to spend the autumn in Touraine, at the +Château of Chenonceaux, a royal residence upon the Cher, built by Henri +II. for Diane de Poitiers, whose initials are still to be seen there.... +We amused ourselves greatly in this fine spot; the living was of the +best, and I became fat as a monk. We made a great deal of music and +acted comedies." + +One might imagine, from a stroll through the magnificent halls and +galleries of Chenonceaux, that Rousseau's experiences might be repeated +to-day if one were fortunate enough to be asked to sojourn there for a +time. The nearest that one can get, however, to becoming personally +identified with the château and its life is to sign his name in the +great vellum quarto which ultimately will rest in the archives of the +château. + +It is doubtless very wrong to be covetous; but Chenonceaux is such a +beautiful place and comes so near the ideal habitation of our +imagination that the desire to possess it for one's own is but human. + +In the "Galerie Louis XIV." were given the first representations of many +of Rousseau's pieces. + +One gathers from these accounts of the happenings in the Long Gallery +that it formed no bridge of sighs, and most certainly it did not. Its +walls resounded almost continually with music and laughter. Here in +these rooms Henri II. danced and made love and intrigued, while +Catherine, his queen, was left at Blois with her astrologer and his +poisons, to eat out her soul in comparative neglect. + +Before the time of the dwelling built by Bohier for himself and family +on the foundations of the old mill, there was yet a manorhouse +belonging to the ancient family of Marques, from whom the Norman +financier bought the site. The tower, seen to-day at the right of the +entrance to the château proper,--an expressive relic of feudal +times,--was a part of the earlier establishment. To-day it is turned +into a sort of _kiosque_ for the sale of photographs, post-cards, and an +admirable illustrated guide to the château. + +The interior of the château to-day presents the following remarkable +features: The dining-room of to-day, formerly the Salle des Gardes, has +a ceiling in which the cipher of Catherine de Medici is interwoven with +an arabesque. To the left of this apartment is the entrance to the +chapel, which to-day seems a bit incongruously placed, leading as it +does from the dining-room. It is but a tiny chapel, but it is as gay and +brilliant as if it were still the adjunct of a luxury-loving court, and +it has some glass dating from 1521, which, if not remarkable for design +or colouring, is quite choice enough to rank as an art treasure of real +value. + +According to Viollet-le-Duc each feudal seigneur had attached to his +château a chapel, often served by a private chaplain, and in some +instances by an entire chapter of prelates. These chapels were not +simple oratories surrounded by the domestic apartments, but were +architectural monuments in themselves, and either entirely isolated, as +at Amboise, or semi-detached, as at Chenonceaux. + +Below, in the sub-basement, at Chenonceaux, are the original foundations +upon which Bohier laid his first stones. Here, too, are various +chambers, known respectively as the prison, the Bains de la Reine, the +_boulangerie_, etc. + +Chenonceaux to-day is no whited sepulchre. It is a real living and +livable thing, and, moreover, when one visits it, he observes that the +family burn great logs in their fireplaces, have luxurious bouquets of +flowers on their dining-table, and use great wax candles instead of the +more prosaic oil-lamps, or worse--acetylene gas. Chenonceaux evidently +has no thoughts of descending to steam heat and electricity. + +All this is as it should be, for when one visits a shrine like this he +prefers to find it with as much as possible of the old-time atmosphere +remaining. Chambord is bare and suggestive of the tomb, in spite of the +splendour of its outline and proportions; Pierrefonds, in the north, is +more so, and so would be Blois except for its restored or imitation +decorations; but here at Chenonceaux all is different, and breathes the +spirit of other days as well as that of to-day. It is, perhaps, not +exactly as Diane left it, or as Rousseau knew it under the régime of the +Dupins, since, after many changings of hands, it became the property of +the _Crédit Foncier_, by whom it was sold in 1891 to Mr. Terry, an +American. + +Chenonceaux has two other architectural monuments which are often +overlooked under the spell of the more magnificent château. In the +village is a small Renaissance church--in which the Renaissance never +rose to any very great heights--which is here far more effective and +beautiful than usually are Renaissance churches of any magnitude. There +is also a sixteenth-century stone house in the same style and even more +successful as an expression of the art of the time. It is readily found +by inquiry, and is known as the "Maison des Pages de François I." + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +LOCHES + + +Much may be written of Loches, of its storied past, of its present-day +quaintness, and of its wealth of architectural monuments. Its church is +certainly the most curious religious edifice in all France, judging from +a cross-section of the vaults and walls. More than all else, however, +Loches is associated in our minds with the memory of Agnes Sorel. + +Within the walls of the old collegiate church the lovely mistress of +Charles VII. was buried in 1450; but later her remains and tomb were +removed to one of the towers of the ancient castle of Loches, where they +now are. She had amply endowed the church, but they would no longer give +shelter to her remains, so her bones were removed five hundred years +later. The statue which surmounts her tomb, as seen to-day, represents +the "gentille Agnes" in all her loveliness, with folded hands on breast, +a kneeling angel at her head and a couchant lamb at her feet,--a +reminder of her innocence, said Henry James, but surely he nodded when +he said it. Lovely she was, and good in her way, but innocent she was +not, as we have come to know the word. + +[Illustration: _Loches_] + +It is fitting to recall that Charles VII. was not the only monarch who +sang her praises, for it was François I. who, many years later, wrote +those lines beginning: + +"Gentille Agnes, plus de loz tu mérites." + +Whether one comes to Loches by road or by rail, the first impression is +the same; he enters at once into a sleepy, old-world town which has +practically nothing of modernity about it except the electric lights. + +There is but one way to realize the immense wealth of architectural +monuments centred at Loches, and that is to see the city for the first +time, as, perhaps, François Premier saw it when he journeyed from +Amboise, and came upon it from the heights of the forest of Loches. The +city has not grown much since that day. Then it had three thousand eight +hundred souls, and now it has five thousand. + +Here, in the Forêt de Loches, Henry II. of England built a +monastery,--yet to be seen,--known as the Chartreuse du Liget, in +repentance, or, perhaps, as a penance for the murder of Becket. Over the +doorway of this monastery was graven: + + ANGLORUM HENRICUS REX + THOMÆ COEDE CRUENTUS, + LIGETICOS FUNDAT CARTUSIA MONAKOS. + +To-day the monastery is the property of a M. de Marsay, and therefore +not open to the public; but the Chapelle du Liget, near by, is a fine +contemporary church of the thirteenth century, well worth the admiration +too infrequently bestowed upon it. + +The first view of Loches must really be much as it was in François's +time, except, perhaps, that the roadway down from the forest has +improved, as roads have all over France, and fruit-trees and vineyards +planted out, which, however, in no way change the aspect when the town +is first seen in the dim haze of an early November morning. + +It is the sky-line _ensemble_ of the châteaux of the Renaissance period +which is their most varied feature. No two are alike, and yet they are +all wonderfully similar in that they cut the sky with turret, tower, and +chimney in a way which suggests nothing as much as the architecture of +fairy-land. + +The artists who illustrated the old fairy-tale books and drew castles +wherein dwelt beautiful maidens could nowhere have found more real +inspiration than among the châteaux of the Loire, the Cher, and the +Indre. + +Loches is a veritable mediæval town, and it is even more than that, for +its history dates back into the earliest years of feudal times. Loches +is one of those _soi-disant_ French towns not great enough to be a +metropolis, and yet quite indifferent to the affairs of the outside +world. + +The only false notes are those sounded by the various hawkers and +cadgers for the visitor's money, who have hired various old mediæval +structures, within the walls, and assure one that in the basement of +their establishment there are fragments "recently discovered,"--this in +English,--quite worth the price of admission which they charge you to +peer about in a gloomy hole of a cellar, littered with empty +wine-bottles and rubbish of all sorts. + +All this is delightful enough to the simon-pure antiquarian; but even he +likes to dig things out for himself, and the householders can't all +expect to find _cachots_ in their sub-cellars or iron cages in their +garrets unless they manufacture them. + +The old town, in spite of its lack of modernity, is full of surprises +and contrasts that must make it very livable to one who cares to spend a +winter within its walls. He may walk about on the ramparts on sunny +days; may fish in the Indre, below the mill; and, if he is an artist, he +will find, within a comparatively small area, much more that is +exceedingly "paintable" than is usually found in the fishing-villages of +Brittany or on the sand-dunes of the Pas de Calais, "artist's +sketching-grounds" which have been pretty well worked of late. + +[Illustration: _Loches and Its Church_] + +The history of Loches is so varied and vivid that it is easy to account +for the many remains of feudal and Renaissance days now existing. The +derivation of its name is in some doubt. Loches was unquestionably the +Luccæ of the Romans, but the Armorican Celts had the word _loc'h_, +meaning much the same thing,--_un marais_,--which is also wonderfully +like the _loch_ known to-day in the place-names of Scotland and the +_lough_ of Ireland. Partisans may take their choice. + +In the fifth century a monastery was founded here by St. Ours, which +ultimately gave its name to the collegiate church which exists to-day. A +château, or more probably a fortress, appeared in the sixth century. The +city was occupied by the Franks in the seventh century, but by 630 it +had become united with Aquitaine. Pepin sacked it in 742, and Charles le +Chauve made it a seat of a hereditary government which, by alliance, +passed to the house of Anjou in 886, to whom it belonged up to 1205. +Jean-sans-Terre gave it to France in 1193. Richard Coeur de Lion +apparently resented this, for he retook it in the year following. In +1204, Philippe-Auguste besieged Chinon and Loches simultaneously, and +took the latter after a year, when he made it a fief, and gave it to +Dreux de Mello, Constable of France, who in turn sold it to St. Louis. + +The château of Loches became first a fortress, guarding the ancient +Roman highway from the Blaisois to Aquitaine, then a prison, and then a +royal residence, to which Charles VII. frequently repaired with Agnes +Sorel, which calls up again the strangely contrasting influences of the +two women whose names have gone down in history linked with that of +Charles VII. + +"Louis XI. aggrandized the château," says a French authority, "and +perfected the prisons," whatever that may mean. He did, we know, build +those terrible dungeons far down below the surface of the ground, where +daylight never penetrated. They were perfect enough in all conscience as +originally built, at least as perfect as the celebrated iron cage in +which he imprisoned Cardinal Balue. The cage is not in its wonted place +to-day, and only a ring in the wall indicates where it was once made +fast. + +Charles VIII. added the great round tower; but it was not completed +until the reign of Louis XII. François I., in a not too friendly +meeting, received Charles Quint here in 1539, just previous to his visit +to Amboise. Marie de Medici, on escaping from Blois, stopped at the +château at the invitation of the governor, the Duc d'Epernon, who sped +her on her way, as joyfully as possible, to Angoulême. + +The château itself is the chief attraction of interest, just as it is +the chief feature of the landscape when viewed from afar. Of course it +is understood that, when one speaks of the château at Loches, he refers +to the collective châteaux which, in more or less fragmentary form, go +to make up the edifice as it is to-day. + +Whether we admire most the structure of Geoffrey Grise-Gonelle, the +elegant edifice of the fifteenth century, or the additions of Charles +VII., Louis XI., Charles VIII., Louis XII., or Henri III., we must +conclude that to know this conglomerate structure intimately one must +actually live with it. Nowhere in France--perhaps in no country--is +there a château that suggests so stupendously the story of its past. + +The chief and most remarkable features are undoubtedly the great +rectangular keep or donjon, and the Tour Neuf or Tour Ronde. The first, +in its immensity, quite rivals the best examples of the kind elsewhere, +if it does not actually excel them in dimensions. It is, moreover, +according to De Caumont, the most beautiful of all the donjons of +France. As a state prison it confined Jean, Duc d'Alençon, Pierre de +Brézé, and Philippe de Savoie. + +The Tour Ronde is a great cylinder flanked with dependencies which give +it a more or less irregular form. It encloses the prison where were +formerly kept the famous cages, the invention of Cardinal Balue, who +himself became their first victim. The Tour Ronde is reminiscent of two +great female figures in the mediæval portrait gallery,--Agnes Sorel and +Anne de Bretagne. The tomb of Agnes Sorel is here, and the Duchesse Anne +made an oratory in this grim tower, from which she sent up her prayer +for the success and unity of the political plans which inspired her +marriage into the royal family of France. It is a daintily decorated +chamber, with the queen's family device, the ermine with its twisted +necklet, prominently displayed. + +In the passage which conducts to the dungeons of this great round tower, +one reads this ironical invitation: "_Entrés, messieurs, ches le Roy +Nostre Mestre_" (_O.F._). + +That portion of the collective châteaux facing to the north is now +occupied by the Sous-Préfecture, and is more after the manner of the +residential châteaux of the Loire than of a fortress-stronghold or +prison. Before this portion stands the famous chestnut-tree, planted, it +is said, by François I., "and large enough to shelter the whole +population of Loches beneath its foliage," says the same doubtful +authority. + +Under a fifteenth-century structure, called the Martelet, are the true +dungeons of Loches. Here one is shown the cell occupied for nine years +by the poor Ludovic Sforza, who died in 1510, from the mere joy of being +liberated. More deeply hidden still is the famous Prison des Évêques of +the era of François I. and the dungeon of Comte de St. Vallier, the +father of the fascinating Diane, who herself was the means of securing +his liberation by "fascinating the king," as one French writer puts it. +This may be so. St. Vallier _was_ liberated, we know, and the +susceptible François _was_ fascinated, though he soon tired of Diane and +her charms. She had the perspicacity, however, to transfer her +affections to his son, and so kept up a sort of family relationship. + +Like the historic "prisoner of Gisors," the occupants of the dungeons at +Loches whiled away their lonely hours by inscribing their sentiments +upon the walls. Only one remains to-day, though fragmentary stone-carved +letters and characters are to be seen here and there. He who wrote the +following was certainly as cheerful as circumstances would allow: + + "Malgré les ennuis d'une longue souffrance, + Et le cruel destin dont je subis la loy, + Il est encort des biens pour moy, + Le tendre amour et la douce espérance." + +Most of these formidable dungeons of Loches were prisons of state until +well into the sixteenth century. + +[Illustration: _Sketch Plan of Loches_] + +Beneath, or rather beside, the very walls of the château is the bizarre +collegiate church of St. Ours. One says bizarre, simply because it is +curious, and not because it is unchurchly in any sense of the word, for +it is not. Its low nave is surmounted by an enormous tower with a stone +spire, while there are two other pyramidal erections over the roof of +the choir which make the whole look, not like an elephant, as a cynical +Frenchman once wrote, but rather like a camel with two humps. This +strange architectural anomaly is, in parts, almost pagan; certainly its +font, a fragment of an ancient altar on which once burned a sacred fire, +_is_ pagan. + +[Illustration: _St. Ours, Loches_] + +There is a Romanesque porch of vast dimensions which is the real +artistic expression of the fabric, dressed with extraordinary primitive +sculptures of saints, demons, stryges, gnomes, and all manner of outré +things. All these details, however, are chiselled with a masterly +conception. + +Behind this exterior vestibule the first bays of the nave form another, +a sort of an inner vestibule, which carries out still further the unique +arrangement of the whole edifice. This portion of the structure dates +from a consecration of the year 965, which therefore classes it as of +very early date,--indeed, few are earlier. Most of the church, however, +is of the twelfth century, including another great pyramid which rises +above the nave and the two smaller ones just behind the spire. The +side-aisles of the nave were added between the twelfth and fifteenth +centuries, while only the stalls and the tabernacle are as recent as the +sixteenth. The eastern end is triapsed, an unusual feature in France. +From this one realizes, quite to the fullest extent possible, the +antiquity and individuality of the Église de St. Ours at Loches. + +The quaint Renaissance Hôtel-de-Ville was built by the architect Jean +Beaudoin (1535-1543), from sums raised, under letters patent from +François I., by certain _octroi_ taxes. From the fact that through its +lower story passes one of the old city entrances, it has come to be +known also as the Porte Picoys. In every way it is a worthy example of +Renaissance civic architecture. + +In the Rue de Château is a remarkable Renaissance house, known as the +Chancellerie, which dates from the reign of Henri II. It has most +curious sculptures on its façade interspersed with the devices of +royalty and the inscription: + + IVSTITIA REGNO, PRUDENTIA NUTRISCO. + +The Tour St. Antoine serves to-day as the city's belfry. It is all that +remains of a church, demolished long since, which was built in 1519-30, +in imitation of St. Gatien's of Tours. Doubtless it was base in many of +its details, as is its more famous compeer at Tours; but, if the old +tower which remains is any indication, it must have been an elaborate +and imposing work of the late Gothic and early Renaissance era. + +As a literary note, lovers of Dumas's romances will be interested in the +fact that in the Hôtel de la Couroirie at Loches a body of Protestants +captured the celebrated Chicot, the jester of Henri III. and Henri IV. + +Loches has a near neighbour in Beaulieu, which formerly possessed an +ardent hatred for its more progressive and successful contemporary, +Loches. Its very name has been perverted by local historians as coming +from Bellilocus, "the place of war," and not "_le lieu d'un bel +aspect_." + +The abbey church at Beaulieu was built by the warlike Foulques Nerra (in +1008-12), who usually built fortresses and left church-building to monks +and bishops. It is a remarkable Romanesque example, though, since the +fifteenth century, it has been mostly in ruins. Foulques Nerra himself, +whose countenance had "_la majesté de celui d'un ange_," found his last +resting-place within its walls, which also sheltered much rich ornament, +to-day greatly defaced, though that of the nave, which is still intact, +is an evidence of its former worth. + +The abbatial residence, still existent, has a curious exterior pulpit +built into the wall, examples of which are not too frequent in France. + +Agnes Sorel, the belle of belles, lived here for a time in a house near +the Porte de Guigné, which bears a great stone _panonceau_, from which +the armorial bearings have to-day disappeared. It is another notable +monument to "the most graceful woman of her times," and without doubt +has as much historic value as many another more popular shrine of +history. + +In connection with Agnes Sorel, who was so closely identified with +Loches and Beaulieu, it is to be recalled that she was known to the +chroniclers of her time as "_la dame de Beauté-sur-Marne_,"--a place +which does not appear in the books of the modern geographers. It may be +noted, too, that it was the encouragement of the "_belle des belles_" of +Charles VII. that, in a way, contributed to that monarch's success in +politics and arms, for her sway only began with Jeanne d'Arc's +supplication at Gien and Chinon. Tradition has it, indeed, that it was +the "gentille Agnes" who put the sword of victory in his hands when he +set out on his campaign of reconquest. Thus does the Jeanne d'Arc legend +receive a damaging blow. + +[Illustration: _Tours_] + +The château of Sausac, an elegant edifice of the sixteenth century, +completely restored in later days, is near by. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +TOURS AND ABOUT THERE + + +Tours, above all other of the ancient capitals of the French provinces, +remains to-day a _ville de luxe_, the elegant capital of a land balmy +and delicious; a land of which Dante sung: + + "Terra molle, e dolce e dilettosa...." + +It is not a very grand town as the secondary cities of France go; not +like Rouen or Lyons, Bordeaux or Marseilles; but it is as typical a +reflection of the surrounding country as any, and therein lies its +charm. + +One never comes within the influence of its luxurious, or, at least, +easy and comfortable appointments, its distinctly modern and up-to-date +railway station, its truly magnificent modern Hôtel de Ville, its +well-appointed hotels and cafés and its luxurious shops, but that he +realizes all this to a far greater extent than in any other city of +France. + +And again, referring to the material things of life, everything is most +comfortable, and the restaurants and hotels most attractive in their +fare. Tours is truly one provincial capital where the _cuisine +bourgeoise_ still lives. + +Touraine, and Tours in particular, besides many other things, is noted +for its hotels. Their praises have been sung often and loudly, not +forgetting Henry James's praise of the Hôtel de l'Univers, which is all +one expects to find it and more. The same may be said of the Hôtel du +Croissant, with the added opinion that it serves the most bountiful and +excellent _déjeuner_ to be had in all provincial France. It is difficult +to say just what actually causes all this excellence and abundance, +except that the catering there is an easy and pleasurable occupation. + +The Rue Nationale--"_toujours et vraiment royale_"--is the great artery +of Tours running riverwards. On it circulates all the life of the city. + +To the right is the Quartier de la Cathédrale, where are assembled the +great houses of the nobility--or such of them as are left--and of the +old _bourgeoisie tourangelle_. + +To the left are the streets of the workers, a silk-mill or two, and the +printing-offices. Tours is and always has been celebrated for the +number and size of its _imprimeries_, with which, in olden times, the +name of the great Christopher Plantin, the master printer of Antwerp, +was connected. To-day, Tours's greatest establishment is that of Alfred +Mame et Fils, known throughout the Roman Catholic world. + +[Illustration: ARMS OF THE PRINTERS, _AVOCATS_, AND INNKEEPERS, TOURS] + +The printers and booksellers of the middle ages were favoured persons, +and their rank was high. In the days of solemn processions the +booksellers led the way, followed by the paper-makers, the +parchment-makers, the scribes,--who had not wholly died out,--the +binders and the illuminators. In these days the printers were granted an +emblazoned arms, which was characteristic and distinguished. The same +was true of the _avocats_, who bore upon their escutcheon a gowned +figure, with something very like a halo surrounding its head. The +innkeepers went one better, and had a bishop with an undeniable halo. +This is curious and inexplicable in the light of our modern conception +of similar things, but it's better than a shield with quarterings +representing half a canal-boat and half a locomotive, which was recently +adopted by an enterprising watering-place which shall be nameless. + +In the same ancient quarter are the old towers of Charlemagne and St. +Martin. This part of the town is the nucleus of the old foundation, the +site of the _oppidum_ of the _Turones_, the _Cæsarodunum gallo-romain_, +and of the life which centred around the old abbey of St. Martin, so +venerated and so powerful in the middle ages. + +To the inviolable refuge of this old abbey came multitudes of Christian +pilgrims from the world over; the Merovingians to undergo the penances +imposed upon them by the bishops and clerics in expiation of their +crimes. Under Charlemagne, the Abbé Alcuin founded great schools of +languages, history, astronomy, and music, from which founts of learning +went forth innumerable and illustrious religious teachers. + +All but the two towers of this old religious foundation are gone. The +years of the Revolution saw the fall of the abbey; a street was cut +through the nave of its church, and the two dismembered parts stand +to-day as monuments to the sacrilege of modern times. + +To-day a banal faubourg has sprung up around the site of the abbey, with +here and there old tumble-down houses either of wood and stone, such as +one reads of in the pages of Balzac, or sees in the designs of Doré, or +with their sides covered with overlapping slates. + +Amid all these is an occasional treasure of architectural art, such as +the graceful Fountain of Beaune, the work of Michel Colombe, and some +remains of early Renaissance houses of somewhat more splendid +appointments than their fellows, particularly the Maison de Tristan +l'Hermite, the Hôtel Xaincoings, and many exquisite fragments now made +over into an _auberge_ or a _cabaret_, which make one dream of Rabelais +and his Gargantua. + +It is uncertain whether Michel Colombe, who designed this fountain and +also that masterwork, the tomb of the Duc François II. and Marguerite de +Foix, at Nantes, was a Tourangeau or a Breton, but Tours claims him for +her own, and settles once for all the spelling of his name by producing +a "_papier des affaires_" signed plainly "Colombe." The proof lies in +this document, signed in a notary's office at Tours, concerning payments +which were made to him on behalf of the magnificent sepulchre which he +executed for the church of St. Sauveur at La Rochelle. In his +time--fifteenth century--Colombe had no rivals in the art of monumental +sculpture in France, and with reason he has been called the Michel Ange +of France. + +The cathedral quarter has for its chief attraction that gorgeously +florid St. Gatien, whose ornate façade was likened by a certain monarch +to a magnificently bejewelled casket. It is an interesting and lovable +Gothic-Renaissance church which, if not quite of the first rank among +the masterpieces of its kind, is a marvel of splendour, and an example +of the "_caprices d'une guipure d'art_," as the French call it. + +Bordering the Loire at Tours is a series of tree-lined quays and +promenades which are the scenes, throughout the spring and summer +months, of fêtes and fairs of many sorts. Here, too, at the extremity of +the Rue Nationale, are statues of Descartes and Balzac. + +The Tour de Guise on the river-bank recalls the domination of the +Plantagenet kings of England, who were Counts of Anjou since it formed a +part of the twelfth-century château built here by Henry II. of England. + +[Illustration: SCENE IN THE QUARTIER DE LA CATHÉDRALE, TOURS] + +At the opposite extremity of the city is another other tower, the Tour +de Foubert, which protected the feudal domain of the old abbey of St. +Martin. The history of days gone by at Tours was more churchly than +political. + +Once only--during the reign of Louis XII.--did the States General meet +at Tours (in 1506). Then the deputies of the _bourgeoisie_ met alone for +their deliberations, the chief outcome of which was to bestow upon the +king the eminently fitting title of "Père du Peuple." One may question +the righteousness of Louis XII. in throwing over his wife, Jeanne de +France, in order to serve political ends by acquiring the estates of +Anne of Brittany for the Crown of France for ever, but there is no doubt +but that he did it for the "_good of his people_." + +The principal literary shrine at Tours is the house, in the Rue +Nationale, where was born Honoré de Balzac. + +One could not do better than to visit Tours during the "_été de St. +Martin_," since it was the soldier-priest of Tours who gave his name to +that warm, bright prolongation of summer which in France (and in +England) is known as "St. Martin's summer," and which finds its +counterpart in America's "Indian summer." + +The legend tells us that somewhere in the dark ages lived a soldier +named Martin. He was always of a charitable disposition, and none asked +alms of him in vain. One November day, when the wind blew briskly and +the snow fell fast, a beggar asked for food and clothing. Martin had but +his own cloak, and this he forthwith tore in half and gave one portion +to the beggar. Later on the same night there came a knocking at Martin's +door; the snow had ceased falling and the stars shone brightly, and one +of goodly presence stood with the cloak on his arm, saying, "I was naked +and ye clothed me." Martin straightway became a priest of the church, +and died an honoured bishop of Tours, and for ever after the anniversary +of his conversion is celebrated by sunny skies. + +We owe a double debt to St. Martin. We have to thank him for the saying, +"_All my eye_" and the words "_chapel_" and "_chaplain_." The full form +of the phrase, "_All my eye and Betty Martin_," which we all of us have +often heard, is an obvious corruption of "_O mihi beate Martine_," the +beginning of an invocation to the saint. The cloak he divided with a +naked beggar, which, by the way, took place at Amiens, not at Tours, was +treasured as a relic by the Frankish kings, borne before them in battle, +and brought forth when solemn oaths were to be taken. The guardians of +this cloak or cape were known as "_cappellani_," whence "_chaplain_," +while its sanctuary or "_cappella_" has become "_chapel_." + +For their descriptions of Plessis-les-Tours modern English travellers +have invariably turned to the pages of Sir Walter Scott. This is all +very well in its way, but it is also well to remember that Scott drew +his picture from definite information, and it is not merely the product +of his imaginary architectural skill. In this respect Scott was +certainly far ahead of Carlyle in his estimates of French matters. + +"Even in those days" (writing of "Quentin Durward"), said Scott, "when +the great found themselves obliged to reside in places of fortified +strength, it" (Plessis-les-Tours) "was distinguished for the extreme and +jealous care with which it was watched and defended." All this is +substantiated and corroborated by authorities, and, while it may have +been chosen by Scott merely as a suitable accessory for the details of +his story, Plessis-les-Tours unquestionably was a royal stronghold of +such proportions as to be but meanly suggested by the scanty remains of +the present day. + +Louis XI. dreamed fondly of Plessis-les-Tours (Plessis being from the +Latin _Plexitium_, a name borne by many suburban villages of France), +and he sought to make it a royal residence where he should be safe from +every outward harm. It had four great towers, crenelated and +machicolated, after the best Gothic fortresses of the time. At the four +angles of the protecting walls were the principal logis, and between the +lines of its ramparts or fosses was an advance-guard of buildings +presumably intended for the vassals in time of danger. + +This was the castle as Louis first knew it, when it was the property of +the chamberlain of the Duchy of Luynes, from whom the king bought it for +five thousand and five hundred _écus d'or_,--the value of fifty thousand +francs of to-day. + +Its former appellation, Montilz-les-Tours, was changed (1463) to +Plessis. All the chief features have disappeared, and to-day it is but a +scrappy collection of tumble-down buildings devoted to all manner of +purposes. A few fragmentary low-roofed vaults are left, and a brick and +stone building, flanked by an octagonal tower, containing a stairway; +but this is about all of the former edifice, which, if not as splendid +as some other royal residences, was quite as effectively defended and as +suitable to its purposes as any. + +[Illustration: _PLESSIS-Les-TOURS. In the time of Louis XI_] + +It had, too, within its walls a tiny chapel dedicated to Our Lady of +Cléry, before whose altar the superstitious Louis made his inconstant +devotions. + +Once a great forest surrounded the château, and was, as Scott says, +"rendered dangerous and well-nigh impracticable by snares and traps +armed with scythe-blades, which shred off the unwary traveller's limbs +... and calthrops that would pierce your foot through, and pitfalls deep +enough to bury you in them for ever." To-day the forest has disappeared, +"lost in the night of time," as a French historian has it. + +The detailed description in "Quentin Durward" is, however, as good as +any, and, if one has no reference works in French by him, he may well +read the dozen or more pages which Sir Walter devotes to the further +description of the castle. + +Perhaps, after all, it is fitting that a Scot should have written so +enthusiastically of it, for the castle itself was guarded by the +Scottish archers, "to the number of three hundred gentlemen of the best +blood of Scotland." + +An anonymous poet has written of the ancient glory of this retreat of +Louis's as follows: + + "Un imposant château se présente à la vue, + Par des portes de fer l'entrée est défendue; + Les murs en sont épais et les fossés profonds; + On y voit des créneaux, des tours, des bastions, + Et des soldats armés veillent sur ses murailles." + +Frame this with such details as the surrounding country supplies, the +Cher on one side, the Loire on the other, and the fertile hills of St. +Cyr, of Ballon, and of Joué, and one has a picture worthy of the +greatest painter of any time. + +Louis XI. died at Plessis, after having lived there many years. Louis +XII. made of it a _rendezvous de chasse_, but François II. confided its +care to a governor and would never live in it. Louis XIV. gave the +governorship as a hereditary perquisite to the widow of the Seigneur de +Sausac. + +In 1778 it was used as a sort of retreat for the indigent, though +happily enough Touraine was never overburdened with this class of +humanity. Under Louis XV. a Mademoiselle Deneux, a momentary rival of La +Pompadour and Du Barry, found a retreat here. Later it became a _maison +de correction_, and finally a _dépôt militaire_. At the time of the +Revolution it was declared to be national property, and on the +_nineteenth Nivoise, Year IV._, Citizen Cormeri, justice of the peace at +Tours, fixed its value at one hundred and thirty-one thousand francs. + +To-day it is as bare and uncouth as a mere barracks or as a disused +flour-mill, and its ruins are visited partly because of their former +historical glories, as recalled by students of French history, and +partly because of the glamour which was shed over it, for English +readers, by Scott. + +Sixty years ago a French writer deplored the fact that, on leaving these +scanty remains of a so long gone past, he observed a notice nailed to a +pillar of the _porte-cochère_ reading: + + LA FERME DU PLESSIS + O LOUER OU A VENDRE + +To-day some sort of a division and rearrangement of the property has +been made, but the result is no less mournful and sad, and thus a +glorious page of the annals of France has become blurred. + +It is interesting to recall what manner of persons composed the +household of Louis XI. when he resided at Plessis-les-Tours. Commines, +his historian, has said that habitually it consisted of a chancellor, a +_juge de l'hôtel_, a private secretary, and a treasurer, each having +under him various employees. In addition there was a master of the +pantry, a cupbearer, a _chef de bouche_ and a _chef de cuisine_, a +_fruitier_, a master of the horse, a quartermaster or master-at-arms, +and, in immediate control of these domestic servants, a _seneschal_ or +_grand maître_. In many respects the household was not luxuriously +conducted, for the parsimonious Louis lived fully up to the false maxim: +"_Qui peu donne, beaucoup recueille._" + +Louis himself was fond of doing what the modern housewife would call +"messing about in the kitchen." He did not dabble at cookery as a +pastime, or that sort of thing; but rather he kept an eagle eye on the +whole conduct of the affairs of the household. + +One day, coming to the kitchen _en négligé_, he saw a small boy turning +a spit before the fire. + +"And what might you be called?" said he, patting the lad on the +shoulder. + +"Etienne," replied the _marmiton_. + +"Thy _pays_, my lad?" + +"Le Berry." + +"Thy age?" + +"Fifteen, come St. Martin's." + +"Thy wish?" + +"To be as great as the king" (he had not recognized his royal master). + +"And what wishes the king?" + +"His expenses to become less." + +The reply brought good fortune for the lad, for Louis made him his +_valet de chambre_, and took him afterward into his most intimate +confidence. + +Louis was fond of _la chasse_, and Scott does not overlook this fact in +"Quentin Durward." When affairs of state did not press, it was the +king's greatest pleasure. For the royal hunt no pains or expense were +spared. The carriages were without an equal elsewhere in the courts of +Europe, and the hunting establishment was equipped with _chiens +courants_ from Spain, _levriers_ from Bretagne, _bassets_ from Valence, +mules from Sicily, and horses from Naples. + +The attractions of the environs of Tours are many and interesting: St. +Symphorien, Varennes, the Grottoes of Ste. Radegonde, and the site of +that most famous abbey of Marmoutier, also a foundation of St. Martin. +Here, under the name Martinus Monasterium, grew up an immense and superb +establishment. From an old seventeenth-century print one quotes the +following couplet: + + "De quel côté que le vent vente + Marmoutier a cens et rente." + +From this one infers that the abbey's original functions are performed +no more. + +[Illustration: _ENVIRONS OF TOURS_] + +In the middle ages (thirteenth century) it was one of the most powerful +institutions of its class, and its church one of the most beautiful in +Touraine. The tower and donjon are the only substantial remains of this +early edifice. + +A curious chapel, called the "Chapelle des Sept Dormants," is here cut +in the form of a cross into the rock of the hillside, where are buried +the remains of the Seven Sleepers, the disciples of St. Martin, who, as +the holy man had predicted, all died on the same day. + +Beyond Marmoutier, a stairway of 122 steps, cut also in the rock, leads +to the plateau on which stands the gaunt and ugly Lanterne de +Rochecorbon, a fourteenth-century construction with a crenelated summit, +an unlovely companion of that even more enigmatic erection known as "La +Pile," a few miles down the Loire at Cinq-Mars. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +LUYNES AND LANGEAIS + + +Below Tours, and before reaching Saumur, are a succession of panoramic +surprises which are only to be likened to those of our imagination, but +they are very real nevertheless. + +As one leaves Tours by the road which skirts the right bank of the +Loire, he is once more impressed by the fact that the _cailloux de +Loire_ are the river's chief product, though fried fish, of a similar +variety to those found in the Seine, are found on the menus of all +roadside taverns and restaurants. + +Still, the effect of the uncovered bed of the Loire, with its variegated +pebbles and mirror-like pools, is infinitely more picturesque than if it +were mud flats, and its tree-bordered banks are for ever opening great +alleyed vistas such as are only known in France. + +The hills on either bank are not of the stupendous and magnificently +scenic order of those of the Seine above and below Rouen; but, such as +they are, they are of much the same composition, a soft talcy formation +which here serves admirably the purposes of cliff-dwellings for the +vineyard and wine-press workers, who form practically the sole +population of the Loire villages from Vouvray, just above Tours, to +Saumur far below. + +On the hillsides are the vineyards themselves, growing out of the thin +layer of soil in shades of red and brown and golden, which no artist has +ever been able to copy, for no one has painted the rich colouring of a +vineyard in a manner at all approaching the original. + +Not far below Tours, on the right bank, rise the towers and turrets of +the Château de Luynes, hanging perilously high above the lowland which +borders upon the river. An unpleasant tooting tram gives communication a +dozen times a day with Tours, but few, apparently, patronize it except +peasants with market-baskets, and vineyard workers going into town for a +jollification. It is perhaps just as well, for the fine little town of +Luynes, which takes its name from the château which has been the +residence of a Comte de Luynes since the days of Louis XIII., would be +quite spoiled if it were on the beaten track. + +[Illustration: A VINEYARD OF VOUVRAY] + +The brusque façade of the Château de Luynes makes a charming interior, +judging from the descriptions and drawings which are to be met with in +an elaborately prepared volume devoted to its history. + +The stranger is allowed to enter within the gates of the courtyard, +beneath the grim coiffed towers; but he may visit only certain +apartments. He will, however, see enough to indicate that the edifice +was something more than a mere _maison de campagne_. All the attributes +of an important fortress are here, great, round, thickly built towers, +with but few exterior windows, and those high up from the ground. There +is nothing of luxurious elegance about it, and its aspect is forbidding, +though imposing. + +The château belies its looks somewhat, for it was built only in the +fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when, in most of its neighbours, the +more or less florid Renaissance was in vogue. A Renaissance structure in +stone and brick forms a part of that which faces on the interior court, +and is flanked by a fine octagonal "_tour d'escalier_." + +From the terrace of the courtyard one gets an impressive view of the +Loire, which glides by two or more kilometres away, and of the towers +and roof-tops of Tours, and the vine-carpeted hills which stretch away +along the river's bank in either direction. + +The château of Luynes is still in the possession of a Duc de Luynes, +through whose courtesy one may visit such of the apartments as his +servants are allowed to show. It is not so great an exhibition, nor so +good a one, as is to be had at Langeais; but it is satisfactory as far +as it goes, and, when it is supplemented by the walks and views which +are to be had on the plateau, upon which the grim-towered château sits, +the memory of it all becomes most pleasurable. + +The former Ducs de Luynes were continually appearing in the historic +events of the later Renaissance period, but it was only with Louis +XIII., he who would have put France under the protection of the Virgin, +that the chatelain of Luynes came to a position of real power. Louis +made Albert, the Gascon, both Duc de Luynes and Connétable de France, +and thereby gave birth to a tyrant whom he hated and feared, as he did +his mother, his wife, and his minister, Richelieu. + +[Illustration: _Mediæval Stairway and the Château de Luynes_] + +The site occupied by the château of Luynes is truly marvellous, though, +as a matter of fact, there is no great magnificence about the +proportions of the château itself. It is piled gracefully on the top +of a table-land which rises abruptly from the Loire and has a charmingly +quaint old town nestled confidingly below it, as if for protection. + +One reaches the château by any one of a half-dozen methods, by the +highroad which bends around in hairpin curves until it reaches the +plateau above, by various paths across or around the vineyards of the +hillside, or by a quaintly cut mediæval stairway, levelled and terraced +in the gravelly soil until it ends just beneath the frowning walls of +the château itself. From this point one gets quite the most imposing +aspect of the château to be had, its towers and turrets piercing the sky +high above the head, and carrying the mind back to the days when +civilization meant something more--or less--than it does to-day, with +the toot of a steam-tram down below on the river's bank and the midday +whistles of the factories of Tours rending one's ears the moment he +forgets the past and recalls the present. + +To-day the Château de Luynes is modern, at least to the extent that it +is lived in, and has all the refinements of a modern civilization; but +one does not realize all this from an exterior contemplation, and only +as one strolls through the apartments publicly shown, and gets glimpses +of electrical conveniences and modern arrangements, does he wonder how +far different it may have been before all this came to pass. + +Built in early Renaissance times, the château has all the peculiarities +of the feudal period, when window-openings were few and far between, and +high up above the level of the pavement. In feudal and warlike times +this often proved an admirable feature; but one would have thought that, +with the beginning of the Renaissance, a more ample provision would have +been made for the admission of sunshine. + +The _chef-d'oeuvre_ of this really great architectural monument is +undoubtedly the façade of the beautiful fifteenth-century courtyard. +There is nothing even remotely feudal here, but a purely decorative +effect which is as charming in its way as is the exterior façade of +Azay-le-Rideau. "A poem," it has been called, "in weather-worn timber +and stone," and the simile could hardly be improved upon. + +The town, too, or such of it as immediately adjoins the château, is +likewise charming and quaint, and sleepily indolent as far as any great +activity is concerned. + +Luynes was the seat of a seigneurie until 1619, when it became a +possession of the Comte de Maillé. Finally it came to Charles d'Albert, +known as "D'Albert de Luynes," a former page to Henri IV., who afterward +became the favourite and the Guardian of the Seals of Louis XIV.; and +thus the earlier foundation of Maillé became known as Luynes. + +Except for its old houses of wood and stone, its old wooden +market-house, and its tortuous streets of stairs, there are few features +here, except the château, which take rank as architectural monuments of +worth. The church is a modern structure, built after the Romanesque +manner and wholly without warmth and feeling. + +From the height on which stands the château of Luynes one sees, as his +eye follows the course of the Loire to the southwestward, the gaunt, +unbeautiful "Pile" of Cinq-Mars. The origin of this singular square +tower, looking for all the world like a factory chimney or some great +ventilating-shaft, is lost far back in Carlovingian, or perhaps Roman, +times. It is a mystery to archæologists and antiquarians, some claiming +it to be a military monument, others a beacon by land, and yet others +believing it to be of some religious significance. + +At all events, all the explanations ignore the four _pyramidions_ of +its topmost course, and these, be it remarked, are quite the most +curious feature of the whole fabric. + +To many the name of the little town of Cinq-Mars will suggest that of +the Marquis de Cinq-Mars, a court favourite of Louis XIII. It was the +ambitious but unhappy career at court of this young gallant which +ultimately resulted in his death on the scaffold, and in the razing, by +Richelieu, of his ancestral residence, the castle of Cinq-Mars, "to the +heights of infamy." The expression is a curious one, but history so +records it. All that is left to-day to remind one of the stronghold of +the D'Effiats of Cinq-Mars are its two crumbling gate-towers with an +arch between and a few fragmentary foundation walls which follow the +summit of the cliff behind "La Pile." + +The little town of not more than a couple of thousand inhabitants +nestles in a bend of the Loire, where there is so great a breadth that +it looks like a long-drawn-out lake. The low hills, so characteristic of +these parts, stretch themselves on either bank, unbroken except where +some little streamlet forces its way by a gentle ravine through the +scrubby undergrowth. Oaks and firs and huge limestone cliffs jut out +from the top of the hillside on the right bank and shelter the town +which lies below. + +[Illustration: _Ruins of Cinq-Mars_] + +Cinq-Mars is a miniature metropolis, though not a very progressive one +at first sight; indeed, beyond its long main street and its houses, +which cluster about its grim, though beautiful, tenth and twelfth +century church, there are few signs of even provincial importance. + +In reality Cinq-Mars is the centre of a large and important wine +industry, where you may hear discussed, at the _table d'hôte_ of its not +very readily found little inn, the poor prices which the usually +abundant crop always brings. The native even bewails the fact that he is +not blessed with a poor season or two and then he would be able to sell +his fine vintages for something more than three sous a litre. By the +time it reaches Paris this _vin de Touraine_ of commerce has aggrandized +itself so that it commands two francs fifty centimes on the Boulevards, +and a franc fifty in the University quarter. + +The fall of Henri Cinq-Mars was most pathetic, though no doubt moralists +will claim that because of his covetous ambitions he deserved nothing +better. + +He went up to Paris from Touraine, a boy of twenty, and was presented to +the king, who was immediately impressed by his distinguished manners. +From infancy Cinq-Mars had been a lover of life in the open. He had +hunted the forests of Touraine, and had angled the waters of the Loire, +and thus he came to give a new zest to the already sad life of Louis +XIII. Honour after honour was piled upon him until he was made Grand +Seneschal of France and Master of the King's Horse, at which time he +dropped his natal patronymic and became known as "Monsieur le Grand." + +Cinq-Mars fell madly in love with Marion Delorme and wished to make her +"Madame la Grande," but the dowager Marquise de Cinq-Mars would not hear +of it: Mlle. Marion Delorme, the Aspasia of her day, would be no honour +to the ancestral tree of the Effiats of Cinq-Mars. + +Headstrong and wilful, one early morning, Monsieur le Grand and his +beloved, then only thirty, took coach from her hotel in the Rue des +Tournelles at Paris for the old family castle in Touraine, sitting high +on the hills above the feudal village which bore the name of Cinq-Mars. +In the chapel they were secretly married, and for eight days the +proverbial marriage-bell rang true. Their Nemesis appeared on the ninth +day in the person of the dowager, and Cinq-Mars told his mother that +the whole affair was simply a _passe temps_, and that Mlle. Delorme was +still Mlle. Delorme. His mother would not be deceived, however, and she +flew for succour to Richelieu, who himself was more than slightly +acquainted with the charms of the fair Marion. + +This was Cinq-Mars's downfall. He advised the king "by fair means or +foul, let Richelieu die," and the king listened. A conspiracy was +formed, by Cinq-Mars and others, to do away with the cardinal, _and even +the king_, at whose death Gaston of Orleans was to be proclaimed regent +for his nephew, the infant Louis XIV. + +The court went to Narbonne, on the Mediterranean, that it might be near +aid from Spain; all of which was a subterfuge of Cinq-Mars. The rest +moves quickly: Richelieu discovered the plot; Cinq-Mars attempted to +flee disguised as a Spaniard, was captured and brought as a prisoner to +the castle at Montpellier. + +Richelieu had proved the more powerful of the two; but he was dying, and +this is the reason, perhaps, why he hurried matters. Cinq-Mars, "the +amiable criminal," went to the torture-chamber, and afterward to the +scaffold. + +"Then," say the old chronicles, "Richelieu ordered that the feudal +castle of Cinq-Mars, in the valley of the Loire, should be blown up, +and the towers razed to the height of infamy." + +From Cinq-Mars to Langeais, whose château is really one of the most +appealing sights of the Loire, the characteristics of the country are +topographically and economically the same; green hills slope, +vine-covered, to the river, with here and there a tiny rivulet flowing +into the greater stream. + +As at Cinq-Mars, the chief commodity of Langeais is wine, rich, red wine +and pale amber, too, but all of it wine of a quality and at a price +which would make the city-dweller envious indeed. + +There are two distinct châteaux at Langeais; at least, there is _the_ +château, and just beyond the ornamental stone-carpet of its courtyard +are the ruins of one of the earliest donjons, or keeps, in all France. +It dates from the year 990, and was built by the celebrated Comte +d'Anjou, Foulques Nerra, "_un criminel dévoyé des hommes et de Dieu_," +whose hobby, evidently, was building châteaux, as his "follies" in stone +are said to have encumbered the land in those old days. + +Taken and retaken, dismantled and in part razed in the fifteenth +century, it gave place to the present château by the orders of Louis +XI. + +[Illustration: _Château de Langeais_] + +The Château de Langeais of to-day is a robust example of its kind; its +walls, flanked by great hooded towers, have a surrounding "_guette_," or +gallery, which served as a means of communication from one part of the +establishment to another and, in warlike times, allowed boiling oil or +melted lead, or whatever they may have used for the purpose, to be +poured down upon the heads of any besiegers who had the audacity to +attack it. + +There is no glacis or moat, but the machicolations, sixty feet or more +up from the ground, must have afforded a well-nigh perfect means of +repelling a near attack. + +Altogether Langeais is a redoubtable little château of the period, and +its aspect to-day has changed but very little. "It is the swan-song of +expiring feudalism," said the Abbé Bosseboeuf. + +One gets a thrill of heroic emotion when he views its hardy walls for +the first time: "a mountain of stone, a heroic poem of Gothic art," it +has with reason been called. + +Jean Bourré, the minister of Louis XI., built the present château about +1460. The chief events of its history were the drawing up within its +walls of the "common law" of Touraine, by the order of Charles VII., and +the marriage of Charles VIII. with Anne de Bretagne, on the 16th of +December, 1491. + +The land belonged, in 1276, to Pierre de Brosse, the minister of +Philippe-le-Hardi; later, to François d'Orleans, son of the celebrated +_Bâtard_; to the Princesse de Conti, daughter of the Duc de Guise; to +the families Du Bellay and D'Effiats, Barons of Cinq-Mars; and, finally, +to the Duc de Luynes, in whose hands it remained up to the Revolution. + +Honoré de Balzac, who may well be called one of the historians of +Touraine, gave to one of his heroines the name of Langeais. To-day, +however, the family of Langeais does not exist, and, indeed, according +to the chronicles, never had any connection with either the donjon of +Foulques Nerra or the château of the fifteenth century. The present +owner is M. Jacques Siegfreid, who has admirably restored and furnished +it after the Gothic style of the middle ages. + +The château of Langeais, like that of Chenonceaux, is occupied, as one +learns from a visit to its interior. A lackey of a superior order +receives you; you pay a franc for an admission ticket, and the lackey +conducts you through nearly, if not quite all, of the apartments. Where +the family goes during this process it is hard to say, but doubtless +they are willing to inconvenience themselves for the benefit of +"touring" humanity. + +The interior, no less than the exterior, impresses one as being +something which has lived in the past, and yet exists to-day in all its +original glory, for the present proprietor, with the aid of an admirable +adviser, M. Lucien Roy, a Parisian architect, has produced a resemblance +of its former furnishings which, so far as it goes, is beyond criticism. + +There is nothing of bareness about it, nor is there an over-luxuriant +interpolation of irrelevant things, such as a curator crowds into a +museum. In short, nothing more has been done than to attempt to +reconstitute a habitation of the fifteenth century. For seventeen years +the work has gone on, and there have been collected many authentic +furnishings contemporary with the fabric itself, great oaken beds, +tables, chairs, benches, tapestries, and other articles. In addition, +the decorations have been carried out after the same manner, copied in +many cases from contemporary pictures and prints. + +To-day, the general aspect is that of a peaceful household, with all +recollections of feudal times banished for ever. All is tranquil, +respectable, and luxurious, and it would take a chronic faultfinder not +to be content with the manner with which these admirable restorations +and refurnishings have been carried out. + +One notes particularly the infinite variety and appropriateness of the +tiling which goes to make up the floors of these great salons--modern +though it is. The great chimneypieces, however, are ancient, and have +not been retouched. Those in the Salle des Gardes and the Salle where +was celebrated the marriage of Charles VIII. and Anne de Bretagne, with +their ornamentation in the best of Gothic, are especially noteworthy. + +This latter apartment is the chief attraction of the château and the +room of which the present dwellers in this charming monument of history +are naturally the most proud. To-day it forms the great dining-hall of +the establishment. Mementos of this marriage, so momentous for France, +are exceedingly numerous along the lower Loire, but this handsome room +quite leads them all. This marriage, and the goods and lands it brought +to the Crown, had but one stipulation connected with it, and that was +that the Duchesse Anne should be privileged to marry the elderly king's +successor, should she survive her royal husband. + +[Illustration: ARMS OF LOUIS XII. AND ANNE DE BRETAGNE] + +Louis XII. was not at all opposed to becoming the husband of la Duchesse +Anne after Charles VIII. had met his death on the tennis-court, because +this second marriage would for ever bind to France that great province +ruled by the gentle Anne. + +In the Salle des Gardes are six valuable tapestries representing such +heroic figures as Cæsar and Charlemagne, surrounded by their companions +in arms. + +From the towers, on a clear day, one may see the pyramids of the +cathedral at Tours rising on the horizon to the northward. Below is the +Château de Villandry, where Philippe-Auguste met Henry II. of England to +conclude a memorable peace. To the right is Azay-le-Rideau, and to the +extreme right are the ruined towers of Cinq-Mars and its Pile. Nothing +could be more delicious on a bright summer's day than the view from the +ramparts of Langeais over the roof-tops of the charming little town in +the foreground. + +Some time after the Revolution there was found, in the gardens of the +château, the remains of a _chapelle romaine_ which historians, who have +searched the annals of antiquity in Touraine, claim to have been the +chapel in honour of St. Sauveur which Foulques V., called le Jeune, one +of the five Counts of Anjou of that name, constructed upon his return +from his voyage to Palestine in the twelfth century. To-day it is +overgrown with a trellised grapevine and is practically not visible, +still it is another architectural monument of the first rank with which +the not very ample domain of the Château de Langeais is endowed. + +From the courtyard the walls of the château take on a Renaissance +aspect; a tiny doorway beside the great gate is manifestly Renaissance; +so, too, are the polygonal towers, with their winding stairs, the +pignons and gables of the roof, and what carved stone there is in +evidence. Three stone stairways which mount by the slender _tourelles_ +serve to communicate with the various floors to-day as they did in the +times of Charles VIII. + +The courtyard itself, with its formal carpet design in stone, its shaded +walls, its stone seats, and its Roman sarcophagus, is a pleasant +retreat, but it has not the seclusion of the larger park, delightful +though it is. + +Just before the drawbridge of the old château, that mediæval gateway by +which one enters to-day, one sees the Maison de Rabelais, who is the +deity of Langeais and Chinon, as is Balzac that of Tours. It is a fine +old-time house of a certain amplitude and grandeur among its less +splendid fellows, now given over, on the ground floor, to a bakery and +pastry-shop. Enough is left of its original aspect, and the Renaissance +decorations of its façade are sufficiently well preserved to stamp it as +a worthy abode for the "Curé de Chinon," who lived here for some years. + +Two other names in literature are connected with Langeais: Ronsard, the +poet, who lived here for a time, and César-Alexis-Chichereau, Chevalier +de la Barre, who was a poet and a troubadour of repute. + +The main street of Langeais is still flanked with good Gothic and +Renaissance houses, neither pretentious nor mean, but of that order +which sets off to great advantage the walls and towers and porches of +the château and the church. This street follows the ancient Roman +roadway which traversed the valley of the Loire through Gaul. + +The river is here crossed by one of those too frequent, though useful, +suspension-bridges, with which the Loire abounds. The guide-books call +it _beau_, but it is not. One has to cross it to reach Azay-le-Rideau, +which lies ten kilometres or more away across the Indre. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +AZAY-LE-RIDEAU, USSÉ, AND CHINON + + +From Langeais, one's obvious route lies towards Chinon, via +Azay-le-Rideau and Ussé. These latter are practically within the forest, +though the Forêt de Chinon proper does not actually begin until one +leaves Azay behind, when for twenty kilometres or more one of the most +superb forest roads in France crosses many hills and dales until it +finally descends into Chinon itself. + +Like most forest roads in France, this highway is not flat; it rises and +falls with a sheer that is sometimes precipitous, but always with a +gravelled surface that gives little dust, and which absorbs water as the +sand from the pounce-box of our forefathers dried up ink. This simile +calls to mind the fact that in twentieth-century France the pounce-box +is still in use, notably at wayside railway stations, where the agent +writes you out your ticket and dries it off in a box, not of sand, but +of sawdust. + +To partake of the hospitality of Azay-le-Rideau one must arrive before +four in the afternoon, and not earlier than midday. From the photographs +and post-cards by which one has become familiar with Azay-le-Rideau, it +appears like a great country house sitting by itself far away from any +other habitation. In England this is often the case, in France but +seldom. + +Clustered around the walls of the not very great park which surrounds +the château are all manner of shops and cafés, not of the tourist +order,--for there is very little here to suggest that tourists ever +come, though indeed they do, by twos and threes throughout all the +year,--but for the accommodation of the population of the little town +itself, which must approximate a couple of thousand souls, all of whom +appear to be engaged in the culture of the vine and its attendant +pursuits, as the wine-presses, the coopers' shops, and other similar +establishments plainly show. There is, moreover, the pleasant smell of +fermented grape-juice over all, which, like the odour of the hop-fields +of Kent, is conducive to sleep; and there lies the charm of +Azay-le-Rideau, which seems always half-asleep. + +The Hôtel du Grand Monarque is a wonderfully comfortable country inn, +with a dining-room large enough to accommodate half a hundred persons, +but which, most likely, will serve only yourself. One incongruous note +is sounded,--convenient though it be,--and that is the electric light +which illuminates the hotel and its dependencies, including the stables, +which look as though they might once have been a part of a mediæval +château themselves. + +However, since posting days and tallow dips have gone for ever, one +might as well content himself with the superior civilization which +confronts him, and be comfortable at least. + +The Château d'Azay-le-Rideau is one of the gems of Touraine's splendid +collection of Renaissance art treasures, though by no means is it one of +the grandest or most imposing. + +A tree-lined avenue leads from the village street to the château, which +sits in the midst of a tiny park; not a grand expanse as at Chambord or +Chenonceaux, but a sort of green frame with a surrounding moat, fed by +the waters of the Indre. + +The main building is square, with a great coiffed round tower at each +corner. The Abbé Chevalier, in his "Promenades Pittoresques en +Touraine," called it the purest and best of French Renaissance, and such +it assuredly is, if one takes a not too extensive domestic +establishment of the early years of the sixteenth century as the typical +example. + +Undoubtedly the sylvan surroundings of the château have a great deal to +do with the effectiveness of its charms. The great white walls of its +façade, with the wonderful sculptures of Jean Goujon, glisten in the +brilliant sunlight of Touraine through the sycamores and willows which +border the Indre in a genuinely romantic fashion. + +Somewhere within the walls are the remains of an old tower of the +one-time fortress which was burned by the Dauphin Charles in 1418, +after, says history, "he had beheaded its governor and taken all of the +defenders to the number of three hundred and thirty-four." This act was +in revenge for an alleged insult to his sacred person. + +There are no remains of this former tower visible exteriorly to-day, and +no other bloody acts appear to have attached themselves to the present +château in all the four hundred years of its existence. + +[Illustration: _Château d'Azay-le-Rideau_] + +Gilles Berthelot erected the present structure early in the reign of +François I. He was a man close to the king in affairs of state, first +_conseiller-secrétaire_, then _trésorier-général des finances_, hence +he knew the value of money. Among the succeeding proprietors was Guy de +Saint Gelais, one of the most accomplished diplomats of his time. He was +followed by Henri de Beringhem, who built the stables and ornamented the +great room known as the Chambre du Roi from the fact that Louis XIV. +once slept there, with the magnificent paintings which are shown to-day. + +Everywhere is there a rich, though not gross, display of decoration, +beginning with such constructive details as the pointed-roofed +_tourelles_, which are themselves exceedingly decorative. The doors, +windows, roof-tops, chimneypieces, and the semi-enclosed circular +stairways are all elaborately sculptured after the best manner of the +time. + +The entrance portico is a wonder of its kind, with a strong sculptured +arcade and arched window-openings and niches filled with bas-reliefs. +Sculptured shells, foliage, and mythological symbols combine to form an +arabesque, through which are interspersed the favourite ciphers of the +region, the ermine and the salamander, which go to prove that François +and other royalties must at one time or another have had some connection +with the château. + +History only tells us, however, that Gilles Berthelot was a king's +minister and Mayor of Tours. Perhaps he thought of handing it over as a +gift some day in exchange for further honours. His device bore the +words, "_Ung Seul Desir_," which may or may not have had a special +significance. + +The interior of the edifice is as beautiful as is its exterior, and is +furnished with that luxuriance of decorative effect so characteristic of +the best era of the Renaissance in France. + +Until recently the proprietor was the Marquis de Biencourt, who, like +his fellow proprietors of châteaux in Touraine, generously gave visitors +an opportunity to see his treasure-house for themselves, and, moreover, +furnished a guide who was something more than a menial and yet not a +supercilious functionary. + +Within a twelvemonth this "purest joy of the French Renaissance" was put +upon the real estate market, with the result that it might have fallen +into unappreciative hands, or, what a Touraine antiquarian told the +writer would be the worse fate that could possibly befall it, might be +bought up by some American millionaire, who through the services of the +house-breaker would dismantle it and remove it stone by stone and set it +up anew on some asphalted avenue in some western metropolis. This +extraordinary fear or rumour, whatever it was, soon passed away and as +a "_monument historique_" the château has become the property of the +French government. + +Less original, perhaps, in plan than Chenonceaux, less appealing in its +_ensemble_ and less fortunate in its situation, Azay-le-Rideau is +nevertheless entitled to the praises which have been heaped upon it. + +It is but a dozen kilometres from Azay-le-Rideau to Ussé, on the road to +Chinon. The Château d'Ussé is indeed a big thing; not so grand as +Chambord, nor so winsome as Langeais, but infinitely more characteristic +of what one imagines a great residential château to have been like. It +belongs to-day to the Comte de Blacas, and once was the property of +Vauban, Maréchal of France, under Louis XIV., who built the terrace +which lies between it and the river, a branch of the Indre. + +Perched high above the hemp-lands of the river-bottom, which here are +the most prolific in the valley of the Indre, the château with its park +of seven hundred or more acres is truly regal in its appointments and +surroundings. This park extends to the boundary of the national +reservation, the Forêt de Chinon. + +The Renaissance château of to-day is a reconstruction of the sixteenth +century, which preserves, however, the great cylindrical towers of a +century earlier. Its architecture is on the whole fantastic, at least as +much so as Chambord, but it is none the less hardy and strong. +Practically it consists of a series of _pavillons_ bound to the great +fifteenth-century donjon by smaller towers and turrets, all slate-capped +and pointed, with machicolations surrounding them, and above that a sort +of roofed and crenelated battlement which passes like a collar around +all the outer wall. + +The general effect of the exterior walls is that of a great feudal +stronghold, while from the courtyard the aspect is simply that of a +luxurious Renaissance town house, showing at least how the two styles +can be pleasingly combined. + +Crenelated battlements are as old as Pompeii, so it is doubtful if the +feudality of France did much to increase their use or effectiveness. +They were originally of such dimensions as to allow a complete shelter +for an archer standing behind one of the uprights. The contrast to those +of a later day, which, virtually nothing more than a course of +decorative stonework, give no impression of utility, is great, though +here at Ussé they are more pronounced than in many other similar +edifices. + +[Illustration: _Château d'Ussé_] + +The interior arrangements here give due prominence to a fine staircase, +ornamented with a painting of St. John that is attributed to Michel +Ange. + +The Chambre du Roi is hung with ancient embroideries, and there is a +beautiful Renaissance chapel, above the door of which is a +sixteenth-century bas-relief of the Apostles. Most of the other great +rooms which are shown are resplendent in oak-beamed ceilings and massive +chimneypieces, always a distinct feature of Renaissance +château-building, and one which makes modern imitations appear mean and +ugly. To realize this to the full one has only to recall the dining-room +of the pretentious hotel which huddles under the walls of Amboise. In a +photograph it looks like a regal banqueting-hall; but in reality it is +as tawdry as stage scenery, with its imitation wainscoted walls, its +imitation beamed ceiling of three-quarter-inch planks, and its plaster +of Paris fireplace. + +Near Ussé is the Château de Rochecotte which recalls the name of a +celebrated chieftain of the Chouans. It belongs to-day, though it is not +their paternal home, to the family of Castellane, a name which to many +is quite as celebrated and perhaps better known. + +The château contains a fine collection of Dutch paintings of the +seventeenth century, and in its chapel there is a remarkably beautiful +copy of the Sistine Madonna. The name of Talleyrand is intimately +connected with the occupancy of the château, in pre-revolutionary times, +by Rochecotte. + +On the road to Chinon one passes through, or near, Huismes, which has +nothing to stay one's march but a good twelfth-century church, which +looks as though its doors were never opened. The Château de la +Villaumère, of the fifteenth century, is near by, and of more than +passing interest are the ruins of the Château de Bonneventure, built, it +is said, by Charles VII. for Agnes Sorel, who, with all her faults, +stands high in the esteem of most lovers of French history. At any rate +this shrine of "_la belle des belles_" is worthy to rank with that +containing her tomb at Loches. + +As one enters Chinon by road he meets with the usual steep decline into +a river-valley, which separates one height from another. Generally this +is the topographic formation throughout France, and Chinon, with its +silent guardians, the fragments of three non-contemporary castles, all +on the same site, is no exception. + +"We never went to Chinon," says Henry James, in his "Little Tour in +France," written thirty or more years ago. "But one cannot do +everything," he continues, "and I would rather have missed Chinon than +Chenonceaux." A painter would have put it differently. Chenonceaux is +all that fact and fancy have painted it, a gem in a perfect setting, and +Chinon's three castles are but mere crumbling walls; but their environs +form a _petit pays_ which will some day develop into an "artists' +sketching-ground," in years to come, beside which Etretat, Moret, Pont +Aven, Giverny, and Auvers will cease to be considered. + +At the base of the escarped rock on which sit the châteaux, or what is +left of them, lies the town of Chinon, with its old houses in wood and +stone and its great, gaunt, but beautiful churches. Before it flows the +Vienne, one of the most romantically beautiful of all the secondary +rivers of France. + +From the _castrum romanum_ of the emperors to the feudal conquest Chinon +played its due part in the history of Touraine. There are those who +claim that Chinon is a "_cité antédiluvienne_" and that it was founded +by Cain, who after his crime fled from the paternal malediction and +found a refuge here; and that its name, at first _Caynon_, became +Chinon. Like the derivation of most ancient place-names, this claim +involves a wide imagination and assuredly sounds unreasonable. _Caino_ +may, with more likelihood, have been a Celtic word, meaning an +excavation, and came to be adopted because of the subterranean quarries +from which the stone was drawn for the building of the town. The +annalists of the western empire give it as _Castrum-Caino_, and whether +its origin dates from antediluvian times or not, it was a town in the +very earliest days of the Christian era. + +The importance of Chinon's rôle in history and the beauty of its +situation have inspired many writers to sing its praises. + + "... Chinon + Petite ville, grand renom + Assise sur pierre ancienne + Au haute le bois, au bas la Vienne." + +The disposition of the town is most picturesque. The winding streets and +stairways are "foreign;" like Italy, if you will, or some of the steps +to be seen in the towns bordering upon the Adriatic. At all events, +Chinon is not exactly like any other town in France, either with +respect to its layout or its distinct features, and it is not at all +like what one commonly supposes to be characteristic of the French. + +[Illustration: _The Roof-tops of Chinon_] + +Dungeons of mediæval châteaux are here turned into dwellings and +wine-cellars, and have the advantage, for both uses, of being cool in +summer and warm in winter. + +Already, in the year 371, Chinon's population was so considerable that +St. Martin, newly elected Bishop of Tours, longed to preach Christianity +to its people, who were still idolators. Some years afterward St. Mesme +or Maxime, fleeing from the barbarians of the north, came to Chinon, and +soon surrounded himself with many adherents of the faith, and in the +year 402 consecrated the original foundation of the church which now +bears his name. + +Clovis made Chinon one of the strongest fortresses of his kingdom, and +in the tenth century it came into the possession of the Comtes de +Touraine. Later, in 1044, Thibaut III. ceded it to Geoffroy Martel. The +Plantagenets frequently sojourned at Chinon, becoming its masters in the +twelfth century, from which time it was held by the Kings of France up +to Louis XI. + +The most picturesque event of Chinon's history took place in 1428, when +Charles VII. here assembled the States General, and Jeanne d'Arc +prevailed upon him to march forthwith upon Orleans, then besieged by the +English. + +Memories of Charles VII., of Jeanne d'Arc, and of François Rabelais are +inextricably mixed in the guide-book accounts of Chinon; but their +respective histories are not so involved as would appear. There is some +doubt as to whether the Pantagruelist was actually born at Chinon or in +the suburbs, therefore there is no "_maison natale_" before which +literary pilgrims may make their devotions. All this is a great pity, +for Rabelais excites in the minds of most people a greater curiosity +than perhaps any other mediæval man of letters that the world has known. + +Though one cannot feast his eye upon the spot of Rabelais's birth, +historians agree that it took place at Chinon in 1483. Much is known of +the "Curé de Chinon;" but, in spite of his rank as the first of the +mediæval satirists, his was not a wide-spread popularity, nor can one +speak very highly of his appearance as a type of the Tourangeau of his +time. His portraits make him appear a most supercilious character, and +doubtless he was. He certainly was not an Adonis, nor had he the head +of a god or the cleverness of a court gallant. Indeed there has been a +tendency of late to represent him as a buffoon, a trait wholly foreign +to his real character. + +[Illustration: RABELAIS] + +As for Charles VII. and Jeanne d'Arc, Chinon was simply the +meeting-place between the inspired maid and her sovereign, when she +urged him to put himself at the head of his troops and march upon +Orleans. + +Chinon is of the sunny south; here the grapes ripen early and cling +affectionately, not only to the hillsides, but to the very house-walls +themselves. + +Chinon's attractions consist of fragments of three castles, dating from +feudal times; of three churches, of more than ordinary interest and +picturesqueness; and many old timbered and gabled houses; nor should one +forget the Hôtel de France, itself a reminder of other days, with its +vine-covered courtyard and tinkling bells hanging beneath its gallery, +for all the world like the sort of thing one sees upon the stage. + +There is not much else about the hotel that is of interest except its +very ancient-looking high-posted beds and its waxed tiled floors, worn +into smooth ruts by the feet of countless thousands and by countless +polishings with wax. It is curious how a waxed tiled floor strikes one +as being something altogether superior to one of wood. Though harder in +substance, it is infinitely pleasanter to the feet, and warm and mellow, +as a floor should be; moreover it seems to have the faculty of +unconsciously keeping itself clean. + +_The Château de Chinon_, as it is commonly called, differs greatly from +the usual Loire château; indeed it is quite another variety altogether, +and more like what we know elsewhere as a castle; or, rather it is three +castles, for each, so far as its remains are concerned, is distinct and +separate. + +The Château de St. Georges is the most ancient and is an enlargement by +Henry Plantagenet--whom a Frenchman has called "the King Lear of his +race"--of a still more ancient fortress. + +The Château du Milieu is built upon the ruins of the _castrum romanum_, +vestiges of which are yet visible. It dates from the eleventh, twelfth, +and thirteenth centuries, and was restored under Charles VI., Charles +VII., and Louis XI. + +One enters through the curious Tour de l'Horloge, to which access is +given by a modern bridge, as it was in other days by an ancient +drawbridge which covered the old-time moat. The Grand Logis, the royal +habitation of the twelfth to fifteenth centuries, is to the right, +overlooking the town. Here died Henry II. of England (1189) and here +lived Charles VII. and Louis XI. It was in the Grand Salle of this +château that Jeanne d'Arc was first presented to her sovereign (March 8, +1429). From the hour of this auspicious meeting until the hour of the +departure for Orleans she herself lived in the tower of the Château de +Coudray, a little farther beyond, under guard of Guillaume Bélier. + +The meeting between the king and the "Maid" is described by an old +historian of Touraine as follows: "The inhabitants of Chinon received +her with enthusiasm, the purpose of her mission having already preceded +her.... She appeared at court as '_une pauvre petite bergerette_' and +was received in the Grande Salle, lighted by fifty torches and +containing three hundred persons." (This statement would seem to point +to the fact that it was not the _salle_ which is shown to-day; it +certainly could not be made to hold three hundred people unless they +stood on each other's shoulders!) "The seigneurs were all clad in +magnificent robes, but the king, on the contrary, was dressed most +simply. The 'Maid,' endowed with a spirit and sagacity superior to her +education, advanced without hesitation. '_Dieu vous donne bonne vie, +gentil roi_,' said she...." + +[Illustration: _Château de Chinon_] + +The Grand Logis is flanked by a square tower which is separated from the +Château de Coudray and the Tour de Boissy by a moat. In the magnificent +Tour de Boissy was the ancient Salle des Gardes, while above was a +battlemented gallery which gave an outlook over the surrounding country. +This watch-tower assured absolute safety from surprise to any monarch +who might have wished to study the situation for himself. + +The Tour du Moulin is another of the defences, more elegant, if +possible, than the Tour de Boissy. It is taller and less rotund; the +French say it is "svelt," and that describes it as well as anything. It +also fits into the landscape in a manner which no other mediæval donjon +of France does, unless it be that of Château Gaillard, in Normandy. + +The primitive Château de Coudray was built by Thibaut-le-Tricheur in +954, and its bastion and sustaining walls are still in evidence. + +The Vienne, which runs by Chinon to join the Loire above Saumur, is, in +many respects, a remarkable river, although just here there is nothing +very remarkable about it. It is, however, delightfully picturesque, as +it washes the tree-lined quays which form Chinon's river-front for a +distance of upward of two kilometres. In general the waterway reminds +one of something between a great traffic-bearing river and a mere +pleasant stream. + +The bridge between Chinon and its faubourg is typical of the art of +bridge-building, at which, in mediæval times, the French were excelled +by no other nation. To-day, in company with the Americans, they build +iron and steel abominations which are eyesores which no amount of +utility will ever induce one to really admire. Not so the French bridges +of mediæval times, of the type of those at Blois on the Loire; at Chinon +on the Vienne; at Avignon on the Rhône; or at Cahors on the Lot. + +If Rabelais had not rendered popular Chinon and the Chinonais the public +would have yet to learn of this delightful _pays_, in spite of that +famous first meeting between Charles VII. and Jeanne d'Arc. + +If the modern founders of "garden-cities" would only go as far back as +the time of Richelieu they would find a good example to follow in the +little Touraine town, the _chef-lieu_ of the Commune, which bears the +name of Richelieu. When Armand du Plessis first became the seigneur of +this "_little land_" he resolutely set about to make of the property a +town which should dignify his name. Accordingly he built, at his own +expense, after the plans of Lemercier, "a city, regular, vast, and +luxurious." At the same time the cardinal-minister replaced the paternal +manor with a château elaborately and prodigally royal. + +Richelieu was a sort of "petit Versailles," which was to be to Chinon +what the real Versailles was to the capital. + +To-day, as in other days, it is a "_ville vaste, régulière et +luxueuse_," but it is unfinished. One great street only has been +completed on its original lines, and it is exactly 450 metres long. +Originally the town was to have the dimensions of but six hundred by +four hundred metres; modest enough in size, but of the greatest luxury. +The cardinal had no desire to make it more grand, but even what he had +planned was not to be. Its one great street is bordered with imposing +buildings, but their tenants to-day have not the least resemblance to +the courtiers of the cardinal who formerly occupied them. + +Richelieu disappeared in the course of time, and work on his hobby +stopped, or at least changed radically in its plan. Secondary streets +were laid out, of less grandeur, and peopled with houses without +character, low in stature, and unimposing. The plan of a _ville +seigneuriale_ gave way to a _ville de labeur_. Other habitations grew up +until to-day twenty-five hundred souls find their living on the spot +where once was intended to be only a life of luxury. + +Of the monuments with which Richelieu would have ornamented his town +there remains a curious market-hall and a church in the pure Jesuitic +style of architecture, lacking nothing of pretence and grandeur. + +Not much can be said for the vast Église Notre Dame de Richelieu, a +heavy Italian structure, built from the plans of Lemercier. However +satisfying and beautiful the style may be in Italy, it is manifestly, in +all great works of church-building in the north, unsuitable and uncouth. + +There was also a château as well, a great Mansart affair with an +overpowering dome. Practically this remains to-day, but, like all else +in the town, it is but a promise of greater things which were expected +to materialize, but never did. + +At the bottom of a little valley, in a fertile plain, lies Fontevrault, +or what there is left of it, for the old abbey is now nothing more than +a matter-of-fact "_maison de détention_" for criminals. The abbey of +yesterday is the prison of to-day. + +Fontevrault is an enigma; it is, furthermore, what the French themselves +call a "_triste et maussade bourg_." Its former magnificent abbey was +one of the few shrines of its class which was respected by the +Revolution, but now it has become a prison which shelters something like +a thousand unfortunates. + +For centuries the old abbey had royal princesses for abbesses and was +one of the most celebrated religious houses in all France. It is a sad +degeneration that has befallen this famous establishment. + +In the eleventh century an illustrious man of God, a Breton priest, +named Robert d'Arbrissel, outlined the foundation of the abbey and +gathered together a community of monks. He died in the midst of his +labours, in 1117, and was succeeded by the Abbess Petronille de +Chemille. + +For nearly six hundred years the abbey--which comprised a convent for +men and another for women--grew and prospered, directed, not +infrequently, by an abbess of the blood royal. It has been claimed +that, as a religious establishment for men and women, ruled over by a +woman, the abbey of Fontevrault was unique in Christendom. + +It is an ample structure with a church tower of bistre which forms a +most pleasing note of colour in the landscape. The basilica was begun in +1101, and consecrated by Pope Calixtus II. in 1119. Its interior showed +a deep vaulting, with graceful and hardy arches supported by massive +columns with quaint and curiously sculptured capitals. + +The twelfth-century cloister was indeed a masterwork among those +examples, all too rare, existing to-day. Its arcade is severely elegant +and was rebuilt by the Abbess Renée de Bourbon, sister of François I., +after the best of decorative Renaissance of that day. The chapter-house, +now used by the director of the prison, has in a remarkable manner +retained the mural frescoes of a former day. There are depicted a series +of groups of mystical and real personages in a most curious fashion. The +refectory is still much in its primitive state, though put to other uses +to-day. Its tribune, where the lectrice entertained the sisters during +their repasts, is, however, still in its place. + +[Illustration: _Cuisines, Fontevrault_] + +The curious, bizarre, kilnlike pyramid, known as the Tour d'Evrault, +has ever been an enigma to the archæologist and antiquarian. Doubtless +it formed the kitchens of the establishment, for it looks like nothing +else that might have belonged to a great abbey. It has a counterpart at +the Abbey of Marmoutier near Tours, and of St. Trinité at Vendôme; from +which fact there would seem to be little doubt as to its real use, +although it looks more like a blast furnace or a distillery chimney. + +This curious pyramidal structure is like the collegiate church of St. +Ours at Loches, one of those bizarre edifices which defy any special +architectural classification. At Fontevrault the architect played with +his art when he let all the light in this curious "_tour_" enter by the +roof. At the extreme apex of the cone he placed a lantern from which the +light of day filtered down the slope of the vaulting in a weird and +tomblike manner. It is a most surprising effect, but one that is wholly +lost to-day, since the Tour d'Evrault has been turned into the kitchen +for the "_maison de détention_" of which it forms a part. + +The nave of the church of the old abbey of Fontevrault has been cut in +two and a part is now used as the dormitory of the prison, but the +choir, the transepts, and the towers remain to suggest the simple and +beautiful style of their age. + +In the transepts, behind an iron grille, are buried Henry II., King of +England and Count of Anjou, Éléanore of Guienne, Richard Coeur de Lion, +and Isabeau of Angoulême, wife of Jean-sans-Terre. Four polychromatic +statues, one in wood, the others in stone, lying at length, represent +these four personages so great in English history, and make of +Fontevrault a shrine for pilgrims which ought to be far less ignored +than it is. The cemetery of kings has been shockingly cared for, and the +ludicrous kaleidoscopic decorations of the statues which surmount the +royal tombs are nothing less than a sacrilege. It is needless to say +they are comparatively modern. + +At Bourgueil, near Fontevrault, are gathered great crops of _réglisse_, +or licorice. It differs somewhat in appearance from the licorice roots +of one's childhood, but the same qualities exist in it as in the product +of Spain or the Levant, whence indeed most of the commercial licorice +does come. It is as profitable an industry in this part of France as is +the saffron crop of the Gâtinais, and whoever imported the first roots +was a benefactor. At the juncture of the Vienne and the Loire are two +tiny towns which are noted for two widely different reasons. + +These two towns are Montsoreau and Candes, the former noted for the +memory of that bloodthirsty woman who gave a plot to Dumas (and some +real facts of history besides), and the other noted for its prunes, +Candes being the chief centre of the industry which produces the +_pruneaux de Tours_. + +Descending the Vienne from Chinon, one first comes to Candes, which +dominates the confluence of the Vienne with the Loire from its imposing +position on the top of a hill. + +Candes was in other times surrounded by a protecting wall, and there are +to-day remains of a château which had formerly given shelter to Charles +VII. and Louis XI. It has, moreover, a twelfth-century church built upon +the site of the cell in which died St. Martin in the fourth century. The +native of the surrounding country cares nothing for churches or +châteaux, but assumes that the prune industry of Candes is the one thing +of interest to the visitor. + +Be this as it may, it is indeed a matter of considerable importance to +all within a dozen kilometres of the little town. All through the region +round about Candes one meets with the fruit-pickers, with their great +baskets laden with prunes, pears, and apples, to be sent ultimately to +the great ovens to be desiccated and dried. Fifty years ago, you will be +told, the cultivators attended to the curing process themselves, but now +it is in the hands of the middle-man. + +At Montsoreau much the same economic conditions exist as at Candes, but +there is vastly more of historic lore hanging about the town. In the +fourteenth century, after a shifting career the fief passed to the +Vicomtes de Châteaudun; then, in the century following, to the Chabots +and the family of Chambes, of which Jean IV., prominent in the massacre +of St. Bartholomew's night, was a member. It was he who assassinated the +gallant Bussy d'Amboise at the near-by Château of Coutancière (at +Brain-sur-Allonnes), who had made a rendezvous with his wife, since +become famous in the pages of Dumas and of history as "La Dame de +Montsoreau." + +To-day the old bourg is practically non-existent, and there is a +smugness of prosperity which considerably discounts the former charm +that it once must have had. But for all that, there is enough left to +enable one to picture what the life here under the Renaissance must +have been. + +The parish church--that of the ancient Paroisse de Retz--still exists, +though in ruins, and there are very substantial remains of an old +priory, an old-time dependency of the Abbey of St. Florent, now +converted into a farm. + +Beside the highroad is the fifteenth-century château. It has a double +façade, one side of which is ornamented with a series of _mâchicoulis_, +great high window-openings, and flanking towers; and, in spite of its +generally frowning aspect, looks distinctly livable even to-day. + +The ornamental façade of the courtyard is somewhat crumbled but still +elegant, and has incorporated within its walls a most ravishing +Renaissance turret, smothered in exquisite _moulures_ and _arabesques_. +On the terminal gallery and on the panels which break up the flatness of +this inner façade are a series of allegorical bas-reliefs, representing +monkeys, surmounted with the inscription, "_Il le Feray_." + +The interior of this fine edifice is entirely remodelled, and has +nothing of its former fitments, furnishings, or decorations. + +Near Port Boulet, almost opposite Candes, is the great farm of a certain +M. Cail. Communication is had with the Orleans railway by means of a +traction engine, which draws its own broad-wheeled wagons on the regular +highway between the _gare d'hommes_ and the tall-chimneyed manor or +château which forms the residence of this enterprising agriculturist. + +The property consists of nearly two thousand acres, of which at least +twelve hundred are under the process of intensive cultivation, and is +divided into ten distinct farms, having each an overseer charged +directly with the control of his part of the domain. These farms are +wonderfully well kept, with sanded roadways like the courtyard of a +château. There are no trees in the cultivated parts, and the great +grain-fields are as the western prairies. + +The estate bears the generic name of "La Briche." On one side it is +bordered by the railroad for a distance of nearly forty kilometres, and +it gives to that same railway an annual freight traffic of two thousand +tons of merchandise, which would be considerably more if all the cattle +and sheep sent to other markets were transported by rail. + +As might be expected, this domain of "La Briche" has given to the +neighbouring farmers a lesson and an example, and little by little its +influence has resulted in an increased activity among the neighbouring +landholders, who formerly gave themselves over to "_la chasse_," and +left the conduct of their farms to incompetent and more or less ignorant +hirelings. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +ANJOU AND BRETAGNE + + +As one crosses the borderland from Touraine into Anjou, the whole aspect +of things changes. It is as if one went from the era of the Renaissance +back again into the days of the Gothic, not only in respect to +architecture, but history and many of the conditions of every-day life +as well. + +Most of the characteristics of Anjou are without their like elsewhere, +and opulent Anjou of ancient France has to-day a departmental etiquette +in many things quite different from that of other sections. + +A magnificent agricultural province, it has been further enriched by +liberal proprietors; a land of aristocracy and the church, it has ever +been to the fore in political and ecclesiastical matters; and to-day the +spirit of industry and progress are nowhere more manifest than here in +the ancient province of Anjou. + +The Loire itself changes its complexion but little, and its entrance +into Saumur, like its entrance into Tours, is made between banks that +are tinged with the rainbow colours of the growing vine. What hills +there are near by are burrowed, as swallows burrow in a cliff, by the +workers of the vineyards, who make in the rock homes similar to those +below Saumur, in the Vallée du Vendomois, and at Cinq-Mars near Tours. + +Anjou has a marked style in architecture, known as Angevin, which few +have properly placed in the gamut of architectural styles which run from +the Byzantine to the Renaissance. + +The Romanesque was being supplanted everywhere when the Angevin style +came into being, as a compromise between the heavy, flat-roofed style of +the south and the pointed sky-piercing gables of the north. All Europe +was attempting to shake off the Romanesque influence, which had lasted +until the twelfth century. Germany alone clung to the pure style, and, +it is generally thought, improved it. The Angevin builders developed a +species that was on the borderland between the Romanesque and the +Gothic, though not by any means a mere transition type. + +The chief cities of Anjou are not very great or numerous, Angers itself +containing but slightly over fifty thousand souls. Cholet, of thirteen +thousand inhabitants, is an important cloth-manufacturing centre, while +Saumur carries on a great wine trade and was formerly the capital of a +"_petit gouvernement_" of its own, and, like many other cities and towns +of this and neighbouring provinces, was the scene of great strife during +the wars of the Vendée. + +In ancient times the _Andecavi_, as the old peoples of the province were +known, shared with the _Turonii_ of Touraine the honour of being the +foremost peoples of western Gaul, though each had special +characteristics peculiarly their own, as indeed they have to-day. + +After one passes the junction of the Cher, the Indre, and the Vienne, he +notices no great change in the conduct of the Loire itself. It still +flows in and out among the banks of sand and those little round pebbles +known all along its course, nonchalantly and slowly, though now and then +one fancies that he notes a greater eddy or current than he had observed +before. At Saumur it is still more impressed upon one, while at the +Ponts de Cé--a great strategic spot in days gone by--there is evidence +that at one time or another the Loire must be a raging torrent; and +such it does become periodically, only travellers never seem to see it +when it is in this condition. + +When Candes and Montsoreau are passed and one comes under the frowning +walls of Saumur's grim citadel, a sort of provincial Bastille in its +awesomeness, he realizes for the first time that there is, somewhere +below, an outlet to the sea. He cannot smell the salt-laden breezes at +this great distance, but the general appearance of things gives that +impression. + +From Tours to Saumur by the right bank of the Loire--one of the most +superb stretches of automobile roadway in the world--lay the road of +which Madame de Sévigné wrote in "Lettre CCXXIV." (to her mother), which +begins: "_Nous arrivons ici, nous avons quitté Tours ce matin._" It was +a good day's journey for those times, whether by _malle-post_ or the +private conveyance which, likely enough, Madame de Sévigné used at the +time (1630). To-day it is a mere morsel to the hungry road-devouring maw +of a twentieth-century automobile. It's almost worth the labour of +making the journey on foot to know the charms of this delightful +river-bank bordered with historic shrines almost without number, and +peopled by a class of peasants as picturesque and gay as the +Neapolitan of romance. + +[Illustration: _Château de Saumur_] + +"_Saumur est, ma foi! une jolie ville_," said a traveller one day at a +_table d'hôte_ at Tours. And so indeed it is. Its quays and its squares +lend an air of gaiety to its proud old _hôtel de ville_ and its grim +château. Old habitations, commodious modern houses, frowning +machicolations, church spires, grand hotels, innumerable cafés, and much +military, all combine in a blend of fascinating interest that one +usually finds only in a great metropolis. + +The chief attraction is unquestionably the old château. To-day it +stands, as it has always stood, high above the Quai de Limoges, with +scarce a scar on its hardy walls and never a crumbling stone on its +parapet. + +The great structure was begun in the eleventh century, replacing an +earlier monument known as the Tour du Tronc. It was completed in the +century following and rebuilt or remodelled in the sixteenth. Outside of +its impressive exterior there is little of interest to remind one of +another day. + +To literary pilgrims Saumur suggests the homestead of the father of +Eugenie Grandet, and the _bon-vivant_ reveres it for its soft pleasant +wines. Others worship it for its wonders of architecture, and yet +others fall in love with it because of its altogether delightful +situation. + +Below Saumur are the cliff-dwellers, who burrow high in the chalk cliff +and stow themselves away from light and damp like bottles of old wine. +The custom is old and not indigenous to France, but here it is +sufficiently in evidence to be remarked by even the traveller by train. +Here, too, one sees the most remarkable of all the _coiffes_ which are +worn by any of the women along the Loire. This Angevin variety, like +Angevin architecture, is like none of its neighbours north, east, south, +or west. + +Students of history will revere Saumur for something more than its +artistic aspect or its wines, for it was a favourite residence of the +Angevin princes and the English kings, as well as being the capital of +the _pape des Huguenots_. + +While Nantes is the real metropolis of the Loire, and Angers is +singularly up-to-date and well laid out, neither of these fine cities +have a great thoroughfare to compare with the broad, straight street of +Saumur, which leads from the Gare d'Orleans on the left bank and crosses +the two bridges which span the branches of the Loire, to say nothing of +the island between, and finally merges into the great national highway +which runs south into Poitou. + +Fine houses, many, if not most of them, dating from centuries ago, line +the principal streets of the town, which, when one has actually entered +its confines, presents the appearance of being too vast and ample for +its population. And, in truth, so it really is. Its population barely +reaches fifteen thousand souls, whereas it would seem to have the +grandeur and appointments of a city of a hundred thousand. The +revocation of the Edict of Nantes cut its inhabitants down to the extent +of twenty or twenty-five thousand, and it has never recovered from the +blow. + +In the neighbourhood of Saumur, for a considerable distance up and down +the Loire, the hills are excavated into dwelling-houses and wine-caves, +producing a most curious aspect. One continuous line of these cliff +villages--like nothing so much as the habitations of the cliff-dwelling +Indians of America--extends from the juncture of the Vienne with the +Loire nearly up to the Ponts de Cé. + +The most curious effect of it all is the multitude of openings of +doorways and windows and the uprising of chimney-pots through the chalk +and turf which form the roof-tops of these settlements. + +In many of these caves are prepared the famous _vin mousseux_ of +Saumur, of which the greater part is sold as champagne to an +unsuspecting and indifferent public, not by the growers or makers, but +by unscrupulous middlemen. + +Saumur, like Angers, is fortunate in its climate, to which is due a +great part of the prosperity of the town, for the "Rome of the +Huguenots" is more prosperous--and who shall not say more content?--than +it ever was in the days of religious or feudal warfare. + +Near Saumur is one shrine neglected by English pilgrims which might well +be included in their itineraries. In the Château de Moraines at +Dampierre died Margaret of Anjou and Lancaster, Queen of England, as one +reads on a tablet erected at the gateway of this dainty "_petit castel à +tour et creneaux_." + + Manoir de la Vignole-Souzay autrefois Dampierre + Asile et dernière demure + de l'heroine de la guerre des deux roses + Marguerite d'Anjou de Lancastre, reine d'Angleterre + La plus malheureuse des reines, des éspouses, et des mères + Qui Morut le 25 Aout 1482 + Agée de 53 Ans. + +The Salvus Murus of the ancients became the Saumur of to-day in the year +948, when the monk Absalom built a monastery here and surrounded it with +a protecting wall. Up to the thirteenth century the city belonged to the +"Angevin kings of Angleterre," as the French historians proudly claim +them. + +The city passed finally to the Kings of France, and to them remained +constantly faithful. Under Henri IV. the city was governed by +Duplessis-Mornay, the "_pape des Huguenots_," becoming practically the +metropolis of Protestantism. Up to this time the chief architectural +monument was the château, which was commenced in the eleventh century +and which through the next five centuries had been aggrandized and +rebuilt into its present shape. + +The church of Notre Dame de Nantilly dates from the twelfth century and +was frequently visited by Louis XI. The oratory formerly made use of by +this monarch to-day contains the baptismal fonts. One of the columns of +the nave has graven upon it the epitaph composed by King René of Anjou +for his foster-mother, Dame Thiephanie. Throughout, the church is +beautifully decorated. + +The Hôtel de Ville may well be called the chief artistic treasure of +Saumur, as the châtteau is its chief historical monument. It is a +delightful _ensemble_ of the best of late Gothic, dating from the +sixteenth century, flanked on its façade by turrets crowned with +_mâchicoulis_, and lighted by a series of elegant windows _à +croisillons_. Above all is a gracious campanile, in its way as fine as +the belfry of Bruges, to which, from a really artistic standpoint, +rhapsodists have given rather more than its due. + +The interior is as elaborate and pleasing as is the outside. In the +Salle des Mariages and Salle du Conseil are fine fifteenth-century +chimneypieces, such as are only found in their perfection on the Loire. +The library, of something over twenty thousand volumes, many of them in +manuscript, is formed in great part from the magnificent collection +formerly at the abbeys of Fontevrault and St. Florent. Doubtless these +old tomes contain a wealth of material from which some future historian +will perhaps construct a new theory of the universe. This in truth may +not be literally so, but it is a fact that there is a vast amount of +contemporary historical information, with regard to the world in +general, which is as yet unearthed, as witness the case of Pompeii +alone, where the area of the discoveries forms but a small part of the +entire buried city. + +At Saumur numerous prehistoric and _gallo-romain_ remains are +continually being added to the museum, which is also in the Hôtel de +Ville. A recent acquisition--discovered in a neighbouring vineyard--is a +Roman "_trompette_," as it is designated, and a more or less complete +outfit of tools, obviously those of a carpenter. + +The notorious Madame de Montespan--"the illustrious penitent," though +the former description answers better--stopped here, in a house +adjoining the Church of St. John, to-day a _maison de retrait_, on her +way to visit her sister, the abbess, at Fontevrault. + +From Saumur to Angers the Loire passes an almost continuous series of +historical guide-posts, some in ruins, but many more as proudly +environed as ever. + +At Treves-Cunault is a dignified Romanesque church which would add to +the fame of a more popular and better known town. It is not a grand +structure, but it is perfect of its kind, with its crenelated façade and +its sturdy arcaded towers curiously placed midway on the north wall. + +Here one first becomes acquainted with _menhirs_ and _dolmens_, +examples of which are to be found in the neighbourhood, not so +remarkable as those of Brittany, but still of the same family. + +The Ponts de Cé follow next, still in the midst of vine-land, and +finally appear the twin spires of Angers's unique Cathedral of St. +Maurice. Here one realizes, if not before, that he is in Anjou; no more +is the atmosphere transparent as in Touraine, but something of the grime +of the commercial struggle for life is over all. + +Here the Maine joins the Loire, at a little village called La Pointe: +"the Charenton of Angers," it was called by a Paris-loving boulevardier +who once wandered afield. + +Much has been written, and much might yet be written, about the famous +Ponts de Cé, which span the Loire and its branches for a distance +considerably over three kilometres. This ancient bridge or bridges +(which, with that at Blois, were at one time, the only bridges across +the Loire below Orleans) formerly consisted of 109 arches, but the +reconstruction of the mid-nineteenth century reduced these to a bare +score. + +[Illustration: _The Ponts de Cé_] + +As a vantage-point in warfare the Ponts de Cé were ever in contention, +the Gauls, the Romans, the Franks, the Normans, and the English +successively taking possession and defending them against their +opponents. The Ponts de Cé is a weirdly strange and historic town which +has lost none of its importance in a later day, though the famous +_ponts_ are now remade, and their antique arches replaced by more solid, +if less picturesque piers and piling. They span the shallow flow of the +Loire water for three-quarters of a league and produce a homogeneous +effect of antiquity, coupled with the city's three churches and its +château overlooking the fortified isle in mid-river, which looks as +though it had not changed since the days when Marie de Medici looked +upon it, as recalled by the great Rubens painting in the Louvre. Since +the beginning of the history of these parts, battles almost without +number have taken place here, as was natural on a spot so strategically +important. + +There is a tale of the Vendean wars, connected with the "Roche-de-Murs" +at the Ponts de Cé, to the effect that a battalion, left here to guard +any attack from across the river, was captured by the Vendeans. Many of +the "_Bleus_" refused to surrender, and threw themselves into the river +beneath their feet. Among these was the wife of an officer, to whom the +Vendeans offered life if she surrendered. This was refused, and +precipitately, with her child, she threw herself into the flood beneath. + +On the largest isle, that lying between the Louet and the Loire, is one +vast garden or orchard of cherry-trees, which produce a peculiarly juicy +cherry from which large quantities of _guignolet_, a sort of "cherry +brandy," is made. The Angevins will tell you that this was a well-known +refreshment in the middle ages, and was first made by one of those +monkish orders who were so successful in concocting the subtle liquors +of the commerce of to-day. + +It is with real regret that one parts from the Ponts de Cé, with La +Fontaine's couplet on his lips: + + "... Ce n'est pas petite gloire + Que d'être pont sur la Loire." + +Some one has said that the provinces find nothing to envy in Paris as +far as the transformation of their cities is concerned. This, to a +certain extent, is so, not only in respect to the modernizing of such +grand cities as Lyons, Marseilles, or Lille, but in respect to such +smaller cities as Nantes and Angers, where the improvements, if not on +so magnificent a scale, are at least as momentous to their immediate +environment. + +For the most part these second and third class cities are to-day +transformed in exceedingly good taste, and, though many a noble monument +has in the past been sacrificed, to-day the authorities are proceeding +more carefully. + +Angers, in spite of its overpowering château and its unique cathedral, +is of a modernity and luxuriousness in its present-day aspect which is +all the more remarkable because of the contrast. Formerly the Angevin +capital, from the days of King John up to a much later time Angers had +the reputation of being a town "_plus sombre et plus maussade_" than any +other in the French provinces. In Shakespeare's "King John" one reads of +"black Angers," and so indeed is its aspect to-day, for its roof-tops +are of slate, while many of the houses are built of that material +entirely. In the olden time many of its streets were cut in the slaty +rock, leaving its sombre surface bare to the light of day. One sees +evidences of all this in the massive walls of the great black-banded +castle of Angers, and, altogether, this magpie colouring is one of the +chief characteristics of this grandly historic town. + +Both the new and the old town sit proudly on a height crowned by the two +slim spires of the cathedral. In front, the gentle curves of the river +Maine enfold the old houses at the base of the hillside and lap the very +walls of the grim fortress-château itself, or did in the days when the +Counts of Anjou held sway, though to-day the river has somewhat receded. + +Beyond the ancient ramparts, up the hill, have been erected the +"_quartiers neufs_," with houses all admirably planned and laid out, +with gardens forming a veritable girdle, as did the retaining walls of +other days which surrounded the old château and its faubourg. To-day +Angers shares with Nantes the title of metropolis of the west, and the +Loire flows on its ample way between the two in a far more imposing +manner than elsewhere in its course from source to sea. + +Angers does not lie exactly at the juncture of the Maine and Loire, but +a little way above, but it has always been considered as one of the +chief Loire cities; and probably many of its visitors do not realize +that it is not on the Loire itself. + +The marvellous fairy-book château of Angers, with its fourteen +black-striped towers, is just as it was when built by St. Louis, save +that its chess-board towers lack, in most cases, their coiffes, and all +vestiges have disappeared of the _charpente_ which formerly topped +them off. + +[Illustration: _Château d'Angers_] + +Beyond the rocky formation of the banks of the Loire, which crop out +below the juncture of the Maine and the Loire, below Angers, are +Savennières and La Possonière, whence come the most famous vintages of +Anjou, which, to the wines of these parts, are what Château Margaux and +Château Yquem are to the Bordelais, and the Clos Vougeot is to the +Bourguignons. + +The peninsula formed by the Loire and the Maine at Angers is the richest +agricultural region in all France, the nurseries and the kitchen-gardens +having made the fortune of this little corner of Anjou. + +Angers is the headquarters for nursery-garden stock for the open air, as +Orleans is for ornamental and woodland trees and shrubs. + +The trade in living plants and shrubs has grown to very great +proportions since 1848, when an agent went out from here on behalf of +the leading house in the trade and visited America for the purpose of +searching out foreign plants and fruits which could be made to thrive on +French soil. + +Both the soil and climate are very favourable for the cultivation of +many hitherto unknown fruits, the neighbourhood of the sea, which, not +far distant, is tempered by the Gulf Stream, having given to Anjou a +lukewarm humidity and a temperature of a remarkable equality. + +Some of the nurseries of these parts are enormous establishments, the +Maison André Leroy, for example, covering an extent of some six hundred +acres. A catalogue of one of these establishments, located in the +suburbs of Angers, enumerates over four hundred species of pear-trees, +six hundred varieties of apple-trees, one hundred and fifty varieties of +plums, four hundred and seventy-five of grapes, fifteen hundred of +roses, and two hundred and nineteen of rhododendrons. + +Each night, or as often as fifty railway wagons are loaded, trains are +despatched from the _gare_ at Angers for all parts. When the +_choux-fleurs_ are finished, then come the _petits pois_, and then the +_artichauts_ and other _légumes_ in favour with the Paris _bon-vivants_. + +Near Angers is one of those Cæsar's camps which were spread thickly up +and down Gaul and Britain alike. One reaches it by road from Angers, +and, until it dawns upon one that the vast triangle, one of whose +equilateral sides is formed by the Loire, another by the Maine, and the +third by a ridge of land stretching between the two, covers about +fourteen kilometres square, it seems much like any other neck or +peninsula of land lying between two rivers. One hundred thousand of the +Roman legion camped here at one time, which is not so very wonderful +until it is recalled that they lived for months on the resources of this +comparatively restricted area. + +Before coming to Nantes, Ancenis and Oudon should claim the attention of +the traveller, though each is not much more than a typically interesting +small town of France, in spite of the memories of the past. + +Ancenis has an ancient château, remodelled and added to in the +nineteenth century, which possesses some remarkably important +constructive details, the chief of which are a great tower-flanked +doorway and the _corps de logis_, each the work of an Angevin architect, +Jean de Lespine, in the sixteenth century. Within the walls of this +château François II., Duc de Bretagne, and Louis XI. signed one of the +treaties which finally led up to the union of the Duché de Bretagne with +the Crown of France. + +Oudon possesses a fine example of a mediæval donjon, though it has been +restored in our day. + +One does not usually connect Brittany with the Loire except so far as +to recollect that Nantes was a former political and social capital. As a +matter of fact, however, a very considerable proportion of Brittany +belongs to the Loire country. + +Anjou of the counts and kings and Bretagne of the dukes and duchesses +embrace the whole of the Loire valley below Saumur, although the +river-bed of the Loire formed no actual boundary. Anjou extended nearly +as far to the southward as it did to the north of the vine-clad banks, +and Bretagne, too, had possession of a vast tract south of Nantes, known +as the Pays de Retz, which bordered upon the Vendée of Poitou. + +All the world knows, or should know, that Nantes and St. Nazaire form +one of the great ports of the world, not by any means so great as New +York, London, or Hamburg, nor yet as great as Antwerp, Bordeaux, or +Marseilles, but still a magnificent port which plays a most important +part with the affairs of France and the outside world. + +Nantes, la Brette, is tranquil and solid, with the life of the laborious +bourgeois always in the foreground. It is of Bretagne, to which province +it anciently belonged, only so far as it forms the bridge between the +Vendée and the old duchy; literally between two opposing feudal lords +and masters, both of whom were hard to please. + +The memoirs of this corner of the province of Bretagne of other days are +strong in such names as the Duchesse Anne, the monk Abelard, the +redoubtable Clisson, the infamous Gilles de Retz, the warrior Lanoue, +surnamed "Bras de Fer," and many others whose names are prominent in +history. + +"_Ventre Saint Gris! les Ducs de Bretagne n'étaient pas de petits +compagnons!_" cried Henri Quatre, as he first gazed upon the Château de +Nantes. At that time, in 1598, this fortress was defended by seven +curtains, six towers, bastions and caponieres, all protected by a wide +and deep moat, into which poured the rising tide twice with each round +of the clock. + +To-day the aspect of this château is no less formidable than of yore, +though it has been debased and the moat has disappeared to make room for +a roadway and the railroad. + +It was in the château of Nantes, the same whose grim walls still +overlook the road by which one reaches the centre of the town from the +inconveniently placed station, that Mazarin had Henri de Gondi, Cardinal +de Retz and co-adjutor of the Archbishop of Paris, imprisoned in 1665, +because of his offensive partisanship. Fouquet, too, after his splendid +downfall, was thrown into the donjon here by Louis XIV. + +De Gondi recounts in his "Mémoires" how he took advantage of the +inattention of his guards and finally evaded them by letting himself +over the side of the Bastion de Mercoeur by means of a rope smuggled +into him by his friends. The feat does not look a very formidable one +to-day, but then, or in any day, it must have been somewhat of an +adventure for a portly churchman, and the wonder is that it was +performed successfully. At any rate it reads like a real adventure from +the pages of Dumas, who himself made a considerable use of Nantes and +its château in his historical romances. + +Landais, the minister and favourite of François II. of Bretagne, was +arrested here in 1485, in the very chamber of the prince, who delivered +him up with the remark: "_Faites justice, mais souvenez-vous que vous +lui êtes redevable de votre charge._" + +There is no end of historical incident connected with Nantes's old +fortress-château of mediæval times, and, in one capacity or another, it +has sheltered many names famous in history, from the Kings of France, +from Louis XII. onward, to Madame de Sévigné and the Duchesse de Berry. + +Nantes's Place de la Bouffai (which to lovers of Dumas will already be +an old friend) was formerly the site of a château contemporary with that +which stands by the waterside. The Château de Bouffai was built in 990 +by Conan, first Duc de Bretagne, and served as an official residence to +him and many of his successors. + +In Nantes's great but imperfect and unfinished Cathedral of St. Pierre +one comes upon a relic that lives long in the memory of those who have +passed before it: the tomb of François II., Duc de Bretagne, and +Marguerite de Foix. The cathedral itself is no mean architectural work, +in spite of its imperfections, as one may judge from the following +inscription graven over the sculptured figure of St. Pierre, its patron: + + "L'an mil quatre cent trente-quatre, + A my-avril sans moult rabattre: + An portail de cette église, + Fut la première pierre assise." + +Within, the chief attraction is that masterwork of Michel Colombe, the +before-mentioned tomb, which ranks among the world's art-treasures. The +beauty of the emblematic figures which flank the tomb proper, the fine +chiselling of the recumbent effigies themselves, and the general +_ensemble_ is such that the work is bound to appeal, whatever may be +one's opinion of Renaissance sculpture in France. The tomb was brought +here from the old Église des Carmes, which had been pillaged and burned +in the Revolution. + +The mausoleum was--in its old resting-place--opened in 1727, and a +small, heart-shaped, gold box was found, supposed to have contained the +heart of the Duchesse Anne. The coffer was surmounted by a royal crown +and emblazoned with the order of the Cordelière, but within was found +nothing but a scapulary. On the circlet of the crown was written in +relief: + + "Cueur de vertus orné + Dignement couronné." + +And on the box beneath one read: + + "En ce petit vaisseau, de fin or pur et munde, + Repose un plus grand cueur que oncque dame eut au monde. + Anne fut le nom d'elle, en France deux fois Royne + + * * * * * + + Et ceste parte terrestre en grand deuil nos demure. + + IX. JANVIER M.V.XIII." + +In one respect only has Nantes suffered through the march of time. Its +magnificent Quai de la Fosse has disappeared, a long façade which a +hundred or more years ago was bordered by the palatial dwellings of the +great ship-owners of the Nantes of a former generation. The whole, +immediately facing the river where formerly swung many ships at anchor, +has disappeared entirely to make way for the railway. + +[Illustration: _ENVIRONS OF NANTES_] + + * * * * * + +The islands of the Loire opposite Nantes are an echo of the life of the +metropolis itself. The Ile Feydeau is monumental, the Ile Gloriette +hustling and nervous with "_affaires_," and Prairie-au-Duc busy with +industries of all sorts. + +Couëron, below Nantes on the right bank, is sombre with gray walls +surrounding its numberless factories, and chimney-stacks belching forth +clouds of dense smoke. Behind are great walls of chalky-white rock +crowned with verdure. Nearly opposite is the little town of Le Pellerin +graciously seated on the river's bank and marking the lower limit of the +Loire Nantaise. + +Another hill, belonging to the domain of Bois-Tillac and La Martinière, +where was born Fouché, the future Duc d'Otranta, comes to view, and the +basin of the Loire enlarges into the estuary, and all at once one finds +himself in the true "Loire Maritime." + +At Martinière is the mouth of the Canal Maritime à la Loire, which, from +Paimboeuf to Le Pellerin, is used by all craft ascending the river to +Nantes, drawing more than four metres of water. + +At the entrance of the Acheneau is the Canal de Buzay, which connects +that stream with the more ambitious Loire, and makes of the Lac de Grand +Lieu a public domain, instead of a private property as claimed by the +"marquis" who holds in terror all who would fish or shoot over its +waters. All this immediate region formerly belonged to the monks of the +ancient Abbey of Buzay, and it was they who originally cut the waterway +through to the Loire. About half-way in its length are the ruins of the +ancient monastery, clustered about the tower of its old church. It is a +most romantically sad monument, and for that very reason its grouping, +on the bank of the busy canal, suggests in a most impressive manner the +passing of all great works. + +The prosperity of Nantes as a deep-sea port is of long standing, but +recent improvements have increased all this to a hitherto unthought-of +extent. Progress has been continuous, and now Nantes has become, like +Rouen, a great deep-water port, one of the important seaports of France, +the realization of a hope ever latent in the breast of the Nantais since +the days and disasters of the Edict and its revocation. + +Below Nantes, in the actual "Loire Maritime," the aspect of all things +changes and the green and luxuriant banks give way to sand-dunes and +flat, marshy stretches, as salty as the sea itself. This gives rise to a +very considerable development of the salt industry which at Bourg de +Batz is the principal, if not the sole, means of livelihood. + +St. Nazaire, the real deep-water port of Nantes, dates from the +fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when it was known as Port Nazaire. It +is a progressive and up-to-date seaport of some thirty-five thousand +souls, but it has no appeal for the tourist unless he be a lover of +great smoky steamships and all the paraphernalia of longshore life. + +Pornichet, a "_station de bains de mer très fréquentée_;" Batz, with its +salt-works; Le Croisic, with its curious waterside church, and the old +walled town of Guérande bring one to the mouth of the Loire. The rest is +the billowy western ocean whose ebb and flow brings fresh breezes and +tides to the great cities of the estuary and makes possible that +prosperity with which they are so amply endowed. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +SOUTH OF THE LOIRE + + +The estuary of the Loire belongs both to Brittany and to the Vendée, +though, as a matter-of-fact, the southern bank, opposite Nantes, formed +a part of the ancient Pays de Retz, one of the old seigneuries of +Bretagne. + +It was Henri de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz, who was the bitter rival of +Mazarin. French historians have told us that when the regency under Anne +of Austria began, Mazarin, who had been secretary to the terrible +Richelieu, was just coming into his power. He was a subtle, insidious +Italian, plodding and patient, but false as a spring-time rainbow. Gondi +was bold, liberal, and independent, a mover of men and one able to take +advantage of any turn of the wind, a statesman, and a great +reformer,--or he would have been had he but full power. It was Cromwell +who said that De Retz was the only man in Europe who saw through his +plans. + +Gondi had entered the church, but he had no talents for it. His life +was free, too free even for the times, it would appear, for, though he +was ordained cardinal, it was impossible for him to supplant Mazarin in +the good graces of the court. As he himself had said that he preferred +to be a great leader of a party rather than a partisan of royalty, he +was perhaps not so very greatly disappointed that he was not able to +supplant the wily Italian successor of Richelieu in the favour of the +queen regent. Gondi was able to control the parliament, however, and, +for a time, it was unable to carry through anything against his will. +Mazarin rose to power at last, barricaded the streets of Paris, and +decided to exile Gondi--as being the too popular hero of the people. +Gondi knew of the edict, but stuck out to the last, saying: "To-morrow, +I, Henri de Gondi, before midday, will be master of Paris." Noon came, +and he _was_ master of Paris, but as he was still Archbishop-Coadjutor +of Paris his hands were tied in more ways than one, and the plot for his +supremacy over Mazarin, "the plunderer," fell through. + +The whole neighbouring region south of the Loire opposite Nantes, the +ancient Pays de Retz, is unfamiliar to tourists in general, and for that +reason it has an unexpected if not a superlative charm. It was the +bloodiest of the battle-grounds of the Vendean wars, and, though its +monumental remains are not as numerous or as imposingly beautiful as +those in many other parts, there is an interest about it all which is as +undying as is that of the most ornate or magnificent château or +fortress-peopled land that ever existed. + +Not a corner of this land but has seen bloody warfare in all its +grimness and horror, from the days when Clisson was pillaged by the +Normans in the ninth century, to the guerilla warfare of the Vendean +republicans in the eighteenth century. The advent of the railway has +changed much of the aspect of this region and brought a +twentieth-century civilization up to the very walls of the ruins of +Clisson and Maulévrier, the latter one of the many châteaux of this +region which were ruined by the wars of Stofflet, who, at the head of +the insurgents, obliged the nobility to follow the peasants in their +uprising. + +Now and then, in these parts, one comes upon a short length of railway +line not unlike that at which our forefathers marvelled. The line may be +of narrow gauge or it may not, but almost invariably the two or three +so-called carriages are constructed in the style (or lack of style) of +the old stage-coach, and they roll along in much the same lumbering +fashion. The locomotive itself is a thing to be wondered at. It is a +pigmy in size, but it makes the commotion of a modern decapod, or one of +those great flyers which pull the Southern Express on the main line via +Poitiers and Angoulême, not fifty kilometres away. + +There is a little tract of land lying just south of the Loire below +Angers which is known as "le Bocage Vendéen." One leaves the Loire at +Chalonnes and, by a series of gentle inclines, reaches the plateau where +sits the town of Cholet, the very centre of the region, and a town whose +almost only industry is the manufacture of pocket-handkerchiefs. + +The aspect of the Loire has changed rapidly and given way to a more +vigorous and varied topography; but, for all that, Cholet and the +surrounding country depend entirely upon the great towns of the Loire +for their intercourse with the still greater markets beyond. Like +Angers, Cholet and all the neighbouring villages are slate-roofed, with +only an occasional red tile to give variety to the otherwise gray and +sombre outlook. + +_En route_ from Chalonnes one passes Chemillé almost the only +market-town of any size in the district. It is very curious, with its +Romanesque church and its old houses distributed around an amphitheatre, +like the _loges_ in an opera-house. + +This is the very centre of the Bocage, where, in Revolutionary times, +the Republican armies so frequently fought with the bands of Vendean +fanatics. + +The houses of Cholet are well built, but always with that grayness and +sadness of tone which does not contribute to either brilliancy of aspect +or gaiety of disposition. Save the grand street which traverses the town +from east to west, the streets are narrow and uncomfortable; but to make +up for all this there are hotels and cafés as attractive and as +comfortable as any establishments of the kind to be found in any of the +smaller cities of provincial France. + +The handkerchief industry is very considerable, no less than six great +establishments devoting themselves to the manufacture. + +Cholet is one of the greatest cattle markets, if not the greatest, in +the land. The farmers of the surrounding country buy _boeufs maigres_ in +the southwest and centre of France and transform them into good fat +cattle which in every way rival what is known in England as "best +English." This is accomplished cheaply and readily by feeding them with +cabbage stalks. + +On Saturdays, on the Champ de Foire, the aspect is most animated, and +any painter who is desirous of emulating Rosa Bonheur's "Horse Fair" +(painted at the great cattle market of Bernay, in Normandy) cannot find +a better vantage-ground than here, for one may see gathered together +nearly all the cattle types of Poitou, the Vendée, Anjou, Bas Maine, and +of Bretagne Nantaise. + +In earlier days Cholet was far more sad than it is to-day; but there +remain practically no souvenirs of its past. The wars of the Vendée +left, it is said, but three houses standing when the riot and bloodshed +was over. Two of the greatest battles of this furious struggle were +fought here. + +On the site of the present railroad station Kleber and Moreau fought the +royalists, and the heroic Bonchamps received the wound of which he died +at St. Florent, just after he had put into execution the order of +release for five thousand Republican prisoners. This was on the 17th +October, 1793. Five months later Stofflet possessed himself of the town +and burned it nearly to the ground. Not much is left to remind one of +these eventful times, save the public garden, which was built on the +site of the old château. + +[Illustration: _Donjon of the Château de Clisson_] + +La Moine, a tiny and most picturesque river, still flows under the +antique arches of the old bridge, which was held in turn by the Vendeans +and the Republicans. + +To the west of Cholet runs another line of railway, direct through the +heart of the Sèvre-Nantaise, one of those _petits pays_ whose old-time +identity is now all but lost, even more celebrated in bloody annals than +is that region lying to the eastward. Here was a country entirely sacked +and impoverished. Mortagne was completely ruined, though it has yet left +substantial remains of its fourteenth and fifteenth century château. +Torfou was the scene of a bloody encounter between the Vendean hordes +and Kleber's two thousand _héroiques de Mayence_. The able Vendean +chiefs who opposed him, Bonchamps, D'Elbée, and Lescure, captured his +artillery and massacred all the wounded. + +At the extremity of this line was the stronghold of Clisson, which +itself finally succumbed, but later gave birth to a new town to take the +place of that which perished in the Vendean convulsion. + +Throughout this region, in the valleys of the Moine and the +Sèvre-Nantaise, the rocks and the verdure and the admirable, though ill +preserved, ruins, all combine to produce as unworldly an atmosphere as +it is possible to conceive within a short half-hundred kilometres of the +busy world-port of Nantes and the great commercial city of Angers. One +continually meets with ruins that recall the frightful struggle of +Revolutionary times; hence the impression that one gets from a ramble +through or about this region is well-nigh unique in all France. + +The coast southward, nearly to La Rochelle, is a vast series of shallow +gulfs and salt marshes which form weirdly wonderful outlooks for the +painter who inclines to vast expanses of sea and sky. + +Pornic is a remarkably picturesque little seaside village, where the +inflowing and outflowing tides of the Bay of Biscay temper the southern +sun and make of it--or would make of it if the tide of fashion had but +set that way--a watering-place of the first rank. + +It is an entrancing bit of coast-line which extends for a matter of +fifty kilometres south of the juncture of the Loire with the ocean, with +an aspect at times severe with a waste of sand, and again gracious with +verdure and tree-clad and rocky shores. + +The great Bay of Bourgneuf and its enfolding peninsula of Noirmoutier +form an artist's sketching-ground that is not yet overrun with mere +dabblers in paint and pencil, and is accordingly charming. + +The Bay of Bourgneuf has most of the characteristics of the Morbihan, +without that severity and sternness which impress one so deeply when on +the shores of the great Breton inland sea. + +The little town of Bourgneuf-en-Retz, with its little port of Colletis, +is by no means a city of any artistic worth; indeed it is nearly bare of +most of those things which attract travellers who are lovers of old or +historic shrines; but it is a delightful stopping-place for all that, +provided one does not want to go farther afield, to the very tip of the +Vendean "land's end" at Noirmoutier across the bay. + +Three times a day a steamer makes the journey to the little island town +which is a favourite place of pilgrimage for the Nantais during the +summer months. Once it was not even an island, but a peninsula, and not +so very long ago either. The alluvial deposits of the Loire made it in +the first place, and the sea, backing in from the north, made a strait +which just barely separates it to-day from the mainland. + +On this out-of-the-way little island there are still some remains of +prehistoric monuments, the dolmen of Chiron-Tardiveau, the menhirs of +Pinaizeaux and Pierre-Levée, and some others. In the speech of the +inhabitants the isle is known as Noirmoutier, a contraction of "_Nigrum +Monasterium_," a name derived from the monastery founded here in the +seventh century by St. Philibert. + +In the town is an old château, the ancient fortress-refuge of the Abbé +of Her. It is a great square structure flanked at the angles with little +towers, of which two are roofed, one uncovered, and the fourth +surmounted by a heliograph for communicating with the Ile de Yeu and the +Pointe de Chenoulin. The view from the heights of these château towers +is fascinating beyond compare, particularly at sundown on a summer's +evening, when the golden rays of the sinking sun burnish the coast of +the Vendée and cast lingering shadows from the roof-tops and walls of +the town below. To the northwest one sees the Ilot du Pilier, with its +lighthouse and its tiny coast-guard fortress; to the north is clearly +seen Pornic and the neighbouring coasts of the Pays de Retz and of +Bouin with its encircling dikes,--all reminiscent of a little Holland. +To the south is the narrow neck of Fromentin, the jagged Marguerites, +which lift their fangs wholly above the surface of the sea only at low +water, and the towering cliffs of the Ile de Yeu, which rise above the +mists. + +Just south of the Loire, between Nantes and Bourgneuf, is the Lac de +Grand-Lieu, in connection with which one may hear a new rendering of an +old legend. At one time, it is said, it was bordered by a city, whose +inhabitants, for their vices, brought down the vengeance of heaven upon +them, even though they cried out to the powers on high to avert the +threatened flood which rose up out of the lake and overflowed the banks +and swallowed the city and all evidences of its past. In this last lies +the flaw in the legend; but, like the history of Sodom, of the Ville +d'Ys in Bretagne, and of Ars in Dauphiné, tradition has kept it alive. + +This wicked place of the Loire valley was called _Herbauge_ or +_Herbadilla_, and, from St. Philibert at the southern extremity of the +lake, one looks out to-day on a considerable extent of shallow water, +which is as murderous-looking and as uncanny as a swamp of the +Everglades. + +From the central basin flow two tiny rivers, the Ognon and the Boulogne, +which are charming enough in their way, as also is the route by highroad +from Nantes, but the gray monotonous lake, across which the wind +whistles in a veritable tempest for more than six months of the year, is +most depressing. + +There are various hamlets, with some pretence at advanced civilization +about them, scattered around the borders of the lake, St. Leger, St. +Mars, St. Aignan, St. Lumine, Bouaye, and La Chevrolière; but in the +whole number you will not get a daily paper that is less than +forty-eight hours old, and nothing but the most stale news of happenings +in the outside world ever dribbles through. St. Philibert is the +metropolis of these parts, and it has no competitors for the honour. + +At the entrance of the Ognon is the little village of Passay, built at +the foot of a low cliff which dominates all this part of the lake. It is +a picturesque little village of low houses and red roofs, with a little +sandy beach in the foreground, through which little rivulets of soft +water trickle and go to make up the greater body. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +BERRY AND GEORGE SAND'S COUNTRY + + +Whether one enters Berry through the valley of the Cher or the Indre or +through the gateway of Sancerre in the mid-Loire, the impression is much +the same. The historic province of Berry resounds again and again with +the echoes of its past, and no province adjacent to the Loire is more +prolific in the things that interest the curious, and none is so little +known as the old province which was purchased for the Crown by Philippe +I. in 1101. + +[Illustration: BERRY (MAP)] + +With the interior of the province, that portion which lies away from +the river valleys, this book has little to do, though the traveller +through the region would hardly omit the episcopal city of Bourges, and +its great transeptless cathedral, with its glorious front of quintupled +portals. With the cathedral may well be coupled that other great +architectural monument, the Maison de Jacques Coeur. At Paris one is +asked, "_Avez-vous vu le Louvre?_" but at Bourges it is always, +"_Êtes-vous allé à Jacques Coeur?_" even before one is asked if he has +seen the cathedral. + +From the hill which overlooks Sancerre, and forms a foundation for the +still existing tower of the château belonging to the feudal Counts of +Sancerre, one gets one of the most wonderfully wide-spread views in all +the Loire valley. The height and its feudal tower stand isolated, like a +rock rising from the ocean. From Cosne and beyond, on the north, to La +Charité, on the south, is one vast panorama of vineyard, wheat-field, +and luxuriant river-bottom. At a lesser distance, on the right bank, is +the line of the railroad which threads its way like a serpent around the +bends of the river and its banks. + +Below the hill of Sancerre is a huge overgrown hamlet--and yet not large +enough to be called a village--surrounding a most curious church (St. +Satur), without either nave or apse. The old Abbey of St. Satur once +possessed all the lands in the neighbourhood that were not in the actual +possession of the Counts of Sancerre, and was a power in the land, as +were most of the abbeys throughout France. The church was begun in +1360-70, on a most elaborate plan, so extensive in fact (almost +approaching that great work at La Charité) that it has for ever remained +uncompleted. The history of this little churchly suburb of Sancerre has +been most interesting. The great Benedictine church was never finished +and has since come to be somewhat of a ruin. In 1419 the English sacked +the abbey and stole its treasure to the very last precious stone or +piece of gold. A dozen flatboats were anchored or moored to the banks of +the river facing the abbey, and the monks were transported thither and +held for a ransom of a thousand crowns each. As everything had already +been taken by their captors, the monks vainly protested that they had no +valuables with which to meet the demand, and accordingly they were bound +hand and foot and thrown into the river, to the number of fifty-two, +eight only escaping with their lives. A bloody memory indeed for a fair +land which now blossoms with poppies and roses. + +Sancerre, in spite of the etymology of its name (which comes down from +Roman times--Sacrum Cæsari), is of feudal origin. Its fortress, and the +Comté as well, were under the suzerainty of the Counts of Champagne, and +it was the stronghold and refuge of many a band of guerilla warriors, +adventurers, and marauding thieves. + +At the end of the twelfth century a certain Comte de Sancerre, at the +head of a coterie of bandits called Brabaçons, marched upon Bourges and +invaded the city, killing all who crossed their path, and firing all +isolated dwellings and many even in the heart of the city. + +Sancerre was many times besieged, the most memorable event of this +nature being the attack of the royalists in 1573 against the Frondeurs +who were shut up in the town. The defenders were without artillery, but +so habituated were they to the use of the _fronde_ that for eight months +they were able to hold the city against the foe. From this the _fronde_ +came to be known as the "_arquebuse de Sancerre_." + +[Illustration: _La Tour, Sancerre_] + +Sancerre is to-day a ruined town, its streets unequal and tortuous, all +up and down hill and blindly rambling off into _culs-de-sac_ which +lead nowhere. Above it all is the fine château, built in a modern day +after the Renaissance manner, of Mlle. de Crussol, proudly seated on the +very crest of the hill. Within the grounds, the only part of the domain +which is free to the public, are the ruins of the famous citadel which +was bought by St. Louis, in 1226, from the Comte Thibaut. The only +portion of this feudal stronghold which remains to-day is known as the +"Tour des Fiefs." + +One may enter the grounds and, in the company of a _concierge_, ascend +to the platform of this lone tower, whence a wonderful view of the broad +"_ruban lumineux_" of the Loire spreads itself out as if fluttering in +the wind, northward and southward, as far as the eye can reach. Beside +it one sees another line of blue water, as if it were a strand detached +from the broader band. This is the Canal Latéral de la Loire, one of +those inland waterways of France which add so much to the prosperity of +the land. + +Above Sancerre is Gien, another gateway to Berry, through which the +traveller from Paris through the Orléannais is bound to pass. + +[Illustration: _Château de Gien_] + +At a distance of five kilometres or more, coming from the north, one +sees the towers of the château of Gien piercing the horizon. The +château is a most curious affair, with its chainbuilt blocks of stone, +and its red and black--or nearly black--_brique_, crossed and recrossed +in quaint geometrical designs. It was built in 1494 for Dame Anne de +Beaujeau, who was regent of the kingdom immediately after the death of +Charles VIII. This building replaced another of a century before, built +by Jean-sans-Peur, where was celebrated the marriage of his daughter +with the Comte de Guise. Gien's château, too, may be said to be a +landmark on Jeanne d'Arc's route to martyrdom and fame, for here she +made her supplication to Charles VII. to march on Reims. In +Charlemagnian times this old castle had a predecessor, which, however, +was more a fortress than a habitable château; but all remains of this +had apparently disappeared before the later structure made its +appearance. Louis XIV. and Anne of Austria, regent, held a fugitive, +impoverished court in this château, and heard with fear and trembling +the cannon-shots of the armies of Turenne and Condé at Bleneau, five +leagues distant. + +At Nevers or at La Charité one does not get the view of the Loire that +he would like, for, in one case, the waterway is masked by a row of +houses, and in the other by a series of walled gardens; but at Gien, +where everything is splendidly theatrical, there is a tree-bordered quay +and innumerable examples of those coquettish little houses of brick +which are not beautiful, but which set off many a French riverside +landscape as nothing else will. + +In Gien's main street there are a multitude of rare mellowed old houses +with sculptured fronts and high gables. This street twists and turns +until it reaches the old stone and brick château, with its harmoniously +coloured walls, making a veritable symphony of colour. Each turn in this +old high-street of Gien gives a new vista of mediævalism quite +surprising and eerielike, as fantastic as the weird pictures of Doré. + +Gien and its neighbour Briare are chiefly noted commercially for their +pottery. Gien makes crockery ware, and Briare inundates the entire world +with those little porcelain buttons which one buys in every land. + +Crossing the Sologne and entering Berry from the capital of the +Orléannais, or coming out from Tours by the valley of the Cher, one +comes upon the little visited and out-of-the-way château of Valençay, in +the charming dainty valley of the Nahon. + +There is some reason for its comparative neglect by the tourist, for it +is on a cross-country railway line which demands quite a full day of +one's time to get there from Tours and get away again to the next centre +of attraction, and if one comes by the way of the Orléannais, he must be +prepared to give at least three days to the surrounding region. + +This is the gateway to George Sand's country, but few English-speaking +tourists ever get here, so it may be safely called unknown. + +It is marvellous how France abounds in these little corners all but +unknown to strangers, even though they lie not far off the beaten track. +The spirit of exploration and travel in unknown parts, except the Arctic +regions, Thibet, and the Australian desert, seems to be dying out. + +The château of Valençay was formerly inhabited by Talleyrand, after he +had quitted the bishopric of Autun for politics. It is seated proudly +upon a vast terrace overlooking one of the most charming bits of the +valley of the Nahon, and is of a thoroughly typical Renaissance type, +built by the great Philibert Delorme for Jacques d'Étampes in 1540, and +only acquired by the minister of Napoleon and Louis XVIII. in 1805. + +The architect, in spite of the imposing situation, is not seen at his +best here, for in no way does it compare with his masterwork at Anet, or +the Tuileries. The expert recognizes also the hands of two other +architects, one of the Blaisois and the other of Anjou, who in some +measure transformed the edifice in the reign of François I. + +The enormous donjon,--if it is a donjon,--with its great, round corner +tower with a dome above, which looks like nothing so much as an +observatory, is perhaps the outgrowth of an earlier accessory, but on +the whole the edifice is fully typical of the Renaissance. + +The court unites the two widely different terminations in a fashion more +or less approaching symmetry, but it is only as a whole that the effect +is highly pleasing. + +Beyond a _balustrade à jour_ is the Jardin de la Duchesse, communicating +with the park by a graceful bridge over an ornamental water. In general +the apartments are furnished in the style of the First Empire, an epoch +memorable in the annals of Valençay. + +[Illustration: _Château de Valençay_] + +By the orders of Napoleon many royalties and ambassadors here received +hospitality, and in 1808-14 it became a gilded cage--or a "golden +prison," as the French have it--for the Prince of the Asturias, +afterward Ferdinand VII. of Spain, who consoled himself during his +captivity by constructing wolf-traps in the garden and planting +cauliflowers in the great urns and vases with which the terrace was set +out. + +There is a great portrait gallery here, where is gathered a collection +of portraits in miniature of all the sovereigns who treated with +Talleyrand during his ministerial reign, among others one of the Sultan +Selim, painted from life, but in secret, since the reproduction of the +human form is forbidden by the Koran. + +In the Maison de Charité, in the town, beneath the pavement of the +chapel, is found the tomb of the family of Talleyrand, where are +interred the remains of Talleyrand and of Marie Thérèse Poniatowska, +sister of the celebrated King of Poland who served in the French army in +1806. In this chapel also is a rare treasure in the form of a chalice +enriched with precious stones, originally belonging to Pope Pius VI., +the gift of the Princess Poniatowska. + +The Pavillon de la Garenne,--what in England would be called a +"shooting-box,"--a rendezvous for the chase, built by Talleyrand, is +some distance from the château on the edge of the delightful little +Forêt de Gatine. + +Varennes, just above Valençay, is thought by the average traveller +through the long gallery of charms in the château country to be wholly +unworthy of his attention. As a matter of fact, it does not possess much +of historical or artistic interest, though its fine old church dates +from the twelfth century. + +Ascending the Cher from its juncture with the Loire, one passes a number +of interesting places. St. Aignan, with its magnificent Gothic and +Renaissance château; Selles; Romorantin, a dead little spot, dear as +much for its sleepiness as anything else; Vierzon, a rich, industrial +town where they make locomotives, automobiles, and mechanical hay-rakes, +copying the most approved American models; and Mehun-sur-Yevre, all +follow in rapid succession. + +Mehun-sur-Yevre, which to most is only a name and to many not even that, +is possessed of two architectural monuments, a grand ruin of a Gothic +fortress of the time of Charles VII. and a feudal gateway of two great +rounded cone-roofed towers, bound by a ligature through which a +port-cullis formerly slid up and down like an act-drop in a theatre. + +[Illustration: GATEWAY OF MEHUN-SUR-YEVRE] + +Wonderfully impressive all this, and the more so because these +magnificent relics of other days are unspoiled and unrestored. + +[Illustration: _Le Carrior Dore, Romorantin_] + +Charles VII. was by no means constant in his devotions, it will be +recalled, though he seems to have been seriously enamoured of Agnes +Sorel--at any rate while she lived. Afterward he speedily surrounded +himself with a galaxy of "_belles demoiselles vêtues comme reines_." +They followed him everywhere, and he spent all but his last sou upon +them, as did some of his successors. + +One day Charles VII. took refuge in the strong towers of the château of +Mehun-sur-Yevre, which he himself had built and which he had frequently +made his residence. Here he died miserable and alone,--it is said by +history, of hunger. Thus another dark chapter in the history of kings +and queens was brought to a close. + +If one has the time and so desires, he may follow the Indre, the next +confluent of the Loire south of the Cher, from Loches to "George Sand's +country," as literary pilgrims will like to think of the pleasant +valleys of the ancient province of Berry. + +The history of the province before and since Philippe I. united it with +the Crown of France was vivid enough to make it fairly well known, but +on the whole it has been very little travelled. It is essentially a +pastoral region, and, remembering George Sand and her works, one has +refreshing memories of the idyls of its prairies and the beautiful +valleys of the Indre and the Cher, which join their waters with the +Loire near Tours. + +If one would love Berry as one loves a greater and more famous haunt of +a famous author, and would prepare in advance for the pleasure to be +received from threading its highways and byways, he should read those +"_petits chefs-d'oeuvre_ of sentiment and rustic poesy", the romances of +George Sand. If he has done this, he will find almost at every turning +some long familiar spot or a peasant who seems already an old friend. + +Châteauroux is the real gateway to the country of George Sand. + +Nohant is the native place of the great authoress, Madame Dudevant, whom +the world best knows as George Sand; a little by-corner of the great +busy world, loved by all who know it. Far out in the open country is the +little station at which one alights if he comes by rail. Opposite is a +"_petite route_" which leads directly to the banks of the Indre, where +it joins the highway to La Châtre. + +Nohant itself, as a dainty old-world village, is divine. Has not George +Sand expressed her love of it as fervidly as did Marie Antoinette for +the Trianon? The French call it a "_bon et honnête petit village +berrichon_." Nude of artifice, it is deliciously unspoiled. A delightful +old church, with a curious wooden porch and a parvise as rural as could +possibly be, not even a cobblestone detracting from its rustic beauty, +is the principal thing which strikes one's eye as he enters the village. +Chickens and geese wander about, picking here and there on the very +steps of the church, and no one says them nay. + +The house of George Sand is just to the right of the church, within +whose grounds one sees also the pavilion known to her as the "_théâtre +des marionettes_." + +In a corner of the poetic little cemetery at Nohant, one sees among the +humble crosses emerging from the midst of the verdure, all +weather-beaten and moss-grown, a plain, simple stone, green with mossy +dampness, which marks the spot where reposes all that was mortal of +George Sand. Here, in the midst of this land which she so loved, she +still lives in the memory of all; at the house of the well-lettered for +her abounding talent--second only to that of Balzac--and in the homes +of the peasants for her generous fellowship. + +Through her ancestry she could and did claim relationship with Charles +X. and Louis XVIII.; but her life among her people had nought of +pretence in it. She was born among the roses and to the sound of music, +and she lies buried amid all the rusticity and simple charm of what may +well be called the greenwood of her native land. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +THE UPPER LOIRE + + +The gateway to the upper valley may be said to be through the Nivernais, +and the capital city of the old province, at the juncture of the Allier +and the Loire. + +After leaving Gien and Briare, the Loire passes through quite the most +truly picturesque landscape of its whole course, the great height of +Sancerre dominating the view for thirty miles or more in any direction. + +Cosne is the first of the towns of note of the Nivernais, and is a gay +little bourg of eight or nine thousand souls who live much the same life +that their grandfathers lived before them. As a place of residence it +might prove dull to the outsider, but as a house of call for the wearied +and famished traveller, Cosne, with its charming situation, its +tree-bordered quays, and its Hôtel du Grand Cerf, is most attractive. + +[Illustration: _Église S. Aignan, Cosne_] + +Pouilly-sur-Loire is next, with three thousand or more inhabitants +wholly devoted to wine-growing, Pouilly being to the upper river what +Vouvray is to Touraine. It is not a tourist point in any sense, nor is +it very picturesque or attractive. + +Some one has said that the pleasure of contemplation is never so great +as when one views a noble monument, a great work of art, or a charming +French town for the first time. Never was it more true indeed than of +the two dissimilar towns of the upper Loire, Nevers, and La +Charité-sur-Loire. The old towers of La Charité rise up in the sunlight +and give that touch to the view which marks it at once as of the +Nivernais, which all archæologists tell one is Italian and not French, +in motive as well as sentiment. + +It is remarkable, perhaps, that the name La Charité is so seldom met +with in the accounts of English travellers in France, for in France it +is invariably considered to be one of the most picturesque and famous +spots in all mid-France. + +It is an unprogressive, sleepy old place, with streets mostly unpaved, +whose five thousand odd souls, known roundabout as Les Caritates, live +apparently in the past. + +[Illustration: _Pouilly-sur-Loire_] + +Below, a stone's throw from the windows of your inn, lies the Loire, +its broad, blue bosom scarcely ruffled, except where it slowly eddies +around the piers of the two-century-old _dos d'ane_ bridge; a lovely old +structure, built, it is recorded, by the regiment known as the "Royal +Marine" in the early years of the eighteenth century. + +The town is terraced upon the very edge of the river, with views up and +down which are unusually lovely for even these parts. Below, almost +within sight, is Nevers, while above are the heights of Sancerre, still +visible in the glowing western twilight. + +Beyond the bridge rises a giant column of blackened stone, festooned by +four ranges of arcades, the sole remaining relic of the ancient church +standing alone before the present structure which now serves the +purposes of the church in La Charité. + +The walls which surrounded the ancient town have disappeared or have +been built into house walls, but the effect is still of a self-contained +old burg. + +In the fourteenth century, during the Hundred Years' War, the town was +frequently besieged. In 1429 Jeanne d'Arc, coming from her success at +St. Pierre-le-Moutier, here met with practically a defeat, as she was +able to sustain the siege for only but a month, when she withdrew. + +La Charité played an important part in the religious wars of the +sixteenth century, and Protestants and Catholics became its occupants in +turn. Virtually La Charité-sur-Loire became a Protestant stronghold in +spite of its Catholic foundation. + +In 1577 it bade defiance to the royal arms of the Duc d'Alençon, as is +recounted by the following lines: + + "Ou allez-vous, hélas! furieux insensés + Cherchant de Charité la proie et la ruine, + Qui sans l'ombre de Foy abbatre la pensez! + + * * * * * + + Le canon ne peut rien contre la Charité, + Plus tot vous détruira la peste et la famine, + Car jamais sans Foy n'aurez la Charité." + +In spite of this defiance it capitulated, and, on the 15th of May, at +the château of Plessis-les-Tours on the Loire, Henri III. celebrated the +victory of his brother by a fête "_ultra-galante_," where, in place of +the usual pages, there were employed "_des dames vestues en habits +d'hommes...._" Surely a fantastic and immodest manner of celebrating a +victory against religious opponents; but, like many of the customs of +the time, the fête was simply a fanatical debauch. + +[Illustration: _Porte du Croux, Nevers_] + +At Nevers one meets the Canal du Nivernais, which recalls Daudet's "La +Belle Nivernaise" to all readers of fiction, who may accept it without +question as a true and correct guide to the region, its manners, and +customs. + +The chief characteristic of Nevers is that it is Italian in nearly, if +not quite all, its aspects; its monuments and its history. Its ancient +ducal château, part of which dates from the feudal epoch, was the abode +of the Italian dukes who came in the train of Mazarin, the last of whom +was the nephew of the cardinal, "who himself was French if his speech +was not." + +Nevers has also a charming Gothic cathedral (St. Cyr) with a double +Romanesque apse (in itself a curiosity seldom, if ever, seen out of +Germany), and, in addition to the cathedral, can boast of St. Etienne, +one of the most precious of all the Romanesque churches of France. + +The old walls at Nevers are not very complete, but what remain are +wonderfully expressive. The Tour Gouguin and the Tour St. Eloi are +notable examples, but they are completely overshadowed by the Porte du +Croux, which is one of the best examples of the city gates which were so +plentiful in the France of another day. + +Above Nevers, Decize, Bourbon-Lancy, Gilly, and Digoin are mere names +which mean nothing to the traveller by rail. They are busy towns of +central France, where the bustle of their daily lives is of quite a +different variety from that of the Ile de France, of Normandy, or of the +Pas de Calais. + +From Digoin to Roanne the Loire is followed by the Canal Latéral. Roanne +is a not very pleasing, overgrown town which has become a veritable +_ville des ouvriers_, all of whom are engaged in cloth manufacture. + +Virtually, then, Roanne is not much more than a guide-post on the route +to Le Puy--"the most picturesque place in the world"--and the +wonderfully impressive region of the Cevennes and the Vivaris, where +shepherds guard their flocks amid the solitudes. + +Far above Le Puy, in a rocky gorge known as the Gerbier-de-Jonc, near +Ste. Eulalie, in the Ardeche, rises the tiny Liger, which is the real +source of the mighty Loire, that natural boundary which divides the +north from the south and forms what the French geographers call "_la +bassin centrale de France_." + +THE END. + + + + +INDEX + + + Abbeville, 107. + + _Abd-el-Kader, Emir_, 165. + + _Abelard_, 293. + + _Absalom_, 281. + + Acheneau, The, 298. + + _Adams, John_, 124. + + _Alaric_, 149. + + _Alcuin, Abbé_, 206. + + _Alençon, Ducs d'_, 195, 334. + + _Alençon, Marguerite d'_, 97, 150, 151-152. + + Allier, The, 330. + + Amboise and Its Château, 3, 20, 82, 96, 100, 123, 130-131, 137, 140, + 148-169, 172, 181, 186, 194, 249. + + _Amboise, Family of_, 118, 120-122. + + Amboise, Forêt d', 169. + + Amiens, 210. + + Ancenis and Its Château, 11, 21-23, 291. + + _Andrelini, Fausto_, 66. + + Anet, Château d', 107, 177, 322. + + _Ange, Michel_, 208, 249. + + Angers and Its Château, 7, 10-13, 15, 21-23, 40, 84, 275, 278, + 280, 283-284, 286-290, 304, 308. + + Angoulême, 194, 304. + + _Angoulême, Isabeau d'_, 267. + + _Angoulême, Jean d'_, 89. + + _Angoulême, Louise de Savoie, Duchesse d'_ (See _Savoie, + Louise de_). + + Anjou, 15, 26, 142, 161, 273, 274, 284, 289-290, 292, 306, 322. + + _Anjou, Counts of_, 150, 193, 208, 232, 239, 267, 288. + + _Anjou, Foulques Nerra, Comte d'_ (See _Foulques Nerra_). + + _Anjou, Margaret of_, 280. + + _Anne of Austria_, 301-302, 319. + + Aquitaine, 18, 193. + + _Arbrissel, Robert d'_, 263. + + _Arc, Jeanne d'_, 202, 254-256, 258-260. + + _Ardier, Paul_, 115. + + Arques, Château d', 9. + + _Aumale, Duc d'_, 165. + + _Aussigny, Thibaut d'_, 48. + + Authion, The, 13. + + Autun, 321. + + Auvergne, 15. + + Auvers, 251. + + Auxerre, 17, 119. + + Avignon, 51, 260. + + Azay-le-Rideau and Its Château, 10, 63, 140, 226, 238, 240-247. + + + Bacon, 40. + + Ballon, 215. + + _Balue, Cardinal_, 194, 196. + + _Balzac, Honoré de_, 3, 6, 20, 128-129, 137-138, 143, 207-209, + 234, 239, 329. + + _Bardi, Comte de_, 108. + + _Barre, De la_, 144, 240. + + _Barry, Madame du_, 169, 215. + + _Beaudoin, Jean_, 200. + + _Beaufort, A._, 138. + + Beaugency and Its Château, 9, 41, 48-53. + + _Beaujeau, Anne de_, 319. + + Beaulieu, 201-202. + + Beauregard, Château de, 114-116. + + Beauvron, The, 114. + + _Becket_, 190. + + _Bélier, Guillaume_, 258. + + _Bellanger, Stanislas_, 135. + + _Bellay Family, Du_, 5, 128, 234. + + _Belleau, Remy_, 128. + + _Beringhem, Henri de_, 245. + + Bernay, 306. + + _Bernier_, 57. + + Berry, 7, 15, 56, 123, 313-314, 318, 320, 326-329. + + _Berry, Counts of_, 150. + + _Berry, Duchesse de_, 295. + + _Berthelot, Gilles_, 244, 246. + + _Berthier, Maréchal_, 108. + + Beuvron, 87-88. + + _Biencourt, Marquis de_, 246. + + _Blacas, Comte de_, 247. + + Blaisois, The, 52, 54, 56-84, 102, 123-124, 136, 148, 193, 322. + + Bleneau, 319. + + Blésois, The (_See_ Blaisois, The). + + Blois and Its Château, 3, 9, 11, 20, 40, 52-54, 56-84, 88, 94-95, 98, + 100, 107, 110-112, 116-117, 119, 123, 125-126, 136, 139, 149, 156, + 160, 164, 167, 174, 184, 186, 194, 260, 284. + + _Blois, Comtes de_, 57-59, 62, 84, 87, 98, 118. + + Blois, Forêt de, 54. + + _Blondel_, 99. + + Bocage, The, 304-305. + + _Bohier, Thomas_, 174, 182, 184-186. + + Bois-Tillac, 298. + + _Bolingbroke_, 42, 183. + + _Bonchamps_, 306-307. + + _Bonheur, Rosa_, 306. + + Bonneventure, Château de, 250. + + _Bontemps, Pierre_, 105. + + Bordeaux, 133, 171, 203, 292. + + _Bordeaux, Duc de_, 108. + + _Bosseboeuf, Abbé_, 233. + + Bouaye, 312. + + Bouin, 311. + + Boulogne, The, 312. + + _Bourbon, Cardinal de_, 164. + + _Bourbon, Renée de_, 264. + + Bourbon-Lancy, 336. + + Bourbonnais, 15. + + Bourdaisière, Château de la, 169. + + Bourg de Batz, 300. + + Bourges, 15, 314, 316. + + Bourgneuf-en-Retz, 309, 311. + + Bourgogne, 4, 15, 142. + + Bourgueil, 267. + + _Bourré, Jean_, 233. + + _Boyer_, 111. + + Bracieux, 110. + + Brain-sur-Allonnes, 269. + + _Brantôme_, 101, 155, 157, 158. + + Brenne, 135. + + Bretagne, 15, 26, 35-36, 57, 192, 218, 284, 291-293, 301. + + _Bretagne, Anne de_, 63, 97, 120, 168, 196, 209, 234, + 236-238, 293, 296. + + _Bretagne, Conan, Duc de_, 295. + + _Bretagne, François II., Duc de_, 291, 294-296. + + _Brézé, Pierre de_, 195. + + Briare, 320, 330. + + _Briçonnet, Cardinal_, 42. + + _Brinvilliers_, 144. + + Brittany (_See_ Bretagne). + + _Broglie, Princesse de_, 120. + + _Brosse, Pierre de_, 234. + + Bruges, 282. + + _Brunyer, Abel_, 80, 81. + + _Buffon_, 61, 183. + + _Bullion_, 119. + + _Bussy d'Amboise, De_, 269. + + Buzay, Abbey of, 299. + + _Byron_, 138. + + + _Cæsar_, 18, 290. + + Cahors, 260. + + _Cail, M._, 270-272. + + _Cain_, 251. + + _Calixtus II._, 264. + + Canal de Brest à Nantes, 24. + + Canal de Buzay, 298. + + Canal d'Orleans, 36-37. + + Canal du Nivernaise, 17, 335. + + Canal Lateral, 12, 17, 318, 336. + + Canal Maritime, 298. + + Candes, 268-270, 276. + + _Castellane Family_, 250. + + _Caumont, De_, 195. + + _Cellini_, 152. + + Chalonnes, 24, 304. + + Chambord and Its Château, 2-3, 20, 53, 79, 82, 84, 86, 94-110, 123, + 139, 174, 186, 243, 247-248. + + _Chambord, Comte de_, 109. + + Chambris, 10. + + _Champagne, Counts of_, 316. + + Champeigne, 135. + + Champtocé, 24. + + Chanteloup, 154, 169. + + _Charlemagne_, 206. + + _Charles I. (the Bald)_, 18, 193. + + _Charles II. of England_, 82. + + _Charles V., Emperor_, 130-131, 155, 194. + + _Charles VI._, 257. + + _Charles VII._, 150, 188-189, 194-195, 202, 233, 250, 254-256, + 257-260, 268, 319, 324, 326. + + _Charles VIII._, 45, 98, 130, 150, 165, 194-195, 234, 236, 238-239, + 319. + + _Charles IX._, 107, 122, 180. + + _Charles X._, 329. + + _Charles Martel_, 5. + + _Charles the Bold of Burgundy_, 44. + + Chartres, 22, 133. + + Chartreuse du Liget, 190. + + _Châteaubriand, Comtesse de_, 101, 130. + + Château Chevigné, 22. + + Château de la Fontaine, 43. + + Château de la Source, 42-43. + + Châteaudun and Its Castle, 21-22. + + _Châteaudun, Vicomtes de_, 269. + + Château Gaillard, 259. + + Château l'Epinay, 22. + + Châteauneuf-sur-Loire, 36, 84. + + Châteauroux, 327. + + Château Serrand, 22. + + Chatillon, 12, 17, 19. + + _Chatillon, Cardinal de_, 160. + + _Chatillon, Comtes de_, 61, 68. + + Chaumont and Its Château, 11, 20, 107, 110, 116-126, 140. + + _Chaumont, Charles de_, 120. + + _Chaumont, Donatien Le Ray de_, 123-125. + + Chemillé, 304-305. + + _Chemille, Petronille de_, 263. + + Chenonceaux and Its Château, 10, 63, 107, 118, 140, 148, 165, + 169, 171-187, 234, 243, 247, 251. + + Cher, The, 10, 21, 91, 171-173, 177-178, 180, 183, 191, 215, + 275, 313, 320, 324, 326-327. + + _Chevalier, Abbé_, 243. + + Cheverny and Its Château, 82, 110-114, 133. + + _Cheverny, Philippe Hurault, Comte de_, 111. + + _Chicot_, 201. + + Chinon and Its Châteaux, 10, 92, 140, 171, 193, 202, 239, + 241, 247, 250-261, 268. + + Chinon, Forêt de, 241, 247. + + Chiron-Tardiveau, 310. + + _Choiseul, Duc de_, 164, 169. + + Cholet, 275, 304-307. + + _Cholet, Comte de_, 115. + + Cinq-Mars and Its Ruins, 7, 21, 137, 220, 227-232, 238, 274. + + _Cinq-Mars, Henri, Marquis de_, 228, 229-231, 234. + + _Cinq-Mars, Marquise de_, 230, 231. + + _Claude of France_, 72, 80, 97, 155. + + _Clément, Jacques_, 78. + + Clermont-Ferrand, 15. + + Cléry, 32, 41, 44-46, 214. + + Clisson and Its Château, 8, 303, 307. + + _Clisson_, 293. + + _Clopinel, Jehan_ (See _Jean de Meung_). + + _Clouet_, 112. + + _Clovis_, 43, 149, 253. + + Coeuvres, 170. + + _Coligny_, 160-161. + + Colletis, 309. + + _Colombe, Michel_, 207-208, 295. + + _Commines, De_, 45. + + _Condé, Prince de_, 119, 160-161, 168, 319. + + _Conti, Princesse de_, 234. + + _Cormeri, Citizen_, 215. + + Cormery, 133. + + Cosne, 18, 314, 330. + + Cosson, The, 2, 97-98, 101. + + Coteau de Guignes, 52. + + Couëron, 298. + + _Coulanges, M. de_, 18. + + Coulmiers, 40. + + Cour-Cheverny, 110, 114, 133. + + _Cousin, Jean_, 105. + + Coutancière, Château of, 269. + + _Coxe, Miss_, 125. + + _Créquy, Marquise de_, 183. + + Croix de Monteuse, 16. + + _Cromwell_, 301. + + _Crussol, Mlle. de_, 318. + + + _Dalahaide_, 77. + + Dampierre, 280. + + _Dante_, 203. + + _Danton_, 144. + + _Daudet_, 17, 335. + + Decize, 336. + + _Delavigne, Casimir_, 34. + + _Delorme, Marion_, 230-231. + + _Delorme, Philibert_, 321. + + _Deneux, Mlle._, 215. + + _Descartes_, 3, 208. + + Digoin, 336. + + Dijon, 15. + + _Dino, Duc de_, 115. + + Dive, The, 13. + + Domfront, Château de, 9. + + _Doré_, 207, 320. + + _Duban_, 73. + + _Ducos, Roger_, 164-165. + + _Dudevant, Madame_ (See _Sand, George_). + + _Duguesclin_, 49. + + _Dumas_, 3, 6, 47, 82, 201, 268-269, 294-295. + + Dunois, The, 56. + + _Dupin, M. and Mme._, 183, 187. + + _Duplessis-Mornay_, 281. + + + _Eckmühl, Prince_, 42. + + _Effiats Family, D'_ (See _Cinq-Mars_). + + _Elbée, D'_, 307. + + _Eleanor of Portugal_, 155. + + _Éléanore of Guienne_, 267. + + Embrun, 44, 45. + + _Epernon, Duc d'_, 194. + + _Este, Cardinal d'_, 180. + + _Estrées, Gabrielle d'_, 164, 169-170. + + _Étampes, Duchesse d'_, 101, 130-131, 155. + + _Étampes, Jacques d'_, 321. + + Etretat, 251. + + Eure et Loir, Department of, 35. + + + Falaise, Château de, 9. + + _Ferdinand VII. of Spain_, 323. + + Finistère, 35. + + _Flaubert_, 6. + + _Foix, Marguerite de_, 295-296. + + Folie-Siffait, 26. + + Fontainebleau, 97. + + Fontaine des Sables Mouvants, 52. + + _Fontenelle_, 183. + + Fontenoy, 107. + + Fontevrault, Abbey of, 3, 263-267, 282. + + _Force, Piganiol de la_, 106. + + Forez, Plain of, 17. + + _Fouché_, 298. + + _Foulques Nerra_, 93, 201, 232, 234. + + _Foulques V._, 238. + + _Fouquet_, 164, 294. + + _François I._, 60-64, 69-70, 72-73, 75, 89, 94-99, 101, 104-107, + 109, 114, 118, 130, 148, 151-156, 171-172, 174-176, 189-190, + 194, 196-197, 200, 244-245, 264, 322. + + _François II._, 156-162, 168, 181, 215. + + _Franklin, Benjamin_, 123-124, 125. + + Freiburg, 22. + + Fromentin, 311. + + + _Galles, Prince de_, 49. + + _Gaston of Orleans_, 59-60, 62, 68-70, 79-82. + + Gatanais, The, 36. + + Gatine, Forêt de, 324. + + _George IV._, 169. + + Gerbier-de-Jonc, 16, 336. + + Gien and Its Château, 8, 18, 19, 202, 318-320, 330. + + Gilly, 336. + + Giverny, 251. + + _Gondi, Henri de_, 293-294, 301-302. + + _Goujon, Jean_, 105, 179, 244. + + _Gregory of Tours_, 57. + + _Grise-Gonelle, Geoffroy_, 195. + + Grottoes of Ste. Radegonde, 218. + + Guérande, 300. + + _Guise, Henri, Duc de (Le Balafré)_, 67, 69-70, 73-78, 157, 160, + 162, 164, 168, 180, 234. + + + Haute Loire, Department of, 11. + + _Henri II._, 69, 99, 107, 109, 115, 156, 158, 171-172, 174-177, + 183-184, 197, 200. + + _Henri III._, 69-70, 73, 75-78, 182, 195, 201, 334. + + _Henri IV. (de Navarre)_, 78, 164, 170, 201, 281, 293. + + _Henry II. of England_, 190, 208, 238, 257-258, 267. + + _Henry VIII. of England_, 107. + + _Holbein_, 152. + + _Hugo, Victor_, 37. + + Huismes, 250. + + _Hurault, Philippe_, 111, 112. + + + Ile de Yeu, 310-311. + + Ile Feydeau, 298. + + Ile Gloriette, 298. + + Ile St. Jean, 149. + + Ilot du Pilier, 310. + + Indre, The, 10, 21, 191-192, 240, 243-244, 247, 275, 313, 326-327. + + Indre et Loire, Département d', 142. + + + _Jahel, Miss_, 125. + + _James V. of Scotland_, 157. + + _James, Henry_, 14, 189, 204, 251. + + Jargeau, 36. + + _Jean de Meung_, 46-47. + + _Jean-sans-Peur_, 319. + + _Jean-sans-Terre_, 193, 267. + + _Jeanne d'Arc_, 33-35, 38, 49, 319, 333. + + _Jeanne of France_, 209. + + _John, King_, 287. + + Joué, 215. + + _Juvenet_, 34. + + + _Kleber_, 306, 307. + + + La Beauce, 38, 41, 53, 87, 141. + + "La Briche," 270-272. + + Lac de Grand Lieu, 298-299, 311-312. + + Lac d'Issarles, 16. + + La Chapelle, 43. + + La Charité, 17-18, 314-315, 319, 332-334. + + La Châtre, 327. + + La Chevrolière, 312. + + _Lafayette, Madame de_, 109. + + _La Fontaine_, 128, 286. + + La Martinière, 298. + + La Motte, 87-88. + + _Landais_, 294. + + _Landes, Houdon des_, 137. + + Langeais and Its Château, 7, 21, 82, 133, 140, 165, 174, 224, + 232-241, 247. + + Languedoc, 15. + + _Lanoue_, 293. + + Lanterne de Rochecorbon, 220. + + La Pointe, 13, 22-23, 284. + + La Possonière, 289. + + Larçay, 10. + + La Rochelle, 208, 308. + + _Lauzun_, 164. + + _Lavedan_, 31-32. + + Layon, The, 13. + + Le Croisic, 300. + + Le Havre, 27. + + _Lemaitre, Jules_, 34. + + _Lemercier_, 261-262. + + _Lenoir_, 57. + + _Lenôtre_, 43. + + _Lepage_, 35. + + Le Pellerin, 298. + + Le Puy, 4-5, 10, 16, 137, 336. + + _Leray, M._, 120. + + Les Andelys, Château de, 9. + + _Lescure_, 307. + + _Lespine, Jean de_, 291. + + Liger, The, 336. + + Lille, 286. + + _Lille, Abbé de_, 107. + + "_Limieul, La Demoiselle de_" (See _Tour, Isabelle de la_). + + Limousin, The, 109. + + Lisieux, 92. + + Loches and Its Châteaux, 3, 9-10, 130, 133, 140, 142, 188-202, 250, + 266, 326. + + Loches, Forêt de, 190. + + Loir, The, 13, 21. + + Loir et Cher, Department of the, 35, 57. + + Loire, The, 1, 3-30, 32, 34-38, 40-41, 43, 50-51, 53-54, 56, 58, + 64-65, 68, 92, 95-97, 101-102, 110, 116-118, 120-122, 124, 129, + 133, 134, 137, 140-142, 148-149, 156, 163, 171, 173, 177-178, 191, + 196, 208, 215, 220-223, 225, 227-228, 232, 236, 240, 257, 259-260, + 267, 273, 275-276, 278-279, 282-286, 288-290, 292-293, 297-302, + 304, 308-309, 311, 313-314, 318-319, 324, 326-327, 330, 332-334, + 336. + + Loiret, The, 41-43. + + Loiret, Department of the, 35-36. + + _Lorraine, Cardinal de_, 157, 180. + + _Lorraine, Marie de_, 157. + + Lorris, 37. + + _Lorris, Guillaume de_, 37, 46. + + Lot, The, 260. + + Louet, The, 286. + + _Louis II. (Le Bègue)_, 150. + + _Louis IX._ (See _St. Louis_). + + _Louis XI._, 5, 32, 41, 44-46, 48, 69, 130-131, 150, 154, 194, + 195, 211-212, 214-218, 232-233, 253, 257-258, 268, 281, 291. + + _Louis XII._, 60-61, 64, 66, 83, 97, 120, 122, 151, 167, + 194-195, 209, 215, 238, 294. + + _Louis XIII._, 63, 99, 107, 139, 222, 224, 228, 230-231. + + _Louis XIV._, 32, 82-83, 98-99, 107, 109, 111, 164, 215, 227, + 232, 245, 247, 294, 319. + + _Louis XV._, 54, 84, 107, 164, 169, 215. + + _Louis XVI._, 32, 123. + + _Louis XVIII._, 321, 329. + + _Louis Philippe_, 165. + + Louvre, The, 130, 285. + + _Lubin, M._, 126. + + Luynes and Its Château, 21, 222-227. + + _Luynes Family_, 222, 224, 227, 234. + + Lyonnais, 15. + + Lyons, 16, 203, 286. + + Lyons, Forêt de, 87. + + + Madon, 126. + + _Maillé, Comte de_, 227. + + Maine, The, 12-13, 21-23, 284, 288-290. + + _Maintenon, Madame de_, 109. + + _Malines_, 77. + + _Mame et Fils, Alfred_, 205. + + _Mansart_ (elder), 62, 79. + + Marguerites, The, 311. + + _Marie Antoinette_, 328. + + _Marigny, De_, 54. + + Marmoutier, Abbey of, 218-220, 266. + + _Marques, Family of_, 185. + + _Marsay, M. de_, 190. + + Marseilles, 27, 136, 203, 286, 292. + + _Martel, Geoffroy_, 253. + + Maulévrier, Château of, 303. + + Mauves, Plain of, 26. + + Mayenne, 21. + + Mayenne, The, 21. + + _Mazarin_, 6, 293, 301-302, 335. + + _Medici, Catherine de_, 73-79, 107, 118-119, 122-123, 156-157, + 160-162, 168, 175-182, 184-185. + + _Medici, Marie de_, 194, 285. + + Mehun-sur-Yevre and Its Château, 324-326. + + _Mello, Dreux de_, 193. + + Menars and Its Château, 53-54. + + Mer, 52-53. + + Metz, 40. + + Meung-sur-Loire, 41, 44, 46-48. + + Micy, Abbaye de, 43. + + _Mignard_, 112. + + Moine, The, 307-308. + + _Molière_, 108. + + Montbazon, 10. + + _Montespan, Madame de_, 283. + + _Montesquieu_, 183. + + _Montgomery_, 158, 175. + + Montjean, 24. + + Montlivault, 53. + + _Montmorency, Connétable de_, 174. + + Montpellier, Castle of, 231. + + _Montpensier, Charles de_, 154-155. + + Montrichard and its Donjon, 9-10, 91-93. + + Montsoreau, 268-270, 276. + + Moraines, Château de (_See_ Dampierre). + + _Moreau_, 306. + + Moret, 251. + + _Morrison_, 81. + + Mortagne, 307. + + _Mosnier_, 112. + + Moulins, 15. + + Muides, 53. + + + Nahon, The, 320-321. + + Nantes and Its Château, 3, 7-8, 12-13, 23, 25-28, 40, 59, 84, 133, + 207, 278-279, 286, 288, 291-302, 308, 311-312. + + _Napoleon I._, 83, 138, 164, 321-322. + + _Napoleon III._, 88. + + _Napoleon, Louis_, 165. + + Narbonne, 231. + + _Navarre, Marguerite of_ (See _Alençon, Marguerite d'_). + + _Nemours, Duc de_, 157. + + _Nepveu, Pierre_, 104. + + Nevers, 4, 6, 11, 15, 17, 137, 319, 332-333, 335-336. + + _Nini_, 125. + + Nivernais, The, 15, 330, 332. + + Nohant, 327-329. + + Noirmoutier, 309-310. + + Normandy, 85, 92, 306. + + + Ognon, The, 312. + + Onzain, 116. + + Orléannais, The, 4, 10, 15, 19, 23, 30-57, 318, 320-321. + + Orleans, 7-8, 10-12, 15, 17, 19, 30-35, 37-41, 43, 52, 133, 137, + 256, 258, 270, 284, 289. + + _Orleans Family_, 63, 65-66, 69, 140, 165, 231, 234 (See also + _Gaston of Orleans_). + + Orleans, Forêt d', 39-40. + + Oudon, 25-26, 291. + + + Paimboeuf, 298. + + Paris, 13, 30, 33, 42, 79, 119, 124, 136, 139-140, 229-230, 284, + 302, 314. + + _Parme, Duc de_, 108. + + _Parmentier_, 80. + + Pas de Calais, 192. + + Passay, 312. + + Passy-sur-Seine, 124. + + Pays de Retz, 292, 301-302, 310. + + _Penthièvre, Duc de_, 164. + + _Pepin_, 193. + + _Philippe I._, 313, 326. + + _Philippe II. (Auguste)_, 93, 193, 238. + + _Philippe III. (Le Hardi)_, 234. + + _Philippe IV. (Le Bel)_, 49. + + Pierrefonds, Château of, 186. + + Pierre-Levée, 310. + + _Pilon, Germain_, 105. + + Pinaizeaux, 310. + + _Pius VI._, 323. + + _Plantagenet, Henry_ (See _Henry II. of England_). + + _Plantin, Christopher_, 205. + + _Plessis, Armand du_ (See _Richelieu, Cardinal_). + + Plessis-les-Tours, 7, 150, 211-218, 334. + + Pointe de Chenoulin, 310. + + Poitiers, 304. + + _Poitiers, Diane de_, 118, 123, 130, 155, 172, 174-178, 183, + 187, 197. + + Poitou, 278, 292, 306. + + _Pompadour, La_, 215. + + _Poniatowska, Marie Thérèse_, 323. + + Pont Aven, 251. + + Ponts de Cé, 21-22, 275, 279, 284-286. + + Pornic, 308, 310. + + Pornichet, 300. + + Port Boulet, 270. + + Pouilly, 18, 330-332. + + Prairie-au-Duc, 298. + + _Primaticcio_, 152. + + _Primatice_, 99. + + Puy-de-Dôme, 16. + + + _Rabelais, François_, 3, 128, 143-144, 239-240, 254-256, 260. + + Rambouillet, Forêt de, 87. + + Reims, 319. + + _Renaudie, Jean Barri de la_, 161. + + _René, King_, 23, 281. + + Rennes, 15. + + _Retz, Cardinal de_ (See _Gondi, Henri de_). + + _Retz, Gilles de_, 24, 293. + + Rhine, The, 13, 26. + + Rhône, The, 13, 23, 260. + + _Richard Coeur de Lion_, 93, 193, 267. + + Richelieu, 260-262. + + _Richelieu, Cardinal_, 224, 228, 231-232, 260-262, 301-302. + + Roanne, 12, 16-17, 336. + + _Rochecotte_, 250. + + Rochecotte, Château de, 249-250. + + Romorantin and Its Château, 85, 88-89, 324. + + _Ronsard_, 128, 157, 180, 240. + + Rouen, 92, 119, 121-122, 203, 221, 299. + + _Rousseau, Jean Jacques_, 172, 183-184, 187. + + _Roy, Lucien_, 235. + + _Royale, Madame_, 109. + + _Rubens_, 285. + + _Ruggieri, Cosmo_, 78-79, 122-123. + + Russy, Forêt de, 114. + + + _Saint Gelais, Guy de_, 245. + + Sancerre and Its Châteaux, 18, 137, 313-318, 330, 333. + + _Sancerre, Counts of_, 314-316. + + _Sand, George_, 7, 321, 326-329. + + San Juste, Monastery of, 131. + + Saône, The, 23. + + _Sardini, Scipion_, 119. + + Sarthe, The, 13, 21. + + Saumur and Its Château, 21, 119-120, 142, 171, 221-222, 259, + 274-283, 292. + + Sausac, Château of, 202. + + _Sausac, Seigneur de_, 215. + + Savennières, 289. + + _Savoie, Louise de_, 151. + + _Savoie, Philippe de_, 195. + + _Saxe, Maurice de_, 107-108. + + _Scott, Sir Walter_, 166, 211, 216, 218. + + Sedan, 40. + + Seine, The, 4, 13, 25, 36, 121, 221. + + Selles, 10, 324. + + _Sertio_, 100. + + _Sévigné, Madame de_, 18, 276, 295. + + _Sforza, Ludovic_, 197. + + _Shenstone_, 106. + + _Siegfreid, Jacques_, 234. + + Sologne, The, 38, 52-53, 56, 84-94, 97, 101, 110, 148, 320. + + _Sorel, Agnes_, 152, 188-189, 194, 196, 201-202, 250, 326. + + _Staël, Madame de_, 119-120. + + St. Aignan and Its Château, 10, 312, 324. + + _Stanislas of Poland, King_, 107-108. + + St. Ay, 43-44. + + St. Benoit-sur-Loire, 10, 19. + + St. Claude, 54. + + St. Cyr, 215. + + St. Die, 53. + + Ste. Eulalie, 336. + + _Stendahl_, 128. + + St. Etienne, 5, 16. + + St. Florent, Abbey of, 282, 306. + + St. Galmier, 16. + + St. Georges-sur-Loire, 22. + + St. Leger, 312. + + _St. Liphard_, 48. + + _St. Louis_, 37, 193, 288, 318. + + St. Lumine, 312. + + St. Mars, 312. + + _St. Martin_, 5, 149, 209-211, 218, 220, 253, 268. + + _St. Mesme_, 253. + + St. Mesmin, 41, 43. + + St. Nazaire, 23, 28, 292, 300. + + _Stofflet_, 303, 306. + + _St. Ours_, 193. + + St. Philibert, 311-312. + + _St. Philibert_, 310. + + St. Pierre-le-Moutier, 333. + + St. Rambert, 17. + + _St. Sauveur_, 238. + + Strasburg, 22. + + St. Symphorien, 218. + + St. Trinité, Abbey of, 266. + + _Stuart, Mary_, 157-162, 168, 181. + + _St. Vallier, Comte de_, 175, 197. + + Suèvres, 53. + + Sully, 19. + + + _Talleyrand_, 250, 321, 323. + + _Tasso_, 180. + + Tavers, 52. + + _Terry, Mr._, 187. + + _Texier_, 22. + + Thézée, 10. + + _Thibaut-le-Tricheur_, 259. + + _Thibaut III._, 253. + + _Thiephanie, Dame_, 281. + + Thouet, The, 13. + + _Thoury, Comtesse_, 105. + + Torfou, 307. + + Toulouse, 15. + + _Tour, Isabelle de la_, 119. + + Touraine, 1-4, 6-9, 15, 19-21, 23, 32, 54, 56, 79, 85, 92, 102, + 105, 121, 128-148, 161, 164, 169, 172-173, 176, 183, 204, 215, + 220, 229-230, 233-234, 238, 243-244, 246, 251, 260, 273, 275, + 284, 332. + + _Touraine, Comtes de_, 253. + + Tours, 3, 4, 7, 8, 10-11, 20-21, 40, 57, 84, 116-117, 120, 132-133, + 137, 148-149, 166, 171-172, 200, 203-211, 215, 221-222, 224-225, + 238-239, 246, 253, 266, 274, 276-277, 320-321, 327. + + Treves-Cunault, 283-284. + + _Turenne_, 319. + + _Turner_, 12. + + + Ussé and Its Château, 241, 247-249. + + + Valençay and Its Château, 320-324. + + _Valentine de Milan_, 66. + + _Valentinois, Duchesse de_ (See _Poitiers, Diane de_). + + Vallée du Vendomois, 274. + + _Valois, Marguerite de_ (_sister of François I._) (See _Alençon, + Marguerite d'_). + + _Valois, Marguerite de (de Navarre)_, 180. + + _Van Eyck_, 152. + + Varennes, 218, 324. + + Varennes, The, 135. + + _Vasari_, 153. + + _Vauban_, 247. + + _Vaudémont, Louise de_, 182. + + Vendôme, 22, 266. + + _Vendôme, César de_, 164. + + Vendomois, The, 56-57. + + Veron, 135. + + Versailles, 43, 60, 86, 98, 139, 261. + + _Vibraye, Marquis de_, 111. + + Vienne, The, 10, 21, 251, 259-260, 267-268, 275, 279. + + Vierzon, 84-85, 324. + + _Vigny, Alfred de_, 128-129. + + Villandry, Château de, 238. + + Villaumère, Château de la, 250. + + _Villon, François_, 48. + + _Vinci, Leonardo da_, 59, 72, 100, 152-153, 166, 169, 174. + + _Viollet-le-Duc_, 185. + + Vivarais Mountains, 16. + + _Voltaire_, 42, 142, 183. + + Vorey, 11, 16. + + Vouvray, 222, 332. + + + Yonne, The, 17. + + _Young, Arthur_, 86. + + + _Zamet, Sebastian_, 170. + + * * * * * + +Transcriber's Notes + +1. Replaced chateau(x) with château(x) throughout the text (title pages +and pp. xi, 1, 9, 62, 72, 327). + +2. P. 36: added quotes after a verse. + +3. P. 67: replaced "três" with "très" ("très beau et très agréable ainsy +que tous ses portraits l'ont représenté..."). + +4. P. 83: added quotes after the phrase "magasin des subsistances +militaires". + +5. P. 86: added quotes after a phrase "those brilliant and ambitious +gentlemen". + +6. P. 94: "potions" are replaced with "portions" ("... moreover, one can +drink large portions of it..."). + +7. P. 108: "know" is replaced with "known" ("The second floor is known +as the..."). + +8. All instances of "Francois" are replaced with "François" (pp. 69, +171, 304, 338, 346). + +9. P. 187: "Credit Foncier" is replaced by "Crédit Foncier". + +10. P. 235: Replaced "irrelevent" with "irrelevant" ("...an +over-luxuriant interpolation of irrelevant things..."). + +11. P. 290: Replaced "Andre" with "André" ("Maison André Leroy"). + +12. P. 296: Added quotes after a verse "Cueur de vertus orné Dignement +couronné." + +13. P. 314: Replaced "Etes-vous" with "Êtes-vous" ("Êtes-vous allé à..."). + +14. P. 322: Replaced "Valencay" with "Valençay" ("Château de +Valençay"). + +15. Replaced "Eglise" with "Église" (illustration caption: "Église S. +Aignan, Cosne"). + +16. Innkeepers, manorhouse, sandbar, Bellilocus, seaside, harbourside, +headwaters, stairway, and waterways are chosen to be written without a +hyphen. + +17. Dining-table, wine-shops, and quatre-vingzt are chosen to be written +with a hyphen. + +18. P. 338: Replaced "Bréze" with "Brézé" (Brézé, Pierre de). + +19. P. 269: Replaced "Chateaudun" with "Châteaudun" ("... the fief +passed to the Vicomtes de Châteaudun..."). + +20. Pp. 12, 17, and 339: Replaced "Canal Lateral" with "Canal Latéral". + +21. P. 344: Replaced "Orléans" with "Orleans". + +22. P. 286: Quotes after the verse added ("... sur la Loire."). + +23. P. 327: The (missing) closing quotes are added ("_petits +chefs-d'oeuvre_ of sentiment and rustic poesy"). + +24. Added a description of a monogram on p. 177. + +25. P. 120: An image description is added. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine +and the Loire Country, by Francis Miltoun + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CASTLES, CHATEAUX OF OLD TOURAINE *** + +***** This file should be named 37211-8.txt or 37211-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/2/1/37211/ + +Produced by Elizaveta Shevyakhova, Juliet Sutherland and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian +Libraries) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine and the Loire Country + +Author: Francis Miltoun + +Illustrator: Blanche McManus + +Release Date: August 25, 2011 [EBook #37211] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CASTLES, CHATEAUX OF OLD TOURAINE *** + + + + +Produced by Elizaveta Shevyakhova, Juliet Sutherland and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian +Libraries) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/cover01.jpg" alt="Cover" title="" /> +</div> + +<h1>Castles and Châteaux of Old Touraine</h1> +<h2>and the Loire Country</h2> + + + +<div class="box"> +<h4><i>WORKS OF</i></h4> +<h3>FRANCIS MILTOUN</h3> + + <br /> + +<div class="figsmall"> +<img src="images/002_im1.jpg" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + <br /> + +<div class="outdent">The following, each 1 vol., library 12mo, cloth, +gilt top, profusely illustrated, $2.50</div> + +<p> +<i>Rambles on the Riviera</i><br /> +<i>Rambles in Normandy</i><br /> +<i>Rambles in Brittany</i><br /> +<i>The Cathedrals and Churches of the Rhine</i><br /> +<i>The Cathedrals of Northern France</i><br /> +<i>The Cathedrals of Southern France</i><br /> +<i>The Cathedrals of Italy</i> (<i>In preparation</i>)<br /> +</p> + +<div class="figsmall"> +<img src="images/002_im2.jpg" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="outdent">The following, 1 vol., square octavo, cloth, gilt +top, profusely illustrated. $3.00</div> + +<div class="outdent">Castles and Châteaux of Old Touraine +and the Loire Country</div> + +<div class="figsmall"> +<img src="images/002_im1.jpg" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<h3><i>L. C. PAGE & COMPANY</i></h3> +<div class="outdent">New England Building, Boston, Mass.</div></div> + +<p> <br /> + <br /> + <br /></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Frontispiece" id="Frontispiece"></a></span></p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a href="#Contents">To ToC</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/frontis_small.jpg" alt="A Peasant Girl of Touraine" title="" /> +</div> + + +<h1>Castles and Châteaux</h1> +<h3>OF</h3> +<h1>OLD TOURAINE</h1> +<h2>AND THE LOIRE COUNTRY</h2> + +<hr style="height: 3px; margin-bottom: 0.3em; width: 35%"/> +<hr style="height: 3px; margin-top: 0.3em; width: 35%; margin-bottom: 0em;"/> + +<h2 class="title">By Francis Miltoun</h2> + +<h5>Author of "Rambles in Normandy," "Rambles in Brittany," +"Rambles on the Riviera," etc.</h5> + +<h5><i>With Many Illustrations</i></h5> +<h6><i>Reproduced from paintings made on the spot</i></h6> + +<h2 class="title">By Blanche McManus</h2> + +<hr style="height: 3px; margin-bottom: 0.3em; width: 35%"/> +<hr style="height: 3px; margin-top: 0.3em; width: 35%;"/> + + +<div class="figsmall"> +<img src="images/005_im.jpg" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="smcapcent">Boston</div> +<h4>L. C. PAGE & COMPANY</h4> +<div class="smcapcent">1906</div> + +<p> <br /> + <br /></p> + + +<div class="center"> +<i>Copyright, 1906</i><br /> +<span class="smcapcent">By L. C. Page & Company</span><br /> +(Incorporated)<br /> +<hr /> +<i>All rights reserved</i><br /> + <br /> + <br /> +First Impression, June, 1906<br /> + <br /> + <br /> +<i>COLONIAL PRESS<br /> +Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.<br /> +Boston, U. S. A.</i><br /> +</div> + +<p> <br /></p> + + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus007_small.jpg" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">v</a></span></p> + +<h2>By Way of Introduction</h2> + + +<p>This book is not the result of ordinary conventional +rambles, of sightseeing by day, and +flying by night, but rather of leisurely wanderings, +for a somewhat extended period, along +the banks of the Loire and its tributaries and +through the countryside dotted with those +splendid monuments of Renaissance architecture +which have perhaps a more appealing interest +for strangers than any other similar +edifices wherever found.</p> + +<p>Before this book was projected, the conventional +tour of the château country had been +"done," Baedeker, Joanne and James's "Little +Tour" in hand. On another occasion Angers, +with its almost inconceivably real castellated +fortress, and Nantes, with its memories +of the "Edict" and "La Duchesse Anne," +had been tasted and digested <i>en route</i> to a certain +little artist's village in Brittany.</p> + +<p>On another occasion, when we were headed +due south, we lingered for a time in the upper<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">vi</a></span> +valley, between "the little Italian city of Nevers" +and "the most picturesque spot in the +world"—Le Puy.</p> + +<p>But all this left certain ground to be covered, +and certain gaps to be filled, though the +author's note-books were numerous and full to +overflowing with much comment, and the artist's +portfolio was already bulging with its +contents.</p> + +<p>So more note-books were bought, and, following +the genial Mark Twain's advice, another +fountain pen and more crayons and +sketch-books, and the author and artist set out +in the beginning of a warm September to fill +those gaps and to reduce, if possible, that series +of rambles along the now flat and now rolling +banks of the broad blue Loire to something +like consecutiveness and uniformity; with what +result the reader may judge.</p> + +<p> <br/> + <br/></p> + + +<h2><a name="Contents" id="Contents">Contents</a></h2> + +<hr /> + +<div class="center"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER</td><td align="left"> </td><td align="left">PAGE</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"> </td><td align="left"><span class="smcap"><a href="#Page_v">By Way of Introduction</a></span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_v">v</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">I.</td><td align="left"> <span class="smcap"><a href="#Page_1">A General Survey</a></span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">II.</td><td align="left"> <span class="smcap"><a href="#Page_30">The Orléannais</a></span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_30">30</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">III.</td><td align="left"> <span class="smcap"><a href="#Page_56">The Blaisois and the Sologne</a></span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_56">56</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">IV.</td><td align="left"> <span class="smcap"><a href="#Page_94">Chambord</a></span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_94">94</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">V.</td><td align="left"> <span class="smcap"><a href="#Page_110">Cheverny, Beauregard, and Chaumont</a></span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_110">110</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">VI.</td><td align="left"> <span class="smcap"><a href="#Page_128">Touraine: The Garden Spot of France</a></span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_128">128</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">VII.</td><td align="left"> <span class="smcap"><a href="#Page_148">Amboise</a></span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_148">148</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">VIII.</td><td align="left"> <span class="smcap"><a href="#Page_171">Chenonceaux</a></span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_171">171</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">IX.</td><td align="left"> <span class="smcap"><a href="#Page_188">Loches</a></span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_188">188</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">X.</td><td align="left"> <span class="smcap"><a href="#Page_203">Tours and About There</a></span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_203">203</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XI.</td><td align="left"> <span class="smcap"><a href="#Page_221">Luynes and Langeais</a></span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_221">221</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XII.</td><td align="left"> <span class="smcap"><a href="#Page_241">Azay-le-Rideau, Ussé, and Chinon</a></span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_241">241</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XIII.</td><td align="left"> <span class="smcap"><a href="#Page_273">Anjou and Bretagne</a></span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_273">273</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XIV.</td><td align="left"> <span class="smcap"><a href="#Page_301">South of the Loire</a></span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_301">301</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XV.</td><td align="left"> <span class="smcap"><a href="#Page_313">Berry and George Sand's Country</a></span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_313">313</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XVI.</td><td align="left"> <span class="smcap"><a href="#Page_330">The Upper Loire</a></span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_330">330</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"> </td><td align="left"><span class="smcap"><a href="#Page_337">Index</a></span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_337">337</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + + +<hr /> +<h2>List of Illustrations<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">ix</a></span></h2> + + +<div class="center"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right">PAGE</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">A Peasant Girl of Touraine</span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Frontispiece"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Itinerary of the Loire (Map)</span></td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#ItineraryMap_small">1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">A Lace-maker of the Upper Loire</span></td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_5">5</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Loire Châteaux (Map)</span></td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_9">9</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Ancient Provinces of the Loire Valley and Their Capitals (Map)</span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_15">15</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Loire near la Charité</span></td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_19">19</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Coiffes of Amboise and Orléans</span></td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_21">21</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Châteaux of the Loire (Map)</span></td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_31">31</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Environs of Orléans (Map)</span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_39">39</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Loiret</span></td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_42">42</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Loire at Meung</span></td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_46">46</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Beaugency</span> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_51">51</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Arms of the City of Blois</span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_58">58</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Riverside at Blois</span> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_59">59</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Signature of François Premier</span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_60">60</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Cypher of Anne de Bretagne, at Blois</span> </td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_62">62</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Arms of Louis XII.</span> </td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_65">65</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Central Doorway, Château de Blois</span> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_67">67</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Châteaux of Blois (Diagram)</span> </td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_69">69</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Cypher of François Premier and Claude of France, at Blois</span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Native Types in the Sologne</span> </td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_89">89</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Donjon of Montrichard</span> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_92">92</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Arms of François Premier, at Chambord</span> </td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_99">99</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Plan of Château de Chambord</span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_103">103</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">x</a></span><span class="smcap">Château de Chambord</span> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_105">105</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Château de Cheverny</span> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_110">110</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Cheverny-sur-Loire</span> </td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_113">113</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Chaumont</span> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_116">116</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Signature of Diane de Poitiers</span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Loire in Touraine</span> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_134">134</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Vintage in Touraine</span> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_142">142</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Château d'Amboise</span> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_148">148</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Sculpture from the Chapelle de St. Hubert</span> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_165">165</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Cypher of Anne de Bretagne, Hôtel de Ville, Amboise</span></td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_168">168</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Château de Chenonceaux</span> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_178">178</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Château de Chenonceaux (Diagram)</span> </td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_179">179</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Loches</span> </td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_189">189</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Loches and Its Church</span> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_192">192</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Sketch Plan of Loches</span> </td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_198">198</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">St. Ours, Loches</span> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_199">199</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Tours</span> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_202">202</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Arms of the Printers, <i>Avocats</i>, and Innkeepers, Tours</span> </td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_205">205</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Scene in the Quartier de la Cathédrale, Tours</span> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_208">208</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Plessis-les-Tours in the Time of Louis XI.</span> </td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_213">213</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Environs of Tours (Map)</span> </td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_219">219</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">A Vineyard of Vouvray</span> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_223">223</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Mediæval Stairway and the Château de Luynes</span> </td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_224">224</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Ruins of Cinq-Mars</span> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_229">229</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Château de Langeais</span> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_233">233</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Arms of Louis XII. and Anne de Bretagne</span> </td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_237">237</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Château d'Azay-le-Rideau</span> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_244">244</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Château d'Ussé</span> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_249">249</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Roof-tops of Chinon</span> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_253">253</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Rabelais</span> </td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_256">256</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Château de Chinon</span> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_259">259</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Cuisines, Fontevrault</span> </td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_265">265</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">xi</a></span><span class="smcap">Château de Saumur</span> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_277">277</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Ponts de Cé</span> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_284">284</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Château d'Angers</span> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_289">289</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Environs of Nantes (Map)</span> </td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_297">297</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Donjon of the Château de Clisson</span> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_307">307</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Berry (Map)</span> </td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_313">313</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">La Tour, Sancerre</span> </td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_317">317</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Château de Gien</span> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_318">318</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Château de Valençay</span> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_322">322</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Gateway of Mehun-sur-Yevre</span> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_324">324</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Le Carrior Doré, Romorantin</span> </td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_326">326</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Église S. Aignan, Cosne</span> </td><td> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_331">331</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Pouilly-sur-Loire</span> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_332">332</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Porte du Croux, Nevers</span> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_335">335</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a id="ItineraryMap_small"></a> +<a href="images/map-01.jpg"> +<img src="images/map-01_small.jpg" alt="Itinerary of the Loire (Map)" title="Itinerary of the Loire (Map)" /> +</a> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">1</a></span></p> + + + + +<h1>Castles and Châteaux</h1> + +<h1>of Old Touraine</h1> + +<h3>and the Loire Country</h3> + + +<hr /> +<h2>CHAPTER I.<span class="pagenum"><a href="#Contents">To ToC</a></span></h2> + +<h4>A GENERAL SURVEY</h4> + + +<p>Any account of the Loire and of the towns +along its banks must naturally have for its +chief mention Touraine and the long line of +splendid feudal and Renaissance châteaux +which reflect themselves so gloriously in its +current.</p> + +<p>The Loire possesses a certain fascination +and charm which many other more commercially +great rivers entirely lack, and, while the +element of absolute novelty cannot perforce +be claimed for it, it has the merit of appealing +largely to the lover of the romantic and +the picturesque.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">2</a></span></p> + +<p>A French writer of a hundred years ago dedicated +his work on Touraine to "Le Baron de +Langeais, le Vicomte de Beaumont, le Marquis +de Beauregard, le Comte de Fontenailles, le +Comte de Jouffroy-Gonsans, le Duc de Luynes, +le Comte de Vouvray, le Comte de Villeneuve, +<i>et als.</i>;" and he might have continued with a +directory of all the descendants of the <i>noblesse</i> +of an earlier age, for he afterward grouped +them under the general category of "<i>Propriétaires +des fortresses et châteaux les plus remarquables—au +point de vue historique ou +architectural</i>."</p> + +<p>He was fortunate in being able, as he said, +to have had access to their "<i>papiers de famille</i>," +their souvenirs, and to have been able +to interrogate them in person.</p> + +<p>Most of his facts and his gossip concerning +the personalities of the later generations of +those who inhabited these magnificent establishments +have come down to us through later +writers, and it is fortunate that this should be +the case, since the present-day aspect of the +châteaux is ever changing, and one who views +them to-day is chagrined when he discovers, +for instance, that an iron-trussed, red-tiled +wash-house has been built on the banks of the +Cosson before the magnificent château of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">3</a></span> +Chambord, and that somewhere within the confines +of the old castle at Loches a shopkeeper +has hung out his shingle, announcing a newly +discovered dungeon in his own basement, accidentally +come upon when digging a well.</p> + +<p>Balzac, Rabelais, and Descartes are the leading +literary celebrities of Tours, and Balzac's +"Le Lys dans la Vallée" will give one a more +delightful insight into the old life of the Tourangeaux +than whole series of guide-books and +shelves of dry histories.</p> + +<p>Blois and its counts, Tours and its bishops, +and Amboise and its kings, to say nothing of +Fontevrault, redolent of memories of the +Plantagenets, Nantes and its famous "Edict," +and its equally infamous "Revocation," have +left vivid impress upon all students of French +history. Others will perhaps remember Nantes +for Dumas's brilliant descriptions of the outcome +of the Breton conspiracy.</p> + +<p>All of us have a natural desire to know more +of historic ground, and whether we make a +start by entering the valley of the Loire at the +luxurious midway city of Tours, and follow +the river first to the sea and then to the source, +or make the journey from source to mouth, or +vice versa, it does not matter in the least. We +traverse the same ground and we meet the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">4</a></span> +same varying conditions as we advance a hundred +kilometres in either direction.</p> + +<p>Tours, for example, stands for all that is +typical of the sunny south. Prune and palm +trees thrust themselves forward in strong contrast +to the cider-apples of the lower Seine. +Below Tours one is almost at the coast, and +the <i>tables d'hôte</i> are abundantly supplied with +sea-food of all sorts. Above Tours the Orléannais +is typical of a certain well-to-do, matter-of-fact +existence, neither very luxurious +nor very difficult.</p> + +<p>Nevers is another step and resembles somewhat +the opulence of Burgundy as to conditions +of life, though the general aspect of the +city, as well as a great part of its history, is +Italian through and through.</p> + +<p>The last great step begins at Le Puy, in the +great volcanic <i>Massif Centrale</i>, where conditions +of life, if prosperous, are at least harder +than elsewhere.</p> + +<p>Such are the varying characteristics of the +towns and cities through which the Loire flows. +They run the whole gamut from gay to earnest +and solemn; from the ease and comfort of +the country around Tours, almost sub-tropical +in its softness, to the grime and smoke of busy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">5</a></span> +St. Etienne, and the chilliness and rigours of +a mountain winter at Le Puy.</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus023_small.jpg" alt="A Lace-maker of the Upper Loire" title="A Lace-maker of the Upper Loire" /> +<div class="caption"><i><a href="images/illus023.jpg">A Lace-maker of the Upper Loire</a></i></div> +</div> + +<p>These districts are all very full of memories +of events which have helped to build up the +solidarity of France of to-day, though the +Nantois still proudly proclaims himself a +Breton, and the Tourangeau will tell you that +his is the tongue, above all others, which +speaks the purest French,—and so on through +the whole category, each and every citizen of +a <i>petit pays</i> living up to his traditions to the +fullest extent possible.</p> + +<p>In no other journey in France, of a similar +length, will one see as many varying contrasts +in conditions of life as he will along the length +of the Loire, the broad, shallow river which +St. Martin, Charles Martel, and Louis XI., +the typical figures of church, arms, and state, +came to know so well.</p> + +<p>Du Bellay, a poet of the Renaissance, has +sung the praises of the Loire in a manner unapproached +by any other topographical poet, +if one may so call him, for that is what he +really was in this particular instance.</p> + +<p>There is a great deal of patriotism in it all, +too, and certainly no sweet singer of the +present day has even approached these lines,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">6</a></span> +which are eulogistic without being fulsome +and fervent without being lurid.</p> + +<p>The verses have frequently been rendered +into English, but the following is as good as +any, and better than most translations, though +it is one of those fragments of "newspaper +verse" whose authors are lost in obscurity.</p> + + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Mightier to me the house my fathers made,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Than your audacious heads, O Halls of Rome!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More than immortal marbles undecayed,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The thin sad slates that cover up my home;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More than your Tiber is my Loire to me,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">More Palatine my little Lyré there;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And more than all the winds of all the sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The quiet kindness of the Angevin air."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<p>In history the Loire valley is rich indeed, +from the days of the ancient Counts of Touraine +to those of Mazarin, who held forth at +Nevers. Touraine has well been called the +heart of the old French monarchy.</p> + +<p>Provincial France has a charm never known +to Paris-dwellers. Balzac and Flaubert were +provincials, and Dumas was a city-dweller,—and +there lies the difference between them.</p> + +<p>Balzac has written most charmingly of Touraine +in many of his books, in "Le Lys dans +la Vallée" and "Le Curé de Tours" in particular; +not always in complimentary terms,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">7</a></span> +either, for he has said that the Tourangeaux +will not even inconvenience themselves to go +in search of pleasure. This does not bespeak +indolence so much as philosophy, so most of +us will not cavil. George Sand's country lies +a little to the southward of Touraine, and +Berry, too, as the authoress herself has said, +has a climate "<i>souple et chaud, avec pluie +abondant et courte</i>."</p> + +<p>The architectural remains in the Loire valley +are exceedingly rich and varied. The feudal +system is illustrated at its best in the great +walled château at Angers, the still inhabited +and less grand château at Langeais, the ruins +at Cinq-Mars, and the very scanty remains of +Plessis-les-Tours.</p> + +<p>The ecclesiastical remains are quite as great. +The churches are, many of them, of the first +rank, and the great cathedrals at Nantes, Angers, +Tours, and Orléans are magnificent examples +of the church-builders' art in the middle +ages, and are entitled to rank among the +great cathedrals, if not actually of the first +class.</p> + +<p>With modern civic and other public buildings, +the case is not far different. Tours has +a gorgeous Hôtel de Ville, its architecture being +of the most luxuriant of modern French<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">8</a></span> +Renaissance, while the railway stations, even, +at both Tours and Orléans, are models of what +railway stations should be, and in addition are +decoratively beautiful in their appointments +and arrangements,—which most railway stations +are not.</p> + +<p>Altogether, throughout the Loire valley +there is an air of prosperity which in a more +vigorous climate is often lacking. This in +spite of the alleged tendency in what is commonly +known as a relaxing climate toward +<i>laisser-aller</i>.</p> + +<p>Finally, the picturesque landscape of the +Loire is something quite different from the +harder, grayer outlines of the north. All is of +the south, warm and ruddy, and the wooded +banks not only refine the crudities of a flat +shore-line, but form a screen or barrier to the +flowering charms of the examples of Renaissance +architecture which, in Touraine, at least, +are as thick as leaves in Vallambrosa.</p> + +<p>Starting at Gien, the valley of the Loire begins +to offer those monumental châteaux which +have made its fame as the land of castles. +From the old fortress-château of Gien to the +Château de Clisson, or the Logis de la Duchesse +Anne at Nantes, is one long succession of florid +masterpieces, not to be equalled elsewhere.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">9</a></span></p> + +<p>The true château region of Touraine—by +which most people usually comprehend the +Loire châteaux—commences only at Blois. +Here the edifices, to a great extent, take on +these superfine residential attributes which +were the glory of the Renaissance period of +French architecture.</p> + +<div class="figright"><a href="images/illus029.jpg"> +<img src="images/illus029_small.jpg" alt="The Loire Châteaux Map" title="The Loire Châteaux Map" /> +</a> +</div> + + +<p>Both above and below Touraine, at Montrichard, +at Loches, and Beaugency, are still to +be found scattering examples of feudal fortresses +and donjons which are as representative +of their class as are the best Norman structures +of the same era, the great fortresses of +Arques, Falaise, Domfront, and Les Andelys +being usually accounted as the types which +gave the stimulus to similar edifices elsewhere.</p> + +<p>In this same versatile region also, beginning<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">10</a></span> +perhaps with the Orléannais, are a vast number +of religious monuments equally celebrated. +For instance, the church of St. Benoit-sur-Loire +is one of the most important Romanesque +churches in all France, and the cathedral +of St. Gatien, with its "bejewelled façade," +at Tours, the twin-spired St. Maurice at Angers, +and even the pompous, and not very good +Gothic, edifice at Orléans (especially noteworthy +because its crypt is an ancient work +anterior to the Capetian dynasty) are all wonderfully +interesting and imposing examples of +mediæval ecclesiastical architecture.</p> + +<p>Three great tributaries enter the Loire below +Tours, the Cher, the Indre, and the Vienne. +The first has for its chief attractions the Renaissance +châteaux St. Aignan and Chenonceaux, +the Roman remains of Chabris, Thézée, +and Larçay, the Romanesque churches of +Selles and St. Aignan, and the feudal donjon +of Montrichard. The Indre possesses the château +of Azay-le-Rideau and the sombre fortresses +of Montbazon and Loches; while the +Vienne depends for its chief interest upon the +galaxy of fortress-châteaux at Chinon.</p> + +<p>The Loire is a mighty river and is navigable +for nearly nine hundred kilometres of its +length, almost to Le Puy, or, to be exact, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">11</a></span> +the little town of Vorey in the Department of +the Haute Loire.</p> + +<p>At Orléans, Blois, or Tours one hardly realizes +this, much less at Nevers. The river appears +to be a great, tranquil, docile stream, +with scarce enough water in its bed to make +a respectable current, leaving its beds and bars +of <i>sable</i> and <i>cailloux</i> bare to the sky.</p> + +<p>The scarcity of water, except at occasional +flood, is the principal and obvious reason for +the absence of water-borne traffic, even though +a paternal ministerial department of the government +calls the river navigable.</p> + +<p>At the times of the <i>grandes crues</i> there are +four metres or more registered on the big scale +at the Pont d'Ancenis, while at other times it +falls to less than a metre, and when it does +there is a mere rivulet of water which trickles +through the broad river-bottom at Chaumont, +or Blois, or Orléans. Below Ancenis navigation +is not so difficult, but the current is more +strong.</p> + +<p>From Blois to Angers, on the right bank, +extends a long dike which carries the roadway +beside the river for a couple of hundred kilometres. +This is one of the charms of travel +by the Loire. The only thing usually seen on +the bosom of the river, save an occasional fish<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">12</a></span>ing +punt, is one of those great flat-bottomed +ferry-boats, with a square sail hung on a yard +amidships, such as Turner always made an +accompaniment to his Loire pictures, for conditions +of traffic on the river have not greatly +changed.</p> + +<p>Whenever one sees a barge or a boat worthy +of classification with those one finds on the +rivers of the east or north, or on the great +canals, it is only about a quarter of the usual +size; so, in spite of its great navigable length, +the waterway of the Loire is to be considered +more as a picturesque and healthful element +of the landscape than as a commercial proposition.</p> + +<p>Where the great canals join the river at Orléans, +and from Chatillon to Roanne, the traffic +increases, though more is carried by the canal-boats +on the <i>Canal Latéral</i> than by the barges +on the Loire.</p> + +<p>It is only on the Loire between Angers and +Nantes that there is any semblance of river +traffic such as one sees on most of the other +great waterways of Europe. There is a considerable +traffic, too, which descends the Maine, +particularly from Angers downward, for Angers +with its Italian skies is usually thought +of, and really is to be considered, as a Loire<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">13</a></span> +town, though it is actually on the banks of the +Maine some miles from the Loire itself.</p> + +<p>One thousand or more bateaux make the ascent +to Angers from the Loire at La Pointe +each year, all laden with a miscellaneous cargo +of merchandise. The Sarthe and the Loir also +bring a notable agricultural traffic to the +greater Loire, and the smaller confluents, the +Dive, the Thouet, the Authion, and the Layon, +all go to swell the parent stream until, when +it reaches Nantes, the Loire has at last taken +on something of the aspect of a well-ordered +and useful stream, characteristics which above +Nantes are painfully lacking. Because of its +lack of commerce the Loire is in a certain way +the most noble, magnificent, and aristocratic +river of France; and so, too, it is also in respect +to its associations of the past.</p> + +<p>It has not the grandeur of the Rhône when +the spring freshets from the Jura and the +Swiss lakes have filled it to its banks; it has +not the burning activity of the Seine as it bears +its thousands of boat-loads of produce and +merchandise to and from the Paris market; +it has not the prettiness of the Thames, nor +the legendary aspect of the Rhine; but in a +way it combines something of the features of +all, and has, in addition, a tone that is all its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">14</a></span> +own, as it sweeps along through its countless +miles of ample curves, and holds within its +embrace all that is best of mediæval and Renaissance +France, the period which built up +the later monarchy and, who shall not say, the +present prosperous republic.</p> + +<p>Throughout most of the river's course, one +sees, stretching to the horizon, row upon row +of staked vineyards with fruit and leaves in +luxuriant abundance and of all rainbow colours. +The peasant here, the worker in the +vineyards, is a picturesque element. He is not +particularly brilliant in colouring, but he is +usually joyous, and he invariably lives in a +well-kept and brilliantly environed habitation +and has an air of content and prosperity amid +the well-beloved treasures of his household.</p> + + +<p>The Loire is essentially a river of other +days. Truly, as Mr. James has said, "It is +the very model of a generous, beneficent +stream ... a wide river which you may follow +by a wide road is excellent company."</p> + + +<p>The Frenchman himself is more flowery: +"<i>C'est la plus noble rivière de France. Son +domaine est immense et magnifique.</i>"</p> + +<div class="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">15</a></span> +<table summary="The Ancient Provinces of the Loire Valley and Their Capitals"> +<tr><td> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td> </td><td style="font-weight: bold;">The Ancient Provinces of the Loire Valley and Their Capitals</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Bretagne</td><td> </td><td align="right">Rennes</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Anjou</td><td> </td><td align="right">Angers</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Touraine</td><td> </td><td align="right">Tours</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Orléannais</td><td> </td><td align="right">Orléans</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Berry</td><td> </td><td align="right">Bourges</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Nivernais</td><td> </td><td align="right">Nevers</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Bourbonnais</td><td> </td><td align="right">Moulins</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Lyonnais</td><td> </td><td align="right">Lyon</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Bourgogne</td><td> </td><td align="right">Dijon</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Auvergne</td><td> </td><td align="right">Clermont-Ferrand</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Languedoc</td><td> </td><td align="right">Toulouse</td></tr> +</table> +</td> +<td> +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus035_small.jpg" alt="The Ancient Provinces of the Loire Valley and Their Capitals" title="The Ancient Provinces of the Loire Valley and Their Capitals" /> +</div> +</td> +</tr> +</table></div> + + + + + +<p>The Loire is the longest river in France, and +the only one of the four great rivers whose +basin or watershed lies wholly within French<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">16</a></span> +territory. It moreover traverses eleven provinces. +It rises in a fissure of granite rock at +the foot of the Gerbier-de-Jonc, a volcanic cone +in the mountains of the Vivarais, a hundred +kilometres or more south of Lyons. In three +kilometres, approximately two miles, the little +torrent drops a thousand feet, after receiving +to its arms a tiny affluent coming from the +Croix de Monteuse.</p> + +<p>For twelve kilometres the river twists and +turns around the base of the Vivarais mountains, +and finally enters a gorge between the +rocks, and mingles with the waters of the little +Lac d'Issarles, entering for the first time a +flat lowland plain like that through which its +course mostly runs.</p> + +<p>The monument-crowned pinnacles of Le Puy +and the inverted bowl of Puy-de-Dôme rise high +above the plain and point the way to Roanne, +where such activity as does actually take place +upon the Loire begins.</p> + +<p>Navigation, classed officially as "<i>flottable</i>," +merely, has already begun at Vorey, just below +Le Puy, but the traffic is insignificant.</p> + +<p>Meantime the streams coming from the direction +of St. Etienne and Lyons have been +added to the Loire, but they do not much +increase its bulk. St. Galmier, the <i>source</i> dear<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">17</a></span> +to patrons of <i>tables d'hôte</i> on account of its +palatable mineral water, which is about the +only decent drinking-water one can buy at a +reasonable price, lies but a short distance away +to the right.</p> + +<p>At St. Rambert the plain of Forez is entered, +and here the stream is enriched by numberless +rivulets which make their way from various +sources through a thickly wooded country.</p> + +<p>From Roanne onward, the <i>Canal Latéral</i> +keeps company with the Loire to Chatillon, not +far from Orléans.</p> + +<p>Before reaching Nevers, the <i>Canal du Nivernais</i> +branches off to the left and joins the Loire +with the Yonne at Auxerre. Daudet tells of +the life of the <i>Canal du Nivernais</i>, in "La Belle +Nivernaise," in a manner too convincingly +graphic for any one else to attempt the task, +in fiction or out of it. Like the Tartarin books, +"La Belle Nivernaise" is distinctly local, and +forms of itself an excellent guide to a little +known and little visited region.</p> + +<p>At Nevers the topography changes, or +rather, the characteristics of the life of the +country round about change, for the topography, +so far as its profile is concerned, remains +much the same for three-fourths the +length of this great river. Nevers, La Charité,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">18</a></span> +Sancerre, Gien, and Cosne follow in quick succession, +all reminders of a historic past as vivid +as it was varied.</p> + +<p>From the heights of Sancerre one sees a +wonderful history-making panorama before +him. Cæsar crossed the Loire at Gien, the +Franks forded the river at La Charité, when +they first went against Aquitaine, and Charles +the Bald came sadly to grief on a certain +occasion at Pouilly.</p> + +<p>It is here that the Loire rises to its greatest +flood, and hundreds of times, so history tells, +from 490 to 1866, the fickle river has caused +a devastation so great and terrible that the +memory of it is not yet dead.</p> + +<p>This hardly seems possible of this usually +tranquil stream, and there have always been +scoffers.</p> + +<p>Madame de Sévigné wrote in 1675 to M. de +Coulanges (but in her case perhaps it was mere +well-wishing), "<i>La belle Loire, elle est un peu +sujette à se déborder, mais elle en est plus +douce</i>."</p> + +<p>Ancient writers were wont to consider the +inundations of the Loire as a punishment from +Heaven, and even in later times the superstition—if +it was a superstition—still remained.</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus039_small.jpg" alt="The Loire near La Charité" title="The Loire near La Charité" /> +<div class="caption"><i><a href="images/illus039.jpg">The Loire near La Charité</a></i></div> +</div> + + +<p>In 1825, when thousands of charcoal-burners<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">19</a></span> +(<i>charbonniers</i>) were all but ruined, they petitioned +the government for assistance. The +official who had the matter in charge, and whose +name—fortunately for his fame—does not +appear to have been recorded, replied simply +that the flood was a periodical condition of +affairs which the Almighty brought about as +occasion demanded, with good cause, and for +this reason he refused all assistance.</p> + +<p>Important public works have done much to +prevent repetitions of these inundations, but +the danger still exists, and always, in a wet +season, there are those dwellers along the river's +banks who fear the rising flood as they +would the plague.</p> + +<p>Chatillon, with its towers; Gien, a busy hive +of industry, though with a historic past; Sully; +and St. Benoit-sur-Loire, with its unique double +transepted church; all pass in rapid review, +and one enters the ancient capital of the Orléannais +quite ready for the new chapter which, +in colouring, is to be so different from that +devoted to the upper valley.</p> + +<p>From Orléans, south, one passes through a +veritable wonderland of fascinating charms. +Châteaux, monasteries, and great civic and +ecclesiastical monuments pass quickly in turn.</p> + +<p>Then comes Touraine which all love, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">20</a></span> +river meantime having grown no more swift +or ample, nor any more sluggish or attenuated. +It is simply the same characteristic flow which +one has known before.</p> + +<p>The landscape only is changing, while the +fruits and flowers, and the trees and foliage +are more luxuriant, and the great châteaux are +more numerous, splendid, and imposing.</p> + +<p>Of his well-beloved Touraine, Balzac wrote: +"Do not ask me <i>why</i> I love Touraine; I love +it not merely as one loves the cradle of his +birth, nor as one loves an oasis in a desert, +but as an artist loves his art."</p> + +<p>Blois, with its bloody memories; Chaumont, +splendid and retired; Chambord, magnificent, +pompous, and bare; Amboise, with its great +tower high above the river, follow in turn till +the Loire makes its regal entrée into Tours. +"What a spectacle it is," wrote Sterne in +"Tristram Shandy," "for a traveller who +journeys through Touraine at the time of the +vintage."</p> + +<p>And then comes the final step which brings +the traveller to where the limpid waters of the +Loire mingle with the salty ocean, and what +a triumphant meeting it is!</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus043_small.jpg" alt="Coiffes of Amboise and Orléans" title="Coiffes of Amboise and Orléans" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus043.jpg"><i>Coiffes of Amboise and Orléans</i></a></div> +</div> + +<p>Most of the cities of the Loire possess but +one bridge, but Tours has three, and, as be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">21</a></span>comes +a great provincial capital, sits enthroned +upon the river-bank in mighty splendour.</p> + +<p>The feudal towers of the Château de Luynes +are almost opposite, and Cinq-Mars, with its +pagan "<i>pile</i>" and the ruins of its feudal castle +high upon a hill, points the way down-stream +like a mariner's beacon. Langeais follows, and +the Indre, the Cher, and the Vienne, all ample +and historic rivers, go to swell the flood which +passes under the bridges of Saumur, Ancenis, +and Ponts de Cé.</p> + +<p>From Tours to the ocean, the Loire comes to +its greatest amplitude, though even then, in +spite of its breadth, it is, for the greater part +of the year, impotent as to the functions of a +great river.</p> + +<p>Below Angers the Loire receives its first +great affluent coming from the country lying +back of the right bank: the Maine itself is a +considerable river. It rises far up in the +Breton peninsula, and before it empties itself +into the Loire, it has been aggrandized by +three great tributaries, the Loir, the Sarthe, +and the Mayenne.</p> + +<p>Here in this backwater of the Loire, as +one might call it, is as wonderful a collection of +natural beauties and historical châteaux as on +the Loire itself. Châteaudun, Mayenne, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">22</a></span> +Vendôme are historic ground of superlative +interest, and the great castle at Châteaudun +is as magnificent in its way as any of the monuments +of the Loire. Vendôme has a Hôtel de +Ville which is an admirable relic of a feudal +edifice, and the <i>clocher</i> of its church, which +dominates many square leagues of country, +is counted as one of the most perfectly disposed +church spires in existence, as lovely, almost, +as Texier's masterwork at Chartres, or +the needle-like <i>flêches</i> at Strasburg or Freiburg +in Breisgau.</p> + +<p>The Maine joins the Loire just below Angers, +at a little village significantly called La Pointe. +Below La Pointe are St. Georges-sur-Loire, +and three <i>châteaux de commerce</i> which give +their names to the three principal Angevin +vineyards: Château Serrand, l'Epinay, and +Chevigné.</p> + +<p>Vineyard after vineyard, and château after +château follow rapidly, until one reaches the +Ponts de Cé with their <i>petite ville</i>,—all very +delightful. Not so the bridge at Ancenis, where +the flow of water is marked daily on a huge +black and white scale. The bridge is quite the +ugliest wire-rope affair to be seen on the Loire, +and one is only too glad to leave it behind,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">23</a></span> +though it is with a real regret that he parts +from Ancenis itself.</p> + +<p>Some years ago one could go from Angers +to St. Nazaire by boat. It must have been a +magnificent trip, extraordinarily calm and serene, +amid an abundance of picturesque details; +old châteaux and bridges in strong contrast +to the prairies of Touraine and the Orléannais. +One embarked at the foot of the +stupendously towered château of King René, +and for a <i>petite heure</i> navigated the Maine +in the midst of great <i>chalands</i>, fussy little +<i>remorqueurs</i> and <i>barques</i> until La Pointe +was reached, when the Loire was followed to +Nantes and St. Nazaire.</p> + +<p>To-day this fine trip is denied one, the boats +going only so far as La Pointe.</p> + +<p>Below Angers the Loire flows around and +about a veritable archipelago of islands and +islets, cultivated with all the luxuriance of a +back-yard garden, and dotted with tiny hamlets +of folk who are supremely happy and content +with their lot.</p> + +<p>Some currents which run behind the islands +are swift flowing and impetuous, while others +are practically elongated lakes, as dead as +those <i>lômes</i> which in certain places flank the +Saône and the Rhône.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">24</a></span></p> + +<p>All these various branches are united as the +Loire flows between the piers of the ungainly +bridge of the Chemin-de-fer de Niort as it +crosses the river at Chalonnes.</p> + +<p>Champtocé and Montjean follow, each with +an individuality all its own. Here the commerce +takes on an increased activity, thanks +to the great national waterway known as the +"Canal de Brest à Nantes." Here at the busy +port of Montjean—which the Angevins still +spell and pronounce <i>Montéjean</i>—the Loire +takes on a breadth and grandeur similar to the +great rivers in the western part of America. +Montjean is dominated by a fine ogival church, +with a battery of arcs-boutants which are a +joy in themselves.</p> + +<p>On the other bank, lying back of a great +plain, which stretches away from the river itself, +is Champtocé, pleasantly situated on the +flank of a hill and dominated by the ruins of a +thirteenth-century château which belonged to +the cruel Gilles de Retz, somewhat apocryphally +known to history as "Barbe-bleu"—not +the Bluebeard of the nursery tale, who was +of Eastern origin, but a sort of Occidental successor +who was equally cruel and bloodthirsty +in his attitude toward his whilom wives.</p> + +<p>From this point on one comes within the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">25</a></span> +sphere of influence of Nantes, and there is +more or less of a suburban traffic on the railway, +and the plodders cityward by road are +more numerous than the mere vagabonds of +the countryside.</p> + +<p>The peasant women whom one meets wear a +curious bonnet, set on the head well to the fore, +with wings at the side folded back quite like +the pictures that one sees of the mediæval +dames of these parts, a survival indeed of the +middle ages.</p> + +<p>The Loire becomes more and more animated +and occasionally there is a great tow of boats +like those that one sees continually passing on +the lower Seine. Here the course of the Loire +takes on a singular aspect. It is filled with +long flat islands, sometimes in archipelagos, but +often only a great flat prairie surrounded by a +tranquil canal, wide and deep, and with little +resemblance to the mistress Loire of a hundred +or two kilometres up-stream. All these isles +are in a high state of cultivation, though wholly +worked with the hoe and the spade, both of +them of a primitiveness that might have come +down from Bible times; rare it is to see a +horse or a harrow on these "bouquets of verdure +surrounded by waves."</p> + +<p>Near Oudon is one of those monumental<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">26</a></span> +follies which one comes across now and then +in most foreign countries: a great edifice +which serves no useful purpose, and which, +were it not for certain redeeming features, +would be a sorry thing indeed. The "Folie-Siffait," +a citadel which perches itself high +upon the summit of a hill, was—and is—an +<i>amusette</i> built by a public-spirited man of +Nantes in order that his workmen might have +something to do in a time of a scarcity of work. +It is a bizarre, incredible thing, but the motive +which inspired its erection was most worthy, +and the roadway running beneath, piercing its +foundation walls, gives a theatrical effect +which, in a way, makes it the picturesque rival +of many a more famous Rhine castle.</p> + +<p>The river valley widens out here at Oudon, +practically the frontier of Bretagne and Anjou. +The railroad pierces the rock walls of the river +with numerous tunnels along the right bank, +and the Vendean country stretches far to the +southward in long rolling hills quite unlike +any of the characteristics of other parts of +the valley. Finally, the vast plain of Mauves +comes into sight, beautifully coloured with a +white and iron-stained rocky background which +is startlingly picturesque in its way, if not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">27</a></span> +wholly beautiful according to the majority of +standards.</p> + +<p>Next comes what a Frenchman has called a +"tumultuous vision of Nantes." To-day the +very ancient and historic city which grew up +from the Portus Namnetum and the Condivicnum +of the Romans is indeed a veritable +tumult of chimneys, masts, and locomotives. +But all this will not detract one jot from its +reputation of being one of the most delightful +of provincial capitals, and the smoke and activity +of its port only tend to accentuate a note +of colour that in the whole itinerary of the +Loire has been but pale.</p> + +<p>Below Nantes the Loire estuary has turned +the surrounding country into a little Holland, +where fisherfolk and their boats, with sails of +red and blue, form charming symphonies of +pale colour. In the <i>cabarets</i> along its shores +there is a strange medley of peasants, sea-farers, +and fisher men and women. Not so cosmopolitan +a crew as one sees in the harbourside +<i>cabarets</i> at Marseilles, or even Le Havre, +but sufficiently strange to be a fascination to +one who has just come down from the headwaters.</p> + +<p>The "Section Maritime," from Nantes to +the sea, is a matter of some sixty kilometres.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">28</a></span> +Here the boats increase in number and size. +They are known as <i>gabares</i>, <i>chalands</i>, and <i>alléges</i>, +and go down with the river-current and +return on the incoming ebb, for here the river +is tidal.</p> + +<p>Gray and green is the aspect at the Loire's +source, and green and gray it still is, though +of a decidedly different colour-value, at St. +Nazaire, below Nantes, the real deep-water +port of the Loire.</p> + +<p>By this time the river has amplified into a +broad estuary which is lost in the incoming +and outgoing tides of the Bay of Biscay.</p> + +<p>For nearly a thousand kilometres the Loire +has wound its way gently and broadly through +rocky escarpments, fertile plains, populous and +luxurious towns,—all of it historic ground,—by +stately châteaux and through vineyards +and fruit orchards, with a placid grandeur.</p> + +<p>Now it becomes more or less prosaic and +matter-of-fact, though in a way no less interesting, +as it takes on some of the attributes +of the outside world.</p> + +<p>This outline, then, approximates somewhat +a portrait of the Loire. It is the result of +many pilgrimages enthusiastically undertaken; +a long contemplation of the charms of perhaps<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">29</a></span> +the most beautiful river in France, from its +source to its mouth, at all seasons of the year.</p> + +<p>The riches and curios of the cities along its +banks have been contemplated with pleasure, +intermingled with a memory of many stirring +scenes of the past, but it is its châteaux that +make it famous.</p> + +<p>The story of the châteaux has been told before +in hundreds of volumes, but only a personal +view of them will bring home to one the +manners and customs of one of the most luxurious +periods of life in the France of other +days.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">30</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2>CHAPTER II.<span class="pagenum"><a href="#Contents">To ToC</a></span></h2> + +<h4>THE ORLÉANNAIS</h4> + + +<p>Of the many travelled English and Americans +who go to Paris, how few visit the Loire +valley with its glorious array of mediæval and +Renaissance châteaux. No part of France, except +Paris, is so accessible, and none is so comfortably +travelled, whether by road or by rail.</p> + +<p>At Orleans one is at the very gateway of +this splendid, bountiful region, the lower valley +of the Loire. Here the river first takes +on a complexion which previously it had +lacked, for it is only when the Loire becomes +the boundary-line between the north and the +south that one comes to realize its full importance.</p> + +<p>The Orléannais, like many another province +of mid-France, is a region where plenty awaits +rich and poor alike. Not wholly given over to +agriculture, nor yet wholly to manufacturing, +it is without that restless activity of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">31</a></span> +frankly industrial centres of the north. In +spite of this, though, the Orléannais is not +idle.</p> + + +<div class="figleft"> +<a href="images/map-02.jpg"> +<img src="images/map-02_small.jpg" alt="The Châteaux of the Loire (Map)" title="The Châteaux of the Loire (Map)" /></a> +</div> + +<p>Orleans is the obvious <i>pointe de départ</i> for +all the wonderland of the Renaissance which +is to follow, but itself and its immediate surroundings +have not the importance for the +visitor, in spite of the vivid historical chapters +which have been written here in the past, that +many another less famous city possesses. By +this is meant that the existing monuments of +history are by no means as numerous or splendid +here as one might suppose. Not that they +are entirely lacking, but rather that they are +of a different species altogether from that +array of magnificently planned châteaux which +line the banks of the Loire below.</p> + +<p>To one coming from the north the entrance +to the Orléannais will be emphatically marked. +It is the first experience of an atmosphere +which, if not characteristically or climatically +of the south, is at least reminiscent thereof, +with a luminosity which the provinces of old +France farther north entirely lack.</p> + +<p>As Lavedan, the Académicien, says: "Here +all focuses itself into one great picture, the +combined romance of an epoch. Have you not +been struck with a land where the clouds, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">32</a></span> +atmosphere, the odour of the soil, and the +breezes from afar, all comport, one with another, +in true and just proportions?" This is +the Orléannais, a land where was witnessed the +morning of the Valois, the full noon of Louis +XIV., and the twilight of Louis XVI.</p> + +<p>The Orléannais formed a distinct part of +mediæval France, as it did, ages before, of +western Gaul. Of all the provinces through +which the Loire flows, the Orléannais is as prolific +as any of great names and greater events, +and its historical monuments, if not so splendid +as those in Touraine, are no less rare.</p> + +<p>Orleans itself contains many remarkable +Gothic and Renaissance constructions, and not +far away is the ancient church of the old abbey +of Notre Dame de Cléry, one of the most historic +and celebrated shrines in the time of the +superstitious Louis XI.; while innumerable +mediæval villes and ruined fortresses plentifully +besprinkle the province.</p> + +<p>One characteristic possessed by the Orléannais +differentiates it from the other outlying +provinces of the old monarchy. The people +and the manners and customs of this great and +important duchy were allied, in nearly all +things, with the interests and events of the +capital itself, and so there was always a lack<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">33</a></span> +of individuality, which even to-day is noticeably +apparent in the Orleans capital. The +shops, hotels, cafés, and the people themselves +might well be one of the <i>quartiers</i> of Paris, so +like are they in general aspect.</p> + +<p>The notable Parisian character of the inhabitants +of Orleans, and the resemblance of +the people of the surrounding country to those +of the Ile of France, is due principally to the +fact that the Orléannais was never so isolated +as many others of the ancient provinces. It +was virtually a neighbour of the capital, and its +relations with it were intimate and numerous. +Moreover, it was favoured by a great number +of lines of communication by road and by +water, so that its manners and customs became, +more or less unconsciously, interpolations.</p> + +<p>The great event of the year in Orleans is the +Fête de Jeanne d'Arc, which takes place in the +month of May. Usually few English and +American visitors are present, though why it +is hard to reason out, for it takes place at +quite the most delightful season in the year. +Perhaps it is because Anglo-Saxons are +ashamed of the part played by their ancestors +in the shocking death of the maid of Domremy +and Orleans. Innumerable are the relics and +reminders of the "Maid" scattered through<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">34</a></span>out +the town, and the local booksellers have +likewise innumerable and authoritative accounts +of the various episodes of her life, which +saves the necessity of making further mention +here.</p> + +<p>There are several statues of Jeanne d'Arc +in the city, and they have given rise to the following +account written by Jules Lemaitre, the +Académicien:</p> + +<p>"I believe that the history of Jeanne d'Arc +was the first that was ever told to me (before +even the fairy-tales of Perrault). The 'Mort +de Jeanne d'Arc,' of Casimir Delavigne, was +the first fable that I learned, and the equestrian +statue of the 'Maid,' in the Place Martroi, +at Orleans, is perhaps the oldest vision +that my memory guards.</p> + +<p>"This statue of Jeanne d'Arc is absurd. +She has a Grecian profile, and a charger which +is not a war-horse but a race-horse. Nevertheless +to me it was noble and imposing.</p> + +<p>"In the courtyard of the Hôtel de Ville is a +<i>petite pucelle</i>, very gentle and pious, who holds +against her heart her sword, after the manner +of a crucifix. At the end of the bridge across +the Loire is another Jeanne d'Arc, as the maid +of war, surrounded by swirling draperies, as +in a picture of Juvenet's. This to me tells the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">35</a></span> +whole story of the reverence with which the +martyred 'Maid' is regarded in the city of +Orleans by the Loire."</p> + +<p>One can appreciate all this, and to the full, +for a Frenchman is a stern critic of art, even +that of his own countrymen, and Jeanne d'Arc, +along with some other celebrities, is one of +those historical figures which have seldom had +justice done them in sculptured or pictorial +representations. The best, perhaps, is the precocious +Lepage's fine painting, now in America. +What would not the French give for the return +of this work of art?</p> + +<p>The Orléannais, with the Ile de France, +formed the particular domain of the third race +of French monarchs. From 1364 to 1498 the +province was an appanage known as the Duché +d'Orleans, but it was united with the Crown +by Louis XII., and finally divided into the Departments +of Loir et Cher, Eure et Loir, and +Loiret.</p> + +<p>Like the "pardons" and "benedictions" +of Finistère and other parts of Bretagne, the +peasants of the Loiret have a quaint custom +which bespeaks a long handed-down superstition. +On the first Sunday of Lent they hie +themselves to the fields with lighted fagots +and chanting the following lines:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">36</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> + +<span class="i0_5">"Sortez, sortez d'ici mulots!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Où je vais vous brûler les crocs!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Quittez, quittez ces blés;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Allez, vous trouverez<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dans la cave du curé<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Plus à boire qu' à manger."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>Just how far the curé endorses these sentiments, +the author of this book does not know. +The explanation of the rather extraordinary +proceeding came from one of the participants, +who, having played his part in the ceremony, +dictated the above lines over sundry <i>petits +verres</i> paid for by the writer. The day is not +wound up, however, with an orgy of eating and +drinking, as is sometimes the case in far-western +Brittany. The peasant of the Loiret simply +eats rather heavily of "<i>mi</i>," which is +nothing more or less than oatmeal porridge, +after which he goes to bed.</p> + +<p>The Loire rolls down through the Orléannais, +from Châteauneuf-sur-Loire and Jargeau, +and cuts the banks of <i>sable</i>, and the very shores +themselves, into little capes and bays which +are delightful in their eccentricity. Here cuts +in the <i>Canal d'Orleans</i>, which makes possible +the little traffic that goes on between the Seine +and the Loire.</p> + +<p>A few kilometres away from the right bank +of the Loire, in the heart of the Gatanais, is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">37</a></span> +Lorris, the home of Guillaume de Lorris, the +first author of the "Roman de la Rose." For +this reason alone it should become a literary +shrine of the very first rank, though, in spite +of its claim, no one ever heard of a literary +pilgrim making his way there.</p> + +<p>Lorris is simply a big, overgrown French +market-town, which is delightful enough in its +somnolence, but which lacks most of the attributes +which tourists in general seem to demand.</p> + +<p>At Lorris a most momentous treaty was +signed, known as the "Paix de Lorris," +wherein was assured to the posterity of St. +Louis the heritage of the Comte de Toulouse, +another of those periodical territorial aggrandizements +which ultimately welded the +French nation into the whole that it is to-day.</p> + +<p>From the juncture of the <i>Canal d'Orleans</i> +with the Loire one sees shining in the brilliant +sunlight the roof-tops of Orleans, the Aurelianum +of the Romans, its hybrid cathedral overtopping +all else. It was Victor Hugo who said +of this cathedral: "This odious church, which +from afar holds so much of promise, and which +near by has none," and Hugo undoubtedly +spoke the truth.</p> + +<p>Orleans is an old city and a <i>cité neuve</i>. +Where the river laps its quays, it is old but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">38</a></span> +commonplace; back from the river is a strata +which is really old, fine Gothic house-fronts +and old leaning walls; while still farther from +the river, as one approaches the railway station, +it is strictly modern, with all the devices +and appliances of the newest of the new.</p> + +<p>The Orleans of history lies riverwards,—the +Orleans where the heart of France pulsed +itself again into life in the tragic days which +were glorified by "the Maid."</p> + +<p>"The countryside of the Orléannais has the +monotony of a desert," said an English traveller +some generations ago. He was wrong. +To do him justice, however, or to do his observations +justice, he meant, probably, that, +save the river-bottom of the Loire, the great +plain which begins with La Beauce and ends +with the Sologne has a comparatively uninteresting +topography. This is true; but it is not a +desert. La Beauce is the best grain-growing +region in all France, and the Sologne is now a +reclaimed land whose sandy soil has proved +admirably adapted to an unusually abundant +growth of the vine. So much for this old-time +point of view, which to-day has changed considerably.</p> + +<p>The Orléannais is one of the most populous +and progressive sections of all France, and its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">39</a></span> +inhabitants, per square kilometre, are constantly +increasing in numbers, which is more +than can be said of every <i>département</i>. There +are multitudes of tiny villages, and one is +scarcely ever out of sight and sound of a habitation.</p> + +<div class="figright"><a href="images/illus065.jpg"> +<img src="images/illus065_small.jpg" alt="Environs of Orleans (Map)" title="Environs of Orleans (Map)" /> +</a> +</div> + + +<p>In the great forest, just to the west of Orleans, +are two small villages, each a celebrated +battle-ground, and a place of a patriotic pil<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">40</a></span>grimage +on the eighth and ninth of November +of each year. They are Coulmiers and Bacon, +and here some fugitives from Metz and Sedan, +with some young troops exposed to fire for the +first time, engaged with the Prussians (in +1870) who had occupied Orleans since mid-October. +There is the usual conventional "soldiers' +monument,"—with considerably more +art about it than is usually seen in America,—before +which Frenchmen seemingly never +cease to worship.</p> + +<p>This same <i>Forêt d'Orleans</i>, one of those wild-woods +which so plentifully besprinkle France, +has a sad and doleful memory in the traditions +of the druidical inhabitants of a former +day. Their practices here did not differ +greatly from those of their brethren elsewhere, +but local history is full of references to atrocities +so bloodthirsty that it is difficult to believe +that they were ever perpetrated under +the guise of religion.</p> + +<p>Surrounding the forest are many villages +and hamlets, war-stricken all in the dark days +of seventy-one, when the Prussians were overrunning +the land.</p> + +<p>Of all the cities of the Loire, Orleans, Blois, +Tours, Angers, and Nantes alone show any +spirit of modern progressiveness or of likeness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">41</a></span> +to the capital. The rest, to all appearances, +are dead, or at least sleeping in their pasts. +But they are charming and restful spots for +all that, where in melancholy silence sit the old +men, while the younger folk, including the very +children, are all at work in the neighbouring +vineyards or in the wheat-fields of La Beauce.</p> + +<p>Meung-sur-Loire and Beaugency sleep on the +river-bank, their proud monuments rising high +in the background,—the massive tower of +Cæsar and a quartette of church spires. Just +below Orleans is the juncture of the Loiret and +the Loire at St. Mesmin, while only a few kilometres +away is Cléry, famed for its associations +of Louis XI.</p> + +<p>The Loiret is not a very ample river, and is +classed by the Minister of Public Works as navigable +for but four kilometres of its length. +This, better than anything else, should define +its relative importance among the great waterways +of France. Navigation, as it is known +elsewhere, is practically non-existent.</p> + +<p>The course of the Loiret is perhaps twelve +kilometres all told, but it has given its name +to a great French <i>département</i>, though it is +doubtless the shortest of all the rivers of +France thus honoured.</p> + +<p>It first comes to light in the dainty park of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">42</a></span> +the Château de la Source, where there are two +distinct sources. The first forms a small circular +basin, known as the "Bouillon," which +leads into another semicircular basin called the +"Bassin du Miroir," from the fact that it +reflects the façade of the château in its placid +surface. Of course, this is all very artificial +and theatrical, but it is a pretty conceit nevertheless. +The other source, known as the +"Grande Source," joins the rivulet some hundreds +of yards below the "Bassin du Miroir."</p> + +<p>The Château de la Source is a seventeenth-century +edifice, of no great architectural beauty +in itself, but sufficiently sylvan in its surroundings +to give it rank as one of the notable places +of pilgrimage for tourists who, said a cynical +French writer, "take the châteaux of the Loire +<i>tour à tour</i> as they do the morgue, the Moulin +Rouge, and the sewers of Paris."</p> + +<p>In the early days the château belonged to the +Cardinal Briçonnet, and it was here that Bolingbroke, +after having been stripped of his +titles in England, went into retirement in 1720. +In 1722 he received Voltaire, who read him his +"Henriade."</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/illus069_small.jpg" alt="The Loiret" title="The Loiret" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus069.jpg"><i>The Loiret</i></a></div> +</div> + +<p>In 1815 the invading Prince Eckmühl, with +his staff, installed himself in the château, when, +after Waterloo, the Prussian and French ar<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">43</a></span>mies +were separated only by a barrier placed +midway on the bridge at Orleans. It was here +also that the Prussian army was disbanded, on +the agreement of the council held at Angerville, +near Orleans.</p> + +<p>There are three other châteaux on the borders +of the Loiret, which are of more than +ordinary interest, so far as great country +houses and their surroundings go, though their +histories are not very striking, with perhaps +the exception of the Château de la Fontaine, +which has a remarkable garden, laid out by +Lenôtre, the designer of the parks at Versailles.</p> + +<p>Leaving Orleans by the right bank of the +Loire, one first comes to La Chapelle-St. Mesmin. +La Chapelle has a church dating from +the eleventh century and a château which is +to-day the <i>maison de campagne</i> of the Bishop +of Orleans. On the opposite bank was the +Abbaye de Micy, founded by Clovis at the time +of his conversion. A stone cross, only, marks +the site to-day.</p> + +<p>St. Ay follows next, and is usually set down +in the guide-books as "celebrated for good +wines." This is not to be denied for a moment, +and it is curious to note that the city bears the +same name as the famous town in the cham<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">44</a></span>pagne +district, celebrated also for good wine, +though of a different kind. The name of the +Orléannais Ay is gained from a hermitage +founded here by a holy man, who died in the +sixth century. His tomb was discovered in +1860, under the choir of the church, which +makes it a place of pilgrimage of no little local +importance.</p> + +<p>At Meung-sur-Loire one should cross the +river to Cléry, five kilometres off, seldom if +ever visited by casual travellers. But why? +Simply because it is overlooked in that universal +haste shown by most travellers—who +are not students of art or architecture, or deep +lovers of history—in making their way to +more popular shrines. One will not regret the +time taken to visit Cléry, which shared with +Our Lady of Embrun the devotions of Louis XI.</p> + +<p>Cléry's three thousand pastoral inhabitants +of to-day would never give it distinction, and +it is only the Maison de Louis XI. and the +Basilique de Notre Dame which makes it worth +while, but this is enough.</p> + +<p>In "Quentin Durward" one reads of the +time when the superstitious Louis was held in +captivity by the Burgundian, Charles the Bold, +and of how the French king made his devotions +before the little image, worn in his hat, of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">45</a></span> +Virgin of Cléry; "the grossness of his superstition, +none the less than his fickleness, leading +him to believe Our Lady of Cléry to be quite +a different person from the other object of his +devotion, the Madonna of Embrun, a tiny +mountain village in southwestern France.</p> + +<p>"'Sweet Lady of Cléry,' he exclaimed, clasping +his hands and beating his breast as he +spoke, 'Blessed Mother of Mercy! thou who +art omnipotent with omnipotence, have compassion +with me, a sinner! It is true I have sometimes +neglected you for thy blessed sister of +Embrun; but I am a king, my power is great, +my wealth boundless; and were it otherwise, +I would double my <i>gabelle</i> on my subjects +rather than not pay my debts to you both.'"</p> + +<p>Louis endowed the church at Cléry, and the +edifice was built in the fine flamboyant style +of the period, just previous to his death, which +De Commines gives as "<i>le samedy pénultième +jour d'Aoust, l'an mil quatre cens quatre-vingtz +et trois, à huit heures du soir</i>."</p> + +<p>Louis XI. was buried here, and the chief +"sight" is of course his tomb, beside which +is a flagstone which covers the heart of +Charles VIII. The Chapelle St. Jacques, +within the church, is ornamented by a series +of charming sculptures, and the Chapelle des<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">46</a></span> +Dunois-Longueville holds the remains of the +famous ally of Jeanne d'Arc and members of +his family.</p> + +<p>In the choir is the massive oaken statue of +Our Lady of Cléry (thirteenth century); the +very one before which Louis made his vows. +There is some old glass in the choir and a +series of sculptured stalls, which would make +famous a more visited and better known shrine. +There is a fine sculptured stone portal to the +sacristy, and within there are some magnificent +old <i>armoires</i>, and also two chasubles, which +saw service in some great church, perhaps here, +in the times of Louis himself.</p> + +<p>The "Maison de Louis XI.," near the +church, is a house of brick, restored in 1651, +and now—or until a very recent date—occupied +by a community of nuns. In the Grande +Rue is another "Maison de Louis XI.;" at +least it has his cipher on the painted ceiling. +It is now occupied by the Hôtel de la Belle +Image. Those who like to dine and sleep where +have also dined and slept royal heads will appreciate +putting up at this hostelry.</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus075_small.jpg" alt="The Loire at Meung" title="The Loire at Meung" /> +<div class="caption"><i><a href="images/illus075.jpg">The Loire at Meung</a></i></div> +</div> + + +<p>Meung-sur-Loire was the birthplace of Jehan +Clopinel, better known as Jean de Meung, who +continued Guillaume de Lorris's "Roman de la +Rose," the most famous bit of verse produced<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">47</a></span> +by the <i>trouvères</i> of the thirteenth century. +The voice of the troubadour was soon after +hushed for ever, but that thirteenth-century +masterwork—though by two hands and the +respective portions unequal in merit—lives +for ever as the greatest of its kind. In memory +of the author, Meung has its Rue Jehan de +Meung, for want of a more effective or appealing +monument.</p> + +<p>Dumas opens the history of "Les Trois +Mousquétaires" with the following brilliantly +romantic lines anent Meung: "<i>Le premier lundi +du mois d'Avril, 1625, le bourg de Meung, où +naquit l'auteur du 'Roman de la Rose.'</i>" +(One of the authors, he should have said, but +here is where Dumas nodded, as he frequently +did.)</p> + +<p>Continuing, one reads: "The town was in +a veritable uproar. It was as if the Huguenots +were up in arms and the drama of a second +Rochelle was being enacted." Really the description +is too brilliant and entrancing to be +repeated here, and if any one has forgotten +his Dumas to the extent that he has forgotten +D'Artagnan's introduction to the hostelry of +the "Franc Meunier," he is respectfully referred +back to that perennially delightful romance.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">48</a></span></p> + +<p>Meung was once a Roman fortress, known +as Maudunum, and in the eleventh century St. +Liphard founded a monastery here.</p> + +<p>In the fifteenth century Meung was the +prison of François Villon. Poor vagabond as +he was then, it has become the fashion to laud +both the personality and the poesy of Maître +François Villon.</p> + +<p>By the orders of Thibaut d'Aussigny, Bishop +of Orleans, Villon was confined in a strong +tower attached to the side of the <i>clocher</i> of the +parish church of St. Liphard, and which adjoined +the <i>château de plaisance</i> belonging to +the bishop. Primarily this imprisonment was +due to a robbery in which the poet had been +concerned at Orleans. He spent the whole of +the summer in this dungeon, which was overrun +with rats, and into which he had to be lowered +by ropes. As his food consisted of bread +and water only, his sufferings at this time were +probably greater than at any other period in +his life. Here the burglar-poet remained until +October, 1461, when Louis XI. visited Meung, +and, to mark the occasion, ordered the release +of all prisoners. For this delivery, Villon, according +to the accounts of his life, appears to +have been genuinely grateful to the king.</p> + +<p>At Beaugency, seven kilometres from Meung,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">49</a></span> +one comes upon an architectural and historical +treat which is unexpected.</p> + +<p>In the eleventh century Beaugency was a fief +of the bishopric of Amiens, and its once strong +château was occupied by the Barons de Landry, +the last of whom died, without children, in the +thirteenth century. Philippe-le-Bel bought the +fief and united it with the Comté de Blois. It +was made an independent <i>comté</i> of itself in +1569, and in 1663 became definitely an appanage +of Orleans. The Prince de Galles took Beaugency +in 1359, the Gascons in 1361, Duguesclin +in 1370 and again in 1417; in 1421 and in 1428 +it was taken by the English, from whom it was +delivered by Jeanne d'Arc in 1429. Internal +wars and warfares continued for another hundred +and fifty years, finally culminating in one +of the grossest scenes which had been enacted +within its walls,—the bloody revenge against +the Protestants, encouraged doubtless by the +affair of St. Bartholomew's night at Paris.</p> + +<p>The ancient square donjon of the eleventh +century, known as the Tour de César, still +looms high above the town. It must be one of +the hugest keeps in all France. The old château +of the Dunois is now a charitable institution, +but reflects, in a way, the splendour of +its fourteenth-century inception, and its Salle<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">50</a></span> +de Jeanne d'Arc, with its great chimneypiece, +is worthy to rank with the best of its kind along +the Loire. The spiral staircase, of which the +Loire builders were so fond, is admirable here, +and dates from 1530.</p> + +<p>The Hôtel de Ville of Beaugency is a charming +edifice of the very best of Renaissance, +which many more pretentious structures of the +period are not. It dates from 1526, and was +entirely restored—not, however, to its detriment, +as frequently happens—in the last years +of the nineteenth century. Its charm, nevertheless, +lies mostly in its exterior, for little remains +of value within except a remarkable +series of old embroideries taken from the choir +of the old abbey of Beaugency.</p> + +<p>The Église de Notre Dame is a Romanesque +structure with Gothic interpolations. It is not +bad in its way, but decidedly is not remarkable +as mediæval churches go.</p> + +<p>The old streets of Beaugency contain a dazzling +array of old houses in wood and stone, +and in the Rue des Templiers is a rare example +of Romanesque civil architecture; at least +the type is rare enough in the Orléannais, +though more frequently seen in the south of +France. The Tour St. Firmin dates from 1530, +and is all that remains of a church which stood<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">51</a></span> +here up to revolutionary times. The square +ruined towers known as the Porte Tavers are +relics of the city's old walls and gates, and are +all that are left to mark the ancient enclosure.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/illus081_small.jpg" alt="Beaugency" title="Beaugency" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus081.jpg"><i>Beaugency</i></a></div> +</div> + +<p>The Tour du Diable and the house of the +ruling abbot remain to suggest the power and +magnificence of the great abbey which was +built here in the tenth century. In 1567 it was +burned, and later restored, but beyond the two +features just mentioned there is nothing to +indicate its former uses, the remaining structures +having passed into private hands and +being devoted to secular uses.</p> + +<p>The old bridge which crosses the Loire at +this point is most curious, and dates from various +epochs. It is 440 metres in length, and is +composed of twenty-six arches, one of which +dates from the fourteenth century, when +bridge-building was really an art. Eight of +the present-day arches are of wood, and on +the second is a monolith surmounted by a figure +of Christ in bronze, replacing a former chapel +to St. Jacques. A chapel on a bridge is not +a unique arrangement, but few exist to-day, +one of the most famous being, perhaps, that +on the ruined bridge of St. Bénezet at Avignon.</p> + +<p>Altogether, Beaugency, as it sleeps its life +away after the strenuous days of the middle<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">52</a></span> +ages, is more lovable by far than a great metropolis.</p> + +<p>The traveller is well repaid who makes a +stop at Beaugency a part of a three days' gentle +ramble among the usually neglected towns +and villages of the Orléannais and the Blaisois, +instead of rushing through to Blois by express-train, +which is what one usually does.</p> + +<p>Southward one's route lies through pleasant +vineyards, on one side the Sologne, and on the +other the Coteau de Guignes, which latter ranks +as quite the best among the vine-growing districts +of the Orléannais.</p> + +<p>Near Tavers is a natural curiosity in the +shape of the "Fontaine des Sables Mouvants," +where the sands of a tiny spring boil and bubble +like a miniature geyser.</p> + +<p>Mer, another small town, follows, twelve kilometres +farther on. Like Beaugency it is a somnolent +bourg, and the life of the peasant folk +round about, who go to market on one day at +Beaugency and on another at Blois, and occasionally +as far away as Orleans, is much the +same as it was a century ago.</p> + +<p>There is a Boulevard de la Gare and a +Grande Rue at Mer, the latter leading to a fine +Gothic church with a fifteenth-century tower, +which is admirable in every way, and forms<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">53</a></span> +a beacon by land for many miles around. The +primitive church at Mer dates from the eleventh +century, the side walls, however, being all +that remain of that period. There is a sculptured +pulpit of the seventeenth century, and a +great painting, which looks ancient and is certainly +a masterful work of art, representing +an "Adoration of the Magi."</p> + +<p>When all is said and done, it is its irresistible +and inexpressible charm which makes Mer well-beloved, +rather than any great wealth of artistic +atmosphere of any nature.</p> + +<p>Away to the south, across the Loire to +Muides, runs the route to Chambord, through +the Sologne, where immediately the whole aspect +of life changes from that on the borders +of the rich grain-lands of the Orléannais and +La Beauce.</p> + +<p>All the way from Beaugency to Blois the +Loire threads its way through a lovely country, +whose rolling slopes, back from the river, are +surmounted here and there by windmills, a not +very frequent adjunct to the landscape of +France, except in the north.</p> + +<p>Near Mer is Menars, with its eighteenth-century +château of La Pompadour; Suèvres, the +site of an ancient Roman city; the lowlands +lying before Chambord; St. Die; Montlivault;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">54</a></span> +St. Claude, and a score of little villages which +are entrancing in their old-world aspect even +in these days of progress. This completes the +panorama to Blois which, with the Blaisois, +forms the borderland between the Orléannais +and Touraine.</p> + +<p>Before reaching Blois, Menars, at any rate, +commands attention. It fronts upon the Loire, +but is practically upon the northern border of +the Forêt de Blois, hence properly belongs to +the Blaisois. Menars was made a rendezvous +for the chase by the wily and pleasure-loving +La Pompadour, who quartered herself at the +château, which afterward passed to her brother, +De Marigny.</p> + +<p>Before the Revolution, Menars was the seat +of a marquisate, of which the land was bought +by Louis XV. for his famous, or infamous, +<i>maîtresse</i>. The property has frequently +changed hands since that day, but its gardens +and terraces, descending toward the river-bank, +mark it as one of those <i>coquette</i> establishments, +with which France was dotted in +the eighteenth century.</p> + +<p>These establishments possessed enough of +luxurious appointments to be classed as fitting +for the butterflies of the time, but in no +way, so far as the architectural design or the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">55</a></span> +artistic details were concerned, were any of +them worthy to be classed with the great domestic +châteaux of the early years of the +Renaissance.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">56</a></span></p> + + + +<h2>CHAPTER III.<span class="pagenum"><a href="#Contents">To ToC</a></span></h2> + +<h4>THE BLAISOIS AND THE SOLOGNE</h4> + + +<p>The Blésois or Blaisois was the ancient name +given to the <i>petit pays</i> which made a part of +the government of the Orléannais. It was, and +is, the borderland between the Orléannais and +Touraine, and, with its capital, Blois, the city +of counts, was a powerful territory in its own +right, in spite of the allegiance which it owed +to the Crown. Twenty leagues in length by +thirteen in width, it was bounded on the north +by the Dunois and the Orléannais, on the east +by Berry, on the south by Touraine, and on +the west by Touraine and the Vendomois.</p> + +<p>Blois, its capital, was famed ever in the +annals of the middle ages, and to-day no city +in the Loire valley possesses more sentimental +interest for the traveller than does Blois.</p> + +<p>To the eastward lay the sands of the Sologne, +and southward the ample and fruitful Touraine, +hence Blois's position was one of su<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">57</a></span>preme +importance, and there is no wonder that +it proved to be the scene of so many momentous +events of history.</p> + +<p>The present day Department of the Loir +et Cher was carved out from the Blaisois, the +Vendomois, and the Orléannais. The Baisois +was, in olden time, one of the most important +of the <i>petits gouvernements</i> of all the kingdom, +and gave to Blois a line of counts who rivalled +in power and wealth the churchmen of Tours +and the dukes of Brittany. Gregory of Tours +is the first historian who makes mention of +the ancient <i>Pagus Blensensis</i>.</p> + +<p>One must not tell the citizen of Blois that it +is at Tours that one hears the best French +spoken. Everybody knows this, but the inhabitant +of the Blaisois will not admit it, and, in +truth, to the stranger there is not much apparent +difference. Throughout this whole region +he understands and makes himself understood +with much more facility than in any other part +of France.</p> + +<p>For one thing, not usually recalled, Blois +should be revered and glorified. It was the +native place of Lenoir, who invented the instrument +which made possible the definite determination +of the metric system of measurement.</p> + +<p>One reads in Bernier's "Histoire de Blois"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">58</a></span> +that the inhabitants are "honest, gallant, and +polite in conversation, and of a delicate and +diffident temperament." This was written +nearly a century ago, but there is no excuse +for one's changing the opinion to-day unless, +as was the misfortune of the writer, he runs +up against an unusually +importunate vender +of post-cards or an +aggressive <i>garçon de +café</i>.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/illus079_small.jpg" alt="Arms of the City of Blois" title="Arms of the City of Blois" /> +</div> + + +<p>Blois, among all the +cities of the Loire, is +the favourite with the +tourist. Why this +should be is an enigma. +It is overburdened, +at times, with droves of tourists, and +this in itself is a detraction in the eyes of +many.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it is because here one first meets +a great château of state; and certainly the +Château de Blois lives in one's memory more +than any other château in France.</p> + + + +<p>Much has been written of Blois, its counts, +its château, and its many and famous <i>hôtels</i> +of the nobility, by writers of all opinions and +abilities, from those old chroniclers who wrote<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">59</a></span> +of the plots and intrigues of other days to those +critics of art and architecture who have discovered—or +think they have discovered—that +Da Vinci designed the famous spiral staircase.</p> + +<p>From this one may well gather that Blois is +the foremost château of all the Loire in popularity +and theatrical effect. Truly this is so, +but it is by no manner of means the most lovable; +indeed, it is the least lovable of all that +great galaxy which begins at Blois and ends +at Nantes. It is a show-place and not much +more, and partakes in every form and feature—as +one sees it to-day—of the attributes of +a museum, and such it really is. All of its +former gorgeousness is still there, and all the +banalities of the later period when Gaston of +Orleans built his ugly wing, for the "personally +conducted" to marvel at, and honeymoon +couples to envy. The French are quite fond +of visiting this shrine themselves, but usually +it is the young people and their mammas, and +detached couples of American and English +birth that one most sees strolling about the +courts and apartments were formerly lords +and ladies and cavaliers moved and plotted.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus091_small.jpg" alt="The Riverside at Blois" title="The Riverside at Blois" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus091.jpg"><i>The Riverside at Blois</i></a></div> +</div> + +<p>The great château of the Counts of Blois is +built upon an inclined rock which rises above<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">60</a></span> +the roof-tops of the lower town quite in fairy-book +fashion,—</p> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0_5">"... Bâtie en pierre et d'ardoise converte,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blanche et carrée au bas de la colline verte."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>Commonly referred to as the Château de +Blois, it is really composed of four separate +and distinct foundations; the original château +of the counts; the later addition of Louis XII.; +the palace of François I., and the most unsympathetically +and dismally disposed <i>pavillon</i> of +Gaston of Orleans.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/illus094_small.jpg" alt="Signature of François Premier" title="Signature of François Premier" /> +<div class="caption"><i>Signature of François Premier</i></div> +</div> + +<p>The artistic qualities of the greater part of +the distinct edifices which go to make up the +château as it stands to-day are superb, with +the exception of that great wing of Gaston's, +before mentioned, which is as cold and unfeeling +as the overrated palace at Versailles.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">61</a></span></p> + +<p>The Comtes de Chatillon built that portion +just to the right of the present entrance; +Louis XII., the edifice through which one enters +the inner court and which extends far to the +left, including also the chapel immediately to +the rear; while François Premier, who here as +elsewhere let his unbounded Italian proclivities +have full sway, built the extended wing to +the left of the inner court and fronting on the +present Place du Château, formerly the Place +Royale.</p> + +<p>Immediately to the left, in the Basse Cour +de Château, are the Hôtel d'Amboise, the Hôtel +d'Épernon, and farther away, in the Rue St. +Honore, the Hôtel Sardini, the Hôtel d'Alluye, +and a score of others belonging to the nobility +of other days; all of them the scenes of many +stirring and gallant events in Renaissance +times.</p> + +<p>This is hardly the place for a discussion of +the merits or demerits of any particular artistic +style, but the frequently repeated expression +of Buffon's "<i>Le style, c'est l'homme</i>" +may well be paraphrased into "<i>L'art, c'est +l'époque.</i>" In fact one finds at all times imprinted +upon the architectural style of any +period the current mood bred of some historical +event or a passing fancy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">62</a></span></p> + +<p>At Blois this is particularly noticeable. As +an architectural monument the château is a +picturesque assemblage of edifices belonging +to many different epochs, and, as such, shows, +as well as any other document of contemporary +times, the varying ambitions and emotions of +its builders, from the rude and rough manners +of the earliest of feudal times through the +highly refined Renaissance details of the imaginative +brain of François, down to the base concoction +of the elder Mansart, produced at the +commands of Gaston of Orleans.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/illus096.jpg"> +<img src="images/illus096_small.jpg" alt="Cypher of Anne de Bretagne, at Blois" title="Cypher of Anne de Bretagne, at Blois" /> +</a> +</div> + +<p>The whole gamut, from the gay and winsome +to the sad and dismal, is found here.</p> + +<p>The escutcheons of the various occupants +are plainly in evidence,—the swan pierced by +an arrow of the first Counts of Blois; the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">63</a></span> +ermine of Anne de Bretagne; the porcupine +of the Ducs d'Orleans, and the salamander of +François Premier.</p> + +<p>In the earliest structure were to be seen all +the attributes of a feudal fortress, towers and +walls pierced with narrow loopholes, and damp, +dark dungeons hidden away in the thick walls. +Then came a structure which was less of a +fortress and more habitable, but still a stronghold, +though having ample and decorative doorways +and windows, with curious sculptures and +rich framings. Then the pompous Renaissance +with <i>escaliers</i> and <i>balcons à jour</i>, balustrades +crowning the walls, arabesques enriching the +pilasters and walls, and elaborate cornices here, +there, and everywhere,—all bespeaking the +gallantry and taste of the <i>roi-chevalier</i>. Finally +came the cold, classic features of the +period of the brother of Louis XIII., decidedly +the worst and most unlivable and unlovely +architecture which France has ever produced. +All these features are plain in the general +scheme of the Château de Blois to-day, and +doubtless it is this that makes the appeal; too +much loveliness, as at Chenonceaux or Azay-le-Rideau, +staggers the modern mortal by the +sheer impossibility of its modern attainment.</p> + +<p>In plan the Château de Blois forms an irreg<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">64</a></span>ular +square situated at the apex of a promontory +high above the surface of the Loire, and +practically behind the town itself. The building +has a most picturesque aspect, and, to those +who know, gives practically a history of the +château architecture of the time. Abandoned, +mutilated, and dishonoured from time to time, +the structure gradually took on new forms until +the thick walls underlying the apartment +known to-day as the Salle des États—probably +the most ancient portion of all—were +overshadowed by the great richness of the fifteenth +and sixteenth centuries. One early fragment +was entirely enveloped in the structure +which was built by François Premier, the ancient +Tour de Château Regnault, or De Moulins, +or Des Oubliettes, as it was variously +known, and from the outside this is no longer +visible.</p> + +<p>From the platform one sees a magnificent +panorama of the city and the far-reaching +Loire, which unrolls itself southward and +northward for many leagues, its banks covered +by rich vineyards and crowned by thick forests.</p> + +<p>The building of Louis XII. presents its brick-faced +exterior in black and red lozenge shapes, +with sculptured window-frames, squarely upon +the little tree-bordered <i>place</i> of to-day, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">65</a></span> +in other times formed a part of that magnificent +terrace which looked down upon the roof +of the Église St. Nicolas, and the Jesuit Church +of the Immaculate Conception, and the silvery +belt of the Loire itself.</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<a href="images/illus099.jpg"> +<img src="images/illus099_small.jpg" alt="Arms of Louis XII" title="Arms of Louis XII" /> +</a></div> + + +<p>On the west façade of this vast conglomerate +structure one sees the effigy of the porcupine, +that weird symbol adopted by the family of +Orleans.</p> + +<p>The choice of this ungainly animal—in spite +of which it is most decorative in outline—was +due to the first Louis, who was Duc d'Orleans. +In the year 1393 Louis founded the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">66</a></span> +order of the porcupine, in honour of the birth +of Charles, his eldest son, who was born to him +by Valentine de Milan. The legend which accompanied +the adoption of the symbol—though +often enough it was missing in the +sculptured representations—was <i>Cominus et +eminus</i>, which had its origin in the belief +that the porcupine could defend himself +in a near attack, but that when he himself +attacked, he fought from afar by launching +forth his spines.</p> + +<p>Naturalists will tell you that the porcupine +does no such thing; but in those days it was +evidently believed that he did, and in many, if +not all, of the sculptured effigies that one sees +of the beast there is a halo of detached spines +forming a background as if they were really +launching themselves forth in mid-air.</p> + +<p>Above this central doorway, or entrance to +the courtyard, is a niche in which is a modern +equestrian statue of Louis XII., replacing a +more ancient one destroyed at the Revolution. +This old statue, it is claimed, was an admirable +work of art in its day, and the present +statue is thought to be a replica of it.</p> + +<p>It originally bore the following inscription—a +verse written by Fausto Andrelini, the +king's favourite poet. + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">67</a></span></p> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i3">"Hic ubi natus erat dextro Lodoicus Olympo,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Sumpsit honorata Regia sceptra manu;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Felix quæ tanti fulfit lux nuntia Regis;<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Gallia non alio Principe digna fuit.<br /></span> +<span class="i8">FAUSTUS 1498."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus101_small.jpg" alt="Central Doorway, Château de Blois" title="Central Doorway, Château de Blois" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus101.png"><i>Central Doorway,<br/>Château de Blois</i></a></div> +</div> + +<p>According to an old French description this +old statue was: "<i>très beau et très agréable +ainsy que tous ses portraits l'ont représenté, +comme celui qui est au grand portail de +Bloys</i>."</p> + +<p>Above rises a balustrade with fantastic gargoyles +with the pinnacles and fleurons of the +window gables all very ornate, the whole +topped off with a roofing of slate.</p> + +<p>Blois, in its general aspect, is fascinating; +but it is not sympathetic, and this is not surprising +when one remembers men and women +who worked their deeds of bloody daring +within its walls.</p> + +<p>The murders and other acts of violence and +treason which took place here are interesting +enough, but one cannot but feel, when he views +the chimneypiece before which the Duc de +Guise was standing when called to his death +in the royal closet, that the men of whom the +bloody tales of Blois are told quite deserved +their fates.</p> + +<p>One comes away with the impression of it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">68</a></span> +all stamped only upon the mind, not graven +upon the heart. Political intrigue to-day, if +quite as vulgar, is less sordid. Bigotry and +ambition in those days allowed few of the finer +feelings to come to the surface, except with +regard to the luxuriance of surroundings. Of +this last there can be no question, and Blois +is as characteristically luxurious as any of the +magnificent edifices which lodged the royalty +and nobility of other days, throughout the +valley of the Loire.</p> + +<p>A numismatic curiosity, connected with the +history of the Château de Blois, is an ancient +piece of money which one may see in the local +museum. It is the oldest document in existence +in which, or on which, the name of Blois is +mentioned. On one side is a symbolical figure +and the legend <i>Bleso Castro</i>, and on the other +a <i>croix haussée</i> and the name of the officer of +the mint at Blois, <i>Pre Cistato, monetario</i>.</p> + +<p>The plan of the Château de Blois here given +shows it not as it is to-day, but as it was at +the death of Gaston d'Orleans in 1660. The +constructions of the different epochs are noted +on the plan as follows:</p> + +<blockquote><div class="smcapindent">Erected by the Comtes de Chatillon</div> + +<p>1. Tour de Donjon, Château-Regnault, Moulins, or des +Oubliettes.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">69</a></span></p> + +<p>2. Salle des États.</p> + +<p>3. Tour du Foix or Observatory.</p> + + +<div class="smcapindent">Erected by the Ducs d'Orleans</div> + +<p>4. Portico and Galerie d'Orleans. (Destroyed in part +by the military.)</p> + +<p>5. Galerie des Cerfs. (Built in part by Gaston, but made +away with by the city of Blois when the Jardins du Roi +were built.)</p> + + +<div class="smcapindent">Erected by Louis XII.</div> + +<p>6. Chapelle St. Calais. (Destroyed in part by the military.)</p> + +<p>7. La Grande Vis, or Grand Escalier of Louis XI.</p> + +<p>8. La Petite Vis, or Petit Escalier, in one chamber of +which the corpse of the Duc de Guise was burned.</p> + +<p>9. Portico and Galerie de Louis XII.</p> + +<p>10. Portico.</p> + +<p>11. Salle des Gardes,—of the queen on the ground floor +and of the king on the first floor.</p> + +<p>12. Bedchamber,—of the queen on the ground floor and +of the king on the first floor.</p> + +<p>13. Corps de Garde.</p> + +<p>14. Kitchen. (To-day Salle de Réception for visitors.)</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<a href="images/illus107.jpg"> +<img src="images/illus107_small.jpg" alt="The Chateaux of Blois" title="The Chateaux of Blois" /> +</a></div> + +<div class="smcapindent">Erected from the Time of François I. to Henri III.</div> + +<p>15 and 16. Portico and Terrace Henri II. (In part built +over by Gaston.)</p> + +<p>17. Grand Staircase.</p> + +<p>18. Galerie de François I.</p> + +<p>19. Staircase of the Salle des États. (Destroyed by the +military.)</p> + +<p>20. First floor, Salle des Gardes of the queen; second floor, +Salle des Gardes of the king.</p> + +<p>21. Staircase leading to the apartments of the queen +mother. Here also Henri III. had made the cells destined for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">70</a></span> +the use of the Capucins, and here were closeted "<i>pour s'assurer +de leur discretion</i>," the "<i>Quarante-Cinq</i>" who were to kill the +Duc de Guise.</p> + +<p>22. Cabinet Neuf of Henri III. (Second floor.)</p> + +<p>23. Gallery where was held the reunion of the Tiers Etats +of 1576.</p> + +<p>24. First floor, bedchamber of the king; second floor, bedchamber +of the queen.</p> + +<p>25. Oratory.</p> + +<p>26. Cabinet.</p> + +<p>27. Passage to the Tour de Moulins.</p> + +<p>28. Passage to the Cabinet Vieux, where the Duc de Guise +was struck down.</p> + +<p>29. Cabinet Vieux.</p> + +<p>30. Oratory, where the two chaplains of the king prayed +during the perpetration of the murder.</p> + +<p>31. Garde-robe, where was first deposited the body of De +Guise.</p> + +<div class="smcapindent">Erected by Gaston D'Orleans</div> + +<p>32. Peristyle. (Destroyed by the military.)</p> + +<p>33. Dome.</p> + +<p>34. Pavilion des Jardins.</p> + +<p>35. Pavilion du Foix.</p> + +<p>36. Petit Pavilion of the Méridionale façade. (Destroyed +in 1825.)</p> + +<p>37. Terraces.</p> + +<p>38. Bastions du Foix and des Jardins.</p> + +<p>39. L'Eperon.</p> + +<p>40. Le Jardin Haut, or Jardin du Roi.</p></blockquote> + + +<p>The interior court is partly surrounded by +a colonnade, quite cloister-like in effect. At +the right centre of the François I. wing is that +wonderful spiral staircase, concerning the in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">72</a></span>vention +of which so much speculation has been +launched. Leonardo da Vinci, the protégé of +François, has been given the honour, and a +very considerable volume has been written to +prove the claim.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/illus108_small.jpg" alt="Cypher of François Premier and Claude of France, at Blois" title="Cypher of François Premier and Claude of France, at Blois" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus108.jpg"><i>Cypher of François Premier and Claude of France, at Blois</i></a></div> +</div> + + +<p>Within this "<i>tour octagone"—"qui fait +à ses huit pans hurler un gorgone</i>"—is built +this marvellous openwork stairway,—an <i>escalier +à jour</i>, as the French call it,—without +an equal in all France, and for daring and +decorative effect unexcelled by any of those +Renaissance motives of Italy itself. Its ascent +turns not, as do most <i>escaliers</i>, from left to +right, but from right to left. It is the prototype +of those supposedly unique outside staircases<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">73</a></span> +pointed out to country cousins in the +abodes of Fifth Avenue millionaires.</p> + +<p>It is as impossible to catalogue the various +apartments and their accessories here, as it is +to include a chronology of the great events +which have passed within their walls. One +thing should be remembered, and that is, that +the architect Duban restored the château +throughout in recent years. In spite of this +restoration one may readily enough reconstruct +the scene of the murder of the Duc de +Guise from the great fireplace on the second +floor before which De Guise was standing when +summoned by a page to the kingly presence, +from the door through which he entered to his +death, and from the wall where hung the +tapestry behind which he was to pass. All this +is real enough, and also the "Tour des Oubliettes," +in which the duke's brother, the cardinal, +suffered, and of which many horrible +tales are still told by the attendants.</p> + +<p>Duban, the architect, came with his careful +restorations and pictured with a most exact +fidelity the decorations and the furnishings of +the times of François, of Catherine, and of +Henri III. The ornate chimneypieces have +been furbished up anew, the walls and ceilings +covered with new paint and gold; nothing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">74</a></span> +could be more opulent or glorious, but it gives +the impression of a city dwelling or a great +hotel, "newly done up," as the house renovators +express it.</p> + +<p>One contrasting emotion will be awakened +by a contemplation of the two great Salles des +Gardes and the apartments of Catherine de +Medici; here, at least for the moment, is a +relief from the intrigues, massacres, and assassinations +which otherwise went on, for one recalls +that, at one period, "<i>danses, ballets et +jeux</i>" took place here continuously.</p> + +<p>In the apartments of Catherine there is much +to remind one of "the base Florentine," as it +has been the fashion of latter-day historians +to describe the first of the Medici queens. +Nothing could be more sumptuous than the +Galerie de la Reine, her <i>Cabinet de Toilette</i>, +or her <i>Chambre à Coucher</i>, with its secret +panels, where she died on the 5th of January, +1589, "adored and revered," but soon forgotten, +and of no more account than "<i>une +chèvre mort</i>," says one old chronicler.</p> + +<p>The apartments of Catherine de Medici +were directly beneath the guard-room where +the Balafré was murdered, and that event, +taking place at the very moment when the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">75</a></span> +"queen-mother" was dying, cannot be said +to have been conducive to a peaceful demise.</p> + +<p>Here, on the first floor of the François +Premier wing, the <i>reine-mère</i> held her court, +as did the king his. The great gallery overlooked +the town on the side of the present +Place du Château. It was, and is, a truly +grand apartment, with diamond-paned windows, +and rich, dark, wall decorations on which +Catherine's device, a crowned C and her monogram +in gold, frequently appears. There was, +moreover, a great oval window, opposite which +stood her altar, and a doorway, half concealed, +led to her writing-closet, with its secret drawers +and wall-panels which well served her purposes +of intrigue and deceit. A hidden stairway +led to the floor above, and there was a +<i>chambre à coucher</i>, with a deep recess for the +bed, the same to which she called her son Henri +as she lay dying, admonishing him to give up +the thought of murdering Guise. "What," +said Henri, on this embarrassing occasion, +"spare Guise, when he, triumphant in Paris, +dared lay his hand on the hilt of his sword! +Spare him who drove me a fugitive from the +capital! Spare them who never spared me! +No, mother, I will <i>not</i>."</p> + +<p>As the queen-mother drew near her end,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">76</a></span> +and was lying ill at Blois, great events for +France were culminating at the château. +Henri III. had become King of France, and +the Balafré, supported by Rome and Spain, +was in open rebellion against the reigning +house, and the word had gone forth that the +Duc de Guise must die. The States General +were to be immediately assembled, and De +Guise, once the poetic lover of Marguerite, +through his emissaries canvassed all France +to ensure the triumph of the party of the +Church against Henri de Navarre and his +queen,—the Marguerite whom De Guise once +professed to love,—who soon were to come to +the throne of France.</p> + +<p>The uncomfortable Henri III. had been told +that he would never be king in reality until +De Guise had been made away with.</p> + +<p>The final act of the drama between the rival +houses of Guise and Valois came when the +king and his council came to Blois for the +Assembly. The sunny city of Blois was indeed +to be the scene of a momentous affair, and a +truly sumptuous setting it was, the roof-tops +of its houses sloping downward gently to the +Loire, with the chief accessory, the coiffed and +turreted château itself, high above all else.</p> + +<p>Details had been arranged with infinite<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">77</a></span> +pains, the guard doubled, and a company of +Swiss posted around the courtyard and up and +down the gorgeous staircase. Every nook and +corner has its history in connection with this +greatest event in the history of the Château of +Blois.</p> + +<p>As Guise entered the council-chamber he was +told that the king would see him in his closet, +to reach which one had to pass through the +guard-room below. The door was barred behind +him that he might not return, when the +trusty guards of the "Forty-fifth," under +Dalahaide, already hidden behind the wall-tapestry, +sprang upon the Balafré and forced +him back upon the closed door through which +he had just passed. Guise fell stabbed in the +breast by Malines, and "lay long uncovered +until an old carpet was found in which to wrap +his corpse."</p> + +<p>Below, in her own apartments, lay the queen-mother, +dying, but listening eagerly for the +rush of footsteps overhead, hoping and praying +that Henri—the hitherto effeminate Henri +who played with his sword as he would with a +battledore, and who painted himself like a +woman, and put rings in his ears—would not +prejudice himself at this time in the eyes of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">78</a></span> +Rome by slaying the leader of the Church +party.</p> + +<p>Guise died as Henri said he would die, with +the words on his lips: "<i>A moi, mes amis!—trahison!—à +moi, Guise,—je me meurs</i>," but +the revenge of the Church party came when, at +St. Cloud, the monk, Jacques Clément, poignarded +the last of the Valois, and put the then +heretical Henri de Navarre on the throne of +France.</p> + +<p>Within the southernmost confines of the +château is the Tour de Foix, so called for the +old faubourg near by. The upper story and +roof of this curious round tower was the work +of Catherine de Medici, who installed there her +astrologer and maker of philtres, Cosmo Ruggieri.</p> + +<p>Ruggieri was a most versatile person; he +was astrologer, alchemist, and philosopher +alike, besides being many other kinds of a +rogue, all of which was very useful to the +Medici now that she had come to power.</p> + +<p>Catherine built an outside stairway up to the +platform of this tower, and a great, flat, stone +table was placed there to form a foundation +for Ruggieri's cabalistic instruments. Even +this stone table itself was an uncanny affair, +if we are to believe the old chronicles. It rang<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">79</a></span> +out in a clear sharp note whenever struck with +some hard body, and on its surface was graven +a line which led the eye directly toward the +golden <i>fleur-de-lys</i> on the cupola of Chambord's +château, some three leagues distant on +the other side of the Loire. What all this symbolism +actually meant nobody except Catherine +and her astrologer knew; at least, the details +do not appear to have come down to enlighten +posterity. Over the doorway of the observatory +were graven the words, "<i>Vraniæ Sacrum</i>," +<i>i. e.</i>, consecrated to Uranius.</p> + +<p>Wherever Catherine chose to reside, whether +in Touraine or at Paris, her astrologer and his +"<i>observatoire</i>" formed a part of her train. +She had brought Cosmo from Italy, and never +for a moment did he leave her. He was a sort +of a private demon on whom Catherine could +shoulder her poisonings and her stabs, and, +as before said, he was an exceedingly busy +functionary of the court.</p> + +<p>That part of the structure built by Mansart +for Gaston d'Orleans appears strange, +solemn, and superfluous in connection with the +sumptuousness of the earlier portions. With +what poverty the architectural art of the +seventeenth century expressed itself! What an +inferiority came with the passing of the six<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">80</a></span>teenth +century and the advent of the following! +One finds a certain grandeur in the outlines of +this last wing, with its majestic cupola over +the entrance pavilion, but the general effect +of the decorations is one of a great paucity of +invention when compared to the more brilliant +Renaissance forerunners on the opposite side +of the courtyard.</p> + +<p>It was under the régime of Gaston d'Orleans +that the gardens of the Château de Blois came +to their greatest excellence and beauty. In +1653 Abel Brunyer, the first physician of Gaston's +suite, published a catalogue of the fruits +and flowers to be found here in these gardens, +of which he was also director. More than five +hundred varieties were included, three-quarters +of which belonged to the flora of France.</p> + +<p>Among the delicacies and novelties of the +time to be found here was the Prunier de Reine +Claude, from which those delicious green plums +known to all the world to-day as "Reine +Claudes" were propagated, also another variety +which came from the Prunier de Monsieur, +somewhat similar in taste but of a deep purple +colour. The <i>pomme de terre</i> was tenderly +cared for and grown as a great novelty and +delicacy long before its introduction to general +cultivation by Parmentier. The tomato was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">81</a></span> +imported from Mexico, and even tobacco was +grown; from which it may be judged that Gaston +did not intend to lack the good things of life.</p> + +<p>All these facts are recounted in Brunyer's +"Hortus Regius Blesensis," and, in addition, +one Morrison, an expatriate Scotch doctor, who +had attached himself to Gaston, also wrote a +competing work which was published in London +in 1669 under the title of "Preludia Botanica," +and which dealt at great length with the +already celebrated gardens of the Château de +Blois.</p> + +<p>Morrison placed at the head of his work a +Latin verse which came in time to be graven +over the gateway of the gardens. This—as +well as pretty much all record of it—has disappeared, +but a repetition of the lines will +serve to show with what admiration this paradise +was held:</p> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">"Hinc, nulli biferi miranda rosaria Pesti,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Nec mala Hesperidum, vigili servata dracone.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Si paradisiacis quicquam (sine crimine) campis<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Conferri possit, Blaesis mirabile specta.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Magnifici Gastonis opus! Qui terra capaci ...<br /></span> +<span class="i2"> . . . +. . . +. . . + . . <br /></span> +<span class="i4">JACOBUS METELANUS SCOTUS."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>Not merely in history has the famous château +at Blois played its part. Writers of fic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">82</a></span>tion +have more than once used it as an accessory +or the principal scenic background of their +sword and cloak novels; none more effectively +than Dumas in the D'Artagnan series.</p> + +<p>The opening lines of "Le Vicomte de Bragelonne" +are laid here. "It should have been +a source of pride to the city of Blois," says +Dumas, "that Gaston of Orleans had chosen +it as his residence, and held his court in the +ancient château of the States."</p> + +<p>Here, too, in the second volume of the D'Artagnan +romances, is the scene of that most +affecting meeting between his Majesty Charles +II., King of England, and Louis XIV.</p> + +<p>Altogether one lives here in the very spirit +of the pages of Dumas. Not only Blois, but +Langeais, Chambord, Cheverny, Amboise, and +many other châteaux figure in the novels with +an astonishing frequency, and, whatever the +critics may say of the author's slips of pen +and memory, Dumas has given us a wonderfully +faithful picture of the life of the times.</p> + +<p>In 1793 all the symbols and emblems of royalty +were removed from the château and destroyed. +The celebrated bust of Gaston, the +chief artistic attribute of that part of the edifice +built by him, was decapitated, and the +statue of Louis XII. over the entrance gateway<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">83</a></span> +was overturned and broken up. Afterward the +château became the property of the "domaine" +and was turned into a mere barracks. +The Pavilion of Queen Anne became a "<i>magasin +des subsistances militaires</i>," the Tour de +l'Observatoire, a powder-magazine, and all the +indignities imaginable were heaped upon the +château.</p> + +<p>In 1814 Blois became the last capital of +Napoleon's empire, and the château walls sheltered +the prisoners captured by the imperial +army.</p> + +<p>Blois's most luxurious church edifice was the +old abbey church of St. Sauveur, which was +built from 1138 to 1210. It lost the royal favour +in 1697, when Louis XIV. made Blois a +city of bishops as well as of counts, and transferred +the chapter of St. Sauveur's to the bastard +Gothic edifice first known as St. Solenne, +but which soon took on the name of St. Louis. +In spite of the claims of the old church, this +cold, unfeeling, and ugly mixture of tomblike +Renaissance became, and still remains, the +bishop's church of Blois.</p> + +<p>One must not neglect or forget the magnificent +bridge which crosses the Loire at Blois. +A work of 1717-24, it bears the Rue Denis +Papin across its eleven solidly built masonry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">84</a></span> +piers. Above the central arch is erected a +memorial pyramid and tablet which states the +fact that it was one of the first works of the +reign of Louis XV.</p> + +<p>Blois altogether, then, offers a multitudinous +array of attractions for the tourist who makes +his first entrance to the châteaux country +through its doors. The town itself has not the +appeal of Tours, of Angers, or of Nantes; but, +for all that, its abundance of historic lore, the +admirable preservation of its chief monument, +and the general picturesqueness of its site and +the country round about make up for many +other qualities that may be lacking.</p> + +<p>The Sologne, lying between Blois, Vierzon, +and Châteauneuf-sur-Loire, is a great region +of lakelets, sandy soil, and replanted Corsican +pines, which to-day has taken on a new lease +of life and a prosperity which was unknown +in the days when the Comtes de Blois first +erected that <i>maison de plaisance</i>, on its western +border which was afterward to aggrandize itself +into the later Château de Chambord. The +soil has been drained and the vine planted to +a hitherto undreamed of extent, until to-day, +if the land does not exactly blossom like the +rose, it at least somewhat approaches it.</p> + +<p>The <i>chaumières</i> of the Sologne have disap<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">85</a></span>peared +to a large extent, and their mud walls +and thatched roofs are not as frequent a detail +of the landscape as formerly, but even now there +is a distinct individuality awaiting the artist +who will go down among these vineyard workers +of the Sologne and paint them and their +surroundings as other parts have been painted +and popularized. It will be hot work in the +summer months, and lonesome work at all times, +but there is a new note to be sounded if one +but has the ear for it, and it is to be heard right +here in this tract directly on the beaten track +from north to south, and yet so little known.</p> + +<p>The peasant of the Sologne formerly ate his +<i>soupe au poireau</i> and a morsel of <i>fromage +maigre</i> and was as content and happy as if his +were a more luxurious board, as it in reality +became when a stranger demanded hospitality. +Then out from the <i>armoire</i>—that ever present +adjunct of a French peasant's home, whether +it be in Normandy, Touraine, or the Midi—came +a bottle of <i>vin blanc</i>, bought in the wine-shops +of Romorantin or Vierzon on some of +his periodical trips to town.</p> + +<p>To-day all is changing, and the peasant of +the Sologne nourishes himself better and trims +his beard and wears a round white collar on +fête-days. He is proud of his well-kept appear<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">86</a></span>ance, +but his neighbours to the north and the +south will tell you that all this hides a deep +malice, which is hard to believe, in spite of +the well recognized saying, "<i>Sot comme un +Solognat</i>." The women have a physiognomy +more passive; when young they are fresh and +lip-lively, but as they grow older their charms +pass quickly.</p> + +<p>The Sologne in most respects has changed +greatly since the days of Arthur Young. Then +this classic land was reviled and vehement imprecations +were launched upon the proprietors +of its soil,—"those brilliant and ambitious +gentlemen" who figure so largely in the ceremonies +of Versailles. To-day all is changed, +and the gentleman farmer is something more +than a <i>bourgeois parisien</i> who hunts and rides +and apes "<i>le sport</i>" of the English country +squire.</p> + +<p>The jack-rabbit and the hare are the pests +of the Sologne now that its sandy soil has been +conquered, but they are quite successfully kept +down in numbers, and the insects which formerly +ravaged the vines are likewise less +offensive than they used to be, so the Sologne +may truly be said to have been transformed.</p> + +<p>To-day, as in the days of the royal hunt, +when Chambord was but a shooting-box of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">87</a></span> +Counts of Blois, the Sologne is rife with small +game, and even deer and an occasional <i>sanglier</i>.</p> + +<p>"<i>La chasse</i>" in France is no mean thing +to-day, and the Sologne, La Beauce, and the +great national forests of Lyons and Rambouillet +draw—on the opening of the season, +somewhere between the 28th of August and +the 2d of September of each year—their +hundreds of thousands of Nimrods and disciples +of St. Hubert. The bearer of the gun +in France is indeed a most ardent sportsman, +and in no European country can one buy in +the open market a greater variety of small +game,—all the product of those who pay their +twenty francs for the privilege of bagging rabbits, +hares, partridges, and the like. The hunters +of France enjoy one superstition, however, +and that is that to accidentally bag a crow on +the first shot means a certain and sudden death +before the day is over.</p> + +<p>La Motte-Beuvron is celebrated in the annals +of the Sologne; it is, in fact, the metropolis +of the region, and the centre from which radiated +the influences which conquered the soil +and made of it a prosperous land, where formerly +it was but a sandy, arid desert. La +Motte-Beuvron is a long-drawn-out <i>bourgade</i>, +like some of the populous centres of the great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">88</a></span> +plain of Hungary, and there is no great prosperity +or "up-to-dateness" to be observed, in +spite of its constantly increasing importance, +for La Motte-Beuvron and the country round +about is one of the localities of France which +is apparently not falling off in its population.</p> + +<p>La Motte has a most imposing Hôtel de Ville, +a heavy edifice of brick built by Napoleon III.—who +has never been accused of having had +the artistic appreciation of his greater ancestor—after +the model of the Arsenal at Venice.</p> + +<p>This is all La Motte has to warrant remark +unless one is led to investigate the successful +agricultural experiment which is still being +carried out hereabouts. La Motte's hôtels and +cafés are but ordinary, and there is no counter +attraction of boulevard or park to place the +town among those lovable places which travellers +occasionally come upon unawares.</p> + +<p>To realize the Sologne at its best and in its +most changed aspect, one should follow the +roadway from La Motte to Blois. He may +either go by tramway <i>à vapeur</i>, or by his own +means of communication. In either case he will +then know why the prosperity of the Sologne +and the contentment of the Solognat is assured.</p> + +<p>Romorantin, still characteristic of the Sologne +and its historic capital, is famous for its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">89</a></span> +asparagus and its paternal château of François +Premier, where that prince received the +scar upon his face, at a tourney, which compelled +him ever after to wear a beard.</p> + +<p>To-day the Sous-Préfecture, the Courts and +their prisoners, the Gendarmerie, and the Theatre +are housed under the walls that once +formed the château royal of Jean d'Angoulême; +within whose apartments the gallant +François was brought up.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/illus125_small.jpg" alt="Native Types in the Sologne" title="Native Types in the Sologne" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus125.jpg"><i>Native Types in the Sologne</i></a></div> +</div> + +<p>The Sologne, like most of the other of the +<i>petits pays</i> of France, is prolific in superstitions +and traditionary customs, and here for +some reason they deal largely of the marriage +state. When the <i>paysan solognais</i> marries, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">90</a></span> +takes good care to press the marriage-ring well +up to the third joint of his spouse's finger, +"else she will be the master of the house," +which is about as well as the thing can be expressed +in English. It seems a simple precaution, +and any one so minded might well do the +same under similar circumstances, provided he +thinks the proceeding efficacious.</p> + +<p>Again, during the marriage ceremony itself, +each of the parties most interested bears a +lighted wax taper, with the belief that whichever +first burns out, so will its bearer die first. +It's a gruesome thought, perhaps, but it gives +one an inkling of who stands the best chance +of inheriting the other's goods, which is what +matches are sometimes made for.</p> + +<p>The marriage ceremony in the Sologne is a +great and very public function. Intimates, +friends, acquaintances, and any of the neighbouring +populace who may not otherwise be +occupied, attend, and eat, drink, and ultimately +get merry. But they have a sort of process of +each paying his or her own way; at least a collection +is taken up to pay for the entertainment, +for the Sologne peasant would otherwise start +his married life in a state of bankruptcy from +which it would take him a long time to recover.</p> + +<p>The collection is made with considerable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">91</a></span> +<i>éclat</i> and has all the elements of picturesqueness +that one usually associates with the wedding +processions that one sees on the comic-opera +stage. A sort of nuptial bouquet—a +great bunch of field flowers—is handed round +from one guest to another, and for a sniff of +their fragrance and a participation in the collation +which is to come, they make an offering, +dropping much or little into a golden (not gold) +goblet which is passed around by the bride herself.</p> + +<p>In the Sologne there is (or was, for the +writer has never seen it) another singular custom +of the marriage service—not really a part +of the churchly office, but a sort of practical +indorsement of the actuality of it all.</p> + +<p>The bride and groom are both pricked with +a needle until the blood runs, to demonstrate +that neither the man nor the woman is insensible +or dreaming as to the purport of the ceremony +about to take place.</p> + +<p>As every French marriage is at the Mairie, +as well as being held in church, this double +ceremony (and the blood-letting as well) must +make a very hard and fast agreement. Perhaps +it might be tried elsewhere with advantage.</p> + +<p>Montrichard, on the Cher, is on the border<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">92</a></span>land +between the Blaisois and Touraine. Its +donjon announces itself from afar as a magnificent +feudal ruin. The town is moreover +most curious and original, the great rectangular +donjon rising high into the sky above a +series of cliff-dwellers' chalk-cut homes, in +truly weird fashion.</p> + +<p>There is nothing so very remarkable about +cliff-dwellers in the Loire country, and their +aspect, manners, and customs do not differ +greatly from those of their neighbours, who +live below them.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/illus129_small.jpg" alt="Donjon of Montrichard" title="Donjon of Montrichard" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus129.jpg"><i>Donjon of Montrichard</i></a></div> +</div> + +<p>Curiously enough these rock-cut dwellings +appear dry and healthful, and are not in the +least insalubrious, though where a <i>cave</i> has +been devoted only to the storage of wine in +vats, barrels, and bottles the case is somewhat +different.</p> + +<p>Montrichard itself, outside of these scores +of homes burrowed out of the cliff, is most +picturesque, with stone-pignoned gables and +dormer-windows and window-frames cut or +worked in wood or stone into a thousand +amusing shapes.</p> + +<p>Montrichard, with Chinon, takes the lead in +interesting old houses in these parts; in fact, +they quite rival the ruinous lean-to houses of +Rouen and Lisieux in Normandy, which is say<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">93</a></span>ing +a good deal for their picturesque qualities.</p> + +<p>One-third of Montrichard's population live +underground or in houses built up against the +hillsides. Even the lovely old parish church +backs against the rock.</p> + +<p>Everywhere are stairways and <i>petits chemins</i> +leading upward or downward, with little +façades, windows, or doorways coming upon +one in most unexpected and mysterious fashion +at every turn.</p> + +<p>The magnificent donjon is a relic of the work +of that great fortress-builder, Foulques Nerra, +Comte d'Anjou, who dotted the land wherever +he trod with these masterpieces of their kind, +most of them great rectangular structures like +the donjons of Britain, but quite unlike the +structures of their class mostly seen in France.</p> + +<p>Richard Cœur de Lion occupied the fortress +in 1108, but was obliged to succumb to his rival +in power, Philippe-Auguste, who in time made +a breach in its walls and captured it. Thereafter +it became an outpost of his own, from +whence he could menace the Comte d'Anjou.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">94</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2>CHAPTER IV.<span class="pagenum"><a href="#Contents">To ToC</a></span></h2> + +<h4>CHAMBORD</h4> + + +<p>Chambord is four leagues from Blois, from +which point it is usually approached. To reach +it one crosses the Sologne, not the arid waste +it has been pictured, but a desert which has +been made to blossom as the rose.</p> + +<p>A glance of the eye, given anywhere along +the road from Blois to Chambord, will show +a vineyard of a thousand, two thousand, or +even more acres, where, from out of a soil that +was once supposed to be the poorest in all wine-growing +France, may be garnered a crop equalling +a hundred dozen of bottles of good rich +wine to the acre.</p> + +<p>This wine of the Sologne is not one of the +famous wines of France, to be sure, but what +one gets in these parts is pure and astonishingly +palatable; moreover, one can drink large +portions of it—as do the natives—without +being affected in either his head or his pocket-book.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">95</a></span></p> + +<p>From late September to early December +there is a constant harvest going on in the +vineyards, whose labourers, if not as picturesque +and joyous as we are wont to see them +on the comic-opera stage, are at least wonderfully +clever and industrious, for they make a +good wine crop out of a soil which previously +gave a living only to charcoal-burners and goat-keepers.</p> + +<p>François was indeed a rare devotee of the +building mania when he laid out the wood +which surrounds Chambord and which ultimately +grew to some splendour. The nineteenth +century saw this great wood cut and +sold in huge quantities, so that to-day it is +rather a scanty copse through which one drives +on the way from Blois.</p> + +<p>The country round about is by no means +impoverished,—far from it. It is simply unworked +to its fullest extent as yet. As it is +plentifully surrounded by water it makes an +ideal land for the growing of asparagus, strawberries, +and grapes, and so it has come to be +one of the most prosperous and contented +regions in all the Loire valley.</p> + +<p>The great white Château de Chambord, with +its turrets and its magnificent lantern, looms +large from whatever direction it is approached,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">96</a></span> +though mostly it is framed by the somewhat +stunted pines which make up the pleasant forest. +The vistas which one sees when coming +toward Chambord, through the drives and +alleys of its park, with the château itself brilliant +in the distance, are charming and fairy-like +indeed. Straight as an arrow these roadways +run, and he who traverses one of those +centring at the château will see a tiny white +fleck in the sunlight a half a dozen kilometres +away, which, when it finally is reached, will be +admitted to be the greatest triumph of the art-loving +monarch.</p> + +<p>François Premier was foremost in every +artistic expression in France, and the court, +as may be expected, were only too eager to +follow the expensive tastes of their monarch,—when +they could get the means, and when they +could not, often enough François supplied the +wherewithal.</p> + +<p>François himself dressed in the richest of +Italian velvets, the more brilliant the better, +with a preponderant tendency toward pink and +sky blue.</p> + +<p>A dozen years after François came to the +throne, a dozen years after the pleasant life +of Amboise, when mother, daughter, and son +lived together on the banks of the Loire in that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">97</a></span> +"Trinity of love," the monarch and his wife, +Queen Claude of France, the daughter of +Louis XII. and Anne of Brittany, came to live +at Chambord on the edge of the sandy Sologne +waste.</p> + +<p>Here, too, came Marguerite d'Alençon, the +ever faithful and devoted sister of François, +the duke, her husband, and all the gay members +of the court. The hunt was the order of the +day, for the forest tract of the Sologne, scanty +though it was in growth, abounded in small +game.</p> + +<p>Chambord at this time had not risen to the +grand and ornate proportions which we see +to-day, but set snugly on the low, swampy banks +of the tiny river Cosson, a dull, gloomy mediæval +fortress, whose only aspect of gaiety was +that brought by the pleasure-loving court when +it assembled there. In size it was ample to +accommodate the court, but François's artistic +temperament already anticipated many and +great changes. The Loire was to be turned +from its course and the future pompous palace +was to have its feet bathed in the limpid Loire +water rather than in the stagnant pools of the +morass which then surrounded it.</p> + +<p>As a triumph of the royal château-builder's +art, Chambord is far and away ahead of Fon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">98</a></span>tainebleau +or Versailles, both of which were +built in a reign which ended two hundred years +later than that which began with the erection +of Chambord. As an example of the arts of +François I. and his time compared with those +of Louis XIV. and his, Chambord stands forth +with glorious significance.</p> + +<p>On the low banks of the Cosson, François +achieved perhaps the greatest triumph that +Renaissance architecture had yet known.</p> + +<p>It was either Chambord, or the reconstruction +by François of the edifice belonging to the +Counts of Blois, which resulted in the refinement +of the Renaissance style less than a quarter +of a century after its introduction into +France by Charles VIII.,—if he really was +responsible for its importation from Italy. +François lacked nothing of daring, and built +and embellished a structure which to-day, in +spite of numerous shortcomings, stands as the +supreme type of a great Renaissance domestic +edifice of state. Every device of decoration +and erratic suggestion seems to have been carried +out, not only structurally, as in the great +double spiral of its central stairway, but in its +interpolated details and symbolism as well.</p> + +<p>It was at this time, too, that François began +to introduce the famous salamander into his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">99</a></span> +devices and ciphers; that most significant emblem +which one may yet see on wall and ceiling +of Chambord surrounded by the motto: +"<i>Je me nourris et je meurs dans le feu.</i>"</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus137_small.jpg" alt="Arms of François Premier, at Chambord" title="Arms of François Premier, at Chambord" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus137.jpg"><i>Arms of François Premier, at Chambord</i></a></div> +</div> + + + + +<p>Chambord, first of all, gives one a very high +opinion of François Premier, and of the splendours +with which he was wont to surround +himself. The apartments are large and numerous +and are admirably planned and decorated, +though, almost without exception, bare to-day +of furniture or furnishings.</p> + +<p>To quote the opinion of Blondel, the celebrated +French architect: "The Château de +Chambord, built under François I. and +Henri II., from the designs of Primatice, was +never achieved according to the original plan. +Louis XIII. and Louis XIV. contributed a cer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">100</a></span>tain +completeness, but the work was really +pursued afterward according to the notions of +one Sertio."</p> + +<p>The masterpiece of its constructive elements +is its wonderful doubly spiralled central staircase, +which permits one to ascend or descend +without passing another proceeding in the +opposite direction at the same time. Whatever +may have been the real significance of this +great double spiral, it has been said that it +played its not unimportant part in the intrigue +and scandal of the time. It certainly is a wonder +of its kind, more marvellous even than that +spiral at Blois, attributed, with some doubt +perhaps, to Leonardo da Vinci, and certainly +far more beautiful than the clumsy round +tower up which horses and carriages were once +driven at Amboise.</p> + +<p>At all events, it probably meant something +more than mere constructive ability, and a +staircase which allows one individual to mount +and another to descend without knowing of +the presence of the other may assuredly be +classed with those other mediæval accessories, +sliding panels, hidden doorways, and secret +cabinets.</p> + +<p>Beneath the dome which terminates the staircase +in the Orleans wing are three caryatides<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">101</a></span> +representing—it is doubtfully stated—François +Premier, La Duchesse d'Étampes, and +Madame la Comtesse de Châteaubriand,—a +trinity of boon companions in intrigue.</p> + +<p>In reality Chambord presents the curiously +contrived arrangement of one edifice within another, +as a glance of the eye at the plan will +show.</p> + +<p>The fosse, the usual attribute of a great +mediæval château—it may be a dry one or +a wet one, in this case it was a wet one—has +disappeared, though Brantôme writes that he +saw great iron rings let into the walls to which +were attached "<i>barques et grands bateaux</i>," +which had made their way from the Loire via +the dribbling Cosson.</p> + +<p>The Cosson still dribbles its life away to-day, +its moisture having, to a great part, gone to +irrigate the sandy Sologne, but formerly it was +doubtless a much more ample stream.</p> + +<p>From the park the ornate gables and dormer-windows +loom high above the green-swarded +banks of the Cosson. It was so in François's +time, and it is so to-day; nothing has been +added to break the spread of lawn, except an +iron-framed wash-house with red tiles and a +sheet-iron chimney-pot beside the little river,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">102</a></span> +and a tin-roofed garage for automobiles connected +with the little inn outside the gates.</p> + +<p>The rest is as it was of yore, at least, the +same as the old engravings of a couple of hundreds +of years ago picture it, hence it is a great +shame, since the needs of the tiny village could +not have demanded it, that the foreground +could not have been left as it originally was.</p> + +<p>The town, or rather village, or even hamlet, +of Chambord is about the most abbreviated +thing of its kind existent. There is practically +no village; there are a score or two of houses, +an inn of the frankly tourist kind, which evidently +does not cater to the natives, the aforesaid +wash-house by the river bank, the dwellings +of the gamekeepers, gardeners, and workmen +on the estate, and a diminutive church rising +above the trees not far away. These accessories +practically complete the make-up of the +little settlement of Chambord, on the borders +of the Blaisois and Touraine.</p> + +<p>Chambord has been called top-heavy, but it +is hardly that. Probably the effect is caused +by its low-lying situation, for, as has been intimated +before, this most imposing of all of +the Loire châteaux has the least desirable situation +of any. There is a certain vagueness and +foreignness about the sky-line that is almost<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">103</a></span> +Eastern, though we recognize it as pure Renaissance. +Perhaps it is the magnitude and lonesomeness +of it all that makes it seem so +strange, an effect that is heightened when one +steps out upon its roof, with the turrets, towers, +and cupolas still rising high above.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/illus141_small.jpg" alt="Plan of Chambord" title="Plan of Chambord" /> +</div> + +<p>The ground-plan is equally magnificent, +flanked at every corner by a great round tower, +with another quartette of them at the angles +of the interior court.</p> + +<p>Most of the stonework of the fabric is brilliant +and smooth, as if it were put up but yes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">104</a></span>terday, +and, beyond the occasional falling of +a tile from the wonderful array of chimney-pots, +but little evidences are seen exteriorly +of its having decayed in the least. On the +tower which flanks the little door where one +meets the <i>concierge</i> and enters, there are unmistakable +marks of bullets and balls, which a +revolutionary or some other fury left as mementoes +of its passage.</p> + +<p>Considering that Chambord was not a product +of feudal times, these disfigurements seem +out of place; still its peaceful motives could +hardly have been expected to have lasted always.</p> + +<p>The southern façade is not excelled by the +elevation of any residential structure of any +age, and its outlines are varied and pleasing +enough to satisfy the most critical; if one pardons +the little pepper-boxes on the north and +south towers, and perforce one has to pardon +them when he recalls the magnificence of the +general disposition and sky-line of this marvellously +imposing château of the Renaissance.</p> + +<p>François Premier made Chambord his favourite +residence, and in fact endowed Pierre +Nepveu—who for this work alone will be considered +one of the foremost architects of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">105</a></span> +French Renaissance—with the inspiration for +its erection in 1526.</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus143_small.jpg" alt="Château de Chambord" title="Château de Chambord" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus143.jpg"><i>Château de Chambord</i></a></div> +</div> + + + +<p>A prodigious amount of sculpture by Jean +Cousin, Pierre Bontemps, Jean Goujon, and +Germain Pilon was interpolated above the +doorways and windows, in the framing thereof, +and above the great fireplaces. Inside and +out, above and below, were vast areas to be +covered, and François allowed his taste to have +full sway.</p> + +<p>The presumptuous François made much of +this noble residence, perhaps because of his +love of <i>la chasse</i>, for game abounded hereabouts, +or perhaps because of his regard for +the Comtesse Thoury, who occupied a neighbouring +château.</p> + +<p>For some time before his death, François +still lingered on at Chambord. Marguerite and +her brother, both now considerably aged since +the happier times of their childhood in Touraine, +always had an indissoluble fondness +for Chambord. Marguerite had now become +Queen of Navarre, but her beauty had been +dimmed with the march of time, and she no +longer was able to comfort and amuse her +kingly brother as of yore. His old pleasures +and topics of conversation irritated him, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">106</a></span> +he had even tired of poetry, art, and political +affairs.</p> + +<p>Above all, he shamefully and shamelessly +abused women, at once the prop and the undermining +influence of his kingly power in days +gone by. There is an existing record to the +effect that he wrote some "window-pane" +verse on the window of his private apartment +to the following effect:</p> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i3">"Souvent femme varie;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Mal habile quis'y fie!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>If this be not apocryphal, the incident must +have taken place long years before that celebrated +"window-pane" verse of Shenstone's, +and François is proven again a forerunner, as +he was in many other things.</p> + +<p>Without doubt the Revolution did away with +this square of glass, which—according to Piganiol +de la Force—existed in the middle of +the eighteenth century. Perhaps François's +own jealous humour prompted him to write +these cynical lines, and then again perhaps it +is merely one of those fables which breathe the +breath of life in some unaccountable manner, +no one having been present at its birth, and +hearsay and tradition accounting for it all.</p> + +<p>François, truly, was failing, and he and his +sister discussed but sorrowful subjects: the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">107</a></span> +death of his favourite son, Charles, the inheritor +of the throne, at Abbeville, where he became +infected with the plague, and also the +death of him whom he called "his old friend," +Henry VIII. of England, a monarch whose +amours were as numerous and celebrated as +his own.</p> + +<p>Henri II. preferred the attractions of Anet +to Chambord, while Catherine de Medici and +Charles IX. cared more for Blois, Chaumont, +and Chenonceaux. Louis XIII. and Louis XIV. +only considered it as a rendezvous for the +chase, and the latter's successor, Louis XV., +gave it to the illustrious Maurice de Saxe, the +victor of Fontenoy, who spent his old age here, +amid fêtes, pleasures, and military parades. +Near by are the barracks, built for the accommodation +of the regiment of horse formed by +the maréchal and devoted to his special guardianship +and pleasure, and paid for by the king, +who in turn repaid himself—with interest—from +the public treasury. The exercising of +this "little army" was one of the chief amusements +of the illustrious old soldier.</p> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">"A de feints combats<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lui-même en se jouant conduit les vieux soldats"—<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>wrote the Abbé de Lille in contemporary times.</p> + +<p>King Stanislas of Poland lived here from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">108</a></span> +1725 to 1733, and later it was given to Maréchal +Berthier, by whose widow it was sold in 1821.</p> + +<p>It was bought by national subscription for +a million and a half of francs and given to +the Duc de Bordeaux, who immediately commenced +its restoration, for it had been horribly +mutilated by Maréchal de Saxe, and the surrounding +wood had been practically denuded +under the Berthier occupancy.</p> + +<p>The Duc de Bordeaux died in 1883, and his +heirs, the Duc de Parme and the Comte de +Bardi, are now said to spend a quarter of a +million annually in the maintenance of the +estate, the income of which approximates only +half that sum.</p> + +<p>There are thirteen great staircases in the +edifice, and a room for every day in the year. +On the ground floor is the Salle des Gardes, +from which one mounts by the great spiral to +another similar apartment with a barrel-vaulted +roof, which in a former day was converted +into a theatre, where in 1669-70 were +held the first representations of "Pourceaugnac" +and "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme," +and where Molière himself frequently appeared.</p> + +<p>The second floor is known as the "<i>grandes +terrasses</i>" and surrounds the base of the great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">109</a></span> +central lantern so admired from the exterior. +On this floor, to the eastward, were the apartments +of François Premier. The chapel was +constructed by Henri II., but the tribune is of +the era of Louis XIV. This tribune is decorated +with a fine tapestry, made by Madame +Royale while imprisoned in the Temple. At the +base of the altar is also a tapestry made and +presented to the Comte de Chambord by the +women of the Limousin.</p> + +<p>The apartments of Louis XIV. contain portraits +of Madame de Maintenon and Madame +de Lafayette, a great painting of the "Bataille +de Fontenoy," and another of the Comte de +Chambord on horseback.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">110</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2>CHAPTER V.<span class="pagenum"><a href="#Contents">To ToC</a></span></h2> + +<h4>CHEVERNY, BEAUREGARD, AND CHAUMONT</h4> + + +<p>From Chambord and its overpowering massiveness +one makes his way to Chaumont, on +the banks of the Loire below Blois, by easy +stages across the plain of the Sologne.</p> + +<p>One leaves the precincts of Chambord by the +back entrance, as one might call it, through six +kilometres of forest road, like that by which +one enters, and soon passes the little townlet +of Bracieux.</p> + +<p>One gets glimpses of more or less modern +residential châteaux once and again off the +main road, but no remarkably interesting +structures of any sort are met with until one +reaches Cheverny. Just before Cheverny one +passes Cour-Cheverny, with a curious old +church and a quaint-looking little inn beside it.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/illus151_small.jpg" alt="Château de Cheverny" title="Château de Cheverny" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus151.jpg"><i>Château de Cheverny</i></a></div> +</div> + + + +<p>Cheverny itself is, however, the real attraction, +two kilometres away. Here the château +is opened by its private owners from April to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">111</a></span> +October of each year, and, while not such a +grand establishment as many of its contemporaries +round about, it is in every way a perfect +residential edifice of the seventeenth century, +when the flowery and ornate Renaissance +had given way to something more severely +classical, and, truth to tell, far less pleasing +in an artistic sense.</p> + +<p>Cheverny belongs to-day to the Marquis de +Vibraye, one of those undying titles of the +French nobility which thrive even in republican +France and uphold the best traditions of +the <i>noblesse</i> of other days.</p> + +<p>The château was built much later than most +of the neighbouring châteaux, in 1634, by the +Comte de Cheverny, Philippe Hurault. It sits +green-swarded in the midst of a beautifully +wooded park, and the great avenue which faces +the principal entrance extends for seven kilometres, +a distance not excelled, if equalled, by +any private roadway elsewhere.</p> + +<p>In its constructive features the château is +more or less of rectangular outlines. The pavilions +at each corner have their openings <i>à la +impériale</i>, with the domes, or lanterns, so customary +during the height of the style under +Louis XIV. An architect, Boyer by name, who +came from Blois, where surely he had the op<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">112</a></span>portunity +of having been well acquainted with +a more beautiful style, was responsible for the +design of the edifice at Cheverny.</p> + +<p>The interior decorations in Cordovan leather, +the fine chimneypieces, and the many elaborate +historical pictures and wall paintings, by Mosnier, +Clouet, and Mignard, are all of the best +of their period; while the apartments themselves +are exceedingly ample, notably the Appartement +du Roi, furnished as it was in the +days of "Vert Galant," the Salle des Gardes, +the library and an elaborately traceried staircase. +In the chapel is an altar-table which +came from the Église St. Calais, in the château +at Blois.</p> + +<p>Just outside the gates is a remarkable crotchety +old stone church, with a dwindling, toppling +spire. It is poor and impoverished when +compared with most French churches, and has +a most astonishing timbered veranda, with a +straining, creaking roof running around its two +unobstructed walls. The open rafters are filled +with all sorts of rubbish, and the local fire +brigade keeps its hose and ladders there. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">113</a></span> A +most suitable old rookery it is in which to start +a first-class conflagration.</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus155_small.jpg" alt="Cheverny-sur-Loire" title="Cheverny-sur-Loire" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus155.jpg"><i>Cheverny-sur-Loire</i></a></div> +</div> + +<p>Within are a few funeral marbles of the +Hurault family, and the daily offices are con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">114</a></span>ducted +with a pomp most unexpected. Altogether +it forms, as to its fabric and its functions, +as strong a contrast of activity and decay +as one is likely to see in a long journey.</p> + +<p>The town itself is a sleepy, unprogressive +place, where automobilists may not even buy +<i>essence à pétrole</i>, and, though boasting—if +the indolent old town really does boast—a +couple of thousand souls, one still has to journey +to Cour-Cheverny to send a telegraphic +despatch or buy a daily paper.</p> + +<p>Between Cheverny and Blois is the Forêt +de Russy, which will awaken memories of the +boar-hunts of François I., which, along with +art in all its enlightening aspects, appears to +have been one of the chief pleasures of that +monarch. Perhaps one ought to include also +the love of fair women, but with them he was +not so constant.</p> + +<p>On the road to Blois, also, one passes the +Château de Beauregard; that is, one usually +passes it, but he shouldn't. It is built, practically, +within the forest, on the banks of the +little river Beauvron. An iron <i>grille</i> gives +entrance to a beautiful park, and within is the +château, its very name indicating the favour +with which it was held by its royal owner. It +was in 1520 that François I. established it as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">115</a></span> +a <i>rendezvous de chasse</i>. Under his son, +Henri II., it was reconstructed, in part; entirely +remodelled in the seventeenth century; +and "modernized"—whatever that may +mean—in 1809, and again, more lately, restored +by the Duc de Dino. It belongs to-day +to the Comte de Cholet, who has tried his hand +at "restoration" as well.</p> + +<p>The history of this old château is thus seen +to have been most varied, and it is pretty sure +to have lost a good deal of its original character +in the transforming process.</p> + +<p>The interior is more attractive than is the +exterior. There is a grand gallery of portraits +of historical celebrities, more than 350, executed +between 1617 and 1638 by Paul Ardier, +Counsellor of State, who thus combined the +accomplishment of the artist with the sagacity +of the statesman.</p> + +<p>The ceilings of the great rooms are mostly +elaborate works in enamel and carved oak, and +there is a tiled floor (<i>carrelage</i>) in the portrait +gallery, in blue faïence, representing an army +in the order of battle, which must have delighted +the hearts of the youthful progeny who +may have been brought up within the walls of +the château. This pavement is moreover an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">116</a></span> +excellent example of the craftsmanship of tile-making.</p> + +<p>One gains admission to the château freely +from the <i>concierge</i>, who in due course expects +her <i>pourboire</i>, and sees that she gets it. But +what would you, inquisitive traveller? You +have come here to see the sights, and Beauregard +is well worth the price of admission, +which is anything you like to give, certainly +not less than a franc.</p> + +<p>One may return to Blois through the forest, +or may continue his way down the river to +Chaumont on the left bank.</p> + +<p>At Chaumont the Loire broadens to nearly +double the width at Blois, its pebbles and sandbars +breaking the mirror-like surface into innumerable +pools and <i>étangs</i>. There is a bridge +which connects Chaumont with the railway at +Onzain and the great national highway from +Tours to Blois. The bridge, however, is so +hideous a thing that one had rather go miles +out of his way than accept its hospitality. It +is simply one of those unsympathetic wire-rope +affairs with which the face of the globe is being +covered, as engineering skill progresses and the +art instinct dies out.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/illus159_small.jpg" alt="Chaumont" title="Chaumont" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus159.jpg"><i>Chaumont</i></a></div> +</div> + + + +<p>The Château de Chaumont is charmingly +situated, albeit it is not very accessible to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">117</a></span> +strangers after one gets there, as it is open +to the public only on Thursdays, from July to +December. It is exactly what one expects to +find,—a fine riverside establishment of its +epoch, and in architectural style combining the +well-recognized features of late Gothic and the +early Renaissance. It is not moss-grown or +decrepit in any way, which fact, considering +its years, is perhaps remarkable.</p> + +<p>The park of the château is only of moderate +extent, but the structure itself is, comparatively, +of much larger proportions. The ideal +view of the structure is obtained from midway +on that ungainly bridge which spans the Loire +at this point. Here, in the gold and purple +of an autumn evening, with the placid and far-reaching +Loire, its pools and its bars of sand +and pebble before one, it is a scene which is +as near idyllic as one is likely to see.</p> + +<p>The town itself is not attractive; one long, +narrow lane-like street, lined on each side by +habitations neither imposing nor of a tumble-down +picturesqueness, borders the Loire. +There is nothing very picturesque, either, about +the homes of the vineyard workers round +about. Below and above the town the great +highroad runs flat and straight between Tours +and Blois on either side of the river, and auto<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">118</a></span>mobilists +and cyclists now roll along where the +state carriages of the court used to roll when +François Premier and his sons journeyed from +one gay country house to another.</p> + +<p>It is to be inferred that the aspect of things +at Chaumont has not changed much since that +day,—always saving that spider-net wire +bridge. The population of the town has doubtless +grown somewhat, even though small towns +in France sometimes do not increase their +population in centuries; but the topographical +aspect of the long-drawn-out village, backed by +green hills on one side and the Loire on the +other, is much as it always has been.</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus162_small.jpg" alt="Signature of Diane de Poitier" title="Signature of Diane de Poitier" /> +<div class="caption"><i>Signature of Diane de Poitiers</i></div> +</div> + +<p>The château at Chaumont had its origin as +far back as the tenth century, and its proprietors +were successively local seigneurs, Counts +of Blois, the family of Amboise, and Diane +de Poitiers, who received it from Catherine in +exchange for Chenonceaux. This was not a fair +exchange, and Diane was, to some extent, +justified in her complaints.</p> + +<p>Chaumont was for a time in the possession<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">119</a></span> +of Scipion Sardini, one of the Italian partisans +of the Medici, "whose arms bore <i>trois sardines +d'argent</i>," and who had married Isabelle de la +Tour, "<i>la Demoiselle de Limieul</i>" of unsavoury +reputation.</p> + +<p>The "<i>Demoiselle de Limieul</i>" was related, +too, to Catherine, and was celebrated in the +gallantries of the time in no enviable fashion. +She was a member of that band of demoiselles +whose business it was—by one fascination or +another—to worm political secrets from the +nobles of the court. One horrible scandal connected +the unfortunate lady with the Prince de +Condé, but it need not be repeated here. The +Huguenots ridiculed it in those memorable +verses beginning thus:</p> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i3">"Puella illa nobilis<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Quæ erat tam amabilis."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>After the reign of Sardini and of his direct +successors, the house of Bullion, Chaumont +passed through many hands. Madame de Staël +arrived at the château in the early years of the +nineteenth century, when she had received the +order to separate herself from Paris, "by at +least forty leagues." She had made the circle +of the outlying towns, hovering about Paris as +a moth about a candle-flame; Rouen, Auxerre, +Blois, Saumur, all had entertained her, but now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">120</a></span> +she came to establish herself in this Loire citadel. +As the story goes, journeying from Saumur +to Tours, by post-chaise, on the opposite +side of the river, she saw the imposing mass +of Chaumont rising high above the river-bed, +and by her good graces and winning ways installed +herself in the affections of the then proprietor, +M. Leray, and continued her residence +"and made her court here for many years."</p> + +<p>Chaumont is to-day the property of the Princesse +de Broglie, who has sought to restore it, +where needful, even to reëstablishing the ancient +fosse or moat. This last, perhaps, is not +needful; still, a moated château, or even a +moated grange has a fascination for the sentimentally +inclined.</p> + +<div>At the drawbridge, as one enters Chaumont +to-day, one sees the graven initials of Louis +XII. and Anne de Bretagne, the arms of +Georges d'Amboise, surmounted by his cardinal's +hat, and those of Charles de Chaumont, +as well as other cabalistic signs: one a representation +of a mountain (apparently) with a +crater-like summit from which flames are +breaking forth, while hovering about, back to +back, are two C's: +<img src="images/two_cs.jpg" +height="21" alt="Two C's back to back" title="" />. The Renaissance artists +greatly affected the rebus, and this perhaps +has some reference to the etymology of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">121</a></span> +the name Chaumont, which has been variously +given as coming from <i>Chaud Mont</i>, <i>Calvus +Mont</i>, and <i>Chauve Mont</i>.</div> + + + +<p>Georges d'Amboise, the first of the name, +was born at Chaumont in 1460, the eighth son +of a family of seventeen children. It was a +far cry, as distances went in those days, from +the shores of the shallow, limpid Loire to those +of the forceful, turgent Seine at Rouen, where +in the great Cathedral of Notre Dame, this first +Georges of Amboise, having become an archbishop +and a cardinal, was laid to rest beneath +that magnificent canopied tomb before which +visitors to the Norman capital stand in wonder. +The mausoleum bears this epitaph, which in +some small measure describes the activities +of the man.</p> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i3">"Pastor eram cleri, populi pater; aurea sese<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Lilia subdebant, quercus et ipsa mihi.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i3">"Martuus en jaceo, morte extinguunter honores,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Et virtus, mortis nescia, mort viret."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>His was not by any means a life of placidity +and optimism, and he had the air and reputation +of doing things. There is a saying, still +current in Touraine: "<i>Laissez faire à +Georges.</i>"</p> + +<p>The second of the same name, also an Arch<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">122</a></span>bishop +of Rouen and a cardinal, succeeded his +uncle in the see. He also is buried beneath the +same canopy as his predecessor at Rouen.</p> + +<p>The main portal of the château leads to a fine +quadrilateral court with an open gallery overlooking +the Loire, which must have been a magnificent +playground for the nobility of a +former day. The interior embellishments are +fine, some of the more noteworthy features +being a grand staircase of the style of +Louis XII.; the Salle des Gardes, with a +painted ceiling showing the arms of Chaumont +and Amboise; the Salle du Conseil, with some +fine tapestries and a remarkable tiled floor, +depicting scenes of the chase; the Chambre de +Catherine de Medici (she possessed Chaumont +for nine years), containing some of the gifts +presented to her upon her wedding with +Henri II.; and the curious Chambre de Ruggieri, +the astrologer whom Catherine brought +from her Italian home, and who was always +near her, and kept her supplied with charms +and omens, good and bad, and also her poisons.</p> + +<p>Ruggieri's observatory was above his apartment. +It was at Chaumont that the astrologer +overstepped himself, and would have used his +magic against Charles IX. He did go so far +as to make an image and inflict certain indig<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">123</a></span>nities +upon it, with the belief that the same +would befall the monarch himself. Ruggieri +went to the galleys for this, but the scheming +Catherine soon had him out again, and at work +with his poisons and philtres.</p> + +<p>Finally there is the Chambre de Diane de +Poitiers, Catherine's more than successful +rival, with a bed (modern, it is said) and a +series of sixteenth-century tapestries, with +various other pieces of contemporary furniture. +A portrait of Diane which decorates the +apartment is supposed to be one of the three +authentic portraits of the fair huntress. The +chapel has a fine tiled pavement and some +excellent glass.</p> + +<p>Chaumont is eighteen kilometres from Blois +and the same distance from Amboise. It has +not the splendour of Chambord, but it has a +greater antiquity, and an incomparably finer +situation, which displays its coiffed towers and +their <i>mâchicoulis</i> and cornices in a manner not +otherwise possible. It is one of those picture +châteaux which tell a silent story quite independent +of guide-book or historical narrative.</p> + +<p>It was M. Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont, the +superintendent of the forests of Berry and the +Blaisois, under Louis XVI., who gave hospitality +to Benjamin Franklin, and turned over<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">124</a></span> +to the first American ambassador to France the +occupancy of his house at Passy, where Franklin +lived for nine consecutive years.</p> + +<p>Of this same M. de Chaumont Americans cannot +have too high a regard, for his timely and +judicious hospitality has associated his name, +only less permanently than Franklin's, with +the early fortunes of the American republic.</p> + +<p>Besides his other offices, M. de Chaumont was +the intendant of the Hôtel des Invalides, at +Paris, holding confidential relations with the +ministry of the young king, and was in the +immediate enjoyment of a fortune which +amounted to two and a half million of francs, +besides owning, in addition to Chaumont on +the Loire, another château in the Blaisois. +This château he afterward tendered to John +Adams, who declined the offer in a letter, +written at Passy-sur-Seine, February 25, 1779, +in the following words: "... To a mind as +much addicted to retirement as mine, the situation +you propose would be delicious indeed, +provided my country were at peace and my +family with me; but, separated from my +family and with a heart bleeding with the +wounds of its country, I should be the most +miserable being on earth...."</p> + +<p>The potteries, which now form the stables<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">125</a></span> +of the château at Chaumont, are somewhat reminiscent +of Franklin. M. de Chaumont had +established a pottery here, where he had found +a clay which had encouraged him to hope that +he could compete with the English manufacturers +of the time. Here the Italian Nini, who +was invited to Chaumont, made medallions +much sought for by collectors, among others +one of Franklin, which was so much admired +as a work of art, and became so much in demand +that in later years replicas were made +and are well known to amateurs.</p> + +<p>The family of Le Ray de Chaumont were +extensively known in America, where they became +large landholders in New York State in +the early nineteenth century, and the head of +the family seems to have been an amiable and +popular landlord. The towns of Rayville and +Chaumont in New York State still perpetuate +his name.</p> + +<p>The two male members of the family secured +American wives; Le Ray himself married a +Miss Coxe, and their son a Miss Jahel, both of +New York.</p> + +<p>From an anonymous letter to the New York +<i>Evening Post</i> of November 19, 1885, one quotes +the following:</p> + +<p>"It was in Blois that I first rummaged<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">126</a></span> +among these shops, whose attractions are almost +a rival to those of the castle, though this +is certainly one of the most interesting in +France. The traveller will remember the long +flight of stone steps which climbs the steep hill +in the centre of the town. Near the foot of this +hill there is a well-furnished book-shop; its +windows display old editions and rich bindings, +and tempt one to enter and inquire for antiquities. +Here I found a quantity of old notarial +documents and diplomas of college or university, +all more or less recently cleared out +from some town hall, or unearthed from neighbouring +castle, and sold by a careless owner, +as no longer valuable to him. This was the case +with most of the parchments I found at Blois; +they had been acquired within a few years from +the castle of Madon, and from a former proprietor +of the neighbouring castle of Chaumont +(the <i>calvus mons</i> of mediæval time), and most +of them pertained to the affairs of the <i>seigneurie +de Chaumont</i>. Contracts, executions, +sales of vineyards and houses, legal decisions, +<i>actes de vente</i>, loans on mortgages, the marriage +contract of a M. Lubin,—these were +the chief documents that I found and purchased."</p> + +<p>The traveller may not expect to come upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">127</a></span> +duplicates of these treasures again, but the +incident only points to the fact that much documentary +history still lies more or less deeply +buried.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">128</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2>CHAPTER VI.<span class="pagenum"><a href="#Contents">To ToC</a></span></h2> + +<h4>TOURAINE: THE GARDEN SPOT OF FRANCE</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza center" > +<span class="i0_5">"C'est une grande dame, une princesse altière,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Chacun de ses châteaux, marqué du sceau royal,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lui fait une toilette en dentelle de pierre<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Et son splendide fleuve un miroir de cristal."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<p>It is difficult to write appreciatively of Touraine +without echoing the words of some one +who has gone before, and it is likely that those +who come after will find the task no easier.</p> + +<p>Truly, as a seventeenth-century geographer +has said: "Here is the most delicious and the +most agreeable province of the kingdom. It +has been named the garden of France because +of the softness of its climate, the affability of +its people, and the ease of its life."</p> + +<p>The poets who have sung the praises of Touraine +are many, Ronsard, Remy Belleau, Du +Bellay, and for prose authors we have at the +head, Rabelais, La Fontaine, Balzac, and Alfred +de Vigny. Merely to enumerate them all would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">129</a></span> +be impossible, but they furnish a fund of quotable +material for the traveller when he is writing +home, and are equally useful to the maker +of guide-books.</p> + +<p>One false note on Touraine, only, has ever +rung out in the world of literature, and that +was from Stendahl, who said: "<i>La Belle Touraine +n'existe pas!</i>" The pages of Alfred de +Vigny and Balzac answer this emphatically, +and to the contrary, and every returning traveller +apparently sides with them and not with +Stendahl.</p> + +<p>How can one not love its prairies, gently +sloping to the caressing Loire, its rolling hills +and dainty ravines? The broad blue Loire is +always vague and tranquil here, at least one +seems always to see it so, but the beauty of +Touraine is, after all, a quiet beauty which must +be seen to be appreciated, and lived with to +be loved.</p> + +<p>It is a land of most singular attractions, +neither too hot nor too cold, too dry nor too +damp, with a sufficiency of rain, and an abundance +of sunshine. Its market-gardens are +prolific in their product, its orchards overflowing +with plenitude, and its vineyards generous +in their harvest.</p> + +<p>Touraine is truly the region where one may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">130</a></span> +read history without books, with the very pages +of nature punctuated and adorned with the +marvels of the French Renaissance. Louis XI. +gave the first impetus to the alliance of the +great domestic edifice—which we have come +to distinguish as the residential château—with +the throne, and the idea was amplified +by Charles VIII. and glorified by François +Premier.</p> + +<p>In the brilliant, if dissolute, times of the +early sixteenth century François Premier and +his court travelled down through this same +Touraine to Loches and to Amboise, where +François's late gaoler, Charles Quint, was to +be received and entertained. It was after +François had returned from his involuntary +exile in Spain, and while he was still in residence +at the Louvre, that the plans for +the journey were made. To the Duchesse +d'Étampes François said,—the duchess who +was already more than a rival of both Diane +and the Comtesse de Châteaubriant,—"I must +tear myself away from you to-morrow. I shall +await my brother Charles at Amboise on the +Loire."</p> + +<p>"Shall you not revenge yourself upon him, +for his cruel treatment of you?" said the wily +favourite of the time. "If he, like a fool,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">131</a></span> +comes to Touraine, will you not make him revoke +the treaty of Madrid or shut him up in one +of Louis XI.'s oubliettes?"</p> + +<p>"I will persuade him, if possible," said +François, "but I shall never force him."</p> + +<p>In due time François did receive his brother +king at Amboise and it was amid great ceremony +and splendour. His guest could not, or +would not, mount steps, so that great inclined +plane, up which a state coach and its horses +might go, was built. Probably there was a +good reason for the emperor's peculiarity, for +that worthy or unworthy monarch finally died +of gout in the monastery of San Juste.</p> + +<p>The meeting here at Amboise was a grand +and ceremonious affair and the Spanish monarch +soon came to recognize a possible enemy +in the royal favourite, Anne de Pisselieu. The +emperor's eyes, however, melted with admiration, +and he told her that only in France could +one see such a perfection of elegance and +beauty, with the result that—as is popularly +adduced—the susceptible, ambitious, and unfaithful +duchess betrayed François more than +once in the affairs attendant upon the subsequent +wars between France, England, and +Spain.</p> + +<p>From Touraine, in the sixteenth century,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">132</a></span> +spread that influence which left its impress +even on the capital of the kingdom itself, not +only in respect to architectural art, but in +manners and customs as well.</p> + +<p>Whatever may be the real value of the +Renaissance as an artistic expression, the discussion +of it shall have no place here, beyond +the qualifying statement that what we have +come to know as the French Renaissance—which +undeniably grew up from a transplanted +Italian germ—proved highly tempting to the +mediæval builder for all manner of edifices, +whereas it were better if it had been confined +to civic and domestic establishments and left +the church pure in its full-blown Gothic forms.</p> + +<p>Curiously enough, here in Touraine, this is +just what did happen. The Renaissance influence +crept into church-building here and +there—and it is but a short step from the +"<i>gothique rayonnant</i>" to what are recognized +as well-defined Renaissance features; but it is +more particularly in respect to the great châteaux, +and even smaller dwellings, that the +superimposed Italian details were used. A +notable illustration of this is seen in the Cathedral +of St. Gatien at Tours. It is very beautiful +and has some admirable Gothic features, +but there are occasional constructive details, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">133</a></span> +well as those for decorative effect alone, which +are decidedly not good Gothic; but, as they +are, likewise, not Renaissance, they hence cannot +be laid to its door, but rather to the architect's +eccentricity.</p> + +<p>In the smaller wayside churches, such as one +sees at Cormery, at Cheverny, and at Cour-Cheverny, +there is scarcely a sign of Renaissance, +while their neighbouring châteaux are +nothing else, both in construction and in decoration.</p> + +<p>The Château de Langeais is, for the most +part, excellent Gothic, and so is the church +near by. Loches has distinct and pure Gothic +details both in its church and its château, quite +apart from the Hôtel de Ville and that portion +of the château now used as the Sous-Préfecture, +which are manifestly Renaissance; hence here +in Touraine steps were apparently taken to +keep the style strictly non-ecclesiastical.</p> + +<p>A glance of the eye at the topography of this +fair province stamps it at once as something +quite different from any other traversed by the +Loire. Two of the great "routes nationales" +cross it, the one via Orleans, leading to Nantes, +and the other via Chartres, going to Bordeaux. +It is crossed and recrossed by innumerable +"routes secondaires," "départementales,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">134</a></span> +"vicinales" and "particulières," second to +none of their respective classes in other countries, +for assuredly the roads of France are +the best in the world. Many of these great +ways of communication replaced the ancient +Roman roads, which were the pioneers of the +magnificent roadways of the France of to-day.</p> + +<p>Almost invariably Touraine is flat or rolling, +its highest elevation above the sea being but a +hundred and forty-six metres, scarce four hundred +and fifty feet, a fact which accounts also +for the gentle flow of the Loire through these +parts.</p> + +<p>All the fruits of the southland are found +here, the olive alone excepted. Mortality, it is +said, and proved by figures, is lower than in +any other part of France, and for this reason +many dwellers in the large cities, if they may +not all have a mediæval château, have at least +a villa, far away from "the madding crowd," +and yet within four hours' travel of the capital +itself.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<a href="images/illus179.jpg"> +<img src="images/illus179_small.jpg" alt="The Loire in Touraine" title="The Loire in Touraine" /> +</a></div> + +<p>Touraine, properly speaking, has no natural +frontiers, as it is not enclosed by rivers or +mountains. It is, however, divided by the +Loire into two distinct regions, the Méridionale +and the Septentrionale; but the dress, the +physiognomy, the language, and the predilec<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">135</a></span>tions +of the people are everywhere the same, +though the two sections differ somewhat in +temperament. In the south, the Tourangeau +is timid and obliging, but more or less engrossed +in his affairs; in the north, he is +proud, egotistical, and a little arrogant, but, +above all, he likes his ease and comfort, something +after the manner of "mynheer" of Holland.</p> + +<p>These are the characteristics which are +enumerated by Stanislas Bellanger of Tours, +in "La Touraine Ancienne et Moderne," and +they are traceable to-day, in every particular, +to one who knows well the by-paths of the +region.</p> + +<p>Formerly the peasant was, in his own words, +"<i>sous la main de M. le comte</i>," but, with the +coming of the eighteenth century, all this was +changed, and the conditions which, in England, +succeeded feudalism, are unknown in Touraine, +as indeed throughout France.</p> + +<p>The two great divisions which nature had +made of Touraine were further cut up into +five <i>petits pays</i>; les Varennes, le Veron, la +Champeigne, la Brenne, and les Gâtines; +names which exist on some maps to-day, but +which have lost, in a great measure, their +former distinction.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">136</a></span></p> + +<p>There is a good deal to be said in favour of +the physical and moral characteristics of the +inhabitants of Touraine. Just as the descendants +of the Phoceans, the original settlers of +Marseilles, differ from the natives of other +parts of France, so, too, do the Tourangeaux +differ from the inhabitants of other provinces. +The people of Touraine are a mixture of Romans, +Visigoths, Saracens, Alains, Normans +and Bretons, Anglais and Gaulois; but all have +gradually been influenced by local conditions, +so that the native of Touraine has become a +distinct variety all by himself. The deliciousness +of the "garden of France" has altered +him so that he stands to-day as more distinctly +French than the citizen of Paris itself.</p> + +<p>Touraine, too, has the reputation of being +that part of France where is spoken the purest +French. This, perhaps, is as true of the Blaisois, +for the local bookseller at Blois will tell +one with the most dulcet and understandable +enunciation that it is at Blois that one hears +the best accent. At any rate, it is something +found within a charmed circle, of perhaps a +hundred miles in diameter, that does not find +its exact counterpart elsewhere. As Seville +stands for the Spanish tongue, Florence for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">137</a></span> +the Italian, and Dresden for the German, so +Tours stands for the French.</p> + +<p>The history of the Loire in Touraine, as is +the case at Le Puy, at Nevers, at Sancerre, or +at Orleans, is abundant and vivid, and the +monuments which line its banks are numerous +and varied, from the fortress-château of Amboise +to the Cathedral of St. Gatien at Tours +with its magnificent bejewelled façade. The +ruined towers of the castle of Cinq-Mars, with +its still more ancient Roman "pile," and the +feudal châteaux of the countryside are all eloquent, +even to-day, in their appeal to all lovers +of history and romance.</p> + +<p>There are some verses, little known, in praise +of the Loire, as it comes through Touraine, +written by Houdon des Landes, who lived +near Tours in the eighteenth century. The following +selection expresses their quality well +and is certainly worthy to rank with the best +that Balzac wrote in praise of his beloved Touraine.</p> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i3">"La Loire enorgueillit ses antiques cités,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Et courounne ses bords de coteaux enchantés;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Dans ses vallons heureux, sur ses rives aimées,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Les prés ont déployé leurs robes parfumées;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Le saule humide et souple y lance ses rameaux.<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Ses coteaux sont peuplés, et le rocher docile<br /></span> +<span class="i4">A l'homme qui le creuse offre un champêtre asile.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">138</a></span> +<span class="i4">De notre vieille Gaule, ô fleuve paternel!<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Fleuve des doux climats! la Vallière et Sorel<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Sur tes bords fortunés naquirent, et la gloire<br /></span> +<span class="i4">A l'une dût l'amour, à l'autre la victoire."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>Again and again Balzac's words echo in +one's ears from his "Scène de la Vie de Province." +The following quotations are typical +of the whole:</p> + +<p>"The softness of the air, the beauty of the +climate, all tend to a certain ease of existence +and simplicity of manner which encourages an +appreciation of the arts."</p> + +<p>"Touraine is a land to foster the ambition +of a Napoleon and the sentiment of a Byron."</p> + +<p>Another writer, A. Beaufort, a publicist of +the nineteenth century, wrote:</p> + +<p>"The Tourangeaux resemble the good Adam +in the garden of Eden. They drink, they eat, +they sleep and dream, and care not what their +neighbour may be doing."</p> + +<p>Touraine was indeed, at one time, a veritable +Eden, though guarded by fortresses, <i>hallebardes</i>, +and arquebuses, but not the less an +Eden for all that. In addition it was a land +where, in the middle ages, the seigneurs made +history, almost without a parallel in France or +elsewhere.</p> + +<p>Touraine, truly enough, was the centre of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">139</a></span> +old French monarchy in the perfection of its +pomp and state; but it is also true that Touraine +knew little of the serious affairs of kings, +though some all-important results came from +events happening within its borders.</p> + +<p>Paris was the law-making centre in the sixteenth +century, and Touraine knew only the +domestic life and pleasures of royalty. Etiquette, +form, and ceremony were all relaxed, +or at least greatly modified, and the court spent +in the country what it had levied in the capital.</p> + +<p>Curiously enough, the monarchs were omnipotent +and influential here, though immediately +they quartered themselves in Paris their +powers waned considerably; indeed, they +seemed to lose their influence upon ministers +and vassals alike.</p> + +<p>Louis XIII., it is true, tried to believe that +Paris was France,—like the Anglo-Saxon tourists +who descend upon it in such great numbers +to-day,—and built Versailles; but there was +never much real glory about its cold and pompous +walls.</p> + +<p>The fortunes of the old châteaux of Touraine +have been most varied. Chambord is vast and +bare, elegant and pompous; Blois, just across +the border, is a tourist sight of the first rank +whose salamanders and porcupines have been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">140</a></span> +well cared for by the paternal French government. +Chaumont, Chenonceaux, Langeais, +Azay-le-Rideau, and half a dozen others are +still inhabited, and are gay with the life of +twentieth-century luxury; Amboise is a possession +of the Orleans family; Loches is, in +part, given over to the uses of a sous-préfecture; +and Chinon's châteaux are but half-demolished +ruins. Besides these there are numerous +smaller residential châteaux of the +nobility scattered here and there in the Loire +watershed.</p> + +<p>There have been writers who have sought to +commiserate with "the poor peasant of Touraine," +as they have been pleased to think of +him, and have deplored the fact that his sole +possession was a small piece of ground which +he and his household cultivated, and that he +lived in a little whitewashed house, built with +his own hands, or those of his ancestors. +Though the peasant of Touraine, as well as of +other parts of the countryside, works for an +absurdly small sum, and for considerably less +than his brother nearer Paris, he sells his produce +at the nearest market-town for a fair +price, and preserves a spirit of independence +which is as valuable as are some of the things +which are thrust upon him in some other lands<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">141</a></span> +under the guise of benevolent charity, really +patronage of a most demeaning and un-moral +sort. At night the Touraine peasant returns +to his own hearthstone conscious that he is a +man like all of his fellows, and is not a mere +atom ground between the upper and nether +millstones of the landlord and the squire. He +cooks his "<i>bouillie</i>" over three small sticks +and retires to rest with the fond hope that on +the next market-day following the prices of +eggs, chickens, cauliflowers, or tomatoes may +be higher. He is the stuff that successful citizens +are made of, and is not to be pitied in the +least, even though it is only the hundredth man +of his community who ever does rise to more +wealth than a mere competency.</p> + +<p>Touraine, rightly enough, has been called the +garden of France, but it is more than that, +much more; it is a warm, soft land where all +products of the soil take on almost a subtropical +luxuriance. Besides the great valley of the +Loire, there are the valleys of the tributaries +which run into it, in Touraine and the immediate +neighbourhood, all of which are fertile +as only a river-bottom can be. It is true that +there are numerous formerly arid and sandy +plateaux, quite unlike the abundant plains of +La Beauce, though to-day, by care and skill,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">142</a></span> +they have been made to rival the rest of the +region in productiveness.</p> + +<p>The Département d'Indre et Loire is the +richest agricultural region in all France so far +as the variety and abundance of its product +goes, rivalling in every way the opulence of +the Burgundian hillsides. Above all, Touraine +stands at the head of the vine-culture of all the +Loire valley, the <i>territoire vinicole</i> lapping +over into Anjou, where are produced the celebrated +<i>vins blancs</i> of Saumur.</p> + +<p>The vineyard workers of Touraine, in the +neighbourhood of Loches, have clung closely +to ancient customs, almost, one may say, to the +destruction of the industry, though of late new +methods have set in, and, since the blight now +some years gone by, a new prosperity has come.</p> + +<p>The day worker, who cares for the vines and +superintends the picking of the grapes by the +womenfolk and the children, works for two +francs fifty centimes per day; but he invariably +carries with him to the scene of his labours +a couple of cutlets from a young and juicy +<i>brebis</i>, or even a <i>poulet rôti</i>, so one may judge +from this that his pay is ample for his needs +in this land of plenty.</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus189_small.jpg" alt="The Vintage in Touraine" title="The Vintage in Touraine" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus189.jpg"><i>The Vintage in Touraine</i></a></div> +</div> + +<p>In the morning he takes his bowl of soup and +a cup of white wine, and of course huge hunks<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">143</a></span> +of bread, and finally coffee, and on each Sunday +he has his <i>rôti à la maison</i>. All this demonstrates +the fact that the French peasant is more +of a meat eater in these parts than he is commonly +thought to be.</p> + +<p>Touraine has no peculiar beauties to offer +the visitor; there is nothing <i>outré</i> about it to +interest one; but, rather, it wins by sheer +charm alone, or perhaps a combination of +charms and excellencies makes it so truly a +delectable land.</p> + +<p>The Tourangeaux themselves will tell you, +when speaking of Rabelais and Balzac, that it +is the land of "<i>haute graisse, féconde et spirituelle</i>." +It is all this, and, besides its spirituelle +components, it will supply some very real +and substantial comforts. It is the Eden of the +gourmandiser of such delicacies as <i>truffes</i>, +<i>rilettes</i>, and above all, <i>pruneaux</i>, which you get +in one form or another at nearly every meal. +Most of the good things of life await one here +in abundance, with kitchen-gardens and vineyards +at every one's back door. Truly Touraine +is a land of good living.</p> + +<p>Life runs its course in Touraine, "<i>facile +et bonne</i>," without any extremes of joy or sorrow, +without chimerical desires or infinite despair, +and the agreeable sensations of life pre<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">144</a></span>dominate,—the +first essential to real happiness.</p> + +<p>Some one has said, and certainly not without +reason, that every Frenchman has a touch +of Rabelais and of Voltaire in his make-up. +This is probably true, for France has never +been swept by a wave of puritanism such as +has been manifest in most other countries, and +<i>le gros rire</i> is still the national philosophy.</p> + +<p>In a former day a hearty laugh, or at least +an amused cynicism, diverted the mind of the +martyr from threatened torture and even violent +death. Brinvilliers laughed at those who +were to torture her to death, and De la Barre +and Danton cracked jokes and improvised puns +upon the very edge of their untimely graves.</p> + +<p>Touraine has the reputation of being a wonderfully +productive field for the book collector, +though with books, like many other treasures +of a past time, the day has passed when one +may "pick up" for two sous a MS. worth +as many thousands of francs; but still bargains +are even now found, and if one wants great +calf-covered tomes, filled with fine old engravings, +bearing on the local history of the <i>pays</i>, +he can generally find them at all prices here in +old Touraine.</p> + +<p>There was a more or less apocryphal story<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">145</a></span> +told us and the landlady of our inn concerning +a find which a guest had come upon in a little +roadside hamlet at which he chanced to stop. +He was one of those omnipresent <i>commis voyageurs</i> +who thread the French provinces up +and down, as no other country in the world is +"travelled" or "drummed." He was the +representative for a brandy shipper, one of +those substantial houses of the cognac region +whose product is mostly sold only in France; +but this fact need not necessarily put the individual +very far down in the social scale. Indeed, +he was a most amiable and cultivated +person.</p> + +<p>Our fellow traveller had come to a village +where all the available accommodations of the +solitary inn were already engaged; therefore +he was obliged to put up with a room in the +town, which the landlord hunted out for him. +Repairing to his room without any thought save +that of sleep, the traveller woke the next morning +to find the sun streaming through the +opaqueness of a brilliantly coloured window. +Not stained glass here, surely, thought the +stranger, for his lodging was a most humble +one. It proved to be not glass at all; merely +four great vellum leaves, taken from some ancient +tome and stuck into the window-framing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">146</a></span> +where the glass ought to have been. Daylight +was filtering dimly through the rich colouring, +and it took but a moment to become convinced +that the sheets were something rare and valuable. +He learned that the pages were from an +old Latin MS., and that the occupant of the little +dwelling had used "<i>the paper</i>" in the place +of the glass which had long since disappeared. +The vellum and its illuminations had stood the +weather well, though somewhat dimmed in comparison +with the brilliancy of the remaining +folios, which were found below-stairs. There +were in all some eighty pages, which were purchased +for a modest forty sous, and everybody +satisfied.</p> + +<p>The volume had originally been found by +the father of the old dame who then had possession +of it in an old château in revolutionary +times. Whether her honoured parent was a +pillager or a protector did not come out, but +for all these years the possession of this fine +work meant no more to this Tourangelle than +a supply of "paper" for stopping up broken +window-panes.</p> + +<p>"She parted readily enough with the remaining +leaves," said our Frenchman, "but nothing +would induce her to remove those which +filled the window." "No, we have no more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">147</a></span> +glass, and these have answered quite well for +a long time now," she said. And such is the +simplicity of the French provincial, even to-day—<i>sometimes</i>.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">148</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2>CHAPTER VII.<span class="pagenum"><a href="#Contents">To ToC</a></span></h2> + +<h4>AMBOISE</h4> + + +<p>As one approaches Amboise, he leaves the +comparatively insalubrious plain of the Sologne +and the Blaisois and enters Touraine.</p> + +<p>Amboise! What history has been made +there; what a wealth of action its memories +recall, and what splendour, gaiety, and sadness +its walls have held! An entire book might be +written about the scenes which took place under +its roof.</p> + +<p>To-day most travellers are content to rush +over its apartments, gaze at its great round +tower, view the Loire, which is here quite at +its best, from the battlements, and, after a brief +admiration of the wonderfully sculptured portal +of its chapel, make their way to Chenonceaux, +or to the gay little metropolis of Tours.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/illus197_small.jpg" alt="Château d'Amboise" title="Château d'Amboise" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus197.jpg"> <i>Château d'Amboise</i></a></div> +</div> + +<p>No matter whither one turns his steps from +Amboise, he will not soon forget this great fortress-château +and the memories of the <i>petite +bande</i> of blondes and brunettes who followed +in the wake of François Premier.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">149</a></span></p> + +<p>Here, and at Blois, the recollections of this +little band are strong in the minds of students +of romance and history. Some one has said +that along the corridors of Amboise one still +may meet the wraiths of those who in former +days went airily from one pleasure to another, +but this of course depends upon the mood and +sentiment of the visitor.</p> + +<p>Amboise has a very good imitation of the +climate of the south, and the glitter of the Loire +at midday in June is about as torrid a picture +as one can paint in a northern clime. It is not +that it is so very hot in degree, but that the +lack of shade-trees along its quays gives Amboise +a shimmering resemblance to a much +warmer place than it really is. The Loire is +none too ample here, and frets its way, as it +does through most of its lower course, through +banks of sand and pebbles in a more or less +vain effort to look cool.</p> + +<p>Amboise is old, for, under the name of Ambatia, +it existed in the fourth century, at which +epoch St. Martin, the patron of Tours, threw +down a pagan pyramidal temple here and established +Christianity; and Clovis and Alaric +held their celebrated meeting on the Ile St. +Jean in 496. It was not long after this, according +to the ancient writers, that some sort<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">150</a></span> +of a fortified château took form here. Louis-le-Bègue +gave Amboise to the Counts of Anjou, +and Hughes united the two independent seigneuries +of the château and the bourg. After +the Counts of Anjou succeeded the Counts of +Berry, Charles VII., by appropriation, confiscation, +seizure, or whatever you please to call +it,—history is vague as to the real motive,—united +Amboise to the possessions of the Crown +in 1434. Louis XI. lived for a time at this +strong fortress-château, before he turned his +affections so devotedly to Plessis-les-Tours. +Charles VIII. was born and died here, and it +was he who added the Renaissance details, or +at least the first of them, upon his return from +Italy. Indeed, it is to him and to the nobles +who followed in his train during his Italian +travels that the introduction of the Renaissance +into France is commonly attributed.</p> + +<p>It was at Amboise that Charles VIII., forgetful +of the miseries of his Italian campaign, set +about affairs of state with a renewed will and +vigour. He was personally superintending +some alterations in the old castle walls, and +instructing the workmen whom he brought +from Italy with him as to just how far they +might introduce those details which the world +has come to know as Renaissance, when, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">151</a></span> +passing beneath a low overhanging beam, he +struck his head so violently that he expired +almost immediately (April 17, 1498).</p> + +<p>Louis XII., the superstitious, lived here for +some time, and here occurred some of the most +important events in the life of the great François, +the real popularizer of the new architectural +Renaissance.</p> + +<p>It was in the old castle of Amboise, the early +home of Louis XII., that his appointed successor, +his son-in-law and second cousin, François, +was brought up. Here he was educated by his +mother, Louise de Savoie, Duchesse d'Angoulême, +together with that bright and shining +light, that Marguerite who was known as the +"Pearl of the Valois," poetess, artist, and +court intriguer. Here the household formed +what in the early days François himself was +pleased to call a "trinity of love."</p> + +<p>Throughout the structure may yet be seen +the suggestions of François's artistic instincts, +traced in the window-framings of the façade, +in the interior decorations of the long gallery, +and on the terrace hanging high above the +Loire.</p> + +<p>In the park and in the surrounding forest +François and his sister Marguerite passed +many happy days of their childhood. Mar<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">152</a></span>guerite, +who had already become known as the +"tenth muse," had already thought out her +"Heptameron," whilst François tried his +prentice hand at love-rhyming, an expression +of sentiment which at a later period took the +form of avowals in person to his favourites.</p> + +<p>One recalls those stanzas to the memory of +Agnes Sorel, beginning:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i3">"Gentille Agnès plus de loz tu mérite,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">La cause était de France recouvrir;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Que ce que peut dedans un cloître ouvrir<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Close nonnaine? ou bien dévot hermite?"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>François was more than a lover of the beautiful. +His appreciation of architectural art +amounted almost to a passion, and one might +well claim him as a member of the architectural +guild, although, in truth, he was nothing more +than a generous patron of the craftsmen of his +day.</p> + +<p>François was the real father of the French +Renaissance, the more splendid flower which +grew from the Italian stalk. He had no liking +for the Van Eycks and Holbeins of the Dutch +school, reserving his favour for the frankly +languid masters from the south. He brought +from Italy Cellini, Primaticcio, and the great +Leonardo, who it is said had a hand in that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">153</a></span> +wonderful shell-like spiral stairway in the château +at Blois.</p> + +<p>By just what means Da Vinci was inveigled +from Italy will probably never be known. The +art-loving François visited Milan, and among +its curiosities was shown the even then celebrated +"Last Supper" of Leonardo. The +next we know is that, "<i>François repasse les +Alpes ayant avec lui Mon Sieur Lyonard, son +peintre</i>." Leonardo was given a pension of +seven <i>ecus de France</i> per year and a residence +near Amboise. Vasari recounts very precisely +how Leonardo expired in the arms of his kingly +patron at Amboise, but on the other hand, the +court chronicles have said that François was +at St. Germain on that day. Be this as it may, +the intimacy was a close one, and we may be +sure that François felt keenly the demise of this +most celebrated painter of his court.</p> + +<p>It was during those early idyllic days at +Amboise that the character of François was +formed, and the marvel is that the noble and +endearing qualities did not exceed the baser +ones. To be sure his after lot was hard, and +his real and fancied troubles many, and they +were not made the less easy to bear because +of his numerous female advisers.</p> + +<p>In his youth at Amboise his passions still<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">154</a></span> +slumbered, but when they did awaken, they +burst forth with an unquenchable fury. Meantime +he was working off any excess of imagination +by boar-hunts and falconry in the neighbouring +forest of Chanteloup, and had more +than one hand-to-hand affray with resentful +citizens of the town, when he encroached upon +what they considered their traditional preserves. +So he grew to man's estate, but the +life that he lived in his youth under the kingly +roof of the château at Amboise gave him the +benefits of all the loyalty which his fellows +knew, and it helped him carry out the ideas +which were bequeathed to him by his uncle.</p> + +<p>It was at a sitting of the court at Amboise, +when François was still under his mother's +wing,—at the age of twenty only,—that the +Bourbon affair finally came to its head. Many +notables were mixed up in it as partisans of +the ungrateful and ambitious Bourbon, Charles +de Montpensier, Connétable de France. It was +an office only next in power to that of the sovereign +himself, and one which had been allowed +to die out in the reign of Louis XI. The final +outcome of it all was that François became a +prisoner at Pavia, through the treachery of the +Connétable and his followers, who went over<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">155</a></span> +<i>en masse</i> to François's rival, Charles V., who, +as Charles II., was King of Spain.</p> + +<p>Of the subsequent meeting with the Emperor +Charles on French soil, François said to the +Duchesse d'Étampes: "It is with regret that +I leave you to meet the emperor at Amboise +on the Loire." And he added: "You will follow +me with the queen." His queen at this +time was poor Eleanor of Portugal, herself a +Spanish princess, Claude of France, his first +wife, having died. "These two," says Brantôme, +"were the only virtuous women of his +household."</p> + +<p>The Emperor Charles was visibly affected +by the meeting, though, it is true, he had no +love for his old enemy, François. Perhaps it +was on account of the duchess, for whom +François had put aside Diane. At any rate, +the emperor was gallant enough to say to her: +"It is only in France that I have seen such +a perfection of elegance and beauty. My +brother, your king, should be the envy of all +the sovereigns of Europe. Had I such a captive +at my palace in Madrid, there were no +ransom that I would accept for her."</p> + +<p>François cared not for the lonely Spanish +princess whom he had made his queen; but +he was somewhat susceptible to the charms of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">156</a></span> +his daughter-in-law, Catherine de Medici, the +wife of his son Henri, who, when at Amboise, +was his ever ready companion in the chase.</p> + +<p>François was inordinately fond of the hunt, +and made of it a most strenuous pastime, full +of danger and of hard riding in search of the +boar and the wolf, which abounded in the thick +underwood in the neighbourhood. One wonders +where they, or, rather, their descendants, +have disappeared, since nought in these days +but a frightened hare, a partridge, or perhaps +a timid deer ever crosses one's path, as he +makes his way by the smooth roads which cross +and recross the forest behind Amboise.</p> + +<p>When François II. was sixteen he became +the nominal king of France. To Amboise he +and his young bride came, having been brought +thither from Blois, for fear of the Huguenot +rising. The court settled itself forthwith at +Amboise, where the majestic feudal castle piled +itself high up above the broad, limpid Loire, +feeling comparatively secure within the protection +of its walls. Here the Loire had widened +to the pretensions of a lake, the river being +spanned by a bridge, which crossed it by the +help of the island, as it does to-day.</p> + +<p>Over this old stone bridge the court approached +the castle, the retinue brilliant with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">157</a></span> +all the trappings of a luxurious age, archers, +pages, and men-at-arms. The king and his +new-found bride, the winsome Mary Stuart, +rode well in the van. In their train were Catherine, +the "queen-mother" of three kings, the +Cardinal de Lorraine, the Duc de Guise, the +Duc de Nemours, and a vast multitude of gay +retainers, who were moved about from place +to place like pawns upon the chess-board, and +with about as much consideration.</p> + +<p>The gentle Mary Stuart, born in 1542, at +Linlithgow, in stern Caledonia, of a French +mother,—Marie de Lorraine,—was doomed +to misfortune, for her father, the noble +James V., prophesied upon his death-bed that +the dynasty would end with his daughter.</p> + +<p>At the tender age of five Mary was sent to +France and placed in a convent. Her education +was afterward continued at court under the +direction of her uncle, the Cardinal de Lorraine. +By ten she had become well versed in +French, Latin, and Italian, and at one time, +according to Brantôme, she gave a discourse +on literature and the liberal arts—so flourishing +at the time—before the king and his court. +Ronsard was her tutor in versification, which +became one of her favourite pursuits.</p> + +<p>Mary Stuart's charms were many. She was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">158</a></span> +tall and finely formed, with auburn hair shining +like an aureole above her intellectual forehead, +and with a skin of such dazzling whiteness—a +trite saying, but one which is used +by Brantôme—"that it outrivalled the whiteness +of her veil."</p> + +<p>In the spring of 1558, when she was but sixteen, +Mary Stuart was married to the Dauphin, +the weak, sickly François II., himself but a +youth. He was, however, sincerely and deeply +fond of his young wife.</p> + +<p>Unexpectedly, through the death of Henri II. +at the hands of Montgomery at that ever debatable +tournament, François II. ascended the +throne of France, and Mary Stuart saw herself +exalted to the dizzy height which she had not +so soon expected. She became the queen of two +kingdoms, and, had the future been more propitious, +the whole map of Europe might have +been changed.</p> + +<p>Disease had marked the unstable François +for its own, and within a year he passed from +the throne to the grave, leaving his young +queen a widow and an orphan.</p> + +<p>Shortly afterward "<i>la reine blanche</i>" returned +to her native Scotland, bidding France +that long, last, sad adieu so often quoted:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">159</a></span></p> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i3">"Farewell, beloved France, to thee!<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Best native land,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">The cherished strand<br /></span> +<span class="i4">That nursed my tender infancy!<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Farewell my childhood's happy day!<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The bark, which bears me thus away,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Bears but the poorer moiety hence,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The nobler half remains with thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">I leave it to thy confidence,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">But to remind thee still of me!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>The young sovereigns had had a most stately +suite of apartments prepared for them at Amboise, +the lofty windows reaching from floor +to ceiling and overlooking the river and the +vast terrace where was so soon to be enacted +that bloody drama to which they were to be +made unwilling witnesses.</p> + +<p>This gallery was wainscoted with old oak +and hung with rich leathers, and the lofty ceiling +was emblazoned with heraldic emblems and +monograms, as was the fashion of the day. +Brocades and tapestries, set in great gold +frames, lined the walls, and, in a boudoir or +retiring-room beyond, still definitely to be recognized, +was a remarkable series of embroidered +wall decorations, a tapestry of flowers +and fruits with an arabesque border of white +and gold, truly a queenly apartment, and one +that well became the luxurious and dainty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">160</a></span> +Mary, who came from Scotland to marry the +youthful François.</p> + +<p>Mary Stuart knew little at the time as to +why they had so suddenly removed from Blois, +but François soon told her, something after +this wise: "Our mother," said he, "is deeply +concerned with affairs of state. There is some +conspiracy against her and your uncles, the +Guises."</p> + +<p>"Tell me," she demanded, "concerning this +dreadful conspiracy."</p> + +<p>"Were you not suspicious," he asked, querulously, +"when we left for Amboise so suddenly?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Ah, non, mon François</i>, methought that we +came here to hold a jousting tourney and to +hunt in the forest...."</p> + +<p>"Well, at any rate, we are secure here from +Turk, or Jew, or Huguenot, my queen," replied +the king.</p> + +<p>Within a short space a council was called in +the great hall of Amboise, which the Huguenot +chiefs, Condé, Coligny, the Cardinal de Chatillon,—who +appears to have been a sort of a +religious renegade,—were requested to attend. +A conciliatory edict was to be prepared, and +signed by the king, as a measure for gaining<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">161</a></span> +time and learning further the plans of the conspirators.</p> + +<p>This edict ultimately was signed, but it was +in force but a short time and was a subterfuge +which the youthful king deep in his heart—and +he publicly avowed the fact—deeply resented. +Furthermore it did practically nothing +toward quelling the conspiracy.</p> + +<p>Through the plains of Touraine and over +the hills from Anjou the conspirators came in +straggling bands, to rendezvous for a great +<i>coup de main</i> at Amboise. They halted at +farms and hid in vineyards, but the royalists +were on the watch and one after another the +wandering bands were captured and held for +a bloody public massacre when the time should +become ripe. In all, two thousand or more +were captured, including Jean Barri de la +Renaudie. This man was the leader, but he +was merely a bold adventurer, seeking his own +advantage, and caring little what cause employed +his peculiar talents. This was his last +affair, however, for his corpse soon hung in +chains from Amboise's bridge. Condé, Coligny, +and the other Calvinists soon learned that +the edict was not worth the paper on which it +was written.</p> + +<p>After the two thousand had been dispersed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">162</a></span> +or captured the "queen-mother" threw off +the mask. She led the trembling child-king +and queen toward the southern terrace, where, +close beneath the windows of the château, was +built a scaffold, covered with black cloth, before +which stood the executioner clothed in +scarlet. The prisoners were ranged by hundreds +along the outer rampart, guarded by +archers and musketeers. The windows of the +royal apartment were open and here the company +placed themselves to witness the butchery +to follow.</p> + +<p>Speechless with horror sat the young king +and queen, until finally, as another batch of +mutilated corpses were thrown into the river +below, the young queen swooned.</p> + +<p>"My mother," said François, "I, too, am +overcome by this horrible sight. I crave your +Highness's permission to retire; the blood of +my subjects, even of my enemies, is too horrible +to contemplate."</p> + +<p>"My son," said the bloodthirsty Catherine, +"I command you to stay. Duc de Guise, support +your niece, the Queen of France. Teach +her her duty as a sovereign. She must learn +how to govern those hardy Scots of hers."</p> + +<p>It was on the very terraced platform on +which one walks to-day that, between two ranks<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">163</a></span> +of <i>hallebardiers</i> and arquebusiers, moved that +long line of bareheaded and bowed men whose +prayers went up to heaven while they awaited +the fate of the gallows.</p> + +<p>Either the cord or the sword-blade quickly +accounted for the lives of this multitude, and +their blood flowed in rivulets, while above in +the gallery the willing and unwilling onlookers +were gay with laughter or dumb with sadness.</p> + +<p>When all this horrible murdering was over +the Loire was literally a reeking mass of +corpses, if we are to believe the records of the +time. The chief conspirators were hung in +chains from the castle walls, or from the +bridge, and the balustrades which overhang +the street, which to-day flanks the Loire beneath +the castle walls, were filled with a ribald +crew of jeering partisans who knew little and +cared less for religion of any sort.</p> + +<p>Some days after the execution of the Calvinists +the "Protestant poet" and historian +passed through the royal city with his <i>précepteur</i> +and his father, and was shown the rows +of heads planted upon pikes, which decorated +the castle walls, and thereupon vowed, if not +to avenge, at least to perpetuate the infamy +in prose and verse, and this he did most effectually.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">164</a></span></p> + +<p>An odorous garden of roses, lilacs, honeysuckle, +and hawthorn framed the joyous architecture +of the château, then as now, in adorable +fashion; but it could not purify the malodorous +reputation which it had received until +the domain was ceded by Louis XIV. to the +Duc de Penthièvre and made a <i>duché-pairie</i>.</p> + +<p>It would be possible to say much more, but +this should suffice to stamp indelibly the fact +that Touraine, in general, and the château of +Amboise, in particular, cradled as much of the +thought and action of the monarchy in the fifteenth +and sixteenth centuries as did the capital +itself. At any rate the memory of it all is +so vivid, and the tangible monuments of the +splendour and intrigue of the court of those +days are so very numerous and magnificent, +that one could not forget the parts they played—once +having seen them—if he would.</p> + +<p>After the assassination of the Duc de Guise +at Blois, Amboise became a prison of state, +where were confined the Cardinal de Bourbon +and César de Vendôme (the sons of Henri IV. +and Gabrielle d'Estrées), also Fouquet and +Lauzun. In 1762 the château was given by +Louis XV. to the Duc de Choiseul, and the great +Napoleon turned it over to his ancient colleague, +Roger Ducos, who apparently cared<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">165</a></span> +little for its beauties or associations, for he +mutilated it outrageously.</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus215_small.jpg" alt="Sculpture from the Chapelle de St. Hubert" title="Sculpture from the Chapelle de St. Hubert" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus215.jpg"><i>Sculpture from the Chapelle de St. Hubert</i></a></div> +</div> + + +<p>In later times the history of the château +and its dependencies has been more prosaic. +The Emir Abd-el-Kader was imprisoned here +in 1852, and Louis Napoleon stayed for a time +within its walls upon his return from the +south. To-day it belongs to the family of Orleans, +to whom it was given by the National +Assembly in 1872, and has become a house of +retreat for military veterans. This is due to +the generosity of the Duc d'Aumale into whose +hands it has since passed. The restoration +which has been carried on has made of Amboise +an ideal reproduction of what it once was, +and in every way it is one of the most splendid +and famous châteaux of its kind, though by no +means as lovable as the residential châteaux +of Chenonceaux or Langeais.</p> + +<p>The Chapelle de St. Hubert, which was restored +by Louis Philippe, is the chief artistic +attraction of Amboise; a bijou of full-blown +Gothic. It is a veritable architectural joy of +the period of Charles VIII., to whom its erection +was due. Its portal has an adorable bas-relief, +representing "La Chasse de St. Hubert," +and showing St. Hubert, St. Christopher, +and St. Anthony, while above, in the tym<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">166</a></span>panum, +are effigies of the Virgin, of Charles +VIII., and of Anne de Bretagne. The sculpture +is, however, comparatively modern, but it +embellishes a shrine worthy in every way, for +there repose the bones of Leonardo da Vinci. +Formerly Da Vinci's remains had rested in the +chapel of the château itself, dedicated to St. +Florentin.</p> + +<p>Often the Chapelle de St. Hubert has been +confounded with that described by Scott in +"Quentin Durward," but it is manifestly not +the same, as that was located in Tours or near +there, and his very words describe the architecture +as "of the rudest and meanest kind," +which this is not. Over the arched doorway +of the chapel at Tours there was, however, a +"statue of St. Hubert with a bugle-horn +around his neck and a leash of greyhounds at +his feet," which may have been an early suggestion +of the later work which was undertaken +at Amboise.</p> + +<p>All vocations came to have their protecting +saints in the middle ages, and, since "<i>la +chasse</i>" was the great recreation of so many, +distinction was bestowed upon Hubert as being +one of the most devout. The legend is sufficiently +familiar not to need recounting here, +and, anyway, the story is plainly told in this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">167</a></span> +sculptured panel over the portal of the chapel +at Amboise.</p> + +<p>In this Chapel of St. Hubert was formerly +held "that which was called a hunting-mass. +The office was only used before the noble and +powerful, who, while assisting at the solemnity, +were usually impatient to commence their +favourite sport."</p> + +<p>The ancient Salle des Gardes of the château, +with the windows giving on the balcony overlooking +the river, became later the Logis du +Roi. From this great chamber one passes on to +the terrace near the foot of the Grosse Tour, +called the Tour des Minimes. It is this tower +which contains the "<i>escalier des voitures</i>." +The entrance is through an elegant portico +leading to the upper stories. Above another +portico, leading from the terrace to the garden, +is to be seen the emblem of Louis XII., the porcupine, +so common at Blois.</p> + +<p>In the fosse, which still remains on the garden +side, was the universally installed <i>jeu-de-paume</i>, +a favourite amusement throughout the +courts of Europe in the middle ages.</p> + +<p>At the base of the château are clustered numerous +old houses of the sixteenth century, +but on the river-front these have been replaced<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">168</a></span> +with pretentious houses, cafés, automobile garages, +and other modern buildings.</p> + +<p>Near the Quai des Violettes are a series of +subterranean chambers known as the Greniers +de César, dating from the sixteenth century.</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus220_small.jpg" alt="Cipher of Anne de Bretagne, Hôtel de Ville, Amboise" title="Cipher of Anne de Bretagne, Hôtel de Ville, Amboise" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus220.jpg"><i>Cipher of Anne de Bretagne, Hôtel de Ville, Amboise</i></a></div> +</div> + +<p>Even at this late day one can almost picture +the great characters in the drama of other +times who stalked majestically through the +apartments, and over the very flagstones of the +courts and terraces which one treads to-day; +Catherine de Medici with her ruffs and velvets; +Henri de Guise with all his wiles; Condé the +proud; the second François, youthful but wise; +his girl queen, loving and sad; and myriads +more of all ranks and of all shades of morality,—all +resplendent in the velvets and gold of +the costume of their time.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">169</a></span></p> + +<p>Near the château is the Clos Luce, a Gothic +habitation in whose oratory died Leonardo da +Vinci, on May 2, 1519.</p> + +<p>Immediately back of the château is the Forêt +d'Amboise, the scene of many gay hunting +parties when the court was here or at Chenonceaux, +which one reaches by traversing the +forest route. On the edge of this forest is +Chanteloup, remembered by most folk on account +of its atrocious Chinese-like pagoda, +built of the débris of the Château de la Bourdaisière, +by the Duc de Choiseul, in memory +of the attentions he received from the nobles +and bourgeois of the ville upon the fall of his +ministry and his disgrace at the hands of +Louis XV. and La Du Barry. It is a curious +form to be chosen when one had such beautiful +examples of architectural art near by, only +equalled, perhaps, in atrociousness by the +"Royal Pavilion" of England's George IV.</p> + +<p>La Bourdaisière, near Amboise, of which +only the site remains, if not one of the chief +tourist attractions of the château country, has +at least a sentimental interest of abounding +importance for all who recall the details of the +life of "La Belle Gabrielle."</p> + +<p>Here in Touraine Gabrielle d'Estrées was +born in 1565. She was twenty-six years old<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">170</a></span> +when Henri IV. first saw her in the château +of her father at Cœuvres. So charmed was he +with her graces that he made her his <i>maîtresse</i> +forthwith, though the old court-life chronicles +of the day state that she already possessed +something more than the admiration of Sebastian +Zamet, the celebrated financier.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">171</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2>CHAPTER VIII.<span class="pagenum"><a href="#Contents">To ToC</a></span></h2> + +<h4>CHENONCEAUX</h4> + +<div class="epi">"The castle of Chenonceaux is a fine place on the river +Cher, in a fine and pleasant country." <br /> + +<span class="smcapright">François Premier</span>. +</div> + +<div class="epi">"The castle of Chenonceaux is one of the best and most +beautiful of our kingdom."<br /> + + +<span class="smcap">Henri II.</span> +</div> + + +<p>The average visitor will come prepared to +worship and admire a château so praised by +two luxury-loving Kings of France.</p> + +<p>Chenonceaux is noted chiefly for its château, +but the little village itself is charming. The +houses of the village are not very new, nor +very old, but the one long street is most attractive +throughout its length, and the whole +atmosphere of the place, from September to +December, is odorous with the perfume of red-purple +grapes. The vintage is not the equal +of that of the Bordeaux region, perhaps, nor +of Chinon, nor Saumur; but the <i>vin du pays</i> +of the Cher and the Loire, around Tours, is not +to be despised.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">172</a></span></p> + +<p>Most tourists come to Chenonceaux by train +from Tours; others drive over from Amboise, +and yet others come by bicycle or automobile. +They are not as yet so numerous as might be +expected, and accordingly here, as elsewhere +in Touraine, every facility is given for visiting +the château and its park.</p> + +<p>If you do not hurry off at once to worship +at the abode of the fascinating Diane, one of +the brightest ornaments of the court of François +Premier and his son Henri, you will enjoy +your dinner at the Hôtel du Bon Laboureur, +though most likely it will be a solitary one, and +you will be put to bed in a great chamber overlooking +the park, through which peep, in the +moonlight, the turrets of the château, and you +may hear the purling of the waters of the Cher +as it flows below the walls.</p> + +<p>Jean Jacques Rousseau, like François I., +called Chenonceaux a beautiful place, and he +was right; it is all of that and more. Here +one comes into direct contact with an atmosphere +which, if not feudal, or even mediæval, +is at least that of several hundred years +ago.</p> + +<p>Chenonceaux is moored like a ship in the +middle of the rapidly running Cher, a dozen +miles or more above where that stream enters<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">173</a></span> +the Loire. As a matter of fact, the château +practically bridges the river, which flows under +its foundations and beneath its drawbridge on +either side, besides filling the moat with water. +The general effect is as if the building were +set in the midst of the stream and formed a +sort of island château. Round about is a gentle +meadow and a great park, which give to +this turreted architectural gem of Touraine +a setting which is equalled by no other château.</p> + +<p>What the château was in former days we +can readily imagine, for nothing is changed +as to the general disposition. Boats came to +the water-gate, as they still might do if such +boats still existed, in true, pictorial legendary +fashion. To-day, the present occupant has +placed a curiosity on the ornamental waters +in the shape of a gondola. It is out of keeping +with the grand fabric of the château, and it +is a pity that it does not cast itself adrift some +night. What has become of the gondolier, who +was imported to keep the craft company, nobody +seems to know. He is certainly not in +evidence, or, if he is, has transformed himself +into a groom or a <i>chauffeur</i>.</p> + +<p>The Château of Chenonceaux is not a very +ample structure; not so ample as most photo<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">174</a></span>graphs +would make it appear. It is not tiny, +but still it has not the magnificent proportions +of Blois, of Chambord, or even of Langeais. +It was more a habitation than it was a fortress, +a <i>maison de campagne</i>, as indeed it virtually +became when the Connétable de Montmorency +took possession of the structure in +the name of the king, when its builder, Thomas +Bohier, the none too astute minister of finances +in Normandy, came to grief in his affairs.</p> + +<p>François I. came frequently here for "<i>la +chasse</i>," and his memory is still kept alive by +the Chambre François Premier. François held +possession till his death, when his son made +it over to the "admired of two generations," +Diane de Poitiers.</p> + +<p>Diane's memory will never leave Chenonceaux. +To-day it is perpetuated in the Chambre +de Diane de Poitiers; but the portrait by +Leonardo da Vinci, which was supposed to best +show her charms, has now disappeared from +the "long gallery" at the château. This portrait +was painted at the command of François, +before Diane transferred her affections to his +son.</p> + +<p>No one knows when or how Diane de Poitiers +first came to fascinate François, or how or +why her power waned. At any rate, at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">175</a></span> +time François pardoned her father, the witless +Comte de St. Vallier, for the treacherous part +he played in the Bourbon conspiracy, he really +believed her to be the "brightest ornament of +a beauty-loving court."</p> + +<p>Certainly, Diane was a powerful factor in the +politics of her time, though François himself +soon tired of her. Undaunted by this, she +forthwith set her cap for his son Henri, the +Duc d'Orleans, and won him, too. Of her +beauty the present generation is able to +judge for itself by reason of the three well-known +and excellent portraits of contemporary +times.</p> + +<p>Diane's influence over the young Henri was +absolute. At his death her power was, of +course, at an end, and Chenonceaux, and all else +possible, was taken from her by the orders of +Catherine, the long-suffering wife, who had +been put aside for the fascinations of the +charming huntress.</p> + +<p>It must have been some satisfaction, however, +to Diane, to know that, in his fatal joust +with Montgomery, Henri really broke his lance +and met his death in her honour, for the records +tell that he bore her colours on his lance, besides +her initials set in gold and gems on his +shield.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">176</a></span></p> + +<p>Catherine's eagerness to drive Diane from +the court was so great, that no sooner had her +spouse fallen—even though he did not actually +die for some days—than she sent word to +Diane, "who sat weeping alone," to instantly +quit the court; to give up the crown jewels—which +Henri had somewhat inconsiderately +given her; and to "give up Chenonceaux in +Touraine," Catherine's Naboth's vineyard, +which she had so long admired and coveted. +She had known it as a girl, when she often +visited it in company with her father-in-law, +the appreciative but dissolute François, and +had ever longed to possess it for her own, +before even her husband, now dead, had given +it to "that old hag Diane de Poitiers, Duchesse +de Valentinois."</p> + +<p>Diane paid no heed to Catherine's command. +She simply asked: "Is the king yet +dead?"</p> + +<p>"No, madame," said the messenger, "but +his wound is mortal; he cannot live the day."</p> + +<p>"Tell the queen, then," replied Diane, "that +her reign is not yet come; that I am mistress +still over her and the kingdom as long as the +king breathes the breath of life."</p> + +<p>Henri was more or less an equivocal character, +devoted to Diane, and likewise fond<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">177</a></span>one +says it with caution—of his wife. He +caused to be fashioned a monogram (seen at +Chenonceaux) after this wise:</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus229_small.jpg" alt="Monogram" title="Monogram" /> +</div> + +<p>supposedly indicating his attachment for Diane +and his wife alike. The various initials of the +cipher are in no way involved. Diane returned +the compliment by decorating an apartment for +the king, at her Château of Anet, with the black +and white of the Medici arms.</p> + +<p>The Château of Chenonceaux, so greatly coveted +by Catherine when she first came to +France, and when it was in the possession of +Diane, still remains in all the regal splendour +of its past. It lies in the lovely valley of the +Cher, far from the rush and turmoil of cities +and even the continuous traffic of great thoroughfares, +for it is on the road to nowhere +unless one is journeying cross-country from +the lower to the upper Loire. This very isolation +resulted in its being one of the few monuments +spared from the furies of the Revolution, +and, "half-palace and half-château," it glistens<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">178</a></span> +with the purity of its former glory, as picturesque +as ever, with turrets, spires, and roof-tops +all mellowed with the ages in a most entrancing +manner.</p> + +<p>Even to-day one enters the precincts of the +château proper over a drawbridge which spans +an arm of the Loire, or rather, a moat which +leads directly from the parent stream. On the +opposite side are the bridge piers supporting +five arches, the work of Diane when she was +the fair chatelaine of the domain. This ingenious +thought proved to be a most useful and +artistic addition to the château. It formed a +flagged promenade, lovely in itself, and led to +the southern bank of the Cher, whence one +got charming vistas of the turrets and roof-tops +of the château through the trees and the +leafy avenues which converged upon the structure.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<a href="images/illus231.jpg"> +<img src="images/illus231_small.jpg" alt="Château de Chenonceaux" title="Château de Chenonceaux" /> +</a> +</div> + + + +<p>When Catherine came she did not disdain +to make the best use of Diane's innovation that +suggested itself to her, which was simply to +build the "Long Gallery" over the arches of +this lovely bridge, and so make of it a veritable +house over the water. A covering was made +quite as beautiful as the rest of the structure, +and thus the bridge formed a spacious wing +of two stories. The first floor—known as the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">179</a></span> +"Long Gallery"—was intended as a banqueting-hall, +and possessed four great full-length +windows on either side looking up and down +stream, from which was seen—and is to-day—an +outlook as magnificently idyllic as is possible +to conceive. Jean Goujon had designed +for the ceiling one of those wonder-works for +which he was famous, but if the complete plan +was ever carried out, it has disappeared, for +only a tiny sketch of the whole scheme remains +to-day.</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus233_small.jpg" alt="Château of Checonceaux (Diagram)" title="Château of Checonceaux (Diagram)" /> +</div> + + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">180</a></span>Catherine came in the early summer to take +possession of her long-coveted domain. Being +a skilful horsewoman, she came on horseback, +accompanied by a "<i>petite bande</i>" of feminine +charmers destined to wheedle political secrets +from friends and enemies alike,—a real "<i>escadron +volant de la reine</i>," as it was called by +a contemporary.</p> + +<p>It was a gallant company that assembled here +at this time,—the young King Charles IX., +the Duc de Guise, and "two cardinals mounted +on mules,"—Lorraine, a true Guise, and +D'Este, newly arrived from Italy, and accompanied +by the poet Tasso, wearing a "gabardine +and a hood of satin." Catherine showed +the Italian great favour, as was due a countryman, +but there was another poet among them +as well, Ronsard, the poet laureate of the time. +The Duc de Guise had followed in the wake +of Marguerite, unbeknownst to Catherine, who +frowned down any possibility of an alliance +between the houses of Valois and Lorraine.</p> + +<p>A great fête and water-masque had been +arranged by Catherine to take place on the +Cher, with a banquet to follow in the Long +Gallery in honour of her arrival at Chenonceaux.</p> + +<p>When twilight had fallen, torches were ig<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">181</a></span>nited +and myriads of lights blazed forth from +the boats on the river and from the windows +of the château. Music and song went forth +into the night, and all was as gay and lovely +as a Venetian night's entertainment. The +hunting-horns echoed through the wooded +banks, and through the arches above which +the château was built passed great highly +coloured barges, including a fleet of gondolas +to remind the queen-mother of her Italian days,—the +ancestors perhaps of the solitary gondola +which to-day floats idly by the river-bank +just before the grand entrance to the château. +From <i>parterre</i> and <i>balustrade</i>, and from the +clipped yews of the ornamental garden, fairy +lamps burned forth and dwindled away into +dim infinity, as the long lines of soft light gradually +lost themselves in the forest. It was a +grand affair and idyllic in its unworldliness. +One may not see its like to-day, for electric +lights and "rag-time" music, which mostly +comprise the attractions of such <i>al fresco</i> pleasures, +will hardly produce the same effect.</p> + +<p>Among the great fêtes at Chenonceaux will +always be recalled that given by the court upon +the coming of the youthful François II. and +Mary Stuart, after the horrible massacres at +Amboise.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">182</a></span></p> + +<p>All the Renaissance skill of the time was +employed in the erection of pompous accessories, +triumphal arches, columns, obelisks, and +altars. There were innumerable tablets also, +bearing inscriptions in Latin and Greek,—which +nobody read,—and a fountain which +bore the following:</p> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i3">"Au saint bal des dryades,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">A Phœbus, ce grand dieu,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Aux humides nyades,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">J'ai consacré ce lieu."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>Of Chenonceaux and its glories what more +can be said than to quote the following lines +of the middle ages, which in their quaint old +French apply to-day as much as ever they did:</p> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i3">"Basti si magnifiquement<br /></span> +<span class="i4">II est debout, comme un géant,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Dedans le lit de la rivière,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">C'est-à-dire dessus un pont<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Qui porte cent toises de long."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>The part of the edifice which Bohier erected +in 1515 is that through which the visitor makes +his entrance, and is built upon the piers of an +old mill which was destroyed at that time.</p> + +<p>Catherine bequeathed Chenonceaux to the +wife of Henri III., Louise de Vaudémont, who +died here in 1601. For a hundred years it still +belonged to royalty, but in 1730 it was sold to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">183</a></span> +M. Dupin, who, with his wife, enriched and +repaired the fabric. They gathered around +them a company so famous as to be memorable +in the annals of art and literature. This is +best shown by the citing of such names as Fontenelle, +Montesquieu, Buffon, Bolingbroke, Voltaire, +and Rousseau, all of whom were frequenters +of the establishment, the latter being +charged with the education of the only son of +M. and Madame Dupin.</p> + +<p>Considering Rousseau's once proud position +among his contemporaries, and the favour with +which he was received by the nobility, it is +somewhat surprising that his struggle for life +was so hard. The Marquise de Créquy wrote +in her "Souvenirs:" "Rousseau left behind +him his <i>Mémoires</i>, which I think for the sake of +his memory and fame ought to be much curtailed." +And undoubtedly she was right. Rousseau +wrote in his "Confessions:" "In 1747 +we went to spend the autumn in Touraine, at +the Château of Chenonceaux, a royal residence +upon the Cher, built by Henri II. for Diane de +Poitiers, whose initials are still to be seen +there.... We amused ourselves greatly in +this fine spot; the living was of the best, and +I became fat as a monk. We made a great deal +of music and acted comedies."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">184</a></span></p> + +<p>One might imagine, from a stroll through the +magnificent halls and galleries of Chenonceaux, +that Rousseau's experiences might be repeated +to-day if one were fortunate enough to be asked +to sojourn there for a time. The nearest that +one can get, however, to becoming personally +identified with the château and its life is to sign +his name in the great vellum quarto which ultimately +will rest in the archives of the château.</p> + +<p>It is doubtless very wrong to be covetous; +but Chenonceaux is such a beautiful place and +comes so near the ideal habitation of our imagination +that the desire to possess it for one's +own is but human.</p> + +<p>In the "Galerie Louis XIV." were given the +first representations of many of Rousseau's +pieces.</p> + +<p>One gathers from these accounts of the happenings +in the Long Gallery that it formed no +bridge of sighs, and most certainly it did not. +Its walls resounded almost continually with +music and laughter. Here in these rooms +Henri II. danced and made love and intrigued, +while Catherine, his queen, was left at Blois +with her astrologer and his poisons, to eat out +her soul in comparative neglect.</p> + +<p>Before the time of the dwelling built by +Bohier for himself and family on the founda<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">185</a></span>tions +of the old mill, there was yet a manorhouse +belonging to the ancient family of +Marques, from whom the Norman financier +bought the site. The tower, seen to-day at the +right of the entrance to the château proper,—an +expressive relic of feudal times,—was a +part of the earlier establishment. To-day it +is turned into a sort of <i>kiosque</i> for the sale +of photographs, post-cards, and an admirable +illustrated guide to the château.</p> + +<p>The interior of the château to-day presents +the following remarkable features: The dining-room +of to-day, formerly the Salle des Gardes, +has a ceiling in which the cipher of Catherine +de Medici is interwoven with an arabesque. To +the left of this apartment is the entrance to +the chapel, which to-day seems a bit incongruously +placed, leading as it does from the dining-room. +It is but a tiny chapel, but it is as gay +and brilliant as if it were still the adjunct of a +luxury-loving court, and it has some glass dating +from 1521, which, if not remarkable for +design or colouring, is quite choice enough to +rank as an art treasure of real value.</p> + +<p>According to Viollet-le-Duc each feudal seigneur +had attached to his château a chapel, +often served by a private chaplain, and in some +instances by an entire chapter of prelates.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">186</a></span> +These chapels were not simple oratories surrounded +by the domestic apartments, but were +architectural monuments in themselves, and +either entirely isolated, as at Amboise, or semi-detached, +as at Chenonceaux.</p> + +<p>Below, in the sub-basement, at Chenonceaux, +are the original foundations upon which Bohier +laid his first stones. Here, too, are various +chambers, known respectively as the prison, +the Bains de la Reine, the <i>boulangerie</i>, etc.</p> + +<p>Chenonceaux to-day is no whited sepulchre. +It is a real living and livable thing, and, moreover, +when one visits it, he observes that the +family burn great logs in their fireplaces, have +luxurious bouquets of flowers on their dining-table, +and use great wax candles instead of the +more prosaic oil-lamps, or worse—acetylene +gas. Chenonceaux evidently has no thoughts +of descending to steam heat and electricity.</p> + +<p>All this is as it should be, for when one visits +a shrine like this he prefers to find it with as +much as possible of the old-time atmosphere +remaining. Chambord is bare and suggestive +of the tomb, in spite of the splendour of its +outline and proportions; Pierrefonds, in the +north, is more so, and so would be Blois except +for its restored or imitation decorations; but +here at Chenonceaux all is different, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">187</a></span> +breathes the spirit of other days as well as +that of to-day. It is, perhaps, not exactly as +Diane left it, or as Rousseau knew it under +the régime of the Dupins, since, after many +changings of hands, it became the property of +the <i>Crédit Foncier</i>, by whom it was sold in 1891 +to Mr. Terry, an American.</p> + +<p>Chenonceaux has two other architectural +monuments which are often overlooked under +the spell of the more magnificent château. In +the village is a small Renaissance church—in +which the Renaissance never rose to any very +great heights—which is here far more effective +and beautiful than usually are Renaissance +churches of any magnitude. There is also a +sixteenth-century stone house in the same style +and even more successful as an expression of +the art of the time. It is readily found by +inquiry, and is known as the "Maison des +Pages de François I."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">188</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2>CHAPTER IX.<span class="pagenum"><a href="#Contents">To ToC</a></span></h2> + +<h4>LOCHES</h4> + + +<p>Much may be written of Loches, of its storied +past, of its present-day quaintness, and of its +wealth of architectural monuments. Its church +is certainly the most curious religious edifice +in all France, judging from a cross-section of +the vaults and walls. More than all else, however, +Loches is associated in our minds with +the memory of Agnes Sorel.</p> + +<p>Within the walls of the old collegiate church +the lovely mistress of Charles VII. was buried +in 1450; but later her remains and tomb were +removed to one of the towers of the ancient +castle of Loches, where they now are. She had +amply endowed the church, but they would no +longer give shelter to her remains, so her bones +were removed five hundred years later. The +statue which surmounts her tomb, as seen to-day, +represents the "gentille Agnes" in all +her loveliness, with folded hands on breast, a +kneeling angel at her head and a couchant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">189</a></span> +lamb at her feet,—a reminder of her innocence, +said Henry James, but surely he nodded +when he said it. Lovely she was, and good in +her way, but innocent she was not, as we have +come to know the word.</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus243_small.jpg" alt="Loches" title="Loches" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus243.jpg"><i>Loches</i></a></div> +</div> + + + + +<p>It is fitting to recall that Charles VII. was +not the only monarch who sang her praises, for +it was François I. who, many years later, wrote +those lines beginning:</p> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Gentille Agnes, plus de loz tu mérites."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>Whether one comes to Loches by road or by +rail, the first impression is the same; he enters +at once into a sleepy, old-world town which +has practically nothing of modernity about it +except the electric lights.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">190</a></span></p> + +<p>There is but one way to realize the immense +wealth of architectural monuments centred at +Loches, and that is to see the city for the first +time, as, perhaps, François Premier saw it +when he journeyed from Amboise, and came +upon it from the heights of the forest of +Loches. The city has not grown much since +that day. Then it had three thousand eight +hundred souls, and now it has five thousand.</p> + +<p>Here, in the Forêt de Loches, Henry II. of +England built a monastery,—yet to be seen,—known +as the Chartreuse du Liget, in repentance, +or, perhaps, as a penance for the murder +of Becket. Over the doorway of this monastery +was graven:</p> + +<div class="smcapcent"> +ANGLORUM HENRICUS REX<br /> +THOMÆ CŒDE CRUENTUS,<br /> +LIGETICOS FUNDAT CARTUSIA MONAKOS. +</div> + +<p>To-day the monastery is the property of a +M. de Marsay, and therefore not open to the +public; but the Chapelle du Liget, near by, is a +fine contemporary church of the thirteenth century, +well worth the admiration too infrequently +bestowed upon it.</p> + +<p>The first view of Loches must really be much +as it was in François's time, except, perhaps, +that the roadway down from the forest has +improved, as roads have all over France, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">191</a></span> +fruit-trees and vineyards planted out, which, +however, in no way change the aspect when the +town is first seen in the dim haze of an early +November morning.</p> + +<p>It is the sky-line <i>ensemble</i> of the châteaux of +the Renaissance period which is their most +varied feature. No two are alike, and yet they +are all wonderfully similar in that they cut the +sky with turret, tower, and chimney in a way +which suggests nothing as much as the architecture +of fairy-land.</p> + +<p>The artists who illustrated the old fairy-tale +books and drew castles wherein dwelt beautiful +maidens could nowhere have found more real +inspiration than among the châteaux of the +Loire, the Cher, and the Indre.</p> + +<p>Loches is a veritable mediæval town, and it +is even more than that, for its history dates +back into the earliest years of feudal times. +Loches is one of those <i>soi-disant</i> French towns +not great enough to be a metropolis, and yet +quite indifferent to the affairs of the outside +world.</p> + +<p>The only false notes are those sounded by the +various hawkers and cadgers for the visitor's +money, who have hired various old mediæval +structures, within the walls, and assure one +that in the basement of their establishment<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">192</a></span> +there are fragments "recently discovered,"—this +in English,—quite worth the price of admission +which they charge you to peer about +in a gloomy hole of a cellar, littered with empty +wine-bottles and rubbish of all sorts.</p> + +<p>All this is delightful enough to the simon-pure +antiquarian; but even he likes to dig +things out for himself, and the householders +can't all expect to find <i>cachots</i> in their sub-cellars +or iron cages in their garrets unless they +manufacture them.</p> + +<p>The old town, in spite of its lack of modernity, +is full of surprises and contrasts that must +make it very livable to one who cares to spend +a winter within its walls. He may walk about +on the ramparts on sunny days; may fish in the +Indre, below the mill; and, if he is an artist, he +will find, within a comparatively small area, +much more that is exceedingly "paintable" +than is usually found in the fishing-villages of +Brittany or on the sand-dunes of the Pas de +Calais, "artist's sketching-grounds" which +have been pretty well worked of late.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/illus247_small.jpg" alt="Loches and Its Church" title="Loches and Its Church" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus247.jpg"><i>Loches and Its Church</i></a></div> +</div> + + + + +<p>The history of Loches is so varied and vivid +that it is easy to account for the many remains +of feudal and Renaissance days now existing. +The derivation of its name is in some doubt. +Loches was unquestionably the Luccæ of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">193</a></span> +Romans, but the Armorican Celts had the word +<i>loc'h</i>, meaning much the same thing,—<i>un +marais</i>,—which is also wonderfully like the +<i>loch</i> known to-day in the place-names of Scotland +and the <i>lough</i> of Ireland. Partisans may +take their choice.</p> + +<p>In the fifth century a monastery was founded +here by St. Ours, which ultimately gave its +name to the collegiate church which exists to-day. +A château, or more probably a fortress, +appeared in the sixth century. The city was +occupied by the Franks in the seventh century, +but by 630 it had become united with Aquitaine. +Pepin sacked it in 742, and Charles le Chauve +made it a seat of a hereditary government +which, by alliance, passed to the house of Anjou +in 886, to whom it belonged up to 1205. +Jean-sans-Terre gave it to France in 1193. +Richard Cœur de Lion apparently resented +this, for he retook it in the year following. In +1204, Philippe-Auguste besieged Chinon and +Loches simultaneously, and took the latter +after a year, when he made it a fief, and gave it +to Dreux de Mello, Constable of France, who +in turn sold it to St. Louis.</p> + +<p>The château of Loches became first a fortress, +guarding the ancient Roman highway +from the Blaisois to Aquitaine, then a prison,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">194</a></span> +and then a royal residence, to which Charles +VII. frequently repaired with Agnes Sorel, +which calls up again the strangely contrasting +influences of the two women whose names have +gone down in history linked with that of +Charles VII.</p> + +<p>"Louis XI. aggrandized the château," says +a French authority, "and perfected the prisons," +whatever that may mean. He did, we +know, build those terrible dungeons far down +below the surface of the ground, where daylight +never penetrated. They were perfect enough +in all conscience as originally built, at least as +perfect as the celebrated iron cage in which he +imprisoned Cardinal Balue. The cage is not in +its wonted place to-day, and only a ring in the +wall indicates where it was once made fast.</p> + +<p>Charles VIII. added the great round tower; +but it was not completed until the reign of +Louis XII. François I., in a not too friendly +meeting, received Charles Quint here in 1539, +just previous to his visit to Amboise. Marie de +Medici, on escaping from Blois, stopped at the +château at the invitation of the governor, the +Duc d'Epernon, who sped her on her way, as +joyfully as possible, to Angoulême.</p> + +<p>The château itself is the chief attraction of +interest, just as it is the chief feature of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">195</a></span> +landscape when viewed from afar. Of course +it is understood that, when one speaks of the +château at Loches, he refers to the collective +châteaux which, in more or less fragmentary +form, go to make up the edifice as it is to-day.</p> + +<p>Whether we admire most the structure of +Geoffrey Grise-Gonelle, the elegant edifice of +the fifteenth century, or the additions of +Charles VII., Louis XI., Charles VIII., Louis +XII., or Henri III., we must conclude that to +know this conglomerate structure intimately +one must actually live with it. Nowhere in +France—perhaps in no country—is there a +château that suggests so stupendously the story +of its past.</p> + +<p>The chief and most remarkable features are +undoubtedly the great rectangular keep or donjon, +and the Tour Neuf or Tour Ronde. The +first, in its immensity, quite rivals the best +examples of the kind elsewhere, if it does not +actually excel them in dimensions. It is, moreover, +according to De Caumont, the most beautiful +of all the donjons of France. As a state +prison it confined Jean, Duc d'Alençon, Pierre +de Brézé, and Philippe de Savoie.</p> + +<p>The Tour Ronde is a great cylinder flanked +with dependencies which give it a more or less +irregular form. It encloses the prison where<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">196</a></span> +were formerly kept the famous cages, the invention +of Cardinal Balue, who himself became +their first victim. The Tour Ronde is reminiscent +of two great female figures in the mediæval +portrait gallery,—Agnes Sorel and Anne +de Bretagne. The tomb of Agnes Sorel is here, +and the Duchesse Anne made an oratory in this +grim tower, from which she sent up her prayer +for the success and unity of the political plans +which inspired her marriage into the royal +family of France. It is a daintily decorated +chamber, with the queen's family device, the +ermine with its twisted necklet, prominently +displayed.</p> + +<p>In the passage which conducts to the dungeons +of this great round tower, one reads this +ironical invitation: "<i>Entrés, messieurs, ches le +Roy Nostre Mestre</i>" (<i>O.F.</i>).</p> + +<p>That portion of the collective châteaux facing +to the north is now occupied by the Sous-Préfecture, +and is more after the manner of +the residential châteaux of the Loire than of +a fortress-stronghold or prison. Before this +portion stands the famous chestnut-tree, +planted, it is said, by François I., "and large +enough to shelter the whole population of +Loches beneath its foliage," says the same +doubtful authority.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">197</a></span></p> + +<p>Under a fifteenth-century structure, called +the Martelet, are the true dungeons of Loches. +Here one is shown the cell occupied for nine +years by the poor Ludovic Sforza, who died +in 1510, from the mere joy of being liberated. +More deeply hidden still is the famous Prison +des Évêques of the era of François I. and the +dungeon of Comte de St. Vallier, the father of +the fascinating Diane, who herself was the +means of securing his liberation by "fascinating +the king," as one French writer puts it. +This may be so. St. Vallier <i>was</i> liberated, we +know, and the susceptible François <i>was</i> fascinated, +though he soon tired of Diane and her +charms. She had the perspicacity, however, to +transfer her affections to his son, and so kept +up a sort of family relationship.</p> + +<p>Like the historic "prisoner of Gisors," the +occupants of the dungeons at Loches whiled +away their lonely hours by inscribing their +sentiments upon the walls. Only one remains +to-day, though fragmentary stone-carved letters +and characters are to be seen here and +there. He who wrote the following was certainly +as cheerful as circumstances would allow:</p> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0_5">"Malgré les ennuis d'une longue souffrance,<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">198</a></span>Et le cruel destin dont je subis la loy,<br /><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Il est encort des biens pour moy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Le tendre amour et la douce espérance."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>Most of these formidable dungeons of Loches +were prisons of state until well into the sixteenth +century.</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<a href="images/illus254.jpg"> +<img src="images/illus254_small.jpg" alt="Sketch Plan of Loches" title="Sketch Plan of Loches" /> +</a> +</div> + + +<p>Beneath, or rather beside, the very walls of +the château is the bizarre collegiate church of +St. Ours. One says bizarre, simply because it +is curious, and not because it is unchurchly in +any sense of the word, for it is not. Its low +nave is surmounted by an enormous tower with +a stone spire, while there are two other pyramidal +erections over the roof of the choir which +make the whole look, not like an elephant, as +a cynical Frenchman once wrote, but rather<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">199</a></span> +like a camel with two humps. This strange +architectural anomaly is, in parts, almost +pagan; certainly its font, a fragment of an +ancient altar on which once burned a sacred +fire, <i>is</i> pagan.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/illus255_small.jpg" alt="St. Ours, Loches" title="St. Ours, Loches" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus255.jpg"><i>St. Ours, Loches</i></a></div> +</div> + +<p>There is a Romanesque porch of vast dimensions +which is the real artistic expression of the +fabric, dressed with extraordinary primitive +sculptures of saints, demons, stryges, gnomes, +and all manner of outré things. All these details, +however, are chiselled with a masterly +conception.</p> + +<p>Behind this exterior vestibule the first bays +of the nave form another, a sort of an inner +vestibule, which carries out still further the +unique arrangement of the whole edifice. This +portion of the structure dates from a consecration +of the year 965, which therefore classes it +as of very early date,—indeed, few are earlier. +Most of the church, however, is of the twelfth +century, including another great pyramid which +rises above the nave and the two smaller ones +just behind the spire. The side-aisles of the +nave were added between the twelfth and fifteenth +centuries, while only the stalls and the +tabernacle are as recent as the sixteenth. The +eastern end is triapsed, an unusual feature in +France. From this one realizes, quite to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">200</a></span> +fullest extent possible, the antiquity and individuality +of the Église de St. Ours at Loches.</p> + +<p>The quaint Renaissance Hôtel-de-Ville was +built by the architect Jean Beaudoin (1535-1543), +from sums raised, under letters patent +from François I., by certain <i>octroi</i> taxes. +From the fact that through its lower story +passes one of the old city entrances, it has come +to be known also as the Porte Picoys. In every +way it is a worthy example of Renaissance +civic architecture.</p> + +<p>In the Rue de Château is a remarkable +Renaissance house, known as the Chancellerie, +which dates from the reign of Henri II. It has +most curious sculptures on its façade interspersed +with the devices of royalty and the inscription:</p> + +<div class="smcapcent">IVSTITIA REGNO, PRUDENTIA NUTRISCO.</div> + +<p>The Tour St. Antoine serves to-day as the +city's belfry. It is all that remains of a church, +demolished long since, which was built in 1519-30, +in imitation of St. Gatien's of Tours. +Doubtless it was base in many of its details, as +is its more famous compeer at Tours; but, if the +old tower which remains is any indication, it +must have been an elaborate and imposing work +of the late Gothic and early Renaissance era.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">201</a></span></p> + +<p>As a literary note, lovers of Dumas's romances +will be interested in the fact that in the +Hôtel de la Couroirie at Loches a body of Protestants +captured the celebrated Chicot, the +jester of Henri III. and Henri IV.</p> + +<p>Loches has a near neighbour in Beaulieu, +which formerly possessed an ardent hatred for +its more progressive and successful contemporary, +Loches. Its very name has been perverted +by local historians as coming from Bellilocus, +"the place of war," and not "<i>le lieu +d'un bel aspect</i>."</p> + +<p>The abbey church at Beaulieu was built by +the warlike Foulques Nerra (in 1008-12), who +usually built fortresses and left church-building +to monks and bishops. It is a remarkable +Romanesque example, though, since the fifteenth +century, it has been mostly in ruins. +Foulques Nerra himself, whose countenance +had "<i>la majesté de celui d'un ange</i>," found his +last resting-place within its walls, which also +sheltered much rich ornament, to-day greatly +defaced, though that of the nave, which is still +intact, is an evidence of its former worth.</p> + +<p>The abbatial residence, still existent, has a +curious exterior pulpit built into the wall, examples +of which are not too frequent in France.</p> + +<p>Agnes Sorel, the belle of belles, lived here for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">202</a></span> +a time in a house near the Porte de Guigné, +which bears a great stone <i>panonceau</i>, from +which the armorial bearings have to-day disappeared. +It is another notable monument to +"the most graceful woman of her times," and +without doubt has as much historic value as +many another more popular shrine of history.</p> + +<p>In connection with Agnes Sorel, who was so +closely identified with Loches and Beaulieu, it +is to be recalled that she was known to the +chroniclers of her time as "<i>la dame de Beauté-sur-Marne</i>,"—a +place which does not appear in +the books of the modern geographers. It may +be noted, too, that it was the encouragement of +the "<i>belle des belles</i>" of Charles VII. that, in +a way, contributed to that monarch's success +in politics and arms, for her sway only began +with Jeanne d'Arc's supplication at Gien and +Chinon. Tradition has it, indeed, that it was +the "gentille Agnes" who put the sword of +victory in his hands when he set out on his +campaign of reconquest. Thus does the Jeanne +d'Arc legend receive a damaging blow.</p> + + + + +<p>The château of Sausac, an elegant edifice of +the sixteenth century, completely restored in +later days, is near by.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">203</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2>CHAPTER X.<span class="pagenum"><a href="#Contents">To ToC</a></span></h2> + +<h4>TOURS AND ABOUT THERE</h4> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus261_small.jpg" alt="Tours" title="Tours" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus261.jpg"><i>Tours</i></a></div> +</div> + +<p>Tours, above all other of the ancient capitals +of the French provinces, remains to-day a <i>ville +de luxe</i>, the elegant capital of a land balmy and +delicious; a land of which Dante sung:</p> + + + +<div class="center">"Terra molle, e dolce e dilettosa...."</div> + + + +<p>It is not a very grand town as the secondary +cities of France go; not like Rouen or Lyons, +Bordeaux or Marseilles; but it is as typical a +reflection of the surrounding country as any, +and therein lies its charm.</p> + +<p>One never comes within the influence of its +luxurious, or, at least, easy and comfortable +appointments, its distinctly modern and up-to-date +railway station, its truly magnificent modern +Hôtel de Ville, its well-appointed hotels +and cafés and its luxurious shops, but that he +realizes all this to a far greater extent than in +any other city of France.</p> + +<p>And again, referring to the material things<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">204</a></span> +of life, everything is most comfortable, and the +restaurants and hotels most attractive in their +fare. Tours is truly one provincial capital +where the <i>cuisine bourgeoise</i> still lives.</p> + +<p>Touraine, and Tours in particular, besides +many other things, is noted for its hotels. Their +praises have been sung often and loudly, not +forgetting Henry James's praise of the Hôtel +de l'Univers, which is all one expects to find it +and more. The same may be said of the Hôtel +du Croissant, with the added opinion that it +serves the most bountiful and excellent <i>déjeuner</i> +to be had in all provincial France. It +is difficult to say just what actually causes all +this excellence and abundance, except that the +catering there is an easy and pleasurable occupation.</p> + +<p>The Rue Nationale—"<i>toujours et vraiment +royale</i>"—is the great artery of Tours running +riverwards. On it circulates all the life of +the city.</p> + +<p>To the right is the Quartier de la Cathédrale, +where are assembled the great houses of the +nobility—or such of them as are left—and of +the old <i>bourgeoisie tourangelle</i>.</p> + +<p>To the left are the streets of the workers, a +silk-mill or two, and the printing-offices. Tours +is and always has been celebrated for the num<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">205</a></span>ber +and size of its <i>imprimeries</i>, with which, in +olden times, the name of the great Christopher +Plantin, the master printer of Antwerp, was +connected. To-day, Tours's greatest establishment +is that of Alfred Mame et Fils, known +throughout the Roman Catholic world.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/illus265_small.jpg" alt="Arms of the Printers, Avocats, and Innkeepers, +Tours" title="Arms of the Printers, Avocats, and Innkeepers, Tours" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus265.jpg"><i>Arms of the Printers, Avocats, and Innkeepers, Tours</i></a></div> +</div> + + + +<p>The printers and booksellers of the middle +ages were favoured persons, and their rank +was high. In the days of solemn processions +the booksellers led the way, followed by the +paper-makers, the parchment-makers, the +scribes,—who had not wholly died out,—the +binders and the illuminators. In these days +the printers were granted an emblazoned arms, +which was characteristic and distinguished. +The same was true of the <i>avocats</i>, who bore +upon their escutcheon a gowned figure, with +something very like a halo surrounding its +head. The innkeepers went one better, and had +a bishop with an undeniable halo. This is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">206</a></span> +curious and inexplicable in the light of our +modern conception of similar things, but it's +better than a shield with quarterings representing +half a canal-boat and half a locomotive, +which was recently adopted by an enterprising +watering-place which shall be nameless.</p> + +<p>In the same ancient quarter are the old +towers of Charlemagne and St. Martin. This +part of the town is the nucleus of the old foundation, +the site of the <i>oppidum</i> of the <i>Turones</i>, +the <i>Cæsarodunum gallo-romain</i>, and of the life +which centred around the old abbey of St. +Martin, so venerated and so powerful in the +middle ages.</p> + +<p>To the inviolable refuge of this old abbey +came multitudes of Christian pilgrims from +the world over; the Merovingians to undergo +the penances imposed upon them by the bishops +and clerics in expiation of their crimes. +Under Charlemagne, the Abbé Alcuin founded +great schools of languages, history, astronomy, +and music, from which founts of learning went +forth innumerable and illustrious religious +teachers.</p> + +<p>All but the two towers of this old religious +foundation are gone. The years of the Revolution +saw the fall of the abbey; a street was cut +through the nave of its church, and the two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">207</a></span> +dismembered parts stand to-day as monuments +to the sacrilege of modern times.</p> + +<p>To-day a banal faubourg has sprung up +around the site of the abbey, with here and +there old tumble-down houses either of wood +and stone, such as one reads of in the pages of +Balzac, or sees in the designs of Doré, or with +their sides covered with overlapping slates.</p> + +<p>Amid all these is an occasional treasure of +architectural art, such as the graceful Fountain +of Beaune, the work of Michel Colombe, and +some remains of early Renaissance houses of +somewhat more splendid appointments than +their fellows, particularly the Maison de Tristan +l'Hermite, the Hôtel Xaincoings, and many +exquisite fragments now made over into an +<i>auberge</i> or a <i>cabaret</i>, which make one dream of +Rabelais and his Gargantua.</p> + +<p>It is uncertain whether Michel Colombe, who +designed this fountain and also that masterwork, +the tomb of the Duc François II. and +Marguerite de Foix, at Nantes, was a Tourangeau +or a Breton, but Tours claims him for her +own, and settles once for all the spelling of his +name by producing a "<i>papier des affaires</i>" +signed plainly "Colombe." The proof lies in +this document, signed in a notary's office at +Tours, concerning payments which were made<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">208</a></span> +to him on behalf of the magnificent sepulchre +which he executed for the church of St. Sauveur +at La Rochelle. In his time—fifteenth century—Colombe +had no rivals in the art of monumental +sculpture in France, and with reason +he has been called the Michel Ange of France.</p> + +<p>The cathedral quarter has for its chief attraction +that gorgeously florid St. Gatien, whose +ornate façade was likened by a certain monarch +to a magnificently bejewelled casket. It is an +interesting and lovable Gothic-Renaissance +church which, if not quite of the first rank +among the masterpieces of its kind, is a marvel +of splendour, and an example of the "<i>caprices +d'une guipure d'art</i>," as the French call it.</p> + +<p>Bordering the Loire at Tours is a series +of tree-lined quays and promenades which are +the scenes, throughout the spring and summer +months, of fêtes and fairs of many sorts. Here, +too, at the extremity of the Rue Nationale, are +statues of Descartes and Balzac.</p> + +<p>The Tour de Guise on the river-bank recalls +the domination of the Plantagenet kings of +England, who were Counts of Anjou since it +formed a part of the twelfth-century château +built here by Henry II. of England.</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus269_small.jpg" +width="200" +alt="Scene in the Quartier de la Cathédrale, Tours" +title="Scene in the Quartier de la Cathédrale, Tours" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus269.jpg"> +<i>Scene in the Quartier de la Cathédrale, Tours</i></a></div> +</div> + + + +<p>At the opposite extremity of the city is another +other tower, the Tour de Foubert, which pro<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">209</a></span>tected +the feudal domain of the old abbey of +St. Martin. The history of days gone by at +Tours was more churchly than political.</p> + +<p>Once only—during the reign of Louis XII.—did +the States General meet at Tours (in +1506). Then the deputies of the <i>bourgeoisie</i> +met alone for their deliberations, the chief outcome +of which was to bestow upon the king the +eminently fitting title of "Père du Peuple." +One may question the righteousness of Louis +XII. in throwing over his wife, Jeanne de +France, in order to serve political ends by acquiring +the estates of Anne of Brittany for the +Crown of France for ever, but there is no doubt +but that he did it for the "<i>good of his people</i>."</p> + +<p>The principal literary shrine at Tours is the +house, in the Rue Nationale, where was born +Honoré de Balzac.</p> + +<p>One could not do better than to visit Tours +during the "<i>été de St. Martin</i>," since it was the +soldier-priest of Tours who gave his name to +that warm, bright prolongation of summer +which in France (and in England) is known as +"St. Martin's summer," and which finds its +counterpart in America's "Indian summer."</p> + +<p>The legend tells us that somewhere in the +dark ages lived a soldier named Martin. He +was always of a charitable disposition, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">210</a></span> +none asked alms of him in vain. One November +day, when the wind blew briskly and the snow +fell fast, a beggar asked for food and clothing. +Martin had but his own cloak, and this he forthwith +tore in half and gave one portion to the +beggar. Later on the same night there came +a knocking at Martin's door; the snow had +ceased falling and the stars shone brightly, and +one of goodly presence stood with the cloak +on his arm, saying, "I was naked and ye +clothed me." Martin straightway became a +priest of the church, and died an honoured +bishop of Tours, and for ever after the anniversary +of his conversion is celebrated by +sunny skies.</p> + +<p>We owe a double debt to St. Martin. We +have to thank him for the saying, "<i>All my +eye</i>" and the words "<i>chapel</i>" and "<i>chaplain</i>." +The full form of the phrase, "<i>All my +eye and Betty Martin</i>," which we all of us have +often heard, is an obvious corruption of "<i>O +mihi beate Martine</i>," the beginning of an invocation +to the saint. The cloak he divided with +a naked beggar, which, by the way, took place +at Amiens, not at Tours, was treasured as a +relic by the Frankish kings, borne before them +in battle, and brought forth when solemn oaths +were to be taken. The guardians of this cloak<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">211</a></span> +or cape were known as "<i>cappellani</i>," whence +"<i>chaplain</i>," while its sanctuary or "<i>cappella</i>" +has become "<i>chapel</i>."</p> + +<p>For their descriptions of Plessis-les-Tours +modern English travellers have invariably +turned to the pages of Sir Walter Scott. This +is all very well in its way, but it is also well +to remember that Scott drew his picture from +definite information, and it is not merely the +product of his imaginary architectural skill. +In this respect Scott was certainly far ahead +of Carlyle in his estimates of French matters.</p> + +<p>"Even in those days" (writing of "Quentin +Durward"), said Scott, "when the great +found themselves obliged to reside in places of +fortified strength, it" (Plessis-les-Tours) +"was distinguished for the extreme and jealous +care with which it was watched and defended." +All this is substantiated and corroborated by +authorities, and, while it may have been chosen +by Scott merely as a suitable accessory for the +details of his story, Plessis-les-Tours unquestionably +was a royal stronghold of such proportions +as to be but meanly suggested by the +scanty remains of the present day.</p> + +<p>Louis XI. dreamed fondly of Plessis-les-Tours +(Plessis being from the Latin <i>Plexitium</i>, +a name borne by many suburban villages of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">212</a></span> +France), and he sought to make it a royal residence +where he should be safe from every outward +harm. It had four great towers, crenelated +and machicolated, after the best Gothic +fortresses of the time. At the four angles of +the protecting walls were the principal logis, +and between the lines of its ramparts or fosses +was an advance-guard of buildings presumably +intended for the vassals in time of danger.</p> + +<p>This was the castle as Louis first knew it, +when it was the property of the chamberlain +of the Duchy of Luynes, from whom the king +bought it for five thousand and five hundred +<i>écus d'or</i>,—the value of fifty thousand francs +of to-day.</p> + +<p>Its former appellation, Montilz-les-Tours, +was changed (1463) to Plessis. All the chief +features have disappeared, and to-day it is but +a scrappy collection of tumble-down buildings +devoted to all manner of purposes. A few +fragmentary low-roofed vaults are left, and +a brick and stone building, flanked by an octagonal +tower, containing a stairway; but this is +about all of the former edifice, which, if not as +splendid as some other royal residences, was +quite as effectively defended and as suitable to +its purposes as any.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213"></a></span></p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus275_small.jpg" alt="Plessis-Les-Tours In the time of Louis XI" title="Plessis-Les-Tours In the time of Louis XI" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus275.jpg"> +<i>Plessis-Les-Tours In the time of Louis XI</i></a></div> +</div> + + + +<p>It had, too, within its walls a tiny chapel<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">214</a></span> +dedicated to Our Lady of Cléry, before whose +altar the superstitious Louis made his inconstant +devotions.</p> + +<p>Once a great forest surrounded the château, +and was, as Scott says, "rendered dangerous +and well-nigh impracticable by snares and +traps armed with scythe-blades, which shred +off the unwary traveller's limbs ... and calthrops +that would pierce your foot through, +and pitfalls deep enough to bury you in them +for ever." To-day the forest has disappeared, +"lost in the night of time," as a French historian +has it.</p> + +<p>The detailed description in "Quentin Durward" +is, however, as good as any, and, if one +has no reference works in French by him, he +may well read the dozen or more pages which +Sir Walter devotes to the further description +of the castle.</p> + +<p>Perhaps, after all, it is fitting that a Scot +should have written so enthusiastically of it, +for the castle itself was guarded by the Scottish +archers, "to the number of three hundred +gentlemen of the best blood of Scotland."</p> + +<p>An anonymous poet has written of the ancient +glory of this retreat of Louis's as follows:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">215</a></span></p> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0_5">"Un imposant château se présente à la vue,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Par des portes de fer l'entrée est défendue;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Les murs en sont épais et les fossés profonds;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On y voit des créneaux, des tours, des bastions,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Et des soldats armés veillent sur ses murailles."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>Frame this with such details as the surrounding +country supplies, the Cher on one side, the +Loire on the other, and the fertile hills of St. +Cyr, of Ballon, and of Joué, and one has a +picture worthy of the greatest painter of any +time.</p> + +<p>Louis XI. died at Plessis, after having lived +there many years. Louis XII. made of it a +<i>rendezvous de chasse</i>, but François II. confided +its care to a governor and would never live +in it. Louis XIV. gave the governorship as +a hereditary perquisite to the widow of the +Seigneur de Sausac.</p> + +<p>In 1778 it was used as a sort of retreat for +the indigent, though happily enough Touraine +was never overburdened with this class of humanity. +Under Louis XV. a Mademoiselle Deneux, +a momentary rival of La Pompadour and +Du Barry, found a retreat here. Later it became +a <i>maison de correction</i>, and finally a +<i>dépôt militaire</i>. At the time of the Revolution +it was declared to be national property, and on +the <i>nineteenth Nivoise, Year IV.</i>, Citizen Cormeri, +justice of the peace at Tours, fixed its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">216</a></span> +value at one hundred and thirty-one thousand +francs.</p> + +<p>To-day it is as bare and uncouth as a mere +barracks or as a disused flour-mill, and its ruins +are visited partly because of their former historical +glories, as recalled by students of +French history, and partly because of the +glamour which was shed over it, for English +readers, by Scott.</p> + +<p>Sixty years ago a French writer deplored the +fact that, on leaving these scanty remains of a +so long gone past, he observed a notice nailed +to a pillar of the <i>porte-cochère</i> reading:</p> + +<div class="box1"> +<div style="text-align: right">LA FERME DU PLESSIS</div><br /> +<div style="text-align: left">O LOUER OU A VENDRE</div> +</div> + +<p>To-day some sort of a division and rearrangement +of the property has been made, but +the result is no less mournful and sad, and thus +a glorious page of the annals of France has +become blurred.</p> + +<p>It is interesting to recall what manner of +persons composed the household of Louis XI. +when he resided at Plessis-les-Tours. Commines, +his historian, has said that habitually +it consisted of a chancellor, a <i>juge de l'hôtel</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">217</a></span> +a private secretary, and a treasurer, each having +under him various employees. In addition +there was a master of the pantry, a cupbearer, +a <i>chef de bouche</i> and a <i>chef de cuisine</i>, a <i>fruitier</i>, +a master of the horse, a quartermaster +or master-at-arms, and, in immediate control of +these domestic servants, a <i>seneschal</i> or <i>grand +maître</i>. In many respects the household was +not luxuriously conducted, for the parsimonious +Louis lived fully up to the false maxim: +"<i>Qui peu donne, beaucoup recueille.</i>"</p> + +<p>Louis himself was fond of doing what the +modern housewife would call "messing about +in the kitchen." He did not dabble at cookery +as a pastime, or that sort of thing; but rather +he kept an eagle eye on the whole conduct of +the affairs of the household.</p> + +<p>One day, coming to the kitchen <i>en négligé</i>, +he saw a small boy turning a spit before the +fire.</p> + +<p>"And what might you be called?" said he, +patting the lad on the shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Etienne," replied the <i>marmiton</i>.</p> + +<p>"Thy <i>pays</i>, my lad?"</p> + +<p>"Le Berry."</p> + +<p>"Thy age?"</p> + +<p>"Fifteen, come St. Martin's."</p> + +<p>"Thy wish?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">218</a></span></p> + +<p>"To be as great as the king" (he had not +recognized his royal master).</p> + +<p>"And what wishes the king?"</p> + +<p>"His expenses to become less."</p> + +<p>The reply brought good fortune for the lad, +for Louis made him his <i>valet de chambre</i>, and +took him afterward into his most intimate confidence.</p> + +<p>Louis was fond of <i>la chasse</i>, and Scott does +not overlook this fact in "Quentin Durward." +When affairs of state did not press, it was the +king's greatest pleasure. For the royal hunt no +pains or expense were spared. The carriages +were without an equal elsewhere in the courts +of Europe, and the hunting establishment was +equipped with <i>chiens courants</i> from Spain, +<i>levriers</i> from Bretagne, <i>bassets</i> from Valence, +mules from Sicily, and horses from Naples.</p> + +<p>The attractions of the environs of Tours are +many and interesting: St. Symphorien, Varennes, +the Grottoes of Ste. Radegonde, and the +site of that most famous abbey of Marmoutier, +also a foundation of St. Martin. Here, under +the name Martinus Monasterium, grew up an +immense and superb establishment. From an +old seventeenth-century print one quotes the +following couplet:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">219</a></span></p> + +<div class="figright"> +<a href="images/illus281.jpg"> +<img src="images/illus281_small.jpg" alt="Environs of Tours" title="Environs of Tours" /> +</a> +</div> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0_5">"De quel côté que le vent vente<br /></span> +<span class="i0_5">Marmoutier a cens et rente."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>From this one infers that the abbey's original +functions are performed no more.</p> + +<p>In the middle ages (thirteenth century) it +was one of the most powerful institutions of its +class, and its church one of the most beautiful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">220</a></span> +in Touraine. The tower and donjon are the +only substantial remains of this early edifice.</p> + +<p>A curious chapel, called the "Chapelle des +Sept Dormants," is here cut in the form of a +cross into the rock of the hillside, where are +buried the remains of the Seven Sleepers, +the disciples of St. Martin, who, as the holy +man had predicted, all died on the same day.</p> + +<p>Beyond Marmoutier, a stairway of 122 steps, +cut also in the rock, leads to the plateau on +which stands the gaunt and ugly Lanterne de +Rochecorbon, a fourteenth-century construction +with a crenelated summit, an unlovely +companion of that even more enigmatic erection +known as "La Pile," a few miles down +the Loire at Cinq-Mars.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">221</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2>CHAPTER XI.<span class="pagenum"><a href="#Contents">To ToC</a></span></h2> + +<h4>LUYNES AND LANGEAIS</h4> + + +<p>Below Tours, and before reaching Saumur, +are a succession of panoramic surprises which +are only to be likened to those of our imagination, +but they are very real nevertheless.</p> + +<p>As one leaves Tours by the road which skirts +the right bank of the Loire, he is once more +impressed by the fact that the <i>cailloux de Loire</i> +are the river's chief product, though fried fish, +of a similar variety to those found in the Seine, +are found on the menus of all roadside taverns +and restaurants.</p> + +<p>Still, the effect of the uncovered bed of the +Loire, with its variegated pebbles and mirror-like +pools, is infinitely more picturesque than if +it were mud flats, and its tree-bordered banks +are for ever opening great alleyed vistas such +as are only known in France.</p> + +<p>The hills on either bank are not of the stupendous +and magnificently scenic order of those +of the Seine above and below Rouen; but, such<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">222</a></span> +as they are, they are of much the same composition, +a soft talcy formation which here +serves admirably the purposes of cliff-dwellings +for the vineyard and wine-press workers, +who form practically the sole population of the +Loire villages from Vouvray, just above Tours, +to Saumur far below.</p> + +<p>On the hillsides are the vineyards themselves, +growing out of the thin layer of soil +in shades of red and brown and golden, which +no artist has ever been able to copy, for no +one has painted the rich colouring of a vineyard +in a manner at all approaching the original.</p> + +<p>Not far below Tours, on the right bank, rise +the towers and turrets of the Château de +Luynes, hanging perilously high above the lowland +which borders upon the river. An unpleasant +tooting tram gives communication a +dozen times a day with Tours, but few, apparently, +patronize it except peasants with market-baskets, +and vineyard workers going into town +for a jollification. It is perhaps just as well, +for the fine little town of Luynes, which takes +its name from the château which has been the +residence of a Comte de Luynes since the days +of Louis XIII., would be quite spoiled if it were +on the beaten track.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">223</a></span></p> + + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/illus285_small.jpg" alt="A Vineyard of Vouvray" title="A Vineyard of Vouvray" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus285.jpg"><i>A Vineyard of Vouvray</i></a></div> +</div> + + + +<p>The brusque façade of the Château de Luynes +makes a charming interior, judging from the +descriptions and drawings which are to be met +with in an elaborately prepared volume devoted +to its history.</p> + +<p>The stranger is allowed to enter within the +gates of the courtyard, beneath the grim coiffed +towers; but he may visit only certain apartments. +He will, however, see enough to indicate +that the edifice was something more than +a mere <i>maison de campagne</i>. All the attributes +of an important fortress are here, great, round, +thickly built towers, with but few exterior windows, +and those high up from the ground. +There is nothing of luxurious elegance about +it, and its aspect is forbidding, though imposing.</p> + +<p>The château belies its looks somewhat, for it +was built only in the fifteenth and sixteenth +centuries, when, in most of its neighbours, the +more or less florid Renaissance was in vogue. +A Renaissance structure in stone and brick +forms a part of that which faces on the interior +court, and is flanked by a fine octagonal "<i>tour +d'escalier</i>."</p> + +<p>From the terrace of the courtyard one gets +an impressive view of the Loire, which glides +by two or more kilometres away, and of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">224</a></span> +towers and roof-tops of Tours, and the vine-carpeted +hills which stretch away along the +river's bank in either direction.</p> + +<p>The château of Luynes is still in the possession +of a Duc de Luynes, through whose courtesy +one may visit such of the apartments as +his servants are allowed to show. It is not +so great an exhibition, nor so good a one, as +is to be had at Langeais; but it is satisfactory +as far as it goes, and, when it is supplemented +by the walks and views which are to be had +on the plateau, upon which the grim-towered +château sits, the memory of it all becomes most +pleasurable.</p> + +<p>The former Ducs de Luynes were continually +appearing in the historic events of the later +Renaissance period, but it was only with +Louis XIII., he who would have put France +under the protection of the Virgin, that the +chatelain of Luynes came to a position of real +power. Louis made Albert, the Gascon, both +Duc de Luynes and Connétable de France, and +thereby gave birth to a tyrant whom he hated +and feared, as he did his mother, his wife, and +his minister, Richelieu.</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus289_small.jpg" alt="Mediæval Stairway and the Château de Luynes" title="Mediæval Stairway and the Château de Luynes" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus289.jpg"><i>Mediæval Stairway and the Château de Luynes</i></a></div> +</div> + +<p>The site occupied by the château of Luynes +is truly marvellous, though, as a matter of fact, +there is no great magnificence about the pro<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">225</a></span>portions +of the château itself. It is piled gracefully +on the top of a table-land which rises +abruptly from the Loire and has a charmingly +quaint old town nestled confidingly below it, +as if for protection.</p> + +<p>One reaches the château by any one of a half-dozen +methods, by the highroad which bends +around in hairpin curves until it reaches the +plateau above, by various paths across or +around the vineyards of the hillside, or by a +quaintly cut mediæval stairway, levelled and +terraced in the gravelly soil until it ends just +beneath the frowning walls of the château itself. +From this point one gets quite the most imposing +aspect of the château to be had, its towers +and turrets piercing the sky high above the +head, and carrying the mind back to the days +when civilization meant something more—or +less—than it does to-day, with the toot of a +steam-tram down below on the river's bank +and the midday whistles of the factories of +Tours rending one's ears the moment he forgets +the past and recalls the present.</p> + +<p>To-day the Château de Luynes is modern, +at least to the extent that it is lived in, and has +all the refinements of a modern civilization; +but one does not realize all this from an exterior +contemplation, and only as one strolls<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">226</a></span> +through the apartments publicly shown, and +gets glimpses of electrical conveniences and +modern arrangements, does he wonder how far +different it may have been before all this came +to pass.</p> + +<p>Built in early Renaissance times, the château +has all the peculiarities of the feudal period, +when window-openings were few and far between, +and high up above the level of the pavement. +In feudal and warlike times this often +proved an admirable feature; but one would +have thought that, with the beginning of the +Renaissance, a more ample provision would +have been made for the admission of sunshine.</p> + +<p>The <i>chef-d'œuvre</i> of this really great architectural +monument is undoubtedly the façade +of the beautiful fifteenth-century courtyard. +There is nothing even remotely feudal here, +but a purely decorative effect which is as +charming in its way as is the exterior façade +of Azay-le-Rideau. "A poem," it has been +called, "in weather-worn timber and stone," +and the simile could hardly be improved upon.</p> + +<p>The town, too, or such of it as immediately +adjoins the château, is likewise charming and +quaint, and sleepily indolent as far as any great +activity is concerned.</p> + +<p>Luynes was the seat of a seigneurie until<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">227</a></span> +1619, when it became a possession of the Comte +de Maillé. Finally it came to Charles d'Albert, +known as "D'Albert de Luynes," a former +page to Henri IV., who afterward became the +favourite and the Guardian of the Seals of +Louis XIV.; and thus the earlier foundation +of Maillé became known as Luynes.</p> + +<p>Except for its old houses of wood and stone, +its old wooden market-house, and its tortuous +streets of stairs, there are few features here, +except the château, which take rank as architectural +monuments of worth. The church is +a modern structure, built after the Romanesque +manner and wholly without warmth and feeling.</p> + +<p>From the height on which stands the château +of Luynes one sees, as his eye follows the +course of the Loire to the southwestward, the +gaunt, unbeautiful "Pile" of Cinq-Mars. The +origin of this singular square tower, looking +for all the world like a factory chimney or some +great ventilating-shaft, is lost far back in Carlovingian, +or perhaps Roman, times. It is a +mystery to archæologists and antiquarians, +some claiming it to be a military monument, +others a beacon by land, and yet others believing +it to be of some religious significance.</p> + +<p>At all events, all the explanations ignore the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">228</a></span> +four <i>pyramidions</i> of its topmost course, and +these, be it remarked, are quite the most curious +feature of the whole fabric.</p> + +<p>To many the name of the little town of Cinq-Mars +will suggest that of the Marquis de Cinq-Mars, +a court favourite of Louis XIII. It was +the ambitious but unhappy career at court of +this young gallant which ultimately resulted in +his death on the scaffold, and in the razing, +by Richelieu, of his ancestral residence, the +castle of Cinq-Mars, "to the heights of infamy." +The expression is a curious one, but +history so records it. All that is left to-day +to remind one of the stronghold of the D'Effiats +of Cinq-Mars are its two crumbling gate-towers +with an arch between and a few fragmentary +foundation walls which follow the +summit of the cliff behind "La Pile."</p> + +<p>The little town of not more than a couple +of thousand inhabitants nestles in a bend of the +Loire, where there is so great a breadth that +it looks like a long-drawn-out lake. The low +hills, so characteristic of these parts, stretch +themselves on either bank, unbroken except +where some little streamlet forces its way by +a gentle ravine through the scrubby undergrowth. +Oaks and firs and huge limestone +cliffs jut out from the top of the hillside on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">229</a></span> +the right bank and shelter the town which lies +below.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/illus295_small.jpg" alt="Ruins of Cinq-Mars" title="Ruins of Cinq-Mars" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus295.jpg"><i>Ruins of Cinq-Mars</i></a></div> +</div> + + + + +<p>Cinq-Mars is a miniature metropolis, though +not a very progressive one at first sight; indeed, +beyond its long main street and its houses, +which cluster about its grim, though beautiful, +tenth and twelfth century church, there are few +signs of even provincial importance.</p> + +<p>In reality Cinq-Mars is the centre of a large +and important wine industry, where you may +hear discussed, at the <i>table d'hôte</i> of its not +very readily found little inn, the poor prices +which the usually abundant crop always brings. +The native even bewails the fact that he is not +blessed with a poor season or two and then he +would be able to sell his fine vintages for something +more than three sous a litre. By the time +it reaches Paris this <i>vin de Touraine</i> of commerce +has aggrandized itself so that it commands +two francs fifty centimes on the Boulevards, +and a franc fifty in the University +quarter.</p> + +<p>The fall of Henri Cinq-Mars was most +pathetic, though no doubt moralists will claim +that because of his covetous ambitions he deserved +nothing better.</p> + +<p>He went up to Paris from Touraine, a boy of +twenty, and was presented to the king, who was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">230</a></span> +immediately impressed by his distinguished +manners. From infancy Cinq-Mars had been a +lover of life in the open. He had hunted the +forests of Touraine, and had angled the waters +of the Loire, and thus he came to give a new +zest to the already sad life of Louis XIII. +Honour after honour was piled upon him until +he was made Grand Seneschal of France and +Master of the King's Horse, at which time he +dropped his natal patronymic and became +known as "Monsieur le Grand."</p> + +<p>Cinq-Mars fell madly in love with Marion +Delorme and wished to make her "Madame +la Grande," but the dowager Marquise de Cinq-Mars +would not hear of it: Mlle. Marion Delorme, +the Aspasia of her day, would be no +honour to the ancestral tree of the Effiats of +Cinq-Mars.</p> + +<p>Headstrong and wilful, one early morning, +Monsieur le Grand and his beloved, then only +thirty, took coach from her hotel in the Rue des +Tournelles at Paris for the old family castle +in Touraine, sitting high on the hills above the +feudal village which bore the name of Cinq-Mars. +In the chapel they were secretly married, +and for eight days the proverbial marriage-bell +rang true. Their Nemesis appeared +on the ninth day in the person of the dowager,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">231</a></span> +and Cinq-Mars told his mother that the whole +affair was simply a <i>passe temps</i>, and that +Mlle. Delorme was still Mlle. Delorme. His +mother would not be deceived, however, and she +flew for succour to Richelieu, who himself was +more than slightly acquainted with the charms +of the fair Marion.</p> + +<p>This was Cinq-Mars's downfall. He advised +the king "by fair means or foul, let Richelieu +die," and the king listened. A conspiracy was +formed, by Cinq-Mars and others, to do away +with the cardinal, <i>and even the king</i>, at whose +death Gaston of Orleans was to be proclaimed +regent for his nephew, the infant Louis XIV.</p> + +<p>The court went to Narbonne, on the Mediterranean, +that it might be near aid from Spain; +all of which was a subterfuge of Cinq-Mars. +The rest moves quickly: Richelieu discovered +the plot; Cinq-Mars attempted to flee disguised +as a Spaniard, was captured and brought as a +prisoner to the castle at Montpellier.</p> + +<p>Richelieu had proved the more powerful of +the two; but he was dying, and this is the reason, +perhaps, why he hurried matters. Cinq-Mars, +"the amiable criminal," went to the torture-chamber, +and afterward to the scaffold.</p> + +<p>"Then," say the old chronicles, "Richelieu +ordered that the feudal castle of Cinq-Mars, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">232</a></span> +the valley of the Loire, should be blown up, and +the towers razed to the height of infamy."</p> + +<p>From Cinq-Mars to Langeais, whose château +is really one of the most appealing sights of the +Loire, the characteristics of the country are +topographically and economically the same; +green hills slope, vine-covered, to the river, +with here and there a tiny rivulet flowing into +the greater stream.</p> + +<p>As at Cinq-Mars, the chief commodity of +Langeais is wine, rich, red wine and pale +amber, too, but all of it wine of a quality and +at a price which would make the city-dweller +envious indeed.</p> + +<p>There are two distinct châteaux at Langeais; +at least, there is <i>the</i> château, and just beyond +the ornamental stone-carpet of its courtyard +are the ruins of one of the earliest donjons, or +keeps, in all France. It dates from the year +990, and was built by the celebrated Comte +d'Anjou, Foulques Nerra, "<i>un criminel dévoyé +des hommes et de Dieu</i>," whose hobby, evidently, +was building châteaux, as his "follies" +in stone are said to have encumbered the land +in those old days.</p> + +<p>Taken and retaken, dismantled and in part +razed in the fifteenth century, it gave place to +the present château by the orders of Louis XI.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">233</a></span></p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus301_small.jpg" alt="Château de Langeais" title="Château de Langeais" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus301.jpg"><i>Château de Langeais</i></a></div> +</div> + + + + +<p>The Château de Langeais of to-day is a +robust example of its kind; its walls, flanked +by great hooded towers, have a surrounding +"<i>guette</i>," or gallery, which served as a means +of communication from one part of the establishment +to another and, in warlike times, allowed +boiling oil or melted lead, or whatever +they may have used for the purpose, to be +poured down upon the heads of any besiegers +who had the audacity to attack it.</p> + +<p>There is no glacis or moat, but the machicolations, +sixty feet or more up from the ground, +must have afforded a well-nigh perfect means +of repelling a near attack.</p> + +<p>Altogether Langeais is a redoubtable little +château of the period, and its aspect to-day has +changed but very little. "It is the swan-song +of expiring feudalism," said the Abbé Bossebœuf.</p> + +<p>One gets a thrill of heroic emotion when he +views its hardy walls for the first time: "a +mountain of stone, a heroic poem of Gothic +art," it has with reason been called.</p> + +<p>Jean Bourré, the minister of Louis XI., built +the present château about 1460. The chief +events of its history were the drawing up +within its walls of the "common law" of Touraine, +by the order of Charles VII., and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">234</a></span> +marriage of Charles VIII. with Anne de Bretagne, +on the 16th of December, 1491.</p> + +<p>The land belonged, in 1276, to Pierre de +Brosse, the minister of Philippe-le-Hardi; +later, to François d'Orleans, son of the celebrated +<i>Bâtard</i>; to the Princesse de Conti, +daughter of the Duc de Guise; to the families +Du Bellay and D'Effiats, Barons of Cinq-Mars; +and, finally, to the Duc de Luynes, in whose +hands it remained up to the Revolution.</p> + +<p>Honoré de Balzac, who may well be called +one of the historians of Touraine, gave to +one of his heroines the name of Langeais. To-day, +however, the family of Langeais does not +exist, and, indeed, according to the chronicles, +never had any connection with either the donjon +of Foulques Nerra or the château of the +fifteenth century. The present owner is M. +Jacques Siegfreid, who has admirably restored +and furnished it after the Gothic style of the +middle ages.</p> + +<p>The château of Langeais, like that of Chenonceaux, +is occupied, as one learns from a visit +to its interior. A lackey of a superior order +receives you; you pay a franc for an admission +ticket, and the lackey conducts you through +nearly, if not quite all, of the apartments. +Where the family goes during this process it is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">235</a></span> +hard to say, but doubtless they are willing to +inconvenience themselves for the benefit of +"touring" humanity.</p> + +<p>The interior, no less than the exterior, +impresses one as being something which has lived +in the past, and yet exists to-day in all its +original glory, for the present proprietor, with the +aid of an admirable adviser, M. Lucien Roy, a +Parisian architect, has produced a resemblance +of its former furnishings which, so far as it +goes, is beyond criticism.</p> + +<p>There is nothing of bareness about it, nor is +there an over-luxuriant interpolation of irrelevant +things, such as a curator crowds into a +museum. In short, nothing more has been done +than to attempt to reconstitute a habitation +of the fifteenth century. For seventeen years +the work has gone on, and there have been collected +many authentic furnishings contemporary +with the fabric itself, great oaken beds, +tables, chairs, benches, tapestries, and other +articles. In addition, the decorations have +been carried out after the same manner, copied +in many cases from contemporary pictures and +prints.</p> + +<p>To-day, the general aspect is that of a peaceful +household, with all recollections of feudal +times banished for ever. All is tranquil, re<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">236</a></span>spectable, +and luxurious, and it would take a +chronic faultfinder not to be content with the +manner with which these admirable restorations +and refurnishings have been carried out.</p> + +<p>One notes particularly the infinite variety +and appropriateness of the tiling which goes +to make up the floors of these great salons—modern +though it is. The great chimneypieces, +however, are ancient, and have not been +retouched. Those in the Salle des Gardes and +the Salle where was celebrated the marriage +of Charles VIII. and Anne de Bretagne, with +their ornamentation in the best of Gothic, are +especially noteworthy.</p> + +<p>This latter apartment is the chief attraction +of the château and the room of which the present +dwellers in this charming monument of +history are naturally the most proud. To-day +it forms the great dining-hall of the establishment. +Mementos of this marriage, so momentous +for France, are exceedingly numerous +along the lower Loire, but this handsome room +quite leads them all. This marriage, and the +goods and lands it brought to the Crown, had +but one stipulation connected with it, and that +was that the Duchesse Anne should be privileged +to marry the elderly king's successor, +should she survive her royal husband.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">237</a></span></p> + + + +<div class="figleft"><a href="images/illus307.jpg"> +<img src="images/illus307_small.jpg" alt="Arms of Louis XII. and Anne de Bretagne at the time of their marriage" title="Arms of Louis XII. and Anne de Bretagne at the time of their marriage" /></a> +</div> + + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">238</a></span>Louis XII. was not at all opposed to becoming +the husband of la Duchesse Anne after +Charles VIII. had met his death on the tennis-court, +because this second marriage would for +ever bind to France that great province ruled +by the gentle Anne.</p> + +<p>In the Salle des Gardes are six valuable +tapestries representing such heroic figures as +Cæsar and Charlemagne, surrounded by their +companions in arms.</p> + +<p>From the towers, on a clear day, one may see +the pyramids of the cathedral at Tours rising +on the horizon to the northward. Below is the +Château de Villandry, where Philippe-Auguste +met Henry II. of England to conclude a memorable +peace. To the right is Azay-le-Rideau, +and to the extreme right are the ruined towers +of Cinq-Mars and its Pile. Nothing could be +more delicious on a bright summer's day than +the view from the ramparts of Langeais over +the roof-tops of the charming little town in the +foreground.</p> + +<p>Some time after the Revolution there was +found, in the gardens of the château, the +remains of a <i>chapelle romaine</i> which historians, +who have searched the annals of antiquity in +Touraine, claim to have been the chapel in honour +of St. Sauveur which Foulques V., called<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">239</a></span> +le Jeune, one of the five Counts of Anjou of that +name, constructed upon his return from his +voyage to Palestine in the twelfth century. +To-day it is overgrown with a trellised grapevine +and is practically not visible, still it is +another architectural monument of the first +rank with which the not very ample domain +of the Château de Langeais is endowed.</p> + +<p>From the courtyard the walls of the château +take on a Renaissance aspect; a tiny doorway +beside the great gate is manifestly Renaissance; +so, too, are the polygonal towers, with +their winding stairs, the pignons and gables +of the roof, and what carved stone there is in +evidence. Three stone stairways which mount +by the slender <i>tourelles</i> serve to communicate +with the various floors to-day as they did in the +times of Charles VIII.</p> + +<p>The courtyard itself, with its formal carpet +design in stone, its shaded walls, its stone +seats, and its Roman sarcophagus, is a pleasant +retreat, but it has not the seclusion of the larger +park, delightful though it is.</p> + +<p>Just before the drawbridge of the old château, +that mediæval gateway by which one enters +to-day, one sees the Maison de Rabelais, +who is the deity of Langeais and Chinon, as is +Balzac that of Tours. It is a fine old-time<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">240</a></span> +house of a certain amplitude and grandeur +among its less splendid fellows, now given over, +on the ground floor, to a bakery and pastry-shop. +Enough is left of its original aspect, +and the Renaissance decorations of its façade +are sufficiently well preserved to stamp it as a +worthy abode for the "Curé de Chinon," who +lived here for some years.</p> + +<p>Two other names in literature are connected +with Langeais: Ronsard, the poet, who lived +here for a time, and César-Alexis-Chichereau, +Chevalier de la Barre, who was a poet and a +troubadour of repute.</p> + +<p>The main street of Langeais is still flanked +with good Gothic and Renaissance houses, +neither pretentious nor mean, but of that order +which sets off to great advantage the walls and +towers and porches of the château and the +church. This street follows the ancient Roman +roadway which traversed the valley of the +Loire through Gaul.</p> + +<p>The river is here crossed by one of those +too frequent, though useful, suspension-bridges, +with which the Loire abounds. The guide-books +call it <i>beau</i>, but it is not. One has to +cross it to reach Azay-le-Rideau, which lies ten +kilometres or more away across the Indre.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">241</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2>CHAPTER XII.<span class="pagenum"><a href="#Contents">To ToC</a></span></h2> + +<h4>AZAY-LE-RIDEAU, USSÉ, AND CHINON</h4> + + +<p>From Langeais, one's obvious route lies +towards Chinon, via Azay-le-Rideau and Ussé. +These latter are practically within the forest, +though the Forêt de Chinon proper does not +actually begin until one leaves Azay behind, +when for twenty kilometres or more one of the +most superb forest roads in France crosses +many hills and dales until it finally descends +into Chinon itself.</p> + +<p>Like most forest roads in France, this highway +is not flat; it rises and falls with a sheer +that is sometimes precipitous, but always with +a gravelled surface that gives little dust, and +which absorbs water as the sand from the +pounce-box of our forefathers dried up ink. +This simile calls to mind the fact that in twentieth-century +France the pounce-box is still in +use, notably at wayside railway stations, where +the agent writes you out your ticket and dries +it off in a box, not of sand, but of sawdust.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">242</a></span></p> + +<p>To partake of the hospitality of Azay-le-Rideau +one must arrive before four in the +afternoon, and not earlier than midday. From +the photographs and post-cards by which one +has become familiar with Azay-le-Rideau, it +appears like a great country house sitting by +itself far away from any other habitation. In +England this is often the case, in France but +seldom.</p> + +<p>Clustered around the walls of the not very +great park which surrounds the château are +all manner of shops and cafés, not of the tourist +order,—for there is very little here to suggest +that tourists ever come, though indeed +they do, by twos and threes throughout all the +year,—but for the accommodation of the +population of the little town itself, which must +approximate a couple of thousand souls, all +of whom appear to be engaged in the culture +of the vine and its attendant pursuits, as the +wine-presses, the coopers' shops, and other +similar establishments plainly show. There is, +moreover, the pleasant smell of fermented +grape-juice over all, which, like the odour of +the hop-fields of Kent, is conducive to sleep; +and there lies the charm of Azay-le-Rideau, +which seems always half-asleep.</p> + +<p>The Hôtel du Grand Monarque is a wonder<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">243</a></span>fully +comfortable country inn, with a dining-room +large enough to accommodate half a hundred +persons, but which, most likely, will serve +only yourself. One incongruous note is +sounded,—convenient though it be,—and that +is the electric light which illuminates the hotel +and its dependencies, including the stables, +which look as though they might once have +been a part of a mediæval château themselves.</p> + +<p>However, since posting days and tallow dips +have gone for ever, one might as well content +himself with the superior civilization which +confronts him, and be comfortable at least.</p> + +<p>The Château d'Azay-le-Rideau is one of the +gems of Touraine's splendid collection of Renaissance +art treasures, though by no means is +it one of the grandest or most imposing.</p> + +<p>A tree-lined avenue leads from the village +street to the château, which sits in the midst +of a tiny park; not a grand expanse as at Chambord +or Chenonceaux, but a sort of green frame +with a surrounding moat, fed by the waters +of the Indre.</p> + +<p>The main building is square, with a great +coiffed round tower at each corner. The Abbé +Chevalier, in his "Promenades Pittoresques +en Touraine," called it the purest and best of +French Renaissance, and such it assuredly is,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">244</a></span> +if one takes a not too extensive domestic establishment +of the early years of the sixteenth +century as the typical example.</p> + +<p>Undoubtedly the sylvan surroundings of the +château have a great deal to do with the effectiveness +of its charms. The great white walls +of its façade, with the wonderful sculptures +of Jean Goujon, glisten in the brilliant sunlight +of Touraine through the sycamores and willows +which border the Indre in a genuinely romantic +fashion.</p> + +<p>Somewhere within the walls are the remains +of an old tower of the one-time fortress which +was burned by the Dauphin Charles in 1418, +after, says history, "he had beheaded its governor +and taken all of the defenders to the +number of three hundred and thirty-four." +This act was in revenge for an alleged insult +to his sacred person.</p> + +<p>There are no remains of this former tower +visible exteriorly to-day, and no other bloody +acts appear to have attached themselves to the +present château in all the four hundred years +of its existence.</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus315_small.jpg" alt="Château d'Azay-le-Rideau" title="Château d'Azay-le-Rideau" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus315.jpg"> +<i>Château d'Azay-le-Rideau</i></a></div> +</div> + +<p>Gilles Berthelot erected the present structure +early in the reign of François I. He was a +man close to the king in affairs of state, first +<i>conseiller-secrétaire</i>, then <i>trésorier-général des<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">245</a></span> +finances</i>, hence he knew the value of money. +Among the succeeding proprietors was Guy de +Saint Gelais, one of the most accomplished +diplomats of his time. He was followed by +Henri de Beringhem, who built the stables and +ornamented the great room known as the +Chambre du Roi from the fact that Louis XIV. +once slept there, with the magnificent paintings +which are shown to-day.</p> + +<p>Everywhere is there a rich, though not gross, +display of decoration, beginning with such constructive +details as the pointed-roofed <i>tourelles</i>, +which are themselves exceedingly decorative. +The doors, windows, roof-tops, chimneypieces, +and the semi-enclosed circular stairways are +all elaborately sculptured after the best manner +of the time.</p> + +<p>The entrance portico is a wonder of its kind, +with a strong sculptured arcade and arched +window-openings and niches filled with bas-reliefs. +Sculptured shells, foliage, and mythological +symbols combine to form an arabesque, +through which are interspersed the favourite +ciphers of the region, the ermine and the salamander, +which go to prove that François and +other royalties must at one time or another +have had some connection with the château.</p> + +<p>History only tells us, however, that Gilles<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">246</a></span> +Berthelot was a king's minister and Mayor +of Tours. Perhaps he thought of handing it +over as a gift some day in exchange for further +honours. His device bore the words, <i>"Ung +Seul Desir,"</i> which may or may not have had +a special significance.</p> + +<p>The interior of the edifice is as beautiful as +is its exterior, and is furnished with that luxuriance +of decorative effect so characteristic of +the best era of the Renaissance in France.</p> + +<p>Until recently the proprietor was the Marquis +de Biencourt, who, like his fellow proprietors +of châteaux in Touraine, generously gave +visitors an opportunity to see his treasure-house +for themselves, and, moreover, furnished +a guide who was something more than a menial +and yet not a supercilious functionary.</p> + +<p>Within a twelvemonth this "purest joy of +the French Renaissance" was put upon the +real estate market, with the result that it might +have fallen into unappreciative hands, or, what +a Touraine antiquarian told the writer would +be the worse fate that could possibly befall it, +might be bought up by some American millionaire, +who through the services of the house-breaker +would dismantle it and remove it stone +by stone and set it up anew on some asphalted +avenue in some western metropolis. This ex<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">247</a></span>traordinary +fear or rumour, whatever it was, +soon passed away and as a "<i>monument historique</i>" +the château has become the property +of the French government.</p> + +<p>Less original, perhaps, in plan than Chenonceaux, +less appealing in its <i>ensemble</i> and less +fortunate in its situation, Azay-le-Rideau is +nevertheless entitled to the praises which have +been heaped upon it.</p> + +<p>It is but a dozen kilometres from Azay-le-Rideau +to Ussé, on the road to Chinon. The +Château d'Ussé is indeed a big thing; not so +grand as Chambord, nor so winsome as Langeais, +but infinitely more characteristic of what +one imagines a great residential château to +have been like. It belongs to-day to the Comte +de Blacas, and once was the property of Vauban, +Maréchal of France, under Louis XIV., +who built the terrace which lies between it and +the river, a branch of the Indre.</p> + +<p>Perched high above the hemp-lands of the +river-bottom, which here are the most prolific +in the valley of the Indre, the château with its +park of seven hundred or more acres is truly +regal in its appointments and surroundings. +This park extends to the boundary of the +national reservation, the Forêt de Chinon.</p> + +<p>The Renaissance château of to-day is a recon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">248</a></span>struction +of the sixteenth century, which preserves, +however, the great cylindrical towers of +a century earlier. Its architecture is on the +whole fantastic, at least as much so as Chambord, +but it is none the less hardy and strong. +Practically it consists of a series of <i>pavillons</i> +bound to the great fifteenth-century donjon +by smaller towers and turrets, all slate-capped +and pointed, with machicolations surrounding +them, and above that a sort of roofed and +crenelated battlement which passes like a +collar around all the outer wall.</p> + +<p>The general effect of the exterior walls is +that of a great feudal stronghold, while from +the courtyard the aspect is simply that of a +luxurious Renaissance town house, showing at +least how the two styles can be pleasingly combined.</p> + +<p>Crenelated battlements are as old as Pompeii, +so it is doubtful if the feudality of France +did much to increase their use or effectiveness. +They were originally of such dimensions as to +allow a complete shelter for an archer standing +behind one of the uprights. The contrast +to those of a later day, which, virtually nothing +more than a course of decorative stonework, +give no impression of utility, is great, though<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">249</a></span> +here at Ussé they are more pronounced than in +many other similar edifices.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/illus321_small.jpg" alt="Château d'Ussé" title="Château d'Ussé" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus321.jpg"><i>Château d'Ussé</i></a></div> +</div> + +<p>The interior arrangements here give due +prominence to a fine staircase, ornamented with +a painting of St. John that is attributed to +Michel Ange.</p> + +<p>The Chambre du Roi is hung with ancient +embroideries, and there is a beautiful Renaissance +chapel, above the door of which is a sixteenth-century +bas-relief of the Apostles. Most +of the other great rooms which are shown are +resplendent in oak-beamed ceilings and massive +chimneypieces, always a distinct feature of +Renaissance château-building, and one which +makes modern imitations appear mean and +ugly. To realize this to the full one has only +to recall the dining-room of the pretentious +hotel which huddles under the walls of Amboise. +In a photograph it looks like a regal +banqueting-hall; but in reality it is as tawdry +as stage scenery, with its imitation wainscoted +walls, its imitation beamed ceiling of three-quarter-inch +planks, and its plaster of Paris +fireplace.</p> + +<p>Near Ussé is the Château de Rochecotte +which recalls the name of a celebrated chieftain +of the Chouans. It belongs to-day, though +it is not their paternal home, to the family of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">250</a></span> +Castellane, a name which to many is quite as +celebrated and perhaps better known.</p> + +<p>The château contains a fine collection of +Dutch paintings of the seventeenth century, and +in its chapel there is a remarkably beautiful +copy of the Sistine Madonna. The name of +Talleyrand is intimately connected with the +occupancy of the château, in pre-revolutionary +times, by Rochecotte.</p> + +<p>On the road to Chinon one passes through, +or near, Huismes, which has nothing to stay +one's march but a good twelfth-century church, +which looks as though its doors were never +opened. The Château de la Villaumère, of the +fifteenth century, is near by, and of more than +passing interest are the ruins of the Château +de Bonneventure, built, it is said, by Charles +VII. for Agnes Sorel, who, with all her faults, +stands high in the esteem of most lovers of +French history. At any rate this shrine of +"<i>la belle des belles</i>" is worthy to rank with +that containing her tomb at Loches.</p> + +<p>As one enters Chinon by road he meets with +the usual steep decline into a river-valley, +which separates one height from another. +Generally this is the topographic formation +throughout France, and Chinon, with its silent +guardians, the fragments of three non-con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">251</a></span>temporary +castles, all on the same site, is no +exception.</p> + +<p>"We never went to Chinon," says Henry +James, in his "Little Tour in France," written +thirty or more years ago. "But one cannot do +everything," he continues, "and I would +rather have missed Chinon than Chenonceaux." +A painter would have put it differently. Chenonceaux +is all that fact and fancy have painted +it, a gem in a perfect setting, and Chinon's +three castles are but mere crumbling walls; +but their environs form a <i>petit pays</i> which will +some day develop into an "artists' sketching-ground," +in years to come, beside which Etretat, +Moret, Pont Aven, Giverny, and Auvers +will cease to be considered.</p> + +<p>At the base of the escarped rock on which +sit the châteaux, or what is left of them, lies +the town of Chinon, with its old houses in +wood and stone and its great, gaunt, but beautiful +churches. Before it flows the Vienne, one +of the most romantically beautiful of all the +secondary rivers of France.</p> + +<p>From the <i>castrum romanum</i> of the emperors +to the feudal conquest Chinon played its +due part in the history of Touraine. There +are those who claim that Chinon is a "<i>cité antédiluvienne</i>" +and that it was founded by Cain,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">252</a></span> +who after his crime fled from the paternal malediction +and found a refuge here; and that its +name, at first <i>Caynon</i>, became Chinon. Like +the derivation of most ancient place-names, this +claim involves a wide imagination and assuredly +sounds unreasonable. <i>Caino</i> may, with +more likelihood, have been a Celtic word, meaning +an excavation, and came to be adopted because +of the subterranean quarries from which +the stone was drawn for the building of the +town. The annalists of the western empire +give it as <i>Castrum-Caino</i>, and whether its +origin dates from antediluvian times or not, it +was a town in the very earliest days of the +Christian era.</p> + +<p>The importance of Chinon's rôle in history +and the beauty of its situation have inspired +many writers to sing its praises.</p> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">"... Chinon<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Petite ville, grand renom<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Assise sur pierre ancienne<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Au haute le bois, au bas la Vienne."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>The disposition of the town is most picturesque. +The winding streets and stairways +are "foreign;" like Italy, if you will, or some +of the steps to be seen in the towns bordering +upon the Adriatic. At all events, Chinon is not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">253</a></span> +exactly like any other town in France, either +with respect to its layout or its distinct features, +and it is not at all like what one commonly +supposes to be characteristic of the +French.</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus327_small.jpg" alt="The Roof-tops of Chinon" title="The Roof-tops of Chinon" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus327.jpg"><i>The Roof-tops of Chinon</i></a></div> +</div> + + + +<p>Dungeons of mediæval châteaux are here +turned into dwellings and wine-cellars, and +have the advantage, for both uses, of being cool +in summer and warm in winter.</p> + +<p>Already, in the year 371, Chinon's population +was so considerable that St. Martin, newly +elected Bishop of Tours, longed to preach +Christianity to its people, who were still idolators. +Some years afterward St. Mesme or +Maxime, fleeing from the barbarians of the +north, came to Chinon, and soon surrounded +himself with many adherents of the faith, and +in the year 402 consecrated the original foundation +of the church which now bears his name.</p> + +<p>Clovis made Chinon one of the strongest fortresses +of his kingdom, and in the tenth century +it came into the possession of the Comtes +de Touraine. Later, in 1044, Thibaut III. +ceded it to Geoffroy Martel. The Plantagenets +frequently sojourned at Chinon, becoming +its masters in the twelfth century, from which +time it was held by the Kings of France up to +Louis XI.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">254</a></span></p> + +<p>The most picturesque event of Chinon's history +took place in 1428, when Charles VII. here +assembled the States General, and Jeanne +d'Arc prevailed upon him to march forthwith +upon Orleans, then besieged by the English.</p> + +<p>Memories of Charles VII., of Jeanne d'Arc, +and of François Rabelais are inextricably +mixed in the guide-book accounts of Chinon; +but their respective histories are not so involved +as would appear. There is some doubt +as to whether the Pantagruelist was actually +born at Chinon or in the suburbs, therefore +there is no "<i>maison natale</i>" before which +literary pilgrims may make their devotions. +All this is a great pity, for Rabelais excites in +the minds of most people a greater curiosity +than perhaps any other mediæval man of letters +that the world has known.</p> + +<p>Though one cannot feast his eye upon the +spot of Rabelais's birth, historians agree that +it took place at Chinon in 1483. Much is known +of the "Curé de Chinon;" but, in spite of his +rank as the first of the mediæval satirists, his +was not a wide-spread popularity, nor can one +speak very highly of his appearance as a type +of the Tourangeau of his time. His portraits +make him appear a most supercilious character, +and doubtless he was. He certainly was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">256</a></span> +not an Adonis, nor had he the head of a god +or the cleverness of a court gallant. Indeed +there has been a tendency of late to represent +him as a buffoon, a trait wholly foreign to +his real character.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/illus331_small.jpg" alt="Rabelais" title="Rabelais" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus331.jpg"><i>Rabelais</i></a></div> +</div> + + + +<p>As for Charles VII. and Jeanne d'Arc, Chinon +was simply the meeting-place between the +inspired maid and her sovereign, when she +urged him to put himself at the head of his +troops and march upon Orleans.</p> + +<p>Chinon is of the sunny south; here the +grapes ripen early and cling affectionately, not +only to the hillsides, but to the very house-walls +themselves.</p> + +<p>Chinon's attractions consist of fragments of +three castles, dating from feudal times; of +three churches, of more than ordinary interest +and picturesqueness; and many old timbered +and gabled houses; nor should one forget the +Hôtel de France, itself a reminder of other +days, with its vine-covered courtyard and tinkling +bells hanging beneath its gallery, for all +the world like the sort of thing one sees upon +the stage.</p> + +<p>There is not much else about the hotel that +is of interest except its very ancient-looking +high-posted beds and its waxed tiled floors, +worn into smooth ruts by the feet of countless<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">257</a></span> +thousands and by countless polishings with wax. +It is curious how a waxed tiled floor strikes +one as being something altogether superior to +one of wood. Though harder in substance, it is +infinitely pleasanter to the feet, and warm and +mellow, as a floor should be; moreover it seems +to have the faculty of unconsciously keeping +itself clean.</p> + +<p><i>The Château de Chinon</i>, as it is commonly +called, differs greatly from the usual Loire +château; indeed it is quite another variety altogether, +and more like what we know elsewhere +as a castle; or, rather it is three castles, +for each, so far as its remains are concerned, +is distinct and separate.</p> + +<p>The Château de St. Georges is the most ancient +and is an enlargement by Henry Plantagenet—whom +a Frenchman has called "the +King Lear of his race"—of a still more ancient +fortress.</p> + +<p>The Château du Milieu is built upon the ruins +of the <i>castrum romanum</i>, vestiges of which are +yet visible. It dates from the eleventh, twelfth, +and thirteenth centuries, and was restored +under Charles VI., Charles VII., and Louis XI.</p> + +<p>One enters through the curious Tour de +l'Horloge, to which access is given by a modern +bridge, as it was in other days by an ancient<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">258</a></span> +drawbridge which covered the old-time moat. +The Grand Logis, the royal habitation of the +twelfth to fifteenth centuries, is to the right, +overlooking the town. Here died Henry II. of +England (1189) and here lived Charles VII. +and Louis XI. It was in the Grand Salle of this +château that Jeanne d'Arc was first presented +to her sovereign (March 8, 1429). From the +hour of this auspicious meeting until the hour +of the departure for Orleans she herself lived in +the tower of the Château de Coudray, a little +farther beyond, under guard of Guillaume +Bélier.</p> + +<p>The meeting between the king and the +"Maid" is described by an old historian of +Touraine as follows: "The inhabitants of +Chinon received her with enthusiasm, the purpose +of her mission having already preceded +her.... She appeared at court as '<i>une +pauvre petite bergerette</i>' and was received in +the Grande Salle, lighted by fifty torches and +containing three hundred persons." (This +statement would seem to point to the fact that +it was not the <i>salle</i> which is shown to-day; it +certainly could not be made to hold three hundred +people unless they stood on each other's +shoulders!) "The seigneurs were all clad in +magnificent robes, but the king, on the contrary,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">259</a></span> +was dressed most simply. The 'Maid,' endowed +with a spirit and sagacity superior to +her education, advanced without hesitation. +'<i>Dieu vous donne bonne vie, gentil roi</i>,' said +she...."</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus335_small.jpg" alt="Château de Chinon" title="Château de Chinon" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus335.jpg"><i>Château de Chinon</i></a></div> +</div> + + + +<p>The Grand Logis is flanked by a square tower +which is separated from the Château de Coudray +and the Tour de Boissy by a moat. In the +magnificent Tour de Boissy was the ancient +Salle des Gardes, while above was a battlemented +gallery which gave an outlook over the +surrounding country. This watch-tower assured +absolute safety from surprise to any +monarch who might have wished to study the +situation for himself.</p> + +<p>The Tour du Moulin is another of the defences, +more elegant, if possible, than the Tour +de Boissy. It is taller and less rotund; the +French say it is "svelt," and that describes +it as well as anything. It also fits into the landscape +in a manner which no other mediæval +donjon of France does, unless it be that of Château +Gaillard, in Normandy.</p> + +<p>The primitive Château de Coudray was built +by Thibaut-le-Tricheur in 954, and its bastion +and sustaining walls are still in evidence.</p> + +<p>The Vienne, which runs by Chinon to join the +Loire above Saumur, is, in many respects, a re<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">260</a></span>markable +river, although just here there is +nothing very remarkable about it. It is, however, +delightfully picturesque, as it washes the +tree-lined quays which form Chinon's river-front +for a distance of upward of two kilometres. +In general the waterway reminds one +of something between a great traffic-bearing +river and a mere pleasant stream.</p> + +<p>The bridge between Chinon and its faubourg +is typical of the art of bridge-building, at which, +in mediæval times, the French were excelled by +no other nation. To-day, in company with the +Americans, they build iron and steel abominations +which are eyesores which no amount of +utility will ever induce one to really admire. +Not so the French bridges of mediæval times, +of the type of those at Blois on the Loire; at +Chinon on the Vienne; at Avignon on the +Rhône; or at Cahors on the Lot.</p> + +<p>If Rabelais had not rendered popular Chinon +and the Chinonais the public would have yet to +learn of this delightful <i>pays</i>, in spite of that +famous first meeting between Charles VII. and +Jeanne d'Arc.</p> + +<p>If the modern founders of "garden-cities" +would only go as far back as the time of Richelieu +they would find a good example to follow +in the little Touraine town, the <i>chef-lieu</i> of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">261</a></span> +Commune, which bears the name of Richelieu. +When Armand du Plessis first became the +seigneur of this "<i>little land</i>" he resolutely set +about to make of the property a town which +should dignify his name. Accordingly he built, +at his own expense, after the plans of Lemercier, +"a city, regular, vast, and luxurious." +At the same time the cardinal-minister replaced +the paternal manor with a château elaborately +and prodigally royal.</p> + +<p>Richelieu was a sort of "petit Versailles," +which was to be to Chinon what the real Versailles +was to the capital.</p> + +<p>To-day, as in other days, it is a "<i>ville vaste, +régulière et luxueuse</i>," but it is unfinished. One +great street only has been completed on its +original lines, and it is exactly 450 metres long. +Originally the town was to have the dimensions +of but six hundred by four hundred metres; +modest enough in size, but of the greatest luxury. +The cardinal had no desire to make it +more grand, but even what he had planned was +not to be. Its one great street is bordered with +imposing buildings, but their tenants to-day +have not the least resemblance to the courtiers +of the cardinal who formerly occupied them.</p> + +<p>Richelieu disappeared in the course of time, +and work on his hobby stopped, or at least<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">262</a></span> +changed radically in its plan. Secondary +streets were laid out, of less grandeur, and +peopled with houses without character, low in +stature, and unimposing. The plan of a <i>ville +seigneuriale</i> gave way to a <i>ville de labeur</i>. +Other habitations grew up until to-day twenty-five +hundred souls find their living on the spot +where once was intended to be only a life of +luxury.</p> + +<p>Of the monuments with which Richelieu +would have ornamented his town there remains +a curious market-hall and a church in the pure +Jesuitic style of architecture, lacking nothing +of pretence and grandeur.</p> + +<p>Not much can be said for the vast Église +Notre Dame de Richelieu, a heavy Italian structure, +built from the plans of Lemercier. However +satisfying and beautiful the style may be +in Italy, it is manifestly, in all great works of +church-building in the north, unsuitable and uncouth.</p> + +<p>There was also a château as well, a great +Mansart affair with an overpowering dome. +Practically this remains to-day, but, like all +else in the town, it is but a promise of greater +things which were expected to materialize, but +never did.</p> + +<p>At the bottom of a little valley, in a fertile<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">263</a></span> +plain, lies Fontevrault, or what there is left of +it, for the old abbey is now nothing more than +a matter-of-fact "<i>maison de détention</i>" for +criminals. The abbey of yesterday is the +prison of to-day.</p> + +<p>Fontevrault is an enigma; it is, furthermore, +what the French themselves call a "<i>triste et +maussade bourg</i>." Its former magnificent +abbey was one of the few shrines of its class +which was respected by the Revolution, but +now it has become a prison which shelters +something like a thousand unfortunates.</p> + +<p>For centuries the old abbey had royal princesses +for abbesses and was one of the most +celebrated religious houses in all France. It +is a sad degeneration that has befallen this +famous establishment.</p> + +<p>In the eleventh century an illustrious man of +God, a Breton priest, named Robert d'Arbrissel, +outlined the foundation of the abbey +and gathered together a community of monks. +He died in the midst of his labours, in 1117, and +was succeeded by the Abbess Petronille de +Chemille.</p> + +<p>For nearly six hundred years the abbey—which +comprised a convent for men and another +for women—grew and prospered, directed, +not infrequently, by an abbess of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">264</a></span> +blood royal. It has been claimed that, as a religious +establishment for men and women, ruled +over by a woman, the abbey of Fontevrault was +unique in Christendom.</p> + +<p>It is an ample structure with a church tower +of bistre which forms a most pleasing note +of colour in the landscape. The basilica was +begun in 1101, and consecrated by Pope Calixtus +II. in 1119. Its interior showed a deep +vaulting, with graceful and hardy arches supported +by massive columns with quaint and +curiously sculptured capitals.</p> + +<p>The twelfth-century cloister was indeed a +masterwork among those examples, all too +rare, existing to-day. Its arcade is severely +elegant and was rebuilt by the Abbess Renée de +Bourbon, sister of François I., after the best +of decorative Renaissance of that day. The +chapter-house, now used by the director of the +prison, has in a remarkable manner retained +the mural frescoes of a former day. There are +depicted a series of groups of mystical and real +personages in a most curious fashion. The refectory +is still much in its primitive state, +though put to other uses to-day. Its tribune, +where the lectrice entertained the sisters during +their repasts, is, however, still in its place.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265"></a></span></p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/illus343_small.jpg" +alt="Cuisines, Fontevrault" title="Cuisines, Fontevrault" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus343.jpg"> +<i>Cuisines, Fontevrault</i></a></div> +</div> + + + +<p>The curious, bizarre, kilnlike pyramid,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">266</a></span> +known as the Tour d'Evrault, has ever been an +enigma to the archæologist and antiquarian. +Doubtless it formed the kitchens of the establishment, +for it looks like nothing else that +might have belonged to a great abbey. It has +a counterpart at the Abbey of Marmoutier near +Tours, and of St. Trinité at Vendôme; from +which fact there would seem to be little doubt +as to its real use, although it looks more like +a blast furnace or a distillery chimney.</p> + +<p>This curious pyramidal structure is like the +collegiate church of St. Ours at Loches, one of +those bizarre edifices which defy any special +architectural classification. At Fontevrault the +architect played with his art when he let all the +light in this curious "<i>tour</i>" enter by the roof. +At the extreme apex of the cone he placed a +lantern from which the light of day filtered +down the slope of the vaulting in a weird and +tomblike manner. It is a most surprising +effect, but one that is wholly lost to-day, since +the Tour d'Evrault has been turned into the +kitchen for the "<i>maison de détention</i>" of +which it forms a part.</p> + +<p>The nave of the church of the old abbey of +Fontevrault has been cut in two and a part is +now used as the dormitory of the prison, but +the choir, the transepts, and the towers remain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">267</a></span> +to suggest the simple and beautiful style of +their age.</p> + +<p>In the transepts, behind an iron grille, are +buried Henry II., King of England and Count +of Anjou, Éléanore of Guienne, Richard Cœur +de Lion, and Isabeau of Angoulême, wife of +Jean-sans-Terre. Four polychromatic statues, +one in wood, the others in stone, lying at length, +represent these four personages so great in +English history, and make of Fontevrault a +shrine for pilgrims which ought to be far less +ignored than it is. The cemetery of kings has +been shockingly cared for, and the ludicrous +kaleidoscopic decorations of the statues which +surmount the royal tombs are nothing less than +a sacrilege. It is needless to say they are comparatively +modern.</p> + +<p>At Bourgueil, near Fontevrault, are gathered +great crops of <i>réglisse</i>, or licorice. It differs +somewhat in appearance from the licorice +roots of one's childhood, but the same qualities +exist in it as in the product of Spain or the +Levant, whence indeed most of the commercial +licorice does come. It is as profitable an industry +in this part of France as is the saffron +crop of the Gâtinais, and whoever imported the +first roots was a benefactor. At the juncture +of the Vienne and the Loire are two tiny towns<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">268</a></span> +which are noted for two widely different reasons.</p> + +<p>These two towns are Montsoreau and +Candes, the former noted for the memory of +that bloodthirsty woman who gave a plot to +Dumas (and some real facts of history besides), +and the other noted for its prunes, +Candes being the chief centre of the industry +which produces the <i>pruneaux de Tours</i>.</p> + +<p>Descending the Vienne from Chinon, one first +comes to Candes, which dominates the confluence +of the Vienne with the Loire from its +imposing position on the top of a hill.</p> + +<p>Candes was in other times surrounded by +a protecting wall, and there are to-day remains +of a château which had formerly given shelter +to Charles VII. and Louis XI. It has, moreover, +a twelfth-century church built upon the +site of the cell in which died St. Martin in the +fourth century. The native of the surrounding +country cares nothing for churches or châteaux, +but assumes that the prune industry of +Candes is the one thing of interest to the visitor.</p> + +<p>Be this as it may, it is indeed a matter of +considerable importance to all within a dozen +kilometres of the little town. All through the +region round about Candes one meets with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">269</a></span> +fruit-pickers, with their great baskets laden +with prunes, pears, and apples, to be sent ultimately +to the great ovens to be desiccated and +dried. Fifty years ago, you will be told, the +cultivators attended to the curing process themselves, +but now it is in the hands of the middle-man.</p> + +<p>At Montsoreau much the same economic conditions +exist as at Candes, but there is vastly +more of historic lore hanging about the town. +In the fourteenth century, after a shifting career +the fief passed to the Vicomtes de Châteaudun; +then, in the century following, to the +Chabots and the family of Chambes, of which +Jean IV., prominent in the massacre of St. +Bartholomew's night, was a member. It was +he who assassinated the gallant Bussy d'Amboise +at the near-by Château of Coutancière +(at Brain-sur-Allonnes), who had made a rendezvous +with his wife, since become famous in +the pages of Dumas and of history as "La +Dame de Montsoreau."</p> + +<p>To-day the old bourg is practically non-existent, +and there is a smugness of prosperity +which considerably discounts the former charm +that it once must have had. But for all that, +there is enough left to enable one to picture<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">270</a></span> +what the life here under the Renaissance must +have been.</p> + +<p>The parish church—that of the ancient Paroisse +de Retz—still exists, though in ruins, +and there are very substantial remains of an +old priory, an old-time dependency of the Abbey +of St. Florent, now converted into a farm.</p> + +<p>Beside the highroad is the fifteenth-century +château. It has a double façade, one side of +which is ornamented with a series of <i>mâchicoulis</i>, +great high window-openings, and flanking +towers; and, in spite of its generally frowning +aspect, looks distinctly livable even to-day.</p> + +<p>The ornamental façade of the courtyard is +somewhat crumbled but still elegant, and has +incorporated within its walls a most ravishing +Renaissance turret, smothered in exquisite +<i>moulures</i> and <i>arabesques</i>. On the terminal gallery +and on the panels which break up the flatness +of this inner façade are a series of allegorical +bas-reliefs, representing monkeys, surmounted +with the inscription, "<i>Il le Feray</i>."</p> + +<p>The interior of this fine edifice is entirely +remodelled, and has nothing of its former fitments, +furnishings, or decorations.</p> + +<p>Near Port Boulet, almost opposite Candes, +is the great farm of a certain M. Cail. Communication +is had with the Orleans railway by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">271</a></span> +means of a traction engine, which draws its +own broad-wheeled wagons on the regular highway +between the <i>gare d'hommes</i> and the tall-chimneyed +manor or château which forms the +residence of this enterprising agriculturist.</p> + +<p>The property consists of nearly two thousand +acres, of which at least twelve hundred are +under the process of intensive cultivation, and +is divided into ten distinct farms, having each +an overseer charged directly with the control +of his part of the domain. These farms are +wonderfully well kept, with sanded roadways +like the courtyard of a château. There are +no trees in the cultivated parts, and the great +grain-fields are as the western prairies.</p> + +<p>The estate bears the generic name of "La +Briche." On one side it is bordered by the +railroad for a distance of nearly forty kilometres, +and it gives to that same railway an +annual freight traffic of two thousand tons of +merchandise, which would be considerably more +if all the cattle and sheep sent to other markets +were transported by rail.</p> + +<p>As might be expected, this domain of "La +Briche" has given to the neighbouring farmers +a lesson and an example, and little by little its +influence has resulted in an increased activity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">272</a></span> +among the neighbouring landholders, who formerly +gave themselves over to "<i>la chasse</i>," +and left the conduct of their farms to incompetent +and more or less ignorant hirelings. + + + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">273</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XIII.<span class="pagenum"><a href="#Contents">To ToC</a></span></h2> + +<h4>ANJOU AND BRETAGNE</h4> + + +<p>As one crosses the borderland from Touraine +into Anjou, the whole aspect of things changes. +It is as if one went from the era of the Renaissance +back again into the days of the Gothic, +not only in respect to architecture, but history +and many of the conditions of every-day life as +well.</p> + +<p>Most of the characteristics of Anjou are +without their like elsewhere, and opulent Anjou +of ancient France has to-day a departmental +etiquette in many things quite different from +that of other sections.</p> + +<p>A magnificent agricultural province, it has +been further enriched by liberal proprietors; a +land of aristocracy and the church, it has ever +been to the fore in political and ecclesiastical +matters; and to-day the spirit of industry and +progress are nowhere more manifest than here +in the ancient province of Anjou.</p> + +<p>The Loire itself changes its complexion but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">274</a></span> +little, and its entrance into Saumur, like its +entrance into Tours, is made between banks +that are tinged with the rainbow colours of the +growing vine. What hills there are near by +are burrowed, as swallows burrow in a cliff, +by the workers of the vineyards, who make in +the rock homes similar to those below Saumur, +in the Vallée du Vendomois, and at Cinq-Mars +near Tours.</p> + +<p>Anjou has a marked style in architecture, +known as Angevin, which few have properly +placed in the gamut of architectural styles +which run from the Byzantine to the Renaissance.</p> + +<p>The Romanesque was being supplanted +everywhere when the Angevin style came into +being, as a compromise between the heavy, +flat-roofed style of the south and the pointed +sky-piercing gables of the north. All Europe +was attempting to shake off the Romanesque +influence, which had lasted until the twelfth +century. Germany alone clung to the pure +style, and, it is generally thought, improved +it. The Angevin builders developed a species +that was on the borderland between the Romanesque +and the Gothic, though not by any means +a mere transition type.</p> + +<p>The chief cities of Anjou are not very great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">275</a></span> +or numerous, Angers itself containing but +slightly over fifty thousand souls. Cholet, of +thirteen thousand inhabitants, is an important +cloth-manufacturing centre, while Saumur carries +on a great wine trade and was formerly +the capital of a "<i>petit gouvernement</i>" of its +own, and, like many other cities and towns of +this and neighbouring provinces, was the scene +of great strife during the wars of the Vendée.</p> + +<p>In ancient times the <i>Andecavi</i>, as the old +peoples of the province were known, shared +with the <i>Turonii</i> of Touraine the honour of +being the foremost peoples of western Gaul, +though each had special characteristics peculiarly +their own, as indeed they have to-day.</p> + +<p>After one passes the junction of the Cher, +the Indre, and the Vienne, he notices no great +change in the conduct of the Loire itself. It +still flows in and out among the banks of sand +and those little round pebbles known all along +its course, nonchalantly and slowly, though now +and then one fancies that he notes a greater +eddy or current than he had observed before. +At Saumur it is still more impressed upon one, +while at the Ponts de Cé—a great strategic +spot in days gone by—there is evidence that +at one time or another the Loire must be a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">276</a></span> +raging torrent; and such it does become periodically, +only travellers never seem to see it +when it is in this condition.</p> + +<p>When Candes and Montsoreau are passed +and one comes under the frowning walls of +Saumur's grim citadel, a sort of provincial +Bastille in its awesomeness, he realizes for the +first time that there is, somewhere below, an +outlet to the sea. He cannot smell the salt-laden +breezes at this great distance, but the +general appearance of things gives that impression.</p> + +<p>From Tours to Saumur by the right bank of +the Loire—one of the most superb stretches +of automobile roadway in the world—lay the +road of which Madame de Sévigné wrote in +"Lettre CCXXIV." (to her mother), which +begins: "<i>Nous arrivons ici, nous avons quitté +Tours ce matin.</i>" It was a good day's journey +for those times, whether by <i>malle-post</i> or +the private conveyance which, likely enough, +Madame de Sévigné used at the time (1630). +To-day it is a mere morsel to the hungry road-devouring +maw of a twentieth-century automobile. +It's almost worth the labour of making +the journey on foot to know the charms of +this delightful river-bank bordered with historic +shrines almost without number, and peo<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">277</a></span>pled +by a class of peasants as picturesque and +gay as the Neapolitan of romance.</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus355_small.jpg" alt="Château de Saumur" title="Château de Saumur" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus355.jpg"><i>Château de Saumur</i></a></div> +</div> + +<p>"<i>Saumur est, ma foi! une jolie ville</i>," said +a traveller one day at a <i>table d'hôte</i> at Tours. +And so indeed it is. Its quays and its squares +lend an air of gaiety to its proud old <i>hôtel de +ville</i> and its grim château. Old habitations, +commodious modern houses, frowning machicolations, +church spires, grand hotels, innumerable +cafés, and much military, all combine +in a blend of fascinating interest that one usually +finds only in a great metropolis.</p> + +<p>The chief attraction is unquestionably the +old château. To-day it stands, as it has always +stood, high above the Quai de Limoges, with +scarce a scar on its hardy walls and never a +crumbling stone on its parapet.</p> + +<p>The great structure was begun in the eleventh +century, replacing an earlier monument +known as the Tour du Tronc. It was completed +in the century following and rebuilt or +remodelled in the sixteenth. Outside of its +impressive exterior there is little of interest +to remind one of another day.</p> + +<p>To literary pilgrims Saumur suggests the +homestead of the father of Eugenie Grandet, +and the <i>bon-vivant</i> reveres it for its soft pleasant +wines. Others worship it for its wonders<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">278</a></span> +of architecture, and yet others fall in love with +it because of its altogether delightful situation.</p> + +<p>Below Saumur are the cliff-dwellers, who +burrow high in the chalk cliff and stow themselves +away from light and damp like bottles +of old wine. The custom is old and not indigenous +to France, but here it is sufficiently in +evidence to be remarked by even the traveller +by train. Here, too, one sees the most remarkable +of all the <i>coiffes</i> which are worn by any +of the women along the Loire. This Angevin +variety, like Angevin architecture, is like none +of its neighbours north, east, south, or west.</p> + +<p>Students of history will revere Saumur for +something more than its artistic aspect or its +wines, for it was a favourite residence of the +Angevin princes and the English kings, as well +as being the capital of the <i>pape des Huguenots</i>.</p> + +<p>While Nantes is the real metropolis of the +Loire, and Angers is singularly up-to-date +and well laid out, neither of these fine cities +have a great thoroughfare to compare with the +broad, straight street of Saumur, which leads +from the Gare d'Orleans on the left bank and +crosses the two bridges which span the branches +of the Loire, to say nothing of the island between, +and finally merges into the great national +highway which runs south into Poitou.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">279</a></span></p> + +<p>Fine houses, many, if not most of them, dating +from centuries ago, line the principal +streets of the town, which, when one has actually +entered its confines, presents the appearance +of being too vast and ample for its population. +And, in truth, so it really is. Its population +barely reaches fifteen thousand souls, +whereas it would seem to have the grandeur +and appointments of a city of a hundred thousand. +The revocation of the Edict of Nantes +cut its inhabitants down to the extent of twenty +or twenty-five thousand, and it has never recovered +from the blow.</p> + +<p>In the neighbourhood of Saumur, for a considerable +distance up and down the Loire, the +hills are excavated into dwelling-houses and +wine-caves, producing a most curious aspect. +One continuous line of these cliff villages—like +nothing so much as the habitations of the +cliff-dwelling Indians of America—extends +from the juncture of the Vienne with the Loire +nearly up to the Ponts de Cé.</p> + +<p>The most curious effect of it all is the multitude +of openings of doorways and windows and +the uprising of chimney-pots through the chalk +and turf which form the roof-tops of these +settlements.</p> + +<p>In many of these caves are prepared the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">280</a></span> +famous <i>vin mousseux</i> of Saumur, of which +the greater part is sold as champagne to an +unsuspecting and indifferent public, not by the +growers or makers, but by unscrupulous middlemen.</p> + +<p>Saumur, like Angers, is fortunate in its climate, +to which is due a great part of the prosperity +of the town, for the "Rome of the +Huguenots" is more prosperous—and who +shall not say more content?—than it ever +was in the days of religious or feudal warfare.</p> + +<p>Near Saumur is one shrine neglected by English +pilgrims which might well be included in +their itineraries. In the Château de Moraines +at Dampierre died Margaret of Anjou and Lancaster, +Queen of England, as one reads on a +tablet erected at the gateway of this dainty +"<i>petit castel à tour et creneaux</i>."</p> + + +<div class="box2">Manoir de la Vignole-Souzay autrefois Dampierre<br/> + Asile et dernière demure<br /> + de l'heroine de la guerre des deux roses<br /> +Marguerite d'Anjou de Lancastre, reine d'Angleterre<br /> + La plus malheureuse des reines, des éspouses, et des mères<br /> + Qui Morut le 25 Aout 1482<br /> + Agée de 53 Ans.</div> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">281</a></span>The Salvus Murus of the ancients became +the Saumur of to-day in the year 948, when the +monk Absalom built a monastery here and surrounded +it with a protecting wall. Up to the +thirteenth century the city belonged to the +"Angevin kings of Angleterre," as the French +historians proudly claim them.</p> + +<p>The city passed finally to the Kings of +France, and to them remained constantly faithful. +Under Henri IV. the city was governed +by Duplessis-Mornay, the "<i>pape des Huguenots</i>," +becoming practically the metropolis of +Protestantism. Up to this time the chief architectural +monument was the château, which was +commenced in the eleventh century and which +through the next five centuries had been aggrandized +and rebuilt into its present shape.</p> + +<p>The church of Notre Dame de Nantilly dates +from the twelfth century and was frequently +visited by Louis XI. The oratory formerly +made use of by this monarch to-day contains +the baptismal fonts. One of the columns of +the nave has graven upon it the epitaph composed +by King René of Anjou for his foster-mother, +Dame Thiephanie. Throughout, the +church is beautifully decorated.</p> + +<p>The Hôtel de Ville may well be called the +chief artistic treasure of Saumur, as the chât<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">282</a></span>teau +is its chief historical monument. It is a +delightful <i>ensemble</i> of the best of late Gothic, +dating from the sixteenth century, flanked on +its façade by turrets crowned with <i>mâchicoulis</i>, +and lighted by a series of elegant windows +<i>à croisillons</i>. Above all is a gracious campanile, +in its way as fine as the belfry of Bruges, +to which, from a really artistic standpoint, +rhapsodists have given rather more than its +due.</p> + +<p>The interior is as elaborate and pleasing as +is the outside. In the Salle des Mariages and +Salle du Conseil are fine fifteenth-century chimneypieces, +such as are only found in their perfection +on the Loire. The library, of something +over twenty thousand volumes, many of +them in manuscript, is formed in great part +from the magnificent collection formerly at the +abbeys of Fontevrault and St. Florent. Doubtless +these old tomes contain a wealth of material +from which some future historian will perhaps +construct a new theory of the universe. +This in truth may not be literally so, but it is +a fact that there is a vast amount of contemporary +historical information, with regard to +the world in general, which is as yet unearthed, +as witness the case of Pompeii alone, where the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">283</a></span> +area of the discoveries forms but a small part +of the entire buried city.</p> + +<p>At Saumur numerous prehistoric and <i>gallo-romain</i> +remains are continually being added +to the museum, which is also in the Hôtel de +Ville. A recent acquisition—discovered in a +neighbouring vineyard—is a Roman "<i>trompette</i>," +as it is designated, and a more or less +complete outfit of tools, obviously those of a +carpenter.</p> + +<p>The notorious Madame de Montespan—"the +illustrious penitent," though the former +description answers better—stopped here, in +a house adjoining the Church of St. John, to-day +a <i>maison de retrait</i>, on her way to visit +her sister, the abbess, at Fontevrault.</p> + +<p>From Saumur to Angers the Loire passes +an almost continuous series of historical guide-posts, +some in ruins, but many more as proudly +environed as ever.</p> + +<p>At Treves-Cunault is a dignified Romanesque +church which would add to the fame of a more +popular and better known town. It is not a +grand structure, but it is perfect of its kind, +with its crenelated façade and its sturdy arcaded +towers curiously placed midway on the +north wall.</p> + +<p>Here one first becomes acquainted with <i>men<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">284</a></span>hirs</i> +and <i>dolmens</i>, examples of which are to +be found in the neighbourhood, not so remarkable +as those of Brittany, but still of the same +family.</p> + +<p>The Ponts de Cé follow next, still in the midst +of vine-land, and finally appear the twin spires +of Angers's unique Cathedral of St. Maurice. +Here one realizes, if not before, that he is in +Anjou; no more is the atmosphere transparent +as in Touraine, but something of the grime +of the commercial struggle for life is over all.</p> + +<p>Here the Maine joins the Loire, at a little +village called La Pointe: "the Charenton of +Angers," it was called by a Paris-loving boulevardier +who once wandered afield.</p> + +<p>Much has been written, and much might yet +be written, about the famous Ponts de Cé, which +span the Loire and its branches for a distance +considerably over three kilometres. This ancient +bridge or bridges (which, with that at +Blois, were at one time, the only bridges across +the Loire below Orleans) formerly consisted +of 109 arches, but the reconstruction of the +mid-nineteenth century reduced these to a bare +score.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/illus365_small.jpg" alt="The Ponts de Cé" title="The Ponts de Cé" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus365.jpg"><i>The Ponts de Cé</i></a></div> +</div> + + + +<p>As a vantage-point in warfare the Ponts de +Cé were ever in contention, the Gauls, the Romans, +the Franks, the Normans, and the Eng<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">285</a></span>lish +successively taking possession and defending +them against their opponents. The Ponts +de Cé is a weirdly strange and historic town +which has lost none of its importance in a later +day, though the famous <i>ponts</i> are now remade, +and their antique arches replaced by more solid, +if less picturesque piers and piling. They span +the shallow flow of the Loire water for three-quarters +of a league and produce a homogeneous +effect of antiquity, coupled with the city's +three churches and its château overlooking the +fortified isle in mid-river, which looks as though +it had not changed since the days when Marie +de Medici looked upon it, as recalled by the +great Rubens painting in the Louvre. Since +the beginning of the history of these parts, battles +almost without number have taken place +here, as was natural on a spot so strategically +important.</p> + +<p>There is a tale of the Vendean wars, connected +with the "Roche-de-Murs" at the Ponts +de Cé, to the effect that a battalion, left here +to guard any attack from across the river, was +captured by the Vendeans. Many of the +"<i>Bleus</i>" refused to surrender, and threw +themselves into the river beneath their feet. +Among these was the wife of an officer, to +whom the Vendeans offered life if she surren<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">286</a></span>dered. +This was refused, and precipitately, +with her child, she threw herself into the flood +beneath.</p> + +<p>On the largest isle, that lying between the +Louet and the Loire, is one vast garden or +orchard of cherry-trees, which produce a peculiarly +juicy cherry from which large quantities +of <i>guignolet</i>, a sort of "cherry brandy," is +made. The Angevins will tell you that this was +a well-known refreshment in the middle ages, +and was first made by one of those monkish +orders who were so successful in concocting the +subtle liquors of the commerce of to-day.</p> + +<p>It is with real regret that one parts from +the Ponts de Cé, with La Fontaine's couplet on +his lips:</p> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0_5">"... Ce n'est pas petite gloire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Que d'être pont sur la Loire."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>Some one has said that the provinces find +nothing to envy in Paris as far as the transformation +of their cities is concerned. This, to +a certain extent, is so, not only in respect to +the modernizing of such grand cities as Lyons, +Marseilles, or Lille, but in respect to such +smaller cities as Nantes and Angers, where the +improvements, if not on so magnificent a scale, +are at least as momentous to their immediate +environment.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">287</a></span></p> + +<p>For the most part these second and third +class cities are to-day transformed in exceedingly +good taste, and, though many a noble +monument has in the past been sacrificed, to-day +the authorities are proceeding more carefully.</p> + +<p>Angers, in spite of its overpowering château +and its unique cathedral, is of a modernity and +luxuriousness in its present-day aspect which +is all the more remarkable because of the contrast. +Formerly the Angevin capital, from the +days of King John up to a much later time +Angers had the reputation of being a town +"<i>plus sombre et plus maussade</i>" than any +other in the French provinces. In Shakespeare's +"King John" one reads of "black +Angers," and so indeed is its aspect to-day, +for its roof-tops are of slate, while many of the +houses are built of that material entirely. In +the olden time many of its streets were cut in +the slaty rock, leaving its sombre surface bare +to the light of day. One sees evidences of all +this in the massive walls of the great black-banded +castle of Angers, and, altogether, this +magpie colouring is one of the chief characteristics +of this grandly historic town.</p> + +<p>Both the new and the old town sit proudly on +a height crowned by the two slim spires of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">288</a></span> +cathedral. In front, the gentle curves of the +river Maine enfold the old houses at the base +of the hillside and lap the very walls of the +grim fortress-château itself, or did in the days +when the Counts of Anjou held sway, though +to-day the river has somewhat receded.</p> + +<p>Beyond the ancient ramparts, up the hill, +have been erected the "<i>quartiers neufs</i>," with +houses all admirably planned and laid out, with +gardens forming a veritable girdle, as did the +retaining walls of other days which surrounded +the old château and its faubourg. To-day +Angers shares with Nantes the title of metropolis +of the west, and the Loire flows on its ample +way between the two in a far more imposing +manner than elsewhere in its course from +source to sea.</p> + +<p>Angers does not lie exactly at the juncture +of the Maine and Loire, but a little way above, +but it has always been considered as one of +the chief Loire cities; and probably many of +its visitors do not realize that it is not on the +Loire itself.</p> + +<p>The marvellous fairy-book château of Angers, +with its fourteen black-striped towers, is +just as it was when built by St. Louis, save that +its chess-board towers lack, in most cases, their +coiffes, and all vestiges have disappeared of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">289</a></span> +the <i>charpente</i> which formerly topped them +off.</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus371_small.jpg" alt="Château d'Angers" title="Château d'Angers" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus371.jpg"><i>Château d'Angers</i></a></div> +</div> + +<p>Beyond the rocky formation of the banks +of the Loire, which crop out below the juncture +of the Maine and the Loire, below Angers, are +Savennières and La Possonière, whence come +the most famous vintages of Anjou, which, to +the wines of these parts, are what Château +Margaux and Château Yquem are to the Bordelais, +and the Clos Vougeot is to the Bourguignons.</p> + +<p>The peninsula formed by the Loire and the +Maine at Angers is the richest agricultural +region in all France, the nurseries and the +kitchen-gardens having made the fortune of +this little corner of Anjou.</p> + +<p>Angers is the headquarters for nursery-garden +stock for the open air, as Orleans is for +ornamental and woodland trees and shrubs.</p> + +<p>The trade in living plants and shrubs has +grown to very great proportions since 1848, +when an agent went out from here on behalf +of the leading house in the trade and visited +America for the purpose of searching out foreign +plants and fruits which could be made to +thrive on French soil.</p> + +<p>Both the soil and climate are very favourable +for the cultivation of many hitherto unknown<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">290</a></span> +fruits, the neighbourhood of the sea, which, +not far distant, is tempered by the Gulf Stream, +having given to Anjou a lukewarm humidity +and a temperature of a remarkable equality.</p> + +<p>Some of the nurseries of these parts are +enormous establishments, the Maison André +Leroy, for example, covering an extent of some +six hundred acres. A catalogue of one of these +establishments, located in the suburbs of Angers, +enumerates over four hundred species of +pear-trees, six hundred varieties of apple-trees, +one hundred and fifty varieties of plums, four +hundred and seventy-five of grapes, fifteen hundred +of roses, and two hundred and nineteen +of rhododendrons.</p> + +<p>Each night, or as often as fifty railway wagons +are loaded, trains are despatched from the +<i>gare</i> at Angers for all parts. When the <i>choux-fleurs</i> +are finished, then come the <i>petits pois</i>, +and then the <i>artichauts</i> and other <i>légumes</i> in +favour with the Paris <i>bon-vivants</i>.</p> + +<p>Near Angers is one of those Cæsar's camps +which were spread thickly up and down Gaul +and Britain alike. One reaches it by road from +Angers, and, until it dawns upon one that the +vast triangle, one of whose equilateral sides is +formed by the Loire, another by the Maine, +and the third by a ridge of land stretching be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">291</a></span>tween +the two, covers about fourteen kilometres +square, it seems much like any other neck or +peninsula of land lying between two rivers. +One hundred thousand of the Roman legion +camped here at one time, which is not so very +wonderful until it is recalled that they lived +for months on the resources of this comparatively +restricted area.</p> + +<p>Before coming to Nantes, Ancenis and Oudon +should claim the attention of the traveller, +though each is not much more than a typically +interesting small town of France, in spite of +the memories of the past.</p> + +<p>Ancenis has an ancient château, remodelled +and added to in the nineteenth century, which +possesses some remarkably important constructive +details, the chief of which are a great +tower-flanked doorway and the <i>corps de logis</i>, +each the work of an Angevin architect, Jean de +Lespine, in the sixteenth century. Within the +walls of this château François II., Duc de Bretagne, +and Louis XI. signed one of the treaties +which finally led up to the union of the Duché +de Bretagne with the Crown of France.</p> + +<p>Oudon possesses a fine example of a mediæval +donjon, though it has been restored in our +day.</p> + +<p>One does not usually connect Brittany with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">292</a></span> +the Loire except so far as to recollect that +Nantes was a former political and social capital. +As a matter of fact, however, a very considerable +proportion of Brittany belongs to the +Loire country.</p> + +<p>Anjou of the counts and kings and Bretagne +of the dukes and duchesses embrace the whole +of the Loire valley below Saumur, although the +river-bed of the Loire formed no actual boundary. +Anjou extended nearly as far to the southward +as it did to the north of the vine-clad +banks, and Bretagne, too, had possession of a +vast tract south of Nantes, known as the Pays +de Retz, which bordered upon the Vendée of +Poitou.</p> + +<p>All the world knows, or should know, that +Nantes and St. Nazaire form one of the great +ports of the world, not by any means so great +as New York, London, or Hamburg, nor yet +as great as Antwerp, Bordeaux, or Marseilles, +but still a magnificent port which plays a most +important part with the affairs of France and +the outside world.</p> + +<p>Nantes, la Brette, is tranquil and solid, with +the life of the laborious bourgeois always in the +foreground. It is of Bretagne, to which province +it anciently belonged, only so far as it +forms the bridge between the Vendée and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">293</a></span> +old duchy; literally between two opposing feudal +lords and masters, both of whom were hard +to please.</p> + +<p>The memoirs of this corner of the province +of Bretagne of other days are strong in such +names as the Duchesse Anne, the monk Abelard, +the redoubtable Clisson, the infamous +Gilles de Retz, the warrior Lanoue, surnamed +"Bras de Fer," and many others whose names +are prominent in history.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ventre Saint Gris! les Ducs de Bretagne +n'étaient pas de petits compagnons!</i>" cried +Henri Quatre, as he first gazed upon the Château +de Nantes. At that time, in 1598, this fortress +was defended by seven curtains, six towers, +bastions and caponieres, all protected by +a wide and deep moat, into which poured the +rising tide twice with each round of the clock.</p> + +<p>To-day the aspect of this château is no less +formidable than of yore, though it has been +debased and the moat has disappeared to make +room for a roadway and the railroad.</p> + +<p>It was in the château of Nantes, the same +whose grim walls still overlook the road by +which one reaches the centre of the town from +the inconveniently placed station, that Mazarin +had Henri de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz and co-adjutor +of the Archbishop of Paris, imprisoned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">294</a></span> +in 1665, because of his offensive partisanship. +Fouquet, too, after his splendid downfall, was +thrown into the donjon here by Louis XIV.</p> + +<p>De Gondi recounts in his "Mémoires" how +he took advantage of the inattention of his +guards and finally evaded them by letting himself +over the side of the Bastion de Mercœur by +means of a rope smuggled into him by his +friends. The feat does not look a very formidable +one to-day, but then, or in any day, it must +have been somewhat of an adventure for a +portly churchman, and the wonder is that it +was performed successfully. At any rate it +reads like a real adventure from the pages of +Dumas, who himself made a considerable use +of Nantes and its château in his historical romances.</p> + +<p>Landais, the minister and favourite of François +II. of Bretagne, was arrested here in 1485, +in the very chamber of the prince, who delivered +him up with the remark: "<i>Faites justice, +mais souvenez-vous que vous lui êtes redevable +de votre charge.</i>"</p> + +<p>There is no end of historical incident connected +with Nantes's old fortress-château of +mediæval times, and, in one capacity or another, +it has sheltered many names famous in +history, from the Kings of France, from Louis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">295</a></span> +XII. onward, to Madame de Sévigné and the +Duchesse de Berry.</p> + +<p>Nantes's Place de la Bouffai (which to lovers +of Dumas will already be an old friend) was +formerly the site of a château contemporary +with that which stands by the waterside. The +Château de Bouffai was built in 990 by Conan, +first Duc de Bretagne, and served as an official +residence to him and many of his successors.</p> + +<p>In Nantes's great but imperfect and unfinished +Cathedral of St. Pierre one comes upon +a relic that lives long in the memory of those +who have passed before it: the tomb of François +II., Duc de Bretagne, and Marguerite de +Foix. The cathedral itself is no mean architectural +work, in spite of its imperfections, as +one may judge from the following inscription +graven over the sculptured figure of St. Pierre, +its patron:</p> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0_5">"L'an mil quatre cent trente-quatre,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A my-avril sans moult rabattre:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An portail de cette église,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fut la première pierre assise."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>Within, the chief attraction is that masterwork +of Michel Colombe, the before-mentioned +tomb, which ranks among the world's art-treasures. +The beauty of the emblematic figures +which flank the tomb proper, the fine chiselling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">296</a></span> +of the recumbent effigies themselves, and the +general <i>ensemble</i> is such that the work is bound +to appeal, whatever may be one's opinion of +Renaissance sculpture in France. The tomb +was brought here from the old Église des +Carmes, which had been pillaged and burned in +the Revolution.</p> + +<p>The mausoleum was—in its old resting-place—opened +in 1727, and a small, heart-shaped, +gold box was found, supposed to have +contained the heart of the Duchesse Anne. The +coffer was surmounted by a royal crown and +emblazoned with the order of the Cordelière, +but within was found nothing but a scapulary. +On the circlet of the crown was written in +relief:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0_5">"Cueur de vertus orné<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dignement couronné."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And on the box beneath one read:</p> + + +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0_5">"En ce petit vaisseau, de fin or pur et munde,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Repose un plus grand cueur que oncque dame eut au monde.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Anne fut le nom d'elle, en France deux fois Royne<br /></span> +<span class="i0"> + . . . +. . . +. . . + . . <br /></span> +<span class="i0">Et ceste parte terrestre en grand deuil nos demure.<br /></span> +<span class="i6">IX. Janvier M.V.XIII."</span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> + + +<p>In one respect only has Nantes suffered +through the march of time. Its magnificent +Quai de la Fosse has disappeared, a long façade +which a hundred or more years ago was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">297</a></span> +bordered by the palatial dwellings of the great +ship-owners of the Nantes of a former generation. +The whole, immediately facing the river +where formerly swung many ships at anchor, +has disappeared entirely to make way for the +railway.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<a href="images/illus381.jpg"> +<img src="images/illus381_small.jpg" alt="Environs of Nantes" title="Environs of Nantes" /> +</a> +</div> + +<p>The islands of the Loire opposite Nantes are +an echo of the life of the metropolis itself. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">298</a></span> +Ile Feydeau is monumental, the Ile Gloriette +hustling and nervous with "<i>affaires</i>," and +Prairie-au-Duc busy with industries of all +sorts.</p> + +<p>Couëron, below Nantes on the right bank, is +sombre with gray walls surrounding its numberless +factories, and chimney-stacks belching +forth clouds of dense smoke. Behind are great +walls of chalky-white rock crowned with verdure. +Nearly opposite is the little town of Le +Pellerin graciously seated on the river's bank +and marking the lower limit of the Loire Nantaise.</p> + +<p>Another hill, belonging to the domain of Bois-Tillac +and La Martinière, where was born +Fouché, the future Duc d'Otranta, comes to +view, and the basin of the Loire enlarges into +the estuary, and all at once one finds himself +in the true "Loire Maritime."</p> + +<p>At Martinière is the mouth of the Canal Maritime +à la Loire, which, from Paimbœuf to Le +Pellerin, is used by all craft ascending the +river to Nantes, drawing more than four metres +of water.</p> + +<p>At the entrance of the Acheneau is the Canal +de Buzay, which connects that stream with the +more ambitious Loire, and makes of the Lac de +Grand Lieu a public domain, instead of a pri<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">299</a></span>vate +property as claimed by the "marquis" +who holds in terror all who would fish or shoot +over its waters. All this immediate region +formerly belonged to the monks of the ancient +Abbey of Buzay, and it was they who originally +cut the waterway through to the Loire. About +half-way in its length are the ruins of the ancient +monastery, clustered about the tower of its +old church. It is a most romantically sad monument, +and for that very reason its grouping, +on the bank of the busy canal, suggests in a +most impressive manner the passing of all +great works.</p> + +<p>The prosperity of Nantes as a deep-sea port +is of long standing, but recent improvements +have increased all this to a hitherto unthought-of +extent. Progress has been continuous, +and now Nantes has become, like Rouen, +a great deep-water port, one of the important +seaports of France, the realization of a hope +ever latent in the breast of the Nantais since +the days and disasters of the Edict and its +revocation.</p> + +<p>Below Nantes, in the actual "Loire Maritime," +the aspect of all things changes and the +green and luxuriant banks give way to sand-dunes +and flat, marshy stretches, as salty as the +sea itself. This gives rise to a very consider<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">300</a></span>able +development of the salt industry which +at Bourg de Batz is the principal, if not the +sole, means of livelihood.</p> + +<p>St. Nazaire, the real deep-water port of +Nantes, dates from the fifteenth and sixteenth +centuries, when it was known as Port Nazaire. +It is a progressive and up-to-date seaport of +some thirty-five thousand souls, but it has no +appeal for the tourist unless he be a lover of +great smoky steamships and all the paraphernalia +of longshore life.</p> + +<p>Pornichet, a "<i>station de bains de mer +très fréquentée</i>;" Batz, with its salt-works; Le +Croisic, with its curious waterside church, and +the old walled town of Guérande bring one to +the mouth of the Loire. The rest is the billowy +western ocean whose ebb and flow brings +fresh breezes and tides to the great cities of +the estuary and makes possible that prosperity +with which they are so amply endowed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">301</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2>CHAPTER XIV.<span class="pagenum"><a href="#Contents">To ToC</a></span></h2> + +<h4>SOUTH OF THE LOIRE</h4> + + +<p>The estuary of the Loire belongs both to +Brittany and to the Vendée, though, as a matter-of-fact, +the southern bank, opposite Nantes, +formed a part of the ancient Pays de Retz, one +of the old seigneuries of Bretagne.</p> + +<p>It was Henri de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz, +who was the bitter rival of Mazarin. French +historians have told us that when the regency +under Anne of Austria began, Mazarin, who +had been secretary to the terrible Richelieu, +was just coming into his power. He was a +subtle, insidious Italian, plodding and patient, +but false as a spring-time rainbow. Gondi was +bold, liberal, and independent, a mover of men +and one able to take advantage of any turn of +the wind, a statesman, and a great reformer,—or +he would have been had he but full power. +It was Cromwell who said that De Retz was the +only man in Europe who saw through his plans.</p> + +<p>Gondi had entered the church, but he had no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">302</a></span> +talents for it. His life was free, too free even +for the times, it would appear, for, though he +was ordained cardinal, it was impossible for +him to supplant Mazarin in the good graces +of the court. As he himself had said that he +preferred to be a great leader of a party rather +than a partisan of royalty, he was perhaps not +so very greatly disappointed that he was not +able to supplant the wily Italian successor of +Richelieu in the favour of the queen regent. +Gondi was able to control the parliament, however, +and, for a time, it was unable to carry +through anything against his will. Mazarin +rose to power at last, barricaded the streets +of Paris, and decided to exile Gondi—as +being the too popular hero of the people. +Gondi knew of the edict, but stuck out to +the last, saying: "To-morrow, I, Henri de +Gondi, before midday, will be master of +Paris." Noon came, and he <i>was</i> master of +Paris, but as he was still Archbishop-Coadjutor +of Paris his hands were tied in more ways +than one, and the plot for his supremacy over +Mazarin, "the plunderer," fell through.</p> + +<p>The whole neighbouring region south of the +Loire opposite Nantes, the ancient Pays de +Retz, is unfamiliar to tourists in general, and +for that reason it has an unexpected if not a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">303</a></span> +superlative charm. It was the bloodiest of the +battle-grounds of the Vendean wars, and, +though its monumental remains are not as +numerous or as imposingly beautiful as those +in many other parts, there is an interest about +it all which is as undying as is that of the most +ornate or magnificent château or fortress-peopled +land that ever existed.</p> + +<p>Not a corner of this land but has seen bloody +warfare in all its grimness and horror, from the +days when Clisson was pillaged by the Normans +in the ninth century, to the guerilla warfare of +the Vendean republicans in the eighteenth century. +The advent of the railway has changed +much of the aspect of this region and brought +a twentieth-century civilization up to the very +walls of the ruins of Clisson and Maulévrier, +the latter one of the many châteaux of this +region which were ruined by the wars of Stofflet, +who, at the head of the insurgents, obliged +the nobility to follow the peasants in their +uprising.</p> + +<p>Now and then, in these parts, one comes upon +a short length of railway line not unlike that +at which our forefathers marvelled. The line +may be of narrow gauge or it may not, but +almost invariably the two or three so-called +carriages are constructed in the style (or lack<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">304</a></span> +of style) of the old stage-coach, and they roll +along in much the same lumbering fashion. +The locomotive itself is a thing to be wondered +at. It is a pigmy in size, but it makes the +commotion of a modern decapod, or one of +those great flyers which pull the Southern Express +on the main line via Poitiers and Angoulême, +not fifty kilometres away.</p> + +<p>There is a little tract of land lying just south +of the Loire below Angers which is known as +"le Bocage Vendéen." One leaves the Loire +at Chalonnes and, by a series of gentle inclines, +reaches the plateau where sits the town of +Cholet, the very centre of the region, and a +town whose almost only industry is the manufacture +of pocket-handkerchiefs.</p> + +<p>The aspect of the Loire has changed rapidly +and given way to a more vigorous and varied +topography; but, for all that, Cholet and the +surrounding country depend entirely upon the +great towns of the Loire for their intercourse +with the still greater markets beyond. Like +Angers, Cholet and all the neighbouring villages +are slate-roofed, with only an occasional +red tile to give variety to the otherwise gray +and sombre outlook.</p> + +<p><i>En route</i> from Chalonnes one passes Chemillé +almost the only market-town of any size<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">305</a></span> +in the district. It is very curious, with its +Romanesque church and its old houses distributed +around an amphitheatre, like the <i>loges</i> in +an opera-house.</p> + +<p>This is the very centre of the Bocage, where, +in Revolutionary times, the Republican armies +so frequently fought with the bands of Vendean +fanatics.</p> + +<p>The houses of Cholet are well built, but always +with that grayness and sadness of tone +which does not contribute to either brilliancy +of aspect or gaiety of disposition. Save the +grand street which traverses the town from +east to west, the streets are narrow and uncomfortable; +but to make up for all this there are +hotels and cafés as attractive and as comfortable +as any establishments of the kind to be +found in any of the smaller cities of provincial +France.</p> + +<p>The handkerchief industry is very considerable, +no less than six great establishments +devoting themselves to the manufacture.</p> + +<p>Cholet is one of the greatest cattle markets, +if not the greatest, in the land. The farmers +of the surrounding country buy <i>bœufs maigres</i> +in the southwest and centre of France and +transform them into good fat cattle which in +every way rival what is known in England as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">306</a></span> +"best English." This is accomplished cheaply +and readily by feeding them with cabbage +stalks.</p> + +<p>On Saturdays, on the Champ de Foire, the +aspect is most animated, and any painter who +is desirous of emulating Rosa Bonheur's +"Horse Fair" (painted at the great cattle +market of Bernay, in Normandy) cannot find +a better vantage-ground than here, for one may +see gathered together nearly all the cattle types +of Poitou, the Vendée, Anjou, Bas Maine, and +of Bretagne Nantaise.</p> + +<p>In earlier days Cholet was far more sad than +it is to-day; but there remain practically no +souvenirs of its past. The wars of the Vendée +left, it is said, but three houses standing when +the riot and bloodshed was over. Two of the +greatest battles of this furious struggle were +fought here.</p> + +<p>On the site of the present railroad station +Kleber and Moreau fought the royalists, and +the heroic Bonchamps received the wound of +which he died at St. Florent, just after he had +put into execution the order of release for five +thousand Republican prisoners. This was on +the 17th October, 1793. Five months later +Stofflet possessed himself of the town and +burned it nearly to the ground. Not much is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">307</a></span> +left to remind one of these eventful times, save +the public garden, which was built on the site +of the old château.</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus391_small.jpg" +alt="Donjon of the Château de Clisson" title="Donjon of the Château de Clisson" /> +<div class="caption"> +<a href="images/illus391.jpg"><i>Donjon of the Château de Clisson</i></a></div> +</div> + + + + + +<p>La Moine, a tiny and most picturesque river, +still flows under the antique arches of the old +bridge, which was held in turn by the Vendeans +and the Republicans.</p> + +<p>To the west of Cholet runs another line of +railway, direct through the heart of the Sèvre-Nantaise, +one of those <i>petits pays</i> whose old-time +identity is now all but lost, even more celebrated +in bloody annals than is that region +lying to the eastward. Here was a country +entirely sacked and impoverished. Mortagne +was completely ruined, though it has yet left +substantial remains of its fourteenth and fifteenth +century château. Torfou was the scene +of a bloody encounter between the Vendean +hordes and Kleber's two thousand <i>héroiques +de Mayence</i>. The able Vendean chiefs who +opposed him, Bonchamps, D'Elbée, and Lescure, +captured his artillery and massacred all +the wounded.</p> + +<p>At the extremity of this line was the stronghold +of Clisson, which itself finally succumbed, +but later gave birth to a new town to take the +place of that which perished in the Vendean +convulsion.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">308</a></span></p> + +<p>Throughout this region, in the valleys of the +Moine and the Sèvre-Nantaise, the rocks and +the verdure and the admirable, though ill preserved, +ruins, all combine to produce as unworldly +an atmosphere as it is possible to conceive +within a short half-hundred kilometres +of the busy world-port of Nantes and the great +commercial city of Angers. One continually +meets with ruins that recall the frightful struggle +of Revolutionary times; hence the impression +that one gets from a ramble through or +about this region is well-nigh unique in all +France.</p> + +<p>The coast southward, nearly to La Rochelle, +is a vast series of shallow gulfs and salt +marshes which form weirdly wonderful outlooks +for the painter who inclines to vast expanses +of sea and sky.</p> + +<p>Pornic is a remarkably picturesque little seaside +village, where the inflowing and outflowing +tides of the Bay of Biscay temper the southern +sun and make of it—or would make of it if +the tide of fashion had but set that way—a +watering-place of the first rank.</p> + +<p>It is an entrancing bit of coast-line which +extends for a matter of fifty kilometres south +of the juncture of the Loire with the ocean, +with an aspect at times severe with a waste<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">309</a></span> +of sand, and again gracious with verdure and +tree-clad and rocky shores.</p> + +<p>The great Bay of Bourgneuf and its enfolding +peninsula of Noirmoutier form an artist's +sketching-ground that is not yet overrun with +mere dabblers in paint and pencil, and is accordingly +charming.</p> + +<p>The Bay of Bourgneuf has most of the characteristics +of the Morbihan, without that severity +and sternness which impress one so deeply +when on the shores of the great Breton inland +sea.</p> + +<p>The little town of Bourgneuf-en-Retz, with +its little port of Colletis, is by no means a city +of any artistic worth; indeed it is nearly bare +of most of those things which attract travellers +who are lovers of old or historic shrines; +but it is a delightful stopping-place for all that, +provided one does not want to go farther afield, +to the very tip of the Vendean "land's end" +at Noirmoutier across the bay.</p> + +<p>Three times a day a steamer makes the journey +to the little island town which is a favourite +place of pilgrimage for the Nantais during +the summer months. Once it was not even an +island, but a peninsula, and not so very long +ago either. The alluvial deposits of the Loire +made it in the first place, and the sea, back<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">310</a></span>ing +in from the north, made a strait which just +barely separates it to-day from the mainland.</p> + +<p>On this out-of-the-way little island there are +still some remains of prehistoric monuments, +the dolmen of Chiron-Tardiveau, the menhirs +of Pinaizeaux and Pierre-Levée, and some +others. In the speech of the inhabitants the +isle is known as Noirmoutier, a contraction of +"<i>Nigrum Monasterium</i>," a name derived from +the monastery founded here in the seventh century +by St. Philibert.</p> + +<p>In the town is an old château, the ancient +fortress-refuge of the Abbé of Her. It is a +great square structure flanked at the angles +with little towers, of which two are roofed, +one uncovered, and the fourth surmounted by +a heliograph for communicating with the Ile +de Yeu and the Pointe de Chenoulin. The view +from the heights of these château towers is +fascinating beyond compare, particularly at +sundown on a summer's evening, when the +golden rays of the sinking sun burnish the coast +of the Vendée and cast lingering shadows from +the roof-tops and walls of the town below. To +the northwest one sees the Ilot du Pilier, with +its lighthouse and its tiny coast-guard fortress; +to the north is clearly seen Pornic and the +neighbouring coasts of the Pays de Retz and of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">311</a></span> +Bouin with its encircling dikes,—all reminiscent +of a little Holland. To the south is the +narrow neck of Fromentin, the jagged Marguerites, +which lift their fangs wholly above the +surface of the sea only at low water, and the +towering cliffs of the Ile de Yeu, which rise +above the mists.</p> + +<p>Just south of the Loire, between Nantes and +Bourgneuf, is the Lac de Grand-Lieu, in connection +with which one may hear a new rendering +of an old legend. At one time, it is said, +it was bordered by a city, whose inhabitants, +for their vices, brought down the vengeance of +heaven upon them, even though they cried out +to the powers on high to avert the threatened +flood which rose up out of the lake and overflowed +the banks and swallowed the city and +all evidences of its past. In this last lies the +flaw in the legend; but, like the history of +Sodom, of the Ville d'Ys in Bretagne, and of +Ars in Dauphiné, tradition has kept it alive.</p> + +<p>This wicked place of the Loire valley was +called <i>Herbauge</i> or <i>Herbadilla</i>, and, from St. +Philibert at the southern extremity of the lake, +one looks out to-day on a considerable extent +of shallow water, which is as murderous-looking +and as uncanny as a swamp of the Everglades.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">312</a></span></p> + +<p>From the central basin flow two tiny rivers, +the Ognon and the Boulogne, which are charming +enough in their way, as also is the route +by highroad from Nantes, but the gray monotonous +lake, across which the wind whistles in +a veritable tempest for more than six months +of the year, is most depressing.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">There are various hamlets, with some pretence</span><br /> +at advanced civilization about them, scattered +around the borders of the lake, St. Leger, +St. Mars, St. Aignan, St. Lumine, Bouaye, and +La Chevrolière; but in the whole number you +will not get a daily paper that is less than +forty-eight hours old, and nothing but the most +stale news of happenings in the outside world +ever dribbles through. St. Philibert is the +metropolis of these parts, and it has no competitors +for the honour.</p> + +<p>At the entrance of the Ognon is the little +village of Passay, built at the foot of a low cliff +which dominates all this part of the lake. It +is a picturesque little village of low houses +and red roofs, with a little sandy beach in the +foreground, through which little rivulets of +soft water trickle and go to make up the greater +body.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">313</a></span></p> + + +<h2>CHAPTER XV.<span class="pagenum"><a href="#Contents">To ToC</a></span></h2> + +<h4>BERRY AND GEORGE SAND'S COUNTRY</h4> + + +<p>Whether one enters Berry through the valley +of the Cher or the Indre or through the +gateway of Sancerre in the mid-Loire, the impression +is much +the same. The historic +province of +Berry resounds +again and again +with the echoes of +its past, and no +province adjacent +to the Loire is +more prolific in +the things that interest +the curious, +and none is so little +known as the +old province which +was purchased for the Crown by Philippe I. +in 1101.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<a href="images/illus399.png"> +<img src="images/illus399_small.png" alt="Berry (Map)" title="Berry (Map)" /> +</a> +</div> + +<p>With the interior of the province, that por<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">314</a></span>tion +which lies away from the river valleys, +this book has little to do, though the traveller +through the region would hardly omit the episcopal +city of Bourges, and its great transeptless +cathedral, with its glorious front of quintupled +portals. With the cathedral may well +be coupled that other great architectural monument, +the Maison de Jacques Cœur. At Paris +one is asked, "<i>Avez-vous vu le Louvre?</i>" but +at Bourges it is always, "<i>Êtes-vous allé à +Jacques Cœur?</i>" even before one is asked if +he has seen the cathedral.</p> + +<p>From the hill which overlooks Sancerre, and +forms a foundation for the still existing tower +of the château belonging to the feudal Counts +of Sancerre, one gets one of the most wonderfully +wide-spread views in all the Loire valley. +The height and its feudal tower stand isolated, +like a rock rising from the ocean. From Cosne +and beyond, on the north, to La Charité, on the +south, is one vast panorama of vineyard, wheat-field, +and luxuriant river-bottom. At a lesser +distance, on the right bank, is the line of the +railroad which threads its way like a serpent +around the bends of the river and its banks.</p> + +<p>Below the hill of Sancerre is a huge overgrown +hamlet—and yet not large enough to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">315</a></span> +be called a village—surrounding a most curious +church (St. Satur), without either nave +or apse. The old Abbey of St. Satur once +possessed all the lands in the neighbourhood +that were not in the actual possession of the +Counts of Sancerre, and was a power in the +land, as were most of the abbeys throughout +France. The church was begun in 1360-70, on +a most elaborate plan, so extensive in fact +(almost approaching that great work at La +Charité) that it has for ever remained uncompleted. +The history of this little churchly +suburb of Sancerre has been most interesting. +The great Benedictine church was never finished +and has since come to be somewhat of +a ruin. In 1419 the English sacked the abbey +and stole its treasure to the very last precious +stone or piece of gold. A dozen flatboats were +anchored or moored to the banks of the river +facing the abbey, and the monks were transported +thither and held for a ransom of a thousand +crowns each. As everything had already +been taken by their captors, the monks vainly +protested that they had no valuables with which +to meet the demand, and accordingly they were +bound hand and foot and thrown into the river, +to the number of fifty-two, eight only escaping +with their lives. A bloody memory indeed for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">316</a></span> +a fair land which now blossoms with poppies +and roses.</p> + +<p>Sancerre, in spite of the etymology of its +name (which comes down from Roman times—Sacrum +Cæsari), is of feudal origin. Its fortress, +and the Comté as well, were under the +suzerainty of the Counts of Champagne, and +it was the stronghold and refuge of many a +band of guerilla warriors, adventurers, and +marauding thieves.</p> + +<p>At the end of the twelfth century a certain +Comte de Sancerre, at the head of a coterie +of bandits called Brabaçons, marched upon +Bourges and invaded the city, killing all who +crossed their path, and firing all isolated dwellings +and many even in the heart of the city.</p> + +<p>Sancerre was many times besieged, the most +memorable event of this nature being the attack +of the royalists in 1573 against the +Frondeurs who were shut up in the town. The +defenders were without artillery, but so habituated +were they to the use of the <i>fronde</i> that +for eight months they were able to hold the +city against the foe. From this the <i>fronde</i> +came to be known as the "<i>arquebuse de Sancerre</i>."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317"></a></span></p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus403_small.jpg" alt="La Tour, Sancerre" title="La Tour, Sancerre" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus403.jpg"><i>La Tour, Sancerre</i></a></div> +</div> + + +<p>Sancerre is to-day a ruined town, its streets +unequal and tortuous, all up and down hill and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">318</a></span> +blindly rambling off into <i>culs-de-sac</i> which +lead nowhere. Above it all is the fine château, +built in a modern day after the Renaissance +manner, of Mlle. de Crussol, proudly seated on +the very crest of the hill. Within the grounds, +the only part of the domain which is free to the +public, are the ruins of the famous citadel +which was bought by St. Louis, in 1226, from +the Comte Thibaut. The only portion of this +feudal stronghold which remains to-day is +known as the "Tour des Fiefs."</p> + +<p>One may enter the grounds and, in the company +of a <i>concierge</i>, ascend to the platform +of this lone tower, whence a wonderful view +of the broad "<i>ruban lumineux</i>" of the Loire +spreads itself out as if fluttering in the wind, +northward and southward, as far as the eye +can reach. Beside it one sees another line of +blue water, as if it were a strand detached from +the broader band. This is the Canal Latéral +de la Loire, one of those inland waterways of +France which add so much to the prosperity +of the land.</p> + +<p>Above Sancerre is Gien, another gateway to +Berry, through which the traveller from Paris +through the Orléannais is bound to pass.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/illus405_small.jpg" alt="Château de Gien" title="Château de Gien" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus405.jpg"><i>Château de Gien</i></a></div> +</div> + + +<p>At a distance of five kilometres or more, +coming from the north, one sees the towers of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">319</a></span> +the château of Gien piercing the horizon. The +château is a most curious affair, with its chainbuilt +blocks of stone, and its red and black—or +nearly black—<i>brique</i>, crossed and recrossed +in quaint geometrical designs. It was built in +1494 for Dame Anne de Beaujeau, who was +regent of the kingdom immediately after the +death of Charles VIII. This building replaced +another of a century before, built by Jean-sans-Peur, +where was celebrated the marriage +of his daughter with the Comte de Guise. +Gien's château, too, may be said to be a landmark +on Jeanne d'Arc's route to martyrdom +and fame, for here she made her supplication +to Charles VII. to march on Reims. In Charlemagnian +times this old castle had a predecessor, +which, however, was more a fortress than +a habitable château; but all remains of this +had apparently disappeared before the later +structure made its appearance. Louis XIV. +and Anne of Austria, regent, held a fugitive, +impoverished court in this château, and heard +with fear and trembling the cannon-shots of +the armies of Turenne and Condé at Bleneau, +five leagues distant.</p> + +<p>At Nevers or at La Charité one does not get +the view of the Loire that he would like, for, +in one case, the waterway is masked by a row<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">320</a></span> +of houses, and in the other by a series of walled +gardens; but at Gien, where everything is +splendidly theatrical, there is a tree-bordered +quay and innumerable examples of those coquettish +little houses of brick which are not +beautiful, but which set off many a French +riverside landscape as nothing else will.</p> + +<p>In Gien's main street there are a multitude +of rare mellowed old houses with sculptured +fronts and high gables. This street twists and +turns until it reaches the old stone and brick +château, with its harmoniously coloured walls, +making a veritable symphony of colour. Each +turn in this old high-street of Gien gives a new +vista of mediævalism quite surprising and +eerielike, as fantastic as the weird pictures of +Doré.</p> + +<p>Gien and its neighbour Briare are chiefly +noted commercially for their pottery. Gien +makes crockery ware, and Briare inundates the +entire world with those little porcelain buttons +which one buys in every land.</p> + +<p>Crossing the Sologne and entering Berry +from the capital of the Orléannais, or coming +out from Tours by the valley of the Cher, one +comes upon the little visited and out-of-the-way +château of Valençay, in the charming +dainty valley of the Nahon.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">321</a></span></p> + +<p>There is some reason for its comparative +neglect by the tourist, for it is on a cross-country +railway line which demands quite a full day +of one's time to get there from Tours and get +away again to the next centre of attraction, +and if one comes by the way of the Orléannais, +he must be prepared to give at least three days +to the surrounding region.</p> + +<p>This is the gateway to George Sand's country, +but few English-speaking tourists ever get +here, so it may be safely called unknown.</p> + +<p>It is marvellous how France abounds in these +little corners all but unknown to strangers, +even though they lie not far off the beaten +track. The spirit of exploration and travel +in unknown parts, except the Arctic regions, +Thibet, and the Australian desert, seems to be +dying out.</p> + +<p>The château of Valençay was formerly inhabited +by Talleyrand, after he had quitted the +bishopric of Autun for politics. It is seated +proudly upon a vast terrace overlooking one +of the most charming bits of the valley of the +Nahon, and is of a thoroughly typical Renaissance +type, built by the great Philibert Delorme +for Jacques d'Étampes in 1540, and only acquired +by the minister of Napoleon and Louis +XVIII. in 1805.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">322</a></span></p> + +<p>The architect, in spite of the imposing situation, +is not seen at his best here, for in no way +does it compare with his masterwork at +Anet, or the Tuileries. The expert recognizes +also the hands of two other architects, one of +the Blaisois and the other of Anjou, who in +some measure transformed the edifice in the +reign of François I.</p> + +<p>The enormous donjon,—if it is a donjon,—with +its great, round corner tower with a dome +above, which looks like nothing so much as an +observatory, is perhaps the outgrowth of an +earlier accessory, but on the whole the edifice +is fully typical of the Renaissance.</p> + +<p>The court unites the two widely different +terminations in a fashion more or less approaching +symmetry, but it is only as a whole +that the effect is highly pleasing.</p> + +<p>Beyond a <i>balustrade à jour</i> is the Jardin +de la Duchesse, communicating with the park +by a graceful bridge over an ornamental water. +In general the apartments are furnished in the +style of the First Empire, an epoch memorable +in the annals of Valençay.</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus411_small.jpg" alt="Château de Valençay" title="Château de Valençay" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus411.jpg"><i>Château de Valençay</i></a></div> +</div> + + +<p>By the orders of Napoleon many royalties +and ambassadors here received hospitality, and +in 1808-14 it became a gilded cage—or a +"golden prison," as the French have it—for +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">323</a></span>the Prince of the Asturias, afterward Ferdinand +VII. of Spain, who consoled himself during +his captivity by constructing wolf-traps in +the garden and planting cauliflowers in the +great urns and vases with which the terrace +was set out.</p> + +<p>There is a great portrait gallery here, where +is gathered a collection of portraits in miniature +of all the sovereigns who treated with +Talleyrand during his ministerial reign, among +others one of the Sultan Selim, painted from +life, but in secret, since the reproduction of +the human form is forbidden by the Koran.</p> + +<p>In the Maison de Charité, in the town, beneath +the pavement of the chapel, is found the +tomb of the family of Talleyrand, where are +interred the remains of Talleyrand and of +Marie Thérèse Poniatowska, sister of the celebrated +King of Poland who served in the +French army in 1806. In this chapel also is +a rare treasure in the form of a chalice enriched +with precious stones, originally belonging +to Pope Pius VI., the gift of the Princess +Poniatowska.</p> + +<p>The Pavillon de la Garenne,—what in England +would be called a "shooting-box,"—a +rendezvous for the chase, built by Talleyrand,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">324</a></span> +is some distance from the château on the edge +of the delightful little Forêt de Gatine.</p> + +<p>Varennes, just above Valençay, is thought by +the average traveller through the long gallery +of charms in the château country to be wholly +unworthy of his attention. As a matter of fact, +it does not possess much of historical or artistic +interest, though its fine old church dates +from the twelfth century.</p> + +<p>Ascending the Cher from its juncture with +the Loire, one passes a number of interesting +places. St. Aignan, with its magnificent Gothic +and Renaissance château; Selles; Romorantin, +a dead little spot, dear as much for its sleepiness +as anything else; Vierzon, a rich, industrial +town where they make locomotives, automobiles, +and mechanical hay-rakes, copying the +most approved American models; and Mehun-sur-Yevre, +all follow in rapid succession.</p> + +<p>Mehun-sur-Yevre, which to most is only a +name and to many not even that, is possessed +of two architectural monuments, a grand ruin +of a Gothic fortress of the time of Charles VII. +and a feudal gateway of two great rounded +cone-roofed towers, bound by a ligature +through which a port-cullis formerly slid up +and down like an act-drop in a theatre.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325"></a></span></p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/illus415_small.jpg" alt="Gateway of Mehun-sur-Yevre" title="Gateway of Mehun-sur-Yevre" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus415.jpg"><i>Gateway of Mehun-sur-Yevre</i></a></div> +</div> + +<p>Wonderfully impressive all this, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">326</a></span> +more so because these magnificent relics of +other days are unspoiled and unrestored.</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus417_small.jpg" alt="Le Carrior Dore, Romorantin" title="Le Carrior Dore, Romorantin" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus417.jpg"><i>Le Carrior Dore, Romorantin</i></a></div> +</div> + + + +<p>Charles VII. was by no means constant in +his devotions, it will be recalled, though he +seems to have been seriously enamoured of +Agnes Sorel—at any rate while she lived. +Afterward he speedily surrounded himself with +a galaxy of "<i>belles demoiselles vêtues comme +reines</i>." They followed him everywhere, and +he spent all but his last sou upon them, as did +some of his successors.</p> + +<p>One day Charles VII. took refuge in the +strong towers of the château of Mehun-sur-Yevre, +which he himself had built and which +he had frequently made his residence. Here +he died miserable and alone,—it is said by +history, of hunger. Thus another dark chapter +in the history of kings and queens was brought +to a close.</p> + +<p>If one has the time and so desires, he may +follow the Indre, the next confluent of the Loire +south of the Cher, from Loches to "George +Sand's country," as literary pilgrims will like +to think of the pleasant valleys of the ancient +province of Berry.</p> + +<p>The history of the province before and since +Philippe I. united it with the Crown of France +was vivid enough to make it fairly well known,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">327</a></span> +but on the whole it has been very little travelled. +It is essentially a pastoral region, and, +remembering George Sand and her works, one +has refreshing memories of the idyls of its +prairies and the beautiful valleys of the Indre +and the Cher, which join their waters with the +Loire near Tours.</p> + +<p>If one would love Berry as one loves a +greater and more famous haunt of a famous +author, and would prepare in advance for the +pleasure to be received from threading its highways +and byways, he should read those "<i>petits +chefs-d'œuvre</i> of sentiment and rustic poesy", +the romances of George Sand. If he has done +this, he will find almost at every turning some +long familiar spot or a peasant who seems +already an old friend.</p> + +<p>Châteauroux is the real gateway to the country +of George Sand.</p> + +<p>Nohant is the native place of the great +authoress, Madame Dudevant, whom the world +best knows as George Sand; a little by-corner +of the great busy world, loved by all who know +it. Far out in the open country is the little +station at which one alights if he comes by rail. +Opposite is a "<i>petite route</i>" which leads directly +to the banks of the Indre, where it joins +the highway to La Châtre.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">328</a></span></p> + +<p>Nohant itself, as a dainty old-world village, +is divine. Has not George Sand expressed her +love of it as fervidly as did Marie Antoinette +for the Trianon? The French call it a "<i>bon +et honnête petit village berrichon</i>." Nude of +artifice, it is deliciously unspoiled. A delightful +old church, with a curious wooden porch +and a parvise as rural as could possibly be, +not even a cobblestone detracting from its rustic +beauty, is the principal thing which strikes +one's eye as he enters the village. Chickens +and geese wander about, picking here and there +on the very steps of the church, and no one +says them nay.</p> + +<p>The house of George Sand is just to the right +of the church, within whose grounds one sees +also the pavilion known to her as the "<i>théâtre +des marionettes</i>."</p> + +<p>In a corner of the poetic little cemetery at +Nohant, one sees among the humble crosses +emerging from the midst of the verdure, all +weather-beaten and moss-grown, a plain, simple +stone, green with mossy dampness, which +marks the spot where reposes all that was +mortal of George Sand. Here, in the midst of +this land which she so loved, she still lives in +the memory of all; at the house of the well-lettered +for her abounding talent—second only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">329</a></span> +to that of Balzac—and in the homes of the +peasants for her generous fellowship.</p> + +<p>Through her ancestry she could and did claim +relationship with Charles X. and Louis XVIII.; +but her life among her people had nought of +pretence in it. She was born among the roses +and to the sound of music, and she lies buried +amid all the rusticity and simple charm of what +may well be called the greenwood of her native +land. + + + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">330</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XVI.<span class="pagenum"><a href="#Contents">To ToC</a></span></h2> + +<h4>THE UPPER LOIRE</h4> + + +<p>The gateway to the upper valley may be +said to be through the Nivernais, and the capital +city of the old province, at the juncture of +the Allier and the Loire.</p> + +<p>After leaving Gien and Briare, the Loire +passes through quite the most truly picturesque +landscape of its whole course, the great height +of Sancerre dominating the view for thirty +miles or more in any direction.</p> + +<p>Cosne is the first of the towns of note of +the Nivernais, and is a gay little bourg of eight +or nine thousand souls who live much the same +life that their grandfathers lived before them. +As a place of residence it might prove dull +to the outsider, but as a house of call for the +wearied and famished traveller, Cosne, with its +charming situation, its tree-bordered quays, +and its Hôtel du Grand Cerf, is most attractive.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331"></a></span></p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/illus423_small.jpg" alt="Église S. Aignan, Cosne" title="Église S. Aignan, Cosne" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus423.jpg"><i>Église S. Aignan, Cosne</i></a></div> +</div> + + +<p>Pouilly-sur-Loire is next, with three thou<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">332</a></span>sand +or more inhabitants wholly devoted to +wine-growing, Pouilly being to the upper river +what Vouvray is to Touraine. It is not a tourist +point in any sense, nor is it very picturesque +or attractive.</p> + +<p>Some one has said that the pleasure of contemplation +is never so great as when one views +a noble monument, a great work of art, or a +charming French town for the first time. +Never was it more true indeed than of the +two dissimilar towns of the upper Loire, +Nevers, and La Charité-sur-Loire. The old +towers of La Charité rise up in the sunlight +and give that touch to the view which marks +it at once as of the Nivernais, which all archæologists +tell one is Italian and not French, in +motive as well as sentiment.</p> + +<p>It is remarkable, perhaps, that the name La +Charité is so seldom met with in the accounts +of English travellers in France, for in France +it is invariably considered to be one of the +most picturesque and famous spots in all mid-France.</p> + +<p>It is an unprogressive, sleepy old place, with +streets mostly unpaved, whose five thousand +odd souls, known roundabout as Les Caritates, +live apparently in the past.</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus425_small.jpg" alt="Pouilly-sur-Loire" title="Pouilly-sur-Loire" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus425.jpg"><i>Pouilly-sur-Loire</i></a></div> +</div> + +<p>Below, a stone's throw from the windows of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">333</a></span> +your inn, lies the Loire, its broad, blue bosom +scarcely ruffled, except where it slowly eddies +around the piers of the two-century-old <i>dos +d'ane</i> bridge; a lovely old structure, built, it +is recorded, by the regiment known as the +"Royal Marine" in the early years of the +eighteenth century.</p> + +<p>The town is terraced upon the very edge of +the river, with views up and down which are +unusually lovely for even these parts. Below, +almost within sight, is Nevers, while above are +the heights of Sancerre, still visible in the glowing +western twilight.</p> + +<p>Beyond the bridge rises a giant column of +blackened stone, festooned by four ranges of +arcades, the sole remaining relic of the ancient +church standing alone before the present structure +which now serves the purposes of the +church in La Charité.</p> + +<p>The walls which surrounded the ancient town +have disappeared or have been built into house +walls, but the effect is still of a self-contained +old burg.</p> + +<p>In the fourteenth century, during the Hundred +Years' War, the town was frequently besieged. +In 1429 Jeanne d'Arc, coming from +her success at St. Pierre-le-Moutier, here met +with practically a defeat, as she was able to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">334</a></span> +sustain the siege for only but a month, when +she withdrew.</p> + +<p>La Charité played an important part in the +religious wars of the sixteenth century, and +Protestants and Catholics became its occupants +in turn. Virtually La Charité-sur-Loire became +a Protestant stronghold in spite of its +Catholic foundation.</p> + +<p>In 1577 it bade defiance to the royal arms of +the Duc d'Alençon, as is recounted by the following +lines:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0_5">"Ou allez-vous, hélas! furieux insensés<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cherchant de Charité la proie et la ruine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Qui sans l'ombre de Foy abbatre la pensez!<br /></span> +<span class="i0"> . . . +. . . +. . . + <br /></span> +<span class="i0">Le canon ne peut rien contre la Charité,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Plus tot vous détruira la peste et la famine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Car jamais sans Foy n'aurez la Charité."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>In spite of this defiance it capitulated, and, +on the 15th of May, at the château of Plessis-les-Tours +on the Loire, Henri III. celebrated +the victory of his brother by a fête +"<i>ultra-galante</i>," where, in place of the usual +pages, there were employed "<i>des dames vestues +en habits d'hommes....</i>" Surely a fantastic +and immodest manner of celebrating a +victory against religious opponents; but, like +many of the customs of the time, the fête was +simply a fanatical debauch.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">335</a></span></p> + + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/illus429_small.jpg" alt="Porte du Croux, Nevers" title="Porte du Croux, Nevers" /> +<div class="caption"><a href="images/illus429.jpg"><i>Porte du Croux, Nevers</i></a></div> +</div> + + + +<p>At Nevers one meets the Canal du Nivernais, +which recalls Daudet's "La Belle Nivernaise" +to all readers of fiction, who may accept it without +question as a true and correct guide to the +region, its manners, and customs.</p> + +<p>The chief characteristic of Nevers is that it +is Italian in nearly, if not quite all, its aspects; +its monuments and its history. Its ancient ducal +château, part of which dates from the feudal +epoch, was the abode of the Italian dukes who +came in the train of Mazarin, the last of whom +was the nephew of the cardinal, "who himself +was French if his speech was not."</p> + +<p>Nevers has also a charming Gothic cathedral +(St. Cyr) with a double Romanesque apse (in +itself a curiosity seldom, if ever, seen out of +Germany), and, in addition to the cathedral, +can boast of St. Etienne, one of the most precious +of all the Romanesque churches of +France.</p> + +<p>The old walls at Nevers are not very complete, +but what remain are wonderfully expressive. +The Tour Gouguin and the Tour St. Eloi +are notable examples, but they are completely +overshadowed by the Porte du Croux, which +is one of the best examples of the city gates +which were so plentiful in the France of another +day.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">336</a></span></p> + +<p>Above Nevers, Decize, Bourbon-Lancy, Gilly, +and Digoin are mere names which mean nothing +to the traveller by rail. They are busy +towns of central France, where the bustle of +their daily lives is of quite a different variety +from that of the Ile de France, of Normandy, +or of the Pas de Calais.</p> + +<p>From Digoin to Roanne the Loire is followed +by the Canal Latéral. Roanne is a not very +pleasing, overgrown town which has become a +veritable <i>ville des ouvriers</i>, all of whom are engaged +in cloth manufacture.</p> + +<p>Virtually, then, Roanne is not much more +than a guide-post on the route to Le Puy—"the +most picturesque place in the world"—and +the wonderfully impressive region of the +Cevennes and the Vivaris, where shepherds +guard their flocks amid the solitudes.</p> + +<p>Far above Le Puy, in a rocky gorge known +as the Gerbier-de-Jonc, near Ste. Eulalie, in +the Ardeche, rises the tiny Liger, which is the +real source of the mighty Loire, that natural +boundary which divides the north from the +south and forms what the French geographers +call "<i>la bassin centrale de France</i>."</p> + +<div class="smcapcent">THE END.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">337</a></span></div> + + + + +<h2>INDEX<span class="pagenum"><a href="#Contents">To ToC</a></span></h2> + + +<ul> +<li>Abbeville, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Abd-el-Kader, Emir</i>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Abelard</i>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Absalom</i>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>.</li> +<li> +Acheneau, The, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Adams, John</i>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Alaric</i>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Alcuin, Abbé</i>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Alençon, Ducs d'</i>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, +<a href="#Page_334">334</a>.</li> +<li> +<i><a id="MarguiriteDAlenson" name="MarguiriteDAlenson">Alençon, Marguerite d'</a></i>, +<a href="#Page_97">97</a>, +<a href="#Page_150">150</a>, +<a href="#Page_151">151</a>-<a href="#Page_152">152</a>.</li> +<li> +Allier, The, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.</li> +<li> +Amboise and Its Château, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, +<a href="#Page_20">20</a>, +<a href="#Page_82">82</a>, +<a href="#Page_96">96</a>, +<a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, +<a href="#Page_130">130</a>-<a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>-<a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Amboise, Family of</i>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>-<a href="#Page_122">122</a>.</li> +<li> +Amboise, Forêt d', <a href="#Page_169">169</a>.</li> +<li> +Amiens, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>.</li> +<li> +Ancenis and Its Château, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>-<a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Andrelini, Fausto</i>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>.</li> +<li> +Anet, Château d', <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Ange, Michel</i>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>.</li> +<li> +Angers and Its Château, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>-<a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, +<a href="#Page_21">21</a>-<a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, +<a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, +<a href="#Page_283">283</a>-<a href="#Page_284">284</a>, +<a href="#Page_286">286</a>-<a href="#Page_290">290</a>, +<a href="#Page_304">304</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>. +</li> +<li> +Angoulême, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>.</li> +<li><i>Angoulême, Isabeau d'</i>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Angoulême, Jean d'</i>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Angoulême, Louise de Savoie, Duchesse d'</i> (See <a href="#SavLo"><i>Savoie, +Louise de</i></a>).</li> +<li> +Anjou, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>-<a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Anjou, Counts of</i>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Anjou, Foulques Nerra, Comte d'</i> (See <a href="#FoulquesNerra"><i>Foulques Nerra</i></a>).</li> +<li> +<i>Anjou, Margaret of</i>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Anne of Austria</i>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>-<a href="#Page_302">302</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>.</li> +<li> +Aquitaine, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Arbrissel, Robert d'</i>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Arc, Jeanne d'</i>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>-<a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>-<a href="#Page_260">260</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Ardier, Paul</i>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>.</li> +<li> +Arques, Château d', <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Aumale, Duc d'</i>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Aussigny, Thibaut d'</i>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.</li> +<li> +Authion, The, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.</li> +<li> +Autun, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>.</li> +<li> +Auvergne, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li> +<li> +Auvers, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>.</li> +<li> +Auxerre, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>.</li> +<li> +Avignon, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.</li> +<li> +Azay-le-Rideau and Its Château, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>-<a href="#Page_247">247</a>.</li> +</ul> +<ul> +<li>Bacon, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.</li> +<li> +Ballon, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Balue, Cardinal</i>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Balzac, Honoré de</i>, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, +<a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, +<a href="#Page_128">128</a>-<a href="#Page_129">129</a>, +<a href="#Page_137">137</a>-<a href="#Page_138">138</a>, +<a href="#Page_143">143</a>, +<a href="#Page_207">207</a>-<a href="#Page_209">209</a>, +<a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, +<a href="#Page_329">329</a>.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">338</a></span></li></ul> + +<ul> +<li><i>Bardi, Comte de</i>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Barre, De la</i>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Barry, Madame du</i>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Beaudoin, Jean</i>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Beaufort, A.</i>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>.</li> +<li> +Beaugency and Its Château, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>-<a href="#Page_53">53</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Beaujeau, Anne de</i>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>.</li> +<li> +Beaulieu, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>-<a href="#Page_202">202</a>.</li> +<li> +Beauregard, Château de, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>-<a href="#Page_116">116</a>.</li> +<li> +Beauvron, The, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Becket</i>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Bélier, Guillaume</i>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Bellanger, Stanislas</i>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Bellay Family, Du</i>, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Belleau, Remy</i>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Beringhem, Henri de</i>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>.</li> +<li> +Bernay, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Bernier</i>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.</li> +<li> +Berry, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>-<a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>-<a href="#Page_329">329</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Berry, Counts of</i>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Berry, Duchesse de</i>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Berthelot, Gilles</i>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Berthier, Maréchal</i>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>.</li> +<li> +Beuvron, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>-<a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Biencourt, Marquis de</i>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Blacas, Comte de</i>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>.</li> +<li> +<a id="Blaisois">Blaisois, The,</a> <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>-<a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>-<a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>.</li> +<li> +Bleneau, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>.</li> +<li> +Blésois, The (<i>See</i> <a href="#Blaisois">Blaisois, The</a>).</li> +<li> +Blois and Its Château, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, +<a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, +<a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, +<a href="#Page_52">52</a>-<a href="#Page_54">54</a>, +<a href="#Page_56">56</a>-<a href="#Page_84">84</a>, +<a href="#Page_88">88</a>, +<a href="#Page_94">94</a>-<a href="#Page_95">95</a>, +<a href="#Page_98">98</a>, +<a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, +<a href="#Page_110">110</a>-<a href="#Page_112">112</a>, +<a href="#Page_116">116</a>-<a href="#Page_117">117</a>, +<a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, +<a href="#Page_125">125</a>-<a href="#Page_126">126</a>, +<a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, +<a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, +<a href="#Page_160">160</a>, +<a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, +<a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, +<a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, +<a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Blois, Comtes de</i>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>-<a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.</li> +<li> +Blois, Forêt de, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Blondel</i>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.</li> +<li> +Bocage, The, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>-<a href="#Page_305">305</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Bohier, Thomas</i>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>-<a href="#Page_186">186</a>.</li> +<li> +Bois-Tillac, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Bolingbroke</i>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Bonchamps</i>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>-<a href="#Page_307">307</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Bonheur, Rosa</i>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>.</li> +<li> +Bonneventure, Château de, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Bontemps, Pierre</i>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>.</li> +<li> +Bordeaux, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Bordeaux, Duc de</i>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Bossebœuf, Abbé</i>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.</li> +<li> +Bouaye, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>.</li> +<li> +Bouin, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>.</li> +<li> +Boulogne, The, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Bourbon, Cardinal de</i>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Bourbon, Renée de</i>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>.</li> +<li> +Bourbon-Lancy, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>.</li> +<li> +Bourbonnais, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li> +<li> +Bourdaisière, Château de la, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>.</li> +<li> +Bourg de Batz, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>.</li> +<li> +Bourges, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>.</li> +<li> +Bourgneuf-en-Retz, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>.</li> +<li> +Bourgogne, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.</li> +<li> +Bourgueil, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Bourré, Jean</i>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Boyer</i>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.</li> +<li> +Bracieux, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.</li> +<li> +Brain-sur-Allonnes, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Brantôme</i>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>.</li> +<li> +Brenne, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.</li> +<li> +<a id="Bretagne">Bretagne</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>-<a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>-<a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Bretagne, Anne de</i>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, +<a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, +<a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, +<a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, +<a href="#Page_236">236</a>-<a href="#Page_238">238</a>, +<a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Bretagne, Conan, Duc de</i>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Bretagne, François II., Duc de</i>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>-<a href="#Page_296">296</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Brézé, Pierre de</i>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.</li> +<li> +Briare, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Briçonnet, Cardinal</i>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Brinvilliers</i>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.</li> +<li><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">339</a></span> +Brittany (<i>See</i> <a href="#Bretagne">Bretagne</a>).</li> +<li> +<i>Broglie, Princesse de</i>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Brosse, Pierre de</i>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.</li> +<li> +Bruges, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Brunyer, Abel</i>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Buffon</i>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Bullion</i>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Bussy d'Amboise, De</i>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>.</li> +<li> +Buzay, Abbey of, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Byron</i>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>.</li> +</ul> +<ul><li> +<i>Cæsar</i>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>.</li> +<li> +Cahors, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Cail, M.</i>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>-<a href="#Page_272">272</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Cain</i>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Calixtus II.</i>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>.</li> +<li> +Canal de Brest à Nantes, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.</li> +<li> +Canal de Buzay, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.</li> +<li> +Canal d'Orleans, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>-<a href="#Page_37">37</a>.</li> +<li> +Canal du Nivernaise, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>.</li> +<li> +Canal Lateral, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>.</li> +<li> +Canal Maritime, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.</li> +<li> +Candes, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>-<a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Castellane Family</i>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Caumont, De</i>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Cellini</i>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>.</li> +<li> +Chalonnes, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>.</li> +<li> +Chambord and Its Château, +<a href="#Page_2">2</a>-<a href="#Page_3">3</a>, +<a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, +<a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, +<a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, +<a href="#Page_94">94</a>-<a href="#Page_110">110</a>, +<a href="#Page_123">123</a>, +<a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, +<a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, +<a href="#Page_247">247</a>-<a href="#Page_248">248</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Chambord, Comte de</i>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.</li> +<li> +Chambris, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Champagne, Counts of</i>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>.</li> +<li> +Champeigne, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.</li> +<li> +Champtocé, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.</li> +<li> +Chanteloup, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Charlemagne</i>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Charles I. (the Bald)</i>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Charles II. of England</i>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Charles V., Emperor</i>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>-<a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Charles VI.</i>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Charles VII.</i>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, +<a href="#Page_188">188</a>-<a href="#Page_189">189</a>, +<a href="#Page_194">194</a>-<a href="#Page_195">195</a>, +<a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, +<a href="#Page_250">250</a>, +<a href="#Page_254">254</a>-<a href="#Page_256">256</a>, +<a href="#Page_257">257</a>-<a href="#Page_260">260</a>, +<a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>, +<a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Charles VIII.</i>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, +<a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, +<a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, +<a href="#Page_194">194</a>-<a href="#Page_195">195</a>, +<a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, +<a href="#Page_238">238</a>-<a href="#Page_239">239</a>, +<a href="#Page_319">319</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Charles IX.</i>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Charles X.</i>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Charles Martel</i>, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Charles the Bold of Burgundy</i>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.</li> +<li> +Chartres, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>.</li> +<li> +Chartreuse du Liget, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Châteaubriand, Comtesse de</i>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.</li> +<li> +Château Chevigné, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.</li> +<li> +Château de la Fontaine, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li> +<li> +Château de la Source, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>-<a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li> +<li> +Châteaudun and Its Castle, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>-<a href="#Page_22">22</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Châteaudun, Vicomtes de</i>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>.</li> +<li> +Château Gaillard, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>.</li> +<li> +Château l'Epinay, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.</li> +<li> +Châteauneuf-sur-Loire, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>.</li> +<li> +Châteauroux, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>.</li> +<li> +Château Serrand, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.</li> +<li> +Chatillon, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Chatillon, Cardinal de</i>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Chatillon, Comtes de</i>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.</li> +<li> +Chaumont and Its Château, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>-<a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Chaumont, Charles de</i>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Chaumont, Donatien Le Ray de</i>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>-<a href="#Page_125">125</a>.</li> +<li> +Chemillé, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>-<a href="#Page_305">305</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Chemille, Petronille de</i>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>.</li> +<li> +Chenonceaux and Its Château, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, +<a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, +<a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, +<a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, +<a href="#Page_169">169</a>, +<a href="#Page_171">171</a>-<a href="#Page_187">187</a>, +<a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, +<a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>.</li> +<li> +Cher, The, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, +<a href="#Page_91">91</a>, +<a href="#Page_171">171</a>-<a href="#Page_173">173</a>, +<a href="#Page_177">177</a>-<a href="#Page_178">178</a>, +<a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, +<a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">340</a></span><a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>-<a href="#Page_327">327</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Chevalier, Abbé</i>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>.</li> +<li> +Cheverny and Its Château, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>-<a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Cheverny, Philippe Hurault, Comte de</i>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Chicot</i>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.</li> +<li> +Chinon and Its Châteaux, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, +<a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, +<a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, +<a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, +<a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, +<a href="#Page_250">250</a>-<a href="#Page_261">261</a>, +<a href="#Page_268">268</a>.</li> +<li> +Chinon, Forêt de, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>.</li> +<li> +Chiron-Tardiveau, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Choiseul, Duc de</i>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>.</li> +<li> +Cholet, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>-<a href="#Page_307">307</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Cholet, Comte de</i>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>.</li> +<li> +Cinq-Mars and Its Ruins, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>-<a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Cinq-Mars, Henri, Marquis de</i>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>-<a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.</li> +<li> +<i><a id="CinqMars">Cinq-Mars, Marquise de</a></i>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Claude of France</i>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Clément, Jacques</i>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>.</li> +<li> +Clermont-Ferrand, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li> +<li> +Cléry, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>-<a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>.</li> +<li> +Clisson and Its Château, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Clisson</i>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Clopinel, Jehan</i> (See <a href="#JeanDeMeung"><i>Jean de Meung</i></a>).</li> +<li> +<i>Clouet</i>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Clovis</i>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>.</li> +<li> +Cœuvres, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Coligny</i>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>-<a href="#Page_161">161</a>.</li> +<li> +Colletis, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Colombe, Michel</i>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>-<a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Commines, De</i>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Condé, Prince de</i>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>-<a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Conti, Princesse de</i>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Cormeri, Citizen</i>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.</li> +<li> +Cormery, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>.</li> +<li> +Cosne, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.</li> +<li> +Cosson, The, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>-<a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>.</li> +<li> +Coteau de Guignes, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.</li> +<li> +Couëron, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Coulanges, M. de</i>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.</li> +<li> +Coulmiers, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.</li> +<li> +Cour-Cheverny, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Cousin, Jean</i>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>.</li> +<li> +Coutancière, Château of, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Coxe, Miss</i>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Créquy, Marquise de</i>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.</li> +<li> +Croix de Monteuse, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Cromwell</i>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Crussol, Mlle. de</i>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>.</li> +</ul> +<ul><li> +<i>Dalahaide</i>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.</li> +<li> +<a id="Dampierre">Dampierre</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Dante</i>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Danton</i>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Daudet</i>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>.</li> +<li> +Decize, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Delavigne, Casimir</i>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Delorme, Marion</i>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>-<a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Delorme, Philibert</i>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Deneux, Mlle.</i>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Descartes</i>, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li> +<li> +Digoin, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>.</li> +<li> +Dijon, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Dino, Duc de</i>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>.</li> +<li> +Dive, The, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.</li> +<li> +Domfront, Château de, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Doré</i>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Duban</i>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Ducos, Roger</i>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>-<a href="#Page_165">165</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Dudevant, Madame</i> (See <a href="#GeorgeSand"><i>Sand, George</i></a>).</li> +<li> +<i>Duguesclin</i>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Dumas</i>, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>-<a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>-<a href="#Page_295">295</a>.</li> +<li> +Dunois, The, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Dupin, M. and Mme.</i>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Duplessis-Mornay</i>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>.</li> +</ul> +<ul> +<li> +<i>Eckmühl, Prince</i>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Effiats Family, D'</i> (See <a href="#CinqMars"><i>Cinq-Mars</i></a>).</li> +<li> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">341</a></span><i>Elbée, D'</i>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Eleanor of Portugal</i>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Éléanore of Guienne</i>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.</li> +<li> +Embrun, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Epernon, Duc d'</i>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Este, Cardinal d'</i>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Estrées, Gabrielle d'</i>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>-<a href="#Page_170">170</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Étampes, Duchesse d'</i>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>-<a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Étampes, Jacques d'</i>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>.</li> +<li> +Etretat, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>.</li> +<li> +Eure et Loir, Department of, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.</li> +</ul><ul> +<li> +Falaise, Château de, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Ferdinand VII. of Spain</i>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>.</li> +<li> +Finistère, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Flaubert</i>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Foix, Marguerite de</i>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>-<a href="#Page_296">296</a>.</li> +<li> +Folie-Siffait, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.</li> +<li> +Fontainebleau, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>.</li> +<li> +Fontaine des Sables Mouvants, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Fontenelle</i>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.</li> +<li> +Fontenoy, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.</li> +<li> +Fontevrault, Abbey of, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>-<a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Force, Piganiol de la</i>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.</li> +<li> +Forez, Plain of, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Fouché</i>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.</li> +<li> +<i><a id="FoulquesNerra">Foulques Nerra</a></i>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Foulques V.</i>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Fouquet</i>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>François I.</i>, +<a href="#Page_60">60</a>-<a href="#Page_64">64</a>, +<a href="#Page_69">69</a>-<a href="#Page_70">70</a>, +<a href="#Page_72">72</a>-<a href="#Page_73">73</a>, +<a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, +<a href="#Page_94">94</a>-<a href="#Page_99">99</a>, +<a href="#Page_101">101</a>, +<a href="#Page_104">104</a>-<a href="#Page_107">107</a>, +<a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, +<a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, +<a href="#Page_148">148</a>, +<a href="#Page_151">151</a>-<a href="#Page_156">156</a>, +<a href="#Page_171">171</a>-<a href="#Page_172">172</a>, +<a href="#Page_174">174</a>-<a href="#Page_176">176</a>, +<a href="#Page_189">189</a>-<a href="#Page_190">190</a>, +<a href="#Page_194">194</a>, +<a href="#Page_196">196</a>-<a href="#Page_197">197</a>, +<a href="#Page_200">200</a>, +<a href="#Page_244">244</a>-<a href="#Page_245">245</a>, +<a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>François II.</i>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>-<a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Franklin, Benjamin</i>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>-<a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>.</li> +<li> +Freiburg, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.</li> +<li> +Fromentin, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>.</li> +</ul><ul> +<li> +<i>Galles, Prince de</i>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.</li> +<li> +<i><a id="Gaston">Gaston of Orleans</a></i>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>-<a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>-<a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>-<a href="#Page_82">82</a>.</li> +<li> +Gatanais, The, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</li> +<li> +Gatine, Forêt de, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>George IV.</i>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>.</li> +<li> +Gerbier-de-Jonc, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>.</li> +<li> +Gien and Its Château, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>-<a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.</li> +<li> +Gilly, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>.</li> +<li> +Giverny, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>.</li> +<li> +<i><a id="HenriGondi">Gondi, Henri de</a></i>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>-<a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>-<a href="#Page_302">302</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Goujon, Jean</i>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Gregory of Tours</i>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Grise-Gonelle, Geoffroy</i>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.</li> +<li> +Grottoes of Ste. Radegonde, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>.</li> +<li> +Guérande, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Guise, Henri, Duc de (Le Balafré)</i>, +<a href="#Page_67">67</a>, +<a href="#Page_69">69</a>-<a href="#Page_70">70</a>, +<a href="#Page_73">73</a>-<a href="#Page_78">78</a>, +<a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, +<a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.</li> +</ul><ul> +<li> +Haute Loire, Department of, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Henri II.</i>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, +<a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, +<a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, +<a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, +<a href="#Page_171">171</a>-<a href="#Page_172">172</a>, +<a href="#Page_174">174</a>-<a href="#Page_177">177</a>, +<a href="#Page_183">183</a>-<a href="#Page_184">184</a>, +<a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Henri III.</i>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>-<a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>-<a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Henri IV. (de Navarre)</i>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>.</li> +<li> +<i><a id="HenryII">Henry II. of England</a></i>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>-<a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Henry VIII. of England</i>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Holbein</i>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Hugo, Victor</i>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.</li> +<li> +Huismes, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Hurault, Philippe</i>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.</li> +</ul><ul> +<li> +Ile de Yeu, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>-<a href="#Page_311">311</a>.</li> +<li> +Ile Feydeau, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.</li> +<li> +Ile Gloriette, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.</li> +<li> +Ile St. Jean, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.</li> +<li> +Ilot du Pilier, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">342</a></span></li> +<li> +Indre, The, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>-<a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>-<a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>-<a href="#Page_327">327</a>.</li> +<li> +Indre et Loire, Département d', <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.</li> +</ul><ul> +<li> +<i>Jahel, Miss</i>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>James V. of Scotland</i>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>James, Henry</i>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>.</li> +<li> +Jargeau, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</li> +<li> +<i><a id="JeanDeMeung">Jean de Meung</a></i>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>-<a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Jean-sans-Peur</i>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Jean-sans-Terre</i>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Jeanne d'Arc</i>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>-<a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Jeanne of France</i>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>John, King</i>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>.</li> +<li> +Joué, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Juvenet</i>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</li> +</ul><ul> +<li> +<i>Kleber</i>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>.</li> +</ul><ul> +<li> +La Beauce, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.</li> +<li> +"La Briche," <a href="#Page_270">270</a>-<a href="#Page_272">272</a>.</li> +<li> +Lac de Grand Lieu, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>-<a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>-<a href="#Page_312">312</a>.</li> +<li> +Lac d'Issarles, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.</li> +<li> +La Chapelle, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li> +<li> +La Charité, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>-<a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>-<a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>-<a href="#Page_334">334</a>.</li> +<li> +La Châtre, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>.</li> +<li> +La Chevrolière, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Lafayette, Madame de</i>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>La Fontaine</i>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>.</li> +<li> +La Martinière, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.</li> +<li> +La Motte, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>-<a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Landais</i>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Landes, Houdon des</i>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.</li> +<li> +Langeais and Its Château, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, +<a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, +<a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, +<a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, +<a href="#Page_224">224</a>, +<a href="#Page_232">232</a>-<a href="#Page_241">241</a>, +<a href="#Page_247">247</a>.</li> +<li> +Languedoc, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Lanoue</i>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>.</li> +<li> +Lanterne de Rochecorbon, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>.</li> +<li> +La Pointe, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>-<a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>.</li> +<li> +La Possonière, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>.</li> +<li> +Larçay, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.</li> +<li> +La Rochelle, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Lauzun</i>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Lavedan</i>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>-<a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</li> +<li> +Layon, The, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.</li> +<li> +Le Croisic, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>.</li> +<li> +Le Havre, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Lemaitre, Jules</i>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Lemercier</i>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>-<a href="#Page_262">262</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Lenoir</i>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Lenôtre</i>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Lepage</i>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.</li> +<li> +Le Pellerin, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.</li> +<li> +Le Puy, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>-<a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Leray, M.</i>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.</li> +<li> +Les Andelys, Château de, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Lescure</i>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Lespine, Jean de</i>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>.</li> +<li> +Liger, The, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>.</li> +<li> +Lille, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Lille, Abbé de</i>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.</li> +<li> +"<i>Limieul, La Demoiselle de</i>" (See <a href="#TourIsabelle"><i>Tour, Isabelle de la</i></a>).</li> +<li> +Limousin, The, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.</li> +<li> +Lisieux, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>.</li> +<li> +Loches and Its Châteaux, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, +<a href="#Page_9">9</a>-<a href="#Page_10">10</a>, +<a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, +<a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, +<a href="#Page_188">188</a>-<a href="#Page_202">202</a>, +<a href="#Page_250">250</a>, +<a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>.</li> +<li> +Loches, Forêt de, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.</li> +<li> +Loir, The, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</li> +<li> +Loir et Cher, Department of the, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.</li> +<li> +Loire, The, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, +<a href="#Page_3">3</a>-<a href="#Page_30">30</a>, +<a href="#Page_32">32</a>, +<a href="#Page_34">34</a>-<a href="#Page_38">38</a>, +<a href="#Page_40">40</a>-<a href="#Page_41">41</a>, +<a href="#Page_43">43</a>, +<a href="#Page_50">50</a>-<a href="#Page_51">51</a>, +<a href="#Page_53">53</a>-<a href="#Page_54">54</a>, +<a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, +<a href="#Page_64">64</a>-<a href="#Page_65">65</a>, +<a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, +<a href="#Page_95">95</a>-<a href="#Page_97">97</a>, +<a href="#Page_101">101</a>-<a href="#Page_102">102</a>, +<a href="#Page_110">110</a>, +<a href="#Page_116">116</a>-<a href="#Page_118">118</a>, +<a href="#Page_120">120</a>-<a href="#Page_122">122</a>, +<a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, +<a href="#Page_133">133</a>, +<a href="#Page_134">134</a>, +<a href="#Page_137">137</a>, +<a href="#Page_140">140</a>-<a href="#Page_142">142</a>, +<a href="#Page_148">148</a>-<a href="#Page_149">149</a>, +<a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, +<a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, +<a href="#Page_177">177</a>-<a href="#Page_178">178</a>, +<a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, +<a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, +<a href="#Page_220">220</a>-<a href="#Page_223">223</a>, +<a href="#Page_225">225</a>, +<a href="#Page_227">227</a>-<a href="#Page_228">228</a>, +<a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, +<a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, +<a href="#Page_259">259</a>-<a href="#Page_260">260</a>, +<a href="#Page_267">267</a>, +<a href="#Page_273">273</a>, +<a href="#Page_275">275</a>-<a href="#Page_276">276</a>, +<a href="#Page_278">278</a>-<a href="#Page_279">279</a>, +<a href="#Page_282">282</a>-<a href="#Page_286">286</a>, +<a href="#Page_288">288</a>-<a href="#Page_290">290</a>, +<a href="#Page_292">292</a>-<a href="#Page_293">293</a>, +<a href="#Page_297">297</a>-<a href="#Page_302">302</a>, +<a href="#Page_304">304</a>, +<a href="#Page_308">308</a>-<a href="#Page_309">309</a>, +<a href="#Page_311">311</a>, +<a href="#Page_313">313</a>-<a href="#Page_314">314</a>, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">343</a> +</span> +<a href="#Page_318">318</a>-<a href="#Page_319">319</a>, +<a href="#Page_324">324</a>, +<a href="#Page_326">326</a>-<a href="#Page_327">327</a>, +<a href="#Page_330">330</a>, +<a href="#Page_332">332</a>-<a href="#Page_334">334</a>, +<a href="#Page_336">336</a>.</li> +<li> +Loiret, The, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>-<a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li> +<li> +Loiret, Department of the, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>-<a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Lorraine, Cardinal de</i>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Lorraine, Marie de</i>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>.</li> +<li> +Lorris, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Lorris, Guillaume de</i>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.</li> +<li> +Lot, The, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.</li> +<li> +Louet, The, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Louis II. (Le Bègue)</i>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Louis IX.</i> (See <a href="#StLouis"><i>St. Louis</i></a>).</li> +<li> +<i>Louis XI.</i>, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, +<a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, +<a href="#Page_44">44</a>-<a href="#Page_46">46</a>, +<a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, +<a href="#Page_130">130</a>-<a href="#Page_131">131</a>, +<a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, +<a href="#Page_194">194</a>, +<a href="#Page_195">195</a>, +<a href="#Page_211">211</a>-<a href="#Page_212">212</a>, +<a href="#Page_214">214</a>-<a href="#Page_218">218</a>, +<a href="#Page_232">232</a>-<a href="#Page_233">233</a>, +<a href="#Page_253">253</a>, +<a href="#Page_257">257</a>-<a href="#Page_258">258</a>, +<a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, +<a href="#Page_291">291</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Louis XII.</i>, +<a href="#Page_60">60</a>-<a href="#Page_61">61</a>, +<a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, +<a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, +<a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, +<a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, +<a href="#Page_194">194</a>-<a href="#Page_195">195</a>, +<a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, +<a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Louis XIII.</i>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>-<a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Louis XIV.</i>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, +<a href="#Page_82">82</a>-<a href="#Page_83">83</a>, +<a href="#Page_98">98</a>-<a href="#Page_99">99</a>, +<a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, +<a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, +<a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, +<a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, +<a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Louis XV.</i>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Louis XVI.</i>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Louis XVIII.</i>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Louis Philippe</i>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.</li> +<li> +Louvre, The, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Lubin, M.</i>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</li> +<li> +Luynes and Its Château, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>-<a href="#Page_227">227</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Luynes Family</i>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.</li> +<li> +Lyonnais, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li> +<li> +Lyons, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>.</li> +<li> +Lyons, Forêt de, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.</li> +</ul><ul> +<li> +Madon, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Maillé, Comte de</i>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>.</li> +<li> +Maine, The, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>-<a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>-<a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>-<a href="#Page_290">290</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Maintenon, Madame de</i>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Malines</i>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Mame et Fils, Alfred</i>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Mansart</i> (elder), <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.</li> +<li> +Marguerites, The, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Marie Antoinette</i>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Marigny, De</i>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>.</li> +<li> +Marmoutier, Abbey of, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>-<a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Marques, Family of</i>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Marsay, M. de</i>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.</li> +<li> +Marseilles, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Martel, Geoffroy</i>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>.</li> +<li> +Maulévrier, Château of, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>.</li> +<li> +Mauves, Plain of, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.</li> +<li> +Mayenne, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</li> +<li> +Mayenne, The, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Mazarin</i>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>-<a href="#Page_302">302</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Medici, Catherine de</i>, +<a href="#Page_73">73</a>-<a href="#Page_79">79</a>, +<a href="#Page_107">107</a>, +<a href="#Page_118">118</a>-<a href="#Page_119">119</a>, +<a href="#Page_122">122</a>-<a href="#Page_123">123</a>, +<a href="#Page_156">156</a>-<a href="#Page_157">157</a>, +<a href="#Page_160">160</a>-<a href="#Page_162">162</a>, +<a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>-<a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>-<a href="#Page_185">185</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Medici, Marie de</i>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>.</li> +<li> +Mehun-sur-Yevre and Its Château, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>-<a href="#Page_326">326</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Mello, Dreux de</i>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.</li> +<li> +Menars and Its Château, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>-<a href="#Page_54">54</a>.</li> +<li> +Mer, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>-<a href="#Page_53">53</a>.</li> +<li> +Metz, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.</li> +<li> +Meung-sur-Loire, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>-<a href="#Page_48">48</a>.</li> +<li> +Micy, Abbaye de, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Mignard</i>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.</li> +<li> +Moine, The, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>-<a href="#Page_308">308</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Molière</i>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>.</li> +<li> +Montbazon, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Montespan, Madame de</i>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Montesquieu</i>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Montgomery</i>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.</li> +<li> +Montjean, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.</li> +<li> +Montlivault, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Montmorency, Connétable de</i>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.</li> +<li> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">344</a></span>Montpellier, Castle of, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Montpensier, Charles de</i>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>-<a href="#Page_155">155</a>.</li> +<li> +Montrichard and its Donjon, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>-<a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>-<a href="#Page_93">93</a>.</li> +<li> +Montsoreau, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>-<a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>.</li> +<li> +Moraines, Château de (<i>See</i> <a href="#Dampierre">Dampierre</a>).</li> +<li> +<i>Moreau</i>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>.</li> +<li> +Moret, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Morrison</i>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>.</li> +<li> +Mortagne, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Mosnier</i>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.</li> +<li> +Moulins, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li> +<li> +Muides, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.</li> +</ul><ul> +<li> +Nahon, The, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>-<a href="#Page_321">321</a>.</li> +<li> +Nantes and Its Château, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, +<a href="#Page_7">7</a>-<a href="#Page_8">8</a>, +<a href="#Page_12">12</a>-<a href="#Page_13">13</a>, +<a href="#Page_23">23</a>, +<a href="#Page_25">25</a>-<a href="#Page_28">28</a>, +<a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, +<a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, +<a href="#Page_207">207</a>, +<a href="#Page_278">278</a>-<a href="#Page_279">279</a>, +<a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, +<a href="#Page_291">291</a>-<a href="#Page_302">302</a>, +<a href="#Page_308">308</a>, +<a href="#Page_311">311</a>-<a href="#Page_312">312</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Napoleon I.</i>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>-<a href="#Page_322">322</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Napoleon III.</i>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Napoleon, Louis</i>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.</li> +<li> +Narbonne, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Navarre, Marguerite of</i> (See <a href="#MarguiriteDAlenson"><i>Alençon, Marguerite d'</i></a>).</li> +<li> +<i>Nemours, Duc de</i>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Nepveu, Pierre</i>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.</li> +<li> +Nevers, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>-<a href="#Page_333">333</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>-<a href="#Page_336">336</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Nini</i>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>.</li> +<li> +Nivernais, The, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>.</li> +<li> +Nohant, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>-<a href="#Page_329">329</a>.</li> +<li> +Noirmoutier, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>-<a href="#Page_310">310</a>.</li> +<li> +Normandy, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>.</li> +</ul><ul> +<li> +Ognon, The, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>.</li> +<li> +Onzain, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>.</li> +<li> +Orléannais, The, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>-<a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>-<a href="#Page_321">321</a>.</li> +<li> +Orléans, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>-<a href="#Page_8">8</a>, +<a href="#Page_10">10</a>-<a href="#Page_12">12</a>, +<a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, +<a href="#Page_19">19</a>, +<a href="#Page_30">30</a>-<a href="#Page_35">35</a>, +<a href="#Page_37">37</a>-<a href="#Page_41">41</a>, +<a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, +<a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, +<a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, +<a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, +<a href="#Page_289">289</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Orleans Family</i>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, +<a href="#Page_65">65</a>-<a href="#Page_66">66</a>, +<a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, +<a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, +<a href="#Page_234">234</a> (See also <a href="#Gaston"><i>Gaston of Orleans</i></a>).</li> +<li> +Orleans, Forêt d', <a href="#Page_39">39</a>-<a href="#Page_40">40</a>.</li> +<li> +Oudon, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>-<a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>.</li> +</ul><ul> +<li> +Paimbœuf, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.</li> +<li> +Paris, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>-<a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>-<a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Parme, Duc de</i>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Parmentier</i>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.</li> +<li> +Pas de Calais, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>.</li> +<li> +Passay, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>.</li> +<li> +Passy-sur-Seine, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>.</li> +<li> +Pays de Retz, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>-<a href="#Page_302">302</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Penthièvre, Duc de</i>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Pepin</i>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Philippe I.</i>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Philippe II. (Auguste)</i>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Philippe III. (Le Hardi)</i>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Philippe IV. (Le Bel)</i>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.</li> +<li> +Pierrefonds, Château of, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.</li> +<li> +Pierre-Levée, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Pilon, Germain</i>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>.</li> +<li> +Pinaizeaux, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Pius VI.</i>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Plantagenet, Henry</i> (See <a href="#HenryII"><i>Henry II. of England</i></a>).</li> +<li> +<i>Plantin, Christopher</i>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Plessis, Armand du</i> (See <a href="#Richelieu"><i>Richelieu, Cardinal</i></a>).</li> +<li> +Plessis-les-Tours, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>-<a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>.</li> +<li> +Pointe de Chenoulin, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>.</li> +<li> +Poitiers, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>.</li> +<li> +<i><a id="DianePoitiers">Poitiers, Diane de</a></i>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, +<a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, +<a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, +<a href="#Page_174">174</a>-<a href="#Page_178">178</a>, +<a href="#Page_183">183</a>, +<a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>.</li> +<li> +Poitou, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Pompadour, La</i>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Poniatowska, Marie Thérèse</i>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>.</li> +<li> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">345</a></span>Pont Aven, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>.</li> +<li> +Ponts de Cé, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>-<a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>-<a href="#Page_286">286</a>.</li> +<li> +Pornic, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>.</li> +<li> +Pornichet, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>.</li> +<li> +Port Boulet, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>.</li> +<li> +Pouilly, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>-<a href="#Page_332">332</a>.</li> +<li> +Prairie-au-Duc, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Primaticcio</i>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Primatice</i>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.</li> +<li> +Puy-de-Dôme, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.</li> +</ul><ul> +<li> +<i>Rabelais, François</i>, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>-<a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>-<a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>-<a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.</li> +<li> +Rambouillet, Forêt de, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.</li> +<li> +Reims, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Renaudie, Jean Barri de la</i>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>René, King</i>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>.</li> +<li> +Rennes, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Retz, Cardinal de</i> (See <a href="#HenriGondi"><i>Gondi, Henri de</i></a>).</li> +<li> +<i>Retz, Gilles de</i>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>.</li> +<li> +Rhine, The, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.</li> +<li> +Rhône, The, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Richard Cœur de Lion</i>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.</li> +<li> +Richelieu, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>-<a href="#Page_262">262</a>.</li> +<li> +<i><a id="Richelieu">Richelieu, Cardinal</a></i>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>-<a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>-<a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>-<a href="#Page_302">302</a>.</li> +<li> +Roanne, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>-<a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Rochecotte</i>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>.</li> +<li> +Rochecotte, Château de, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>-<a href="#Page_250">250</a>.</li> +<li> +Romorantin and Its Château, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>-<a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Ronsard</i>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>.</li> +<li> +Rouen, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>-<a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Rousseau, Jean Jacques</i>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>-<a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Roy, Lucien</i>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Royale, Madame</i>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Rubens</i>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Ruggieri, Cosmo</i>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>-<a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>-<a href="#Page_123">123</a>.</li> +<li> +Russy, Forêt de, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>.</li> +</ul><ul> +<li> +<i>Saint Gelais, Guy de</i>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>.</li> +<li> +Sancerre and Its Châteaux, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>-<a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Sancerre, Counts of</i>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>-<a href="#Page_316">316</a>.</li> +<li> +<i><a id="GeorgeSand">Sand, George</a></i>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>-<a href="#Page_329">329</a>.</li> +<li> +San Juste, Monastery of, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.</li> +<li> +Saône, The, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Sardini, Scipion</i>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>.</li> +<li> +Sarthe, The, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</li> +<li> +Saumur and Its Château, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>-<a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>-<a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>-<a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>.</li> +<li> +Sausac, Château of, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Sausac, Seigneur de</i>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.</li> +<li> +Savennières, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>.</li> +<li> +<i><a id="SavLo">Savoie, Louise de</a></i>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Savoie, Philippe de</i>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Saxe, Maurice de</i>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>-<a href="#Page_108">108</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Scott, Sir Walter</i>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>.</li> +<li> +Sedan, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.</li> +<li> +Seine, The, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>.</li> +<li> +Selles, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Sertio</i>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Sévigné, Madame de</i>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Sforza, Ludovic</i>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Shenstone</i>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Siegfreid, Jacques</i>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.</li> +<li> +Sologne, The, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>-<a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>-<a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Sorel, Agnes</i>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>-<a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>-<a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Staël, Madame de</i>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>-<a href="#Page_120">120</a>.</li> +<li> +St. Aignan and Its Château, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Stanislas of Poland, King</i>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>-<a href="#Page_108">108</a>.</li> +<li> +St. Ay, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>-<a href="#Page_44">44</a>.</li> +<li> +St. Benoit-sur-Loire, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.</li> +<li> +St. Claude, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>.</li> +<li> +St. Cyr, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.</li> +<li> +St. Die, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.</li> +<li> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">346</a></span>Ste. Eulalie, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Stendahl</i>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.</li> +<li> +St. Etienne, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.</li> +<li> +St. Florent, Abbey of, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>.</li> +<li> +St. Galmier, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.</li> +<li> +St. Georges-sur-Loire, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.</li> +<li> +St. Leger, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>St. Liphard</i>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.</li> +<li> +<i><a id="StLouis">St. Louis</a></i>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>.</li> +<li> +St. Lumine, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>.</li> +<li> +St. Mars, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>St. Martin</i>, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>-<a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>St. Mesme</i>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>.</li> +<li> +St. Mesmin, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li> +<li> +St. Nazaire, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Stofflet</i>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>St. Ours</i>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.</li> +<li> +St. Philibert, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>-<a href="#Page_312">312</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>St. Philibert</i>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>.</li> +<li> +St. Pierre-le-Moutier, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>.</li> +<li> +St. Rambert, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>St. Sauveur</i>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>.</li> +<li> +Strasburg, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.</li> +<li> +St. Symphorien, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>.</li> +<li> +St. Trinité, Abbey of, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Stuart, Mary</i>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>-<a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>St. Vallier, Comte de</i>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>.</li> +<li> +Suèvres, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.</li> +<li> +Sully, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.</li> +</ul><ul> +<li> +<i>Talleyrand</i>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Tasso</i>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.</li> +<li> +Tavers, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Terry, Mr.</i>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Texier</i>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.</li> +<li> +Thézée, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Thibaut-le-Tricheur</i>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Thibaut III.</i>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Thiephanie, Dame</i>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>.</li> +<li> +Thouet, The, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Thoury, Comtesse</i>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>.</li> +<li> +Torfou, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>.</li> +<li> +Toulouse, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li> +<li> +<i><a id="TourIsabelle">Tour, Isabelle de la</a></i>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>.</li> +<li> +Touraine, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>-<a href="#Page_4">4</a>, +<a href="#Page_6">6</a>-<a href="#Page_9">9</a>, +<a href="#Page_15">15</a>, +<a href="#Page_19">19</a>-<a href="#Page_21">21</a>, +<a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, +<a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, +<a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, +<a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, +<a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, +<a href="#Page_128">128</a>-<a href="#Page_148">148</a>, +<a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, +<a href="#Page_169">169</a>, +<a href="#Page_172">172</a>-<a href="#Page_173">173</a>, +<a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, +<a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, +<a href="#Page_220">220</a>, +<a href="#Page_229">229</a>-<a href="#Page_230">230</a>, +<a href="#Page_233">233</a>-<a href="#Page_234">234</a>, +<a href="#Page_238">238</a>, +<a href="#Page_243">243</a>-<a href="#Page_244">244</a>, +<a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, +<a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, +<a href="#Page_275">275</a>, +<a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Touraine, Comtes de</i>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>.</li> +<li> +Tours, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, +<a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, +<a href="#Page_10">10</a>-<a href="#Page_11">11</a>, +<a href="#Page_20">20</a>-<a href="#Page_21">21</a>, +<a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, +<a href="#Page_84">84</a>, +<a href="#Page_116">116</a>-<a href="#Page_117">117</a>, +<a href="#Page_120">120</a>, +<a href="#Page_132">132</a>-<a href="#Page_133">133</a>, +<a href="#Page_137">137</a>, + <a href="#Page_148">148</a>-<a href="#Page_149">149</a>, +<a href="#Page_166">166</a>, +<a href="#Page_171">171</a>-<a href="#Page_172">172</a>, +<a href="#Page_200">200</a>, +<a href="#Page_203">203</a>-<a href="#Page_211">211</a>, +<a href="#Page_215">215</a>, +<a href="#Page_221">221</a>-<a href="#Page_222">222</a>, +<a href="#Page_224">224</a>-<a href="#Page_225">225</a>, +<a href="#Page_238">238</a>-<a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>-<a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>-<a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>.</li> +<li> +Treves-Cunault, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>-<a href="#Page_284">284</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Turenne</i>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Turner</i>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.</li> +</ul><ul> +<li> +Ussé and Its Château, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>-<a href="#Page_249">249</a>.</li> +</ul><ul> +<li> +Valençay and Its Château, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>-<a href="#Page_324">324</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Valentine de Milan</i>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Valentinois, Duchesse de</i> (See <a href="#DianePoitiers"><i>Poitiers, Diane de</i></a>).</li> +<li> +Vallée du Vendomois, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Valois, Marguerite de</i> (<i>sister of François I.</i>) +(See <a href="#MarguiriteDAlenson"><i>Alençon, Marguerite d'</i></a>).</li> +<li> +<i>Valois, Marguerite de (de Navarre)</i>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Van Eyck</i>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>.</li> +<li> +Varennes, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>.</li> +<li> +Varennes, The, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Vasari</i>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Vauban</i>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Vaudémont, Louise de</i>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>.</li> +<li> +Vendôme, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Vendôme, César de</i>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.</li> +<li> +Vendomois, The, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>-<a href="#Page_57">57</a>.</li> +<li> +Veron, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.</li> +<li> +Versailles, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Vibraye, Marquis de</i>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.</li> +<li> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">347</a></span>Vienne, The, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>-<a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>-<a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>.</li> +<li> +Vierzon, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>-<a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Vigny, Alfred de</i>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>-<a href="#Page_129">129</a>.</li> +<li> +Villandry, Château de, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>.</li> +<li> +Villaumère, Château de la, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Villon, François</i>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Vinci, Leonardo da</i>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>-<a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Viollet-le-Duc</i>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.</li> +<li> +Vivarais Mountains, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Voltaire</i>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.</li> +<li> +Vorey, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.</li> +<li> +Vouvray, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>.</li> +</ul><ul> +<li> +Yonne, The, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.</li> +<li> +<i>Young, Arthur</i>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>.</li> +</ul><ul> +<li> +<i>Zamet, Sebastian</i>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>.</li> +</ul> + + + + +<h4>Transcriber's Notes</h4> + + +<p>1. Replaced chateau(x) with château(x) throughout the text (title pages +and pp. xi, 1, 9, 62, 72, 327).</p> + +<p>2. P. 36: added quotes after a verse.</p> + +<p>3. P. 67: replaced "três" with "très" ("très beau et très agréable ainsy +que tous ses portraits l'ont représenté...").</p> + +<p>4. P. 83: added quotes after the phrase "magasin des subsistances +militaires".</p> + +<p>5. P. 86: added quotes after a phrase "those brilliant and ambitious +gentlemen".</p> + +<p>6. P. 94: "potions" are replaced with "portions" ("... moreover, one can +drink large portions of it...").</p> + +<p>7. P. 108: "know" is replaced with "known" ("The second floor is known +as the...").</p> + +<p>8. All instances of "Francois" are replaced with "François" (pp. 69, +171, 304, 338, 346).</p> + +<p>9. P. 187: "Credit Foncier" is replaced by "Crédit Foncier".</p> + +<p>10. P. 235: Replaced "irrelevent" with "irrelevant" ("...an +over-luxuriant interpolation of irrelevant things...").</p> + +<p>11. P. 290: Replaced "Andre" with "André" ("Maison André Leroy").</p> + +<p>12. P. 296: Added quotes after a verse "Cueur de vertus orné Dignement +couronné."</p> + +<p>13. P. 314: Replaced "Etes-vous" with "Êtes-vous" ("Êtes-vous allé à...").</p> + +<p>14. P. 322: Replaced "Valencay" with "Valençay" ("Château de +Valençay").</p> + +<p>15. Replaced "Eglise" with "Église" (illustration caption: "Église S. +Aignan, Cosne").</p> + +<p>16. Innkeepers, manorhouse, sandbar, Bellilocus, seaside, harbourside, +headwaters, stairway, and waterways are chosen to be written without a +hyphen.</p> + +<p>17. Dining-table, wine-shops, and quatre-vingtz are chosen to be written +with a hyphen.</p> + +<p>18. P. 338: Replaced "Bréze" with "Brézé" (Brézé, Pierre de).</p> + +<p>19. P. 269: Replaced "Chateaudun" with "Châteaudun" ("... the fief +passed to the Vicomtes de Châteaudun...").</p> + +<p>20. Pp. 12, 17, and 339: Replaced "Canal Lateral" with "Canal Latéral".</p> + +<p>21. P. 344: Replaced "Orléans" with "Orleans".</p> + +<p>22. P. 286: Quotes after the verse added ("... sur la Loire.").</p> + +<p>23. P. 327: The (missing) closing quotes are added ("_petits +chefs-d'oeuvre_ of sentiment and rustic poesy").</p> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine +and the Loire Country, by Francis Miltoun + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CASTLES, CHATEAUX OF OLD TOURAINE *** + +***** This file should be named 37211-h.htm or 37211-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/2/1/37211/ + +Produced by Elizaveta Shevyakhova, Juliet Sutherland and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian +Libraries) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine and the Loire Country + +Author: Francis Miltoun + +Illustrator: Blanche McManus + +Release Date: August 25, 2011 [EBook #37211] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CASTLES, CHATEAUX OF OLD TOURAINE *** + + + + +Produced by Elizaveta Shevyakhova, Juliet Sutherland and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian +Libraries) + + + + + + + + + + + Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine + and the Loire Country + + + + + _WORKS OF FRANCIS MILTOUN_ + + _The following, each 1 vol., library 12mo, cloth, gilt top, + profusely illustrated, $2.50_ + + _Rambles on the Riviera_ + _Rambles in Normandy_ + _Rambles in Brittany_ + _The Cathedrals and Churches of the Rhine_ + _The Cathedrals of Northern France_ + _The Cathedrals of Southern France_ + _The Cathedrals of Italy_ (_In preparation_) + + _The following, 1 vol., square octavo, cloth, gilt top, profusely + illustrated. $3.00_ + + _Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine and the Loire Country_ + + _L. C. PAGE & COMPANY New England Building, Boston, Mass._ + + + + +[Illustration: A PEASANT GIRL OF TOURAINE] + + + + + Castles and Chateaux + OF + OLD TOURAINE + AND THE LOIRE COUNTRY + + BY FRANCIS MILTOUN + + Author of "Rambles in Normandy," "Rambles in Brittany," + "Rambles on the Riviera," etc. + + _With Many Illustrations + Reproduced from paintings made on the spot_ + + BY BLANCHE MCMANUS + + [Illustration] + + BOSTON + L. C. PAGE & COMPANY + 1906 + + + + + + _Copyright, 1906_ + BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY + (Incorporated) + + _All rights reserved_ + + First Impression, June, 1906 + + _COLONIAL PRESS_ + _Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co._ + _Boston, U. S. A._ + + + + +[Illustration: Ed VELAY] + + + + +By Way of Introduction + + +This book is not the result of ordinary conventional rambles, of +sightseeing by day, and flying by night, but rather of leisurely +wanderings, for a somewhat extended period, along the banks of the Loire +and its tributaries and through the countryside dotted with those +splendid monuments of Renaissance architecture which have perhaps a more +appealing interest for strangers than any other similar edifices +wherever found. + +Before this book was projected, the conventional tour of the chateau +country had been "done," Baedeker, Joanne and James's "Little Tour" in +hand. On another occasion Angers, with its almost inconceivably real +castellated fortress, and Nantes, with its memories of the "Edict" and +"La Duchesse Anne," had been tasted and digested _en route_ to a certain +little artist's village in Brittany. + +On another occasion, when we were headed due south, we lingered for a +time in the upper valley, between "the little Italian city of Nevers" +and "the most picturesque spot in the world"--Le Puy. + +But all this left certain ground to be covered, and certain gaps to be +filled, though the author's note-books were numerous and full to +overflowing with much comment, and the artist's portfolio was already +bulging with its contents. + +So more note-books were bought, and, following the genial Mark Twain's +advice, another fountain pen and more crayons and sketch-books, and the +author and artist set out in the beginning of a warm September to fill +those gaps and to reduce, if possible, that series of rambles along the +now flat and now rolling banks of the broad blue Loire to something like +consecutiveness and uniformity; with what result the reader may judge. + + + + +Contents + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION v + + I. A GENERAL SURVEY 1 + + II. THE ORLEANNAIS 30 + + III. THE BLAISOIS AND THE SOLOGNE 56 + + IV. CHAMBORD 94 + + V. CHEVERNY, BEAUREGARD, AND CHAUMONT 110 + + VI. TOURAINE: THE GARDEN SPOT OF FRANCE 128 + + VII. AMBOISE 148 + + VIII. CHENONCEAUX 171 + + IX. LOCHES 188 + + X. TOURS AND ABOUT THERE 203 + + XI. LUYNES AND LANGEAIS 221 + + XII. AZAY-LE-RIDEAU, USSE, AND CHINON 241 + + XIII. ANJOU AND BRETAGNE 273 + + XIV. SOUTH OF THE LOIRE 301 + + XV. BERRY AND GEORGE SAND'S COUNTRY 313 + + XVI. THE UPPER LOIRE 330 + + INDEX 337 + + + + +List of Illustrations + + + PAGE + + A PEASANT GIRL OF TOURAINE _Frontispiece_ + + ITINERARY OF THE LOIRE (MAP) facing 1 + + A LACE-MAKER OF THE UPPER LOIRE facing 4 + + THE LOIRE CHATEAUX (MAP) 9 + + THE ANCIENT PROVINCES OF THE LOIRE VALLEY + AND THEIR CAPITALS (MAP) 15 + + THE LOIRE NEAR LA CHARITE facing 18 + + COIFFES OF AMBOISE AND ORLEANS facing 20 + + THE CHATEAUX OF THE LOIRE (MAP) facing 30 + + ENVIRONS OF ORLEANS (MAP) 39 + + THE LOIRET facing 42 + + THE LOIRE AT MEUNG facing 46 + + BEAUGENCY facing 50 + + ARMS OF THE CITY OF BLOIS 58 + + THE RIVERSIDE AT BLOIS facing 58 + + SIGNATURE OF FRANCOIS PREMIER 60 + + CYPHER OF ANNE DE BRETAGNE, AT BLOIS 62 + + ARMS OF LOUIS XII. 65 + + CENTRAL DOORWAY, CHATEAU DE BLOIS facing 66 + + THE CHATEAUX OF BLOIS (DIAGRAM) 71 + + CYPHER OF FRANCOIS PREMIER AND CLAUDE OF + FRANCE, AT BLOIS 72 + + NATIVE TYPES IN THE SOLOGNE 89 + + DONJON OF MONTRICHARD facing 92 + + ARMS OF FRANCOIS PREMIER, AT CHAMBORD 99 + + PLAN OF CHATEAU DE CHAMBORD 103 + + CHATEAU DE CHAMBORD facing 104 + + CHATEAU DE CHEVERNY facing 110 + + CHEVERNY-SUR-LOIRE 113 + + CHAUMONT facing 116 + + SIGNATURE OF DIANE DE POITIERS 118 + + THE LOIRE IN TOURAINE facing 134 + + THE VINTAGE IN TOURAINE facing 142 + + CHATEAU D'AMBOISE facing 148 + + SCULPTURE FROM THE CHAPELLE DE ST. HUBERT facing 164 + + CYPHER OF ANNE DE BRETAGNE, HOTEL DE + VILLE, AMBOISE 168 + + CHATEAU DE CHENONCEAUX facing 178 + + CHATEAU DE CHENONCEAUX (DIAGRAM) 179 + + LOCHES 189 + + LOCHES AND ITS CHURCH facing 192 + + SKETCH PLAN OF LOCHES 198 + + ST. OURS, LOCHES facing 198 + + TOURS facing 202 + + ARMS OF THE PRINTERS, _AVOCATS_, AND INNKEEPERS, + TOURS 205 + + SCENE IN THE QUARTIER DE LA CATHEDRALE, + TOURS facing 208 + + PLESSIS-LES-TOURS IN THE TIME OF LOUIS XI. 213 + + ENVIRONS OF TOURS (MAP) 219 + + A VINEYARD OF VOUVRAY facing 222 + + MEDIAEVAL STAIRWAY AND THE CHATEAU DE + LUYNES facing 224 + + RUINS OF CINQ-MARS facing 228 + + CHATEAU DE LANGEAIS facing 232 + + ARMS OF LOUIS XII. AND ANNE DE BRETAGNE 237 + + CHATEAU D'AZAY-LE-RIDEAU facing 244 + + CHATEAU D'USSE facing 248 + + THE ROOF-TOPS OF CHINON facing 252 + + RABELAIS 255 + + CHATEAU DE CHINON facing 258 + + CUISINES, FONTEVRAULT 265 + + CHATEAU DE SAUMUR facing 276 + + THE PONTS DE CE facing 284 + + CHATEAU D'ANGERS facing 288 + + ENVIRONS OF NANTES (MAP) 297 + + DONJON OF THE CHATEAU DE CLISSON facing 306 + + BERRY (MAP) 313 + + LA TOUR, SANCERRE 317 + + CHATEAU DE GIEN facing 318 + + CHATEAU DE VALENCAY facing 322 + + GATEWAY OF MEHUN-SUR-YEVRE facing 324 + + LE CARRIOR DORE, ROMORANTIN 325 + + EGLISE S. AIGNAN, COSNE 331 + + POUILLY-SUR-LOIRE facing 332 + + PORTE DU CROUX, NEVERS facing 334 + + + + + +[Illustration: ITINERARY OF THE LOIRE (MAP)] + + + + +Castles and Chateaux + +of Old Touraine + +and the Loire Country + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +A GENERAL SURVEY + + +Any account of the Loire and of the towns along its banks must naturally +have for its chief mention Touraine and the long line of splendid feudal +and Renaissance chateaux which reflect themselves so gloriously in its +current. + +The Loire possesses a certain fascination and charm which many other +more commercially great rivers entirely lack, and, while the element of +absolute novelty cannot perforce be claimed for it, it has the merit of +appealing largely to the lover of the romantic and the picturesque. + +A French writer of a hundred years ago dedicated his work on Touraine to +"Le Baron de Langeais, le Vicomte de Beaumont, le Marquis de Beauregard, +le Comte de Fontenailles, le Comte de Jouffroy-Gonsans, le Duc de +Luynes, le Comte de Vouvray, le Comte de Villeneuve, _et als._;" and he +might have continued with a directory of all the descendants of the +_noblesse_ of an earlier age, for he afterward grouped them under the +general category of "_Proprietaires des fortresses et chateaux les plus +remarquables--au point de vue historique ou architectural_." + +He was fortunate in being able, as he said, to have had access to their +"_papiers de famille_," their souvenirs, and to have been able to +interrogate them in person. + +Most of his facts and his gossip concerning the personalities of the +later generations of those who inhabited these magnificent +establishments have come down to us through later writers, and it is +fortunate that this should be the case, since the present-day aspect of +the chateaux is ever changing, and one who views them to-day is +chagrined when he discovers, for instance, that an iron-trussed, +red-tiled wash-house has been built on the banks of the Cosson before +the magnificent chateau of Chambord, and that somewhere within the +confines of the old castle at Loches a shopkeeper has hung out his +shingle, announcing a newly discovered dungeon in his own basement, +accidentally come upon when digging a well. + +Balzac, Rabelais, and Descartes are the leading literary celebrities of +Tours, and Balzac's "Le Lys dans la Vallee" will give one a more +delightful insight into the old life of the Tourangeaux than whole +series of guide-books and shelves of dry histories. + +Blois and its counts, Tours and its bishops, and Amboise and its kings, +to say nothing of Fontevrault, redolent of memories of the Plantagenets, +Nantes and its famous "Edict," and its equally infamous "Revocation," +have left vivid impress upon all students of French history. Others will +perhaps remember Nantes for Dumas's brilliant descriptions of the +outcome of the Breton conspiracy. + +All of us have a natural desire to know more of historic ground, and +whether we make a start by entering the valley of the Loire at the +luxurious midway city of Tours, and follow the river first to the sea +and then to the source, or make the journey from source to mouth, or +vice versa, it does not matter in the least. We traverse the same ground +and we meet the same varying conditions as we advance a hundred +kilometres in either direction. + +Tours, for example, stands for all that is typical of the sunny south. +Prune and palm trees thrust themselves forward in strong contrast to the +cider-apples of the lower Seine. Below Tours one is almost at the coast, +and the _tables d'hote_ are abundantly supplied with sea-food of all +sorts. Above Tours the Orleannais is typical of a certain well-to-do, +matter-of-fact existence, neither very luxurious nor very difficult. + +Nevers is another step and resembles somewhat the opulence of Burgundy +as to conditions of life, though the general aspect of the city, as well +as a great part of its history, is Italian through and through. + +The last great step begins at Le Puy, in the great volcanic _Massif +Centrale_, where conditions of life, if prosperous, are at least harder +than elsewhere. + +Such are the varying characteristics of the towns and cities through +which the Loire flows. They run the whole gamut from gay to earnest and +solemn; from the ease and comfort of the country around Tours, almost +sub-tropical in its softness, to the grime and smoke of busy St. +Etienne, and the chilliness and rigours of a mountain winter at Le Puy. + +[Illustration: _A Lace-maker of the Upper Loire_] + +These districts are all very full of memories of events which have +helped to build up the solidarity of France of to-day, though the +Nantois still proudly proclaims himself a Breton, and the Tourangeau +will tell you that his is the tongue, above all others, which speaks the +purest French,--and so on through the whole category, each and every +citizen of a _petit pays_ living up to his traditions to the fullest +extent possible. + +In no other journey in France, of a similar length, will one see as many +varying contrasts in conditions of life as he will along the length of +the Loire, the broad, shallow river which St. Martin, Charles Martel, +and Louis XI., the typical figures of church, arms, and state, came to +know so well. + +Du Bellay, a poet of the Renaissance, has sung the praises of the Loire +in a manner unapproached by any other topographical poet, if one may so +call him, for that is what he really was in this particular instance. + +There is a great deal of patriotism in it all, too, and certainly no +sweet singer of the present day has even approached these lines, which +are eulogistic without being fulsome and fervent without being lurid. + +The verses have frequently been rendered into English, but the following +is as good as any, and better than most translations, though it is one +of those fragments of "newspaper verse" whose authors are lost in +obscurity. + + "Mightier to me the house my fathers made, + Than your audacious heads, O Halls of Rome! + More than immortal marbles undecayed, + The thin sad slates that cover up my home; + More than your Tiber is my Loire to me, + More Palatine my little Lyre there; + And more than all the winds of all the sea, + The quiet kindness of the Angevin air." + +In history the Loire valley is rich indeed, from the days of the ancient +Counts of Touraine to those of Mazarin, who held forth at Nevers. +Touraine has well been called the heart of the old French monarchy. + +Provincial France has a charm never known to Paris-dwellers. Balzac and +Flaubert were provincials, and Dumas was a city-dweller,--and there lies +the difference between them. + +Balzac has written most charmingly of Touraine in many of his books, in +"Le Lys dans la Vallee" and "Le Cure de Tours" in particular; not always +in complimentary terms, either, for he has said that the Tourangeaux +will not even inconvenience themselves to go in search of pleasure. This +does not bespeak indolence so much as philosophy, so most of us will not +cavil. George Sand's country lies a little to the southward of Touraine, +and Berry, too, as the authoress herself has said, has a climate +"_souple et chaud, avec pluie abondant et courte_." + +The architectural remains in the Loire valley are exceedingly rich and +varied. The feudal system is illustrated at its best in the great walled +chateau at Angers, the still inhabited and less grand chateau at +Langeais, the ruins at Cinq-Mars, and the very scanty remains of +Plessis-les-Tours. + +The ecclesiastical remains are quite as great. The churches are, many of +them, of the first rank, and the great cathedrals at Nantes, Angers, +Tours, and Orleans are magnificent examples of the church-builders' art +in the middle ages, and are entitled to rank among the great cathedrals, +if not actually of the first class. + +With modern civic and other public buildings, the case is not far +different. Tours has a gorgeous Hotel de Ville, its architecture being +of the most luxuriant of modern French Renaissance, while the railway +stations, even, at both Tours and Orleans, are models of what railway +stations should be, and in addition are decoratively beautiful in their +appointments and arrangements,--which most railway stations are not. + +Altogether, throughout the Loire valley there is an air of prosperity +which in a more vigorous climate is often lacking. This in spite of the +alleged tendency in what is commonly known as a relaxing climate toward +_laisser-aller_. + +Finally, the picturesque landscape of the Loire is something quite +different from the harder, grayer outlines of the north. All is of the +south, warm and ruddy, and the wooded banks not only refine the +crudities of a flat shore-line, but form a screen or barrier to the +flowering charms of the examples of Renaissance architecture which, in +Touraine, at least, are as thick as leaves in Vallambrosa. + +Starting at Gien, the valley of the Loire begins to offer those +monumental chateaux which have made its fame as the land of castles. +From the old fortress-chateau of Gien to the Chateau de Clisson, or the +Logis de la Duchesse Anne at Nantes, is one long succession of florid +masterpieces, not to be equalled elsewhere. + +The true chateau region of Touraine--by which most people usually +comprehend the Loire chateaux--commences only at Blois. Here the +edifices, to a great extent, take on these superfine residential +attributes which were the glory of the Renaissance period of French +architecture. + +[Illustration: THE LOIRE CHATEAUX (MAP)] + +Both above and below Touraine, at Montrichard, at Loches, and Beaugency, +are still to be found scattering examples of feudal fortresses and +donjons which are as representative of their class as are the best +Norman structures of the same era, the great fortresses of Arques, +Falaise, Domfront, and Les Andelys being usually accounted as the types +which gave the stimulus to similar edifices elsewhere. + +In this same versatile region also, beginning perhaps with the +Orleannais, are a vast number of religious monuments equally celebrated. +For instance, the church of St. Benoit-sur-Loire is one of the most +important Romanesque churches in all France, and the cathedral of St. +Gatien, with its "bejewelled facade," at Tours, the twin-spired St. +Maurice at Angers, and even the pompous, and not very good Gothic, +edifice at Orleans (especially noteworthy because its crypt is an +ancient work anterior to the Capetian dynasty) are all wonderfully +interesting and imposing examples of mediaeval ecclesiastical +architecture. + +Three great tributaries enter the Loire below Tours, the Cher, the +Indre, and the Vienne. The first has for its chief attractions the +Renaissance chateaux St. Aignan and Chenonceaux, the Roman remains of +Chabris, Thezee, and Larcay, the Romanesque churches of Selles and St. +Aignan, and the feudal donjon of Montrichard. The Indre possesses the +chateau of Azay-le-Rideau and the sombre fortresses of Montbazon and +Loches; while the Vienne depends for its chief interest upon the galaxy +of fortress-chateaux at Chinon. + +The Loire is a mighty river and is navigable for nearly nine hundred +kilometres of its length, almost to Le Puy, or, to be exact, to the +little town of Vorey in the Department of the Haute Loire. + +At Orleans, Blois, or Tours one hardly realizes this, much less at +Nevers. The river appears to be a great, tranquil, docile stream, with +scarce enough water in its bed to make a respectable current, leaving +its beds and bars of _sable_ and _cailloux_ bare to the sky. + +The scarcity of water, except at occasional flood, is the principal and +obvious reason for the absence of water-borne traffic, even though a +paternal ministerial department of the government calls the river +navigable. + +At the times of the _grandes crues_ there are four metres or more +registered on the big scale at the Pont d'Ancenis, while at other times +it falls to less than a metre, and when it does there is a mere rivulet +of water which trickles through the broad river-bottom at Chaumont, or +Blois, or Orleans. Below Ancenis navigation is not so difficult, but the +current is more strong. + +From Blois to Angers, on the right bank, extends a long dike which +carries the roadway beside the river for a couple of hundred kilometres. +This is one of the charms of travel by the Loire. The only thing usually +seen on the bosom of the river, save an occasional fishing punt, is one +of those great flat-bottomed ferry-boats, with a square sail hung on a +yard amidships, such as Turner always made an accompaniment to his Loire +pictures, for conditions of traffic on the river have not greatly +changed. + +Whenever one sees a barge or a boat worthy of classification with those +one finds on the rivers of the east or north, or on the great canals, it +is only about a quarter of the usual size; so, in spite of its great +navigable length, the waterway of the Loire is to be considered more as +a picturesque and healthful element of the landscape than as a +commercial proposition. + +Where the great canals join the river at Orleans, and from Chatillon to +Roanne, the traffic increases, though more is carried by the canal-boats +on the _Canal Lateral_ than by the barges on the Loire. + +It is only on the Loire between Angers and Nantes that there is any +semblance of river traffic such as one sees on most of the other great +waterways of Europe. There is a considerable traffic, too, which +descends the Maine, particularly from Angers downward, for Angers with +its Italian skies is usually thought of, and really is to be considered, +as a Loire town, though it is actually on the banks of the Maine some +miles from the Loire itself. + +One thousand or more bateaux make the ascent to Angers from the Loire at +La Pointe each year, all laden with a miscellaneous cargo of +merchandise. The Sarthe and the Loir also bring a notable agricultural +traffic to the greater Loire, and the smaller confluents, the Dive, the +Thouet, the Authion, and the Layon, all go to swell the parent stream +until, when it reaches Nantes, the Loire has at last taken on something +of the aspect of a well-ordered and useful stream, characteristics which +above Nantes are painfully lacking. Because of its lack of commerce the +Loire is in a certain way the most noble, magnificent, and aristocratic +river of France; and so, too, it is also in respect to its associations +of the past. + +It has not the grandeur of the Rhone when the spring freshets from the +Jura and the Swiss lakes have filled it to its banks; it has not the +burning activity of the Seine as it bears its thousands of boat-loads of +produce and merchandise to and from the Paris market; it has not the +prettiness of the Thames, nor the legendary aspect of the Rhine; but in +a way it combines something of the features of all, and has, in +addition, a tone that is all its own, as it sweeps along through its +countless miles of ample curves, and holds within its embrace all that +is best of mediaeval and Renaissance France, the period which built up +the later monarchy and, who shall not say, the present prosperous +republic. + +Throughout most of the river's course, one sees, stretching to the +horizon, row upon row of staked vineyards with fruit and leaves in +luxuriant abundance and of all rainbow colours. The peasant here, the +worker in the vineyards, is a picturesque element. He is not +particularly brilliant in colouring, but he is usually joyous, and he +invariably lives in a well-kept and brilliantly environed habitation and +has an air of content and prosperity amid the well-beloved treasures of +his household. + +The Loire is essentially a river of other days. Truly, as Mr. James has +said, "It is the very model of a generous, beneficent stream ... a wide +river which you may follow by a wide road is excellent company." + +The Frenchman himself is more flowery: "_C'est la plus noble riviere de +France. Son domaine est immense et magnifique._" + +[Illustration: THE ANCIENT PROVINCES OF THE LOIRE VALLEY AND THEIR +CAPITALS (MAP)] + + THE ANCIENT + PROVINCES OF THE + LOIRE VALLEY + AND THEIR + CAPITALS + + Bretagne Rennes + Anjou Angers + Touraine Tours + Orleannais Orleans + Berry Bourges + Nivernais Nevers + Bourbonnais Moulins + Lyonnais Lyon + Bourgogne Dijon + Auvergne Clermont-Ferrand + Languedoc Toulouse + +The Loire is the longest river in France, and the only one of the four +great rivers whose basin or watershed lies wholly within French +territory. It moreover traverses eleven provinces. It rises in a fissure +of granite rock at the foot of the Gerbier-de-Jonc, a volcanic cone in +the mountains of the Vivarais, a hundred kilometres or more south of +Lyons. In three kilometres, approximately two miles, the little torrent +drops a thousand feet, after receiving to its arms a tiny affluent +coming from the Croix de Monteuse. + +For twelve kilometres the river twists and turns around the base of the +Vivarais mountains, and finally enters a gorge between the rocks, and +mingles with the waters of the little Lac d'Issarles, entering for the +first time a flat lowland plain like that through which its course +mostly runs. + +The monument-crowned pinnacles of Le Puy and the inverted bowl of +Puy-de-Dome rise high above the plain and point the way to Roanne, where +such activity as does actually take place upon the Loire begins. + +Navigation, classed officially as "_flottable_," merely, has already +begun at Vorey, just below Le Puy, but the traffic is insignificant. + +Meantime the streams coming from the direction of St. Etienne and Lyons +have been added to the Loire, but they do not much increase its bulk. +St. Galmier, the _source_ dear to patrons of _tables d'hote_ on account +of its palatable mineral water, which is about the only decent +drinking-water one can buy at a reasonable price, lies but a short +distance away to the right. + +At St. Rambert the plain of Forez is entered, and here the stream is +enriched by numberless rivulets which make their way from various +sources through a thickly wooded country. + +From Roanne onward, the _Canal Lateral_ keeps company with the Loire to +Chatillon, not far from Orleans. + +Before reaching Nevers, the _Canal du Nivernais_ branches off to the +left and joins the Loire with the Yonne at Auxerre. Daudet tells of the +life of the _Canal du Nivernais_, in "La Belle Nivernaise," in a manner +too convincingly graphic for any one else to attempt the task, in +fiction or out of it. Like the Tartarin books, "La Belle Nivernaise" is +distinctly local, and forms of itself an excellent guide to a little +known and little visited region. + +At Nevers the topography changes, or rather, the characteristics of the +life of the country round about change, for the topography, so far as +its profile is concerned, remains much the same for three-fourths the +length of this great river. Nevers, La Charite, Sancerre, Gien, and +Cosne follow in quick succession, all reminders of a historic past as +vivid as it was varied. + +From the heights of Sancerre one sees a wonderful history-making +panorama before him. Caesar crossed the Loire at Gien, the Franks forded +the river at La Charite, when they first went against Aquitaine, and +Charles the Bald came sadly to grief on a certain occasion at Pouilly. + +It is here that the Loire rises to its greatest flood, and hundreds of +times, so history tells, from 490 to 1866, the fickle river has caused a +devastation so great and terrible that the memory of it is not yet dead. + +This hardly seems possible of this usually tranquil stream, and there +have always been scoffers. + +Madame de Sevigne wrote in 1675 to M. de Coulanges (but in her case +perhaps it was mere well-wishing), "_La belle Loire, elle est un peu +sujette a se deborder, mais elle en est plus douce_." + +Ancient writers were wont to consider the inundations of the Loire as a +punishment from Heaven, and even in later times the superstition--if it +was a superstition--still remained. + +[Illustration: _The Loire near La Charite_] + +In 1825, when thousands of charcoal-burners (_charbonniers_) were all +but ruined, they petitioned the government for assistance. The official +who had the matter in charge, and whose name--fortunately for his +fame--does not appear to have been recorded, replied simply that the +flood was a periodical condition of affairs which the Almighty brought +about as occasion demanded, with good cause, and for this reason he +refused all assistance. + +Important public works have done much to prevent repetitions of these +inundations, but the danger still exists, and always, in a wet season, +there are those dwellers along the river's banks who fear the rising +flood as they would the plague. + +Chatillon, with its towers; Gien, a busy hive of industry, though with a +historic past; Sully; and St. Benoit-sur-Loire, with its unique double +transepted church; all pass in rapid review, and one enters the ancient +capital of the Orleannais quite ready for the new chapter which, in +colouring, is to be so different from that devoted to the upper valley. + +From Orleans, south, one passes through a veritable wonderland of +fascinating charms. Chateaux, monasteries, and great civic and +ecclesiastical monuments pass quickly in turn. + +Then comes Touraine which all love, the river meantime having grown no +more swift or ample, nor any more sluggish or attenuated. It is simply +the same characteristic flow which one has known before. + +The landscape only is changing, while the fruits and flowers, and the +trees and foliage are more luxuriant, and the great chateaux are more +numerous, splendid, and imposing. + +Of his well-beloved Touraine, Balzac wrote: "Do not ask me _why_ I love +Touraine; I love it not merely as one loves the cradle of his birth, nor +as one loves an oasis in a desert, but as an artist loves his art." + +Blois, with its bloody memories; Chaumont, splendid and retired; +Chambord, magnificent, pompous, and bare; Amboise, with its great tower +high above the river, follow in turn till the Loire makes its regal +entree into Tours. "What a spectacle it is," wrote Sterne in "Tristram +Shandy," "for a traveller who journeys through Touraine at the time of +the vintage." + +And then comes the final step which brings the traveller to where the +limpid waters of the Loire mingle with the salty ocean, and what a +triumphant meeting it is! + +[Illustration: _Coiffes of Amboise and Orleans_] + +Most of the cities of the Loire possess but one bridge, but Tours has +three, and, as becomes a great provincial capital, sits enthroned +upon the river-bank in mighty splendour. + +The feudal towers of the Chateau de Luynes are almost opposite, and +Cinq-Mars, with its pagan "_pile_" and the ruins of its feudal castle +high upon a hill, points the way down-stream like a mariner's beacon. +Langeais follows, and the Indre, the Cher, and the Vienne, all ample and +historic rivers, go to swell the flood which passes under the bridges of +Saumur, Ancenis, and Ponts de Ce. + +From Tours to the ocean, the Loire comes to its greatest amplitude, +though even then, in spite of its breadth, it is, for the greater part +of the year, impotent as to the functions of a great river. + +Below Angers the Loire receives its first great affluent coming from the +country lying back of the right bank: the Maine itself is a considerable +river. It rises far up in the Breton peninsula, and before it empties +itself into the Loire, it has been aggrandized by three great +tributaries, the Loir, the Sarthe, and the Mayenne. + +Here in this backwater of the Loire, as one might call it, is as +wonderful a collection of natural beauties and historical chateaux as on +the Loire itself. Chateaudun, Mayenne, and Vendome are historic ground +of superlative interest, and the great castle at Chateaudun is as +magnificent in its way as any of the monuments of the Loire. Vendome has +a Hotel de Ville which is an admirable relic of a feudal edifice, and +the _clocher_ of its church, which dominates many square leagues of +country, is counted as one of the most perfectly disposed church spires +in existence, as lovely, almost, as Texier's masterwork at Chartres, or +the needle-like _fleches_ at Strasburg or Freiburg in Breisgau. + +The Maine joins the Loire just below Angers, at a little village +significantly called La Pointe. Below La Pointe are St. +Georges-sur-Loire, and three _chateaux de commerce_ which give their +names to the three principal Angevin vineyards: Chateau Serrand, +l'Epinay, and Chevigne. + +Vineyard after vineyard, and chateau after chateau follow rapidly, until +one reaches the Ponts de Ce with their _petite ville_,--all very +delightful. Not so the bridge at Ancenis, where the flow of water is +marked daily on a huge black and white scale. The bridge is quite the +ugliest wire-rope affair to be seen on the Loire, and one is only too +glad to leave it behind, though it is with a real regret that he parts +from Ancenis itself. + +Some years ago one could go from Angers to St. Nazaire by boat. It must +have been a magnificent trip, extraordinarily calm and serene, amid an +abundance of picturesque details; old chateaux and bridges in strong +contrast to the prairies of Touraine and the Orleannais. One embarked at +the foot of the stupendously towered chateau of King Rene, and for a +_petite heure_ navigated the Maine in the midst of great _chalands_, +fussy little _remorqueurs_ and _barques_ until La Pointe was reached, +when the Loire was followed to Nantes and St. Nazaire. + +To-day this fine trip is denied one, the boats going only so far as La +Pointe. + +Below Angers the Loire flows around and about a veritable archipelago of +islands and islets, cultivated with all the luxuriance of a back-yard +garden, and dotted with tiny hamlets of folk who are supremely happy and +content with their lot. + +Some currents which run behind the islands are swift flowing and +impetuous, while others are practically elongated lakes, as dead as +those _lomes_ which in certain places flank the Saone and the Rhone. + +All these various branches are united as the Loire flows between the +piers of the ungainly bridge of the Chemin-de-fer de Niort as it crosses +the river at Chalonnes. + +Champtoce and Montjean follow, each with an individuality all its own. +Here the commerce takes on an increased activity, thanks to the great +national waterway known as the "Canal de Brest a Nantes." Here at the +busy port of Montjean--which the Angevins still spell and pronounce +_Montejean_--the Loire takes on a breadth and grandeur similar to the +great rivers in the western part of America. Montjean is dominated by a +fine ogival church, with a battery of arcs-boutants which are a joy in +themselves. + +On the other bank, lying back of a great plain, which stretches away +from the river itself, is Champtoce, pleasantly situated on the flank of +a hill and dominated by the ruins of a thirteenth-century chateau which +belonged to the cruel Gilles de Retz, somewhat apocryphally known to +history as "Barbe-bleu"--not the Bluebeard of the nursery tale, who was +of Eastern origin, but a sort of Occidental successor who was equally +cruel and bloodthirsty in his attitude toward his whilom wives. + +From this point on one comes within the sphere of influence of Nantes, +and there is more or less of a suburban traffic on the railway, and the +plodders cityward by road are more numerous than the mere vagabonds of +the countryside. + +The peasant women whom one meets wear a curious bonnet, set on the head +well to the fore, with wings at the side folded back quite like the +pictures that one sees of the mediaeval dames of these parts, a survival +indeed of the middle ages. + +The Loire becomes more and more animated and occasionally there is a +great tow of boats like those that one sees continually passing on the +lower Seine. Here the course of the Loire takes on a singular aspect. It +is filled with long flat islands, sometimes in archipelagos, but often +only a great flat prairie surrounded by a tranquil canal, wide and deep, +and with little resemblance to the mistress Loire of a hundred or two +kilometres up-stream. All these isles are in a high state of +cultivation, though wholly worked with the hoe and the spade, both of +them of a primitiveness that might have come down from Bible times; rare +it is to see a horse or a harrow on these "bouquets of verdure +surrounded by waves." + +Near Oudon is one of those monumental follies which one comes across +now and then in most foreign countries: a great edifice which serves no +useful purpose, and which, were it not for certain redeeming features, +would be a sorry thing indeed. The "Folie-Siffait," a citadel which +perches itself high upon the summit of a hill, was--and is--an +_amusette_ built by a public-spirited man of Nantes in order that his +workmen might have something to do in a time of a scarcity of work. It +is a bizarre, incredible thing, but the motive which inspired its +erection was most worthy, and the roadway running beneath, piercing its +foundation walls, gives a theatrical effect which, in a way, makes it +the picturesque rival of many a more famous Rhine castle. + +The river valley widens out here at Oudon, practically the frontier of +Bretagne and Anjou. The railroad pierces the rock walls of the river +with numerous tunnels along the right bank, and the Vendean country +stretches far to the southward in long rolling hills quite unlike any of +the characteristics of other parts of the valley. Finally, the vast +plain of Mauves comes into sight, beautifully coloured with a white and +iron-stained rocky background which is startlingly picturesque in its +way, if not wholly beautiful according to the majority of standards. + +Next comes what a Frenchman has called a "tumultuous vision of Nantes." +To-day the very ancient and historic city which grew up from the Portus +Namnetum and the Condivicnum of the Romans is indeed a veritable tumult +of chimneys, masts, and locomotives. But all this will not detract one +jot from its reputation of being one of the most delightful of +provincial capitals, and the smoke and activity of its port only tend to +accentuate a note of colour that in the whole itinerary of the Loire has +been but pale. + +Below Nantes the Loire estuary has turned the surrounding country into a +little Holland, where fisherfolk and their boats, with sails of red and +blue, form charming symphonies of pale colour. In the _cabarets_ along +its shores there is a strange medley of peasants, sea-farers, and fisher +men and women. Not so cosmopolitan a crew as one sees in the harbourside +_cabarets_ at Marseilles, or even Le Havre, but sufficiently strange to +be a fascination to one who has just come down from the headwaters. + +The "Section Maritime," from Nantes to the sea, is a matter of some +sixty kilometres. Here the boats increase in number and size. They are +known as _gabares_, _chalands_, and _alleges_, and go down with the +river-current and return on the incoming ebb, for here the river is +tidal. + +Gray and green is the aspect at the Loire's source, and green and gray +it still is, though of a decidedly different colour-value, at St. +Nazaire, below Nantes, the real deep-water port of the Loire. + +By this time the river has amplified into a broad estuary which is lost +in the incoming and outgoing tides of the Bay of Biscay. + +For nearly a thousand kilometres the Loire has wound its way gently and +broadly through rocky escarpments, fertile plains, populous and +luxurious towns,--all of it historic ground,--by stately chateaux and +through vineyards and fruit orchards, with a placid grandeur. + +Now it becomes more or less prosaic and matter-of-fact, though in a way +no less interesting, as it takes on some of the attributes of the +outside world. + +This outline, then, approximates somewhat a portrait of the Loire. It is +the result of many pilgrimages enthusiastically undertaken; a long +contemplation of the charms of perhaps the most beautiful river in +France, from its source to its mouth, at all seasons of the year. + +The riches and curios of the cities along its banks have been +contemplated with pleasure, intermingled with a memory of many stirring +scenes of the past, but it is its chateaux that make it famous. + +The story of the chateaux has been told before in hundreds of volumes, +but only a personal view of them will bring home to one the manners and +customs of one of the most luxurious periods of life in the France of +other days. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE ORLEANNAIS + + +Of the many travelled English and Americans who go to Paris, how few +visit the Loire valley with its glorious array of mediaeval and +Renaissance chateaux. No part of France, except Paris, is so accessible, +and none is so comfortably travelled, whether by road or by rail. + +At Orleans one is at the very gateway of this splendid, bountiful +region, the lower valley of the Loire. Here the river first takes on a +complexion which previously it had lacked, for it is only when the Loire +becomes the boundary-line between the north and the south that one comes +to realize its full importance. + +The Orleannais, like many another province of mid-France, is a region +where plenty awaits rich and poor alike. Not wholly given over to +agriculture, nor yet wholly to manufacturing, it is without that +restless activity of the frankly industrial centres of the north. In +spite of this, though, the Orleannais is not idle. + +[Illustration: THE CHATEAUX OF THE LOIRE (MAP)] + +Orleans is the obvious _pointe de depart_ for all the wonderland of the +Renaissance which is to follow, but itself and its immediate +surroundings have not the importance for the visitor, in spite of the +vivid historical chapters which have been written here in the past, that +many another less famous city possesses. By this is meant that the +existing monuments of history are by no means as numerous or splendid +here as one might suppose. Not that they are entirely lacking, but +rather that they are of a different species altogether from that array +of magnificently planned chateaux which line the banks of the Loire +below. + +To one coming from the north the entrance to the Orleannais will be +emphatically marked. It is the first experience of an atmosphere which, +if not characteristically or climatically of the south, is at least +reminiscent thereof, with a luminosity which the provinces of old France +farther north entirely lack. + +As Lavedan, the Academicien, says: "Here all focuses itself into one +great picture, the combined romance of an epoch. Have you not been +struck with a land where the clouds, the atmosphere, the odour of the +soil, and the breezes from afar, all comport, one with another, in true +and just proportions?" This is the Orleannais, a land where was +witnessed the morning of the Valois, the full noon of Louis XIV., and +the twilight of Louis XVI. + +The Orleannais formed a distinct part of mediaeval France, as it did, +ages before, of western Gaul. Of all the provinces through which the +Loire flows, the Orleannais is as prolific as any of great names and +greater events, and its historical monuments, if not so splendid as +those in Touraine, are no less rare. + +Orleans itself contains many remarkable Gothic and Renaissance +constructions, and not far away is the ancient church of the old abbey +of Notre Dame de Clery, one of the most historic and celebrated shrines +in the time of the superstitious Louis XI.; while innumerable mediaeval +villes and ruined fortresses plentifully besprinkle the province. + +One characteristic possessed by the Orleannais differentiates it from +the other outlying provinces of the old monarchy. The people and the +manners and customs of this great and important duchy were allied, in +nearly all things, with the interests and events of the capital itself, +and so there was always a lack of individuality, which even to-day is +noticeably apparent in the Orleans capital. The shops, hotels, cafes, +and the people themselves might well be one of the _quartiers_ of Paris, +so like are they in general aspect. + +The notable Parisian character of the inhabitants of Orleans, and the +resemblance of the people of the surrounding country to those of the Ile +of France, is due principally to the fact that the Orleannais was never +so isolated as many others of the ancient provinces. It was virtually a +neighbour of the capital, and its relations with it were intimate and +numerous. Moreover, it was favoured by a great number of lines of +communication by road and by water, so that its manners and customs +became, more or less unconsciously, interpolations. + +The great event of the year in Orleans is the Fete de Jeanne d'Arc, +which takes place in the month of May. Usually few English and American +visitors are present, though why it is hard to reason out, for it takes +place at quite the most delightful season in the year. Perhaps it is +because Anglo-Saxons are ashamed of the part played by their ancestors +in the shocking death of the maid of Domremy and Orleans. Innumerable +are the relics and reminders of the "Maid" scattered throughout the +town, and the local booksellers have likewise innumerable and +authoritative accounts of the various episodes of her life, which saves +the necessity of making further mention here. + +There are several statues of Jeanne d'Arc in the city, and they have +given rise to the following account written by Jules Lemaitre, the +Academicien: + +"I believe that the history of Jeanne d'Arc was the first that was ever +told to me (before even the fairy-tales of Perrault). The 'Mort de +Jeanne d'Arc,' of Casimir Delavigne, was the first fable that I learned, +and the equestrian statue of the 'Maid,' in the Place Martroi, at +Orleans, is perhaps the oldest vision that my memory guards. + +"This statue of Jeanne d'Arc is absurd. She has a Grecian profile, and a +charger which is not a war-horse but a race-horse. Nevertheless to me it +was noble and imposing. + +"In the courtyard of the Hotel de Ville is a _petite pucelle_, very +gentle and pious, who holds against her heart her sword, after the +manner of a crucifix. At the end of the bridge across the Loire is +another Jeanne d'Arc, as the maid of war, surrounded by swirling +draperies, as in a picture of Juvenet's. This to me tells the whole +story of the reverence with which the martyred 'Maid' is regarded in the +city of Orleans by the Loire." + +One can appreciate all this, and to the full, for a Frenchman is a stern +critic of art, even that of his own countrymen, and Jeanne d'Arc, along +with some other celebrities, is one of those historical figures which +have seldom had justice done them in sculptured or pictorial +representations. The best, perhaps, is the precocious Lepage's fine +painting, now in America. What would not the French give for the return +of this work of art? + +The Orleannais, with the Ile de France, formed the particular domain of +the third race of French monarchs. From 1364 to 1498 the province was an +appanage known as the Duche d'Orleans, but it was united with the Crown +by Louis XII., and finally divided into the Departments of Loir et Cher, +Eure et Loir, and Loiret. + +Like the "pardons" and "benedictions" of Finistere and other parts of +Bretagne, the peasants of the Loiret have a quaint custom which bespeaks +a long handed-down superstition. On the first Sunday of Lent they hie +themselves to the fields with lighted fagots and chanting the following +lines: + + "Sortez, sortez d'ici mulots! + Ou je vais vous bruler les crocs! + Quittez, quittez ces bles; + Allez, vous trouverez + Dans la cave du cure + Plus a boire qu' a manger." + +Just how far the cure endorses these sentiments, the author of this book +does not know. The explanation of the rather extraordinary proceeding +came from one of the participants, who, having played his part in the +ceremony, dictated the above lines over sundry _petits verres_ paid for +by the writer. The day is not wound up, however, with an orgy of eating +and drinking, as is sometimes the case in far-western Brittany. The +peasant of the Loiret simply eats rather heavily of "_mi_," which is +nothing more or less than oatmeal porridge, after which he goes to bed. + +The Loire rolls down through the Orleannais, from Chateauneuf-sur-Loire +and Jargeau, and cuts the banks of _sable_, and the very shores +themselves, into little capes and bays which are delightful in their +eccentricity. Here cuts in the _Canal d'Orleans_, which makes possible +the little traffic that goes on between the Seine and the Loire. + +A few kilometres away from the right bank of the Loire, in the heart of +the Gatanais, is Lorris, the home of Guillaume de Lorris, the first +author of the "Roman de la Rose." For this reason alone it should become +a literary shrine of the very first rank, though, in spite of its claim, +no one ever heard of a literary pilgrim making his way there. + +Lorris is simply a big, overgrown French market-town, which is +delightful enough in its somnolence, but which lacks most of the +attributes which tourists in general seem to demand. + +At Lorris a most momentous treaty was signed, known as the "Paix de +Lorris," wherein was assured to the posterity of St. Louis the heritage +of the Comte de Toulouse, another of those periodical territorial +aggrandizements which ultimately welded the French nation into the whole +that it is to-day. + +From the juncture of the _Canal d'Orleans_ with the Loire one sees +shining in the brilliant sunlight the roof-tops of Orleans, the +Aurelianum of the Romans, its hybrid cathedral overtopping all else. It +was Victor Hugo who said of this cathedral: "This odious church, which +from afar holds so much of promise, and which near by has none," and +Hugo undoubtedly spoke the truth. + +Orleans is an old city and a _cite neuve_. Where the river laps its +quays, it is old but commonplace; back from the river is a strata which +is really old, fine Gothic house-fronts and old leaning walls; while +still farther from the river, as one approaches the railway station, it +is strictly modern, with all the devices and appliances of the newest of +the new. + +The Orleans of history lies riverwards,--the Orleans where the heart of +France pulsed itself again into life in the tragic days which were +glorified by "the Maid." + +"The countryside of the Orleannais has the monotony of a desert," said +an English traveller some generations ago. He was wrong. To do him +justice, however, or to do his observations justice, he meant, probably, +that, save the river-bottom of the Loire, the great plain which begins +with La Beauce and ends with the Sologne has a comparatively +uninteresting topography. This is true; but it is not a desert. La +Beauce is the best grain-growing region in all France, and the Sologne +is now a reclaimed land whose sandy soil has proved admirably adapted to +an unusually abundant growth of the vine. So much for this old-time +point of view, which to-day has changed considerably. + +The Orleannais is one of the most populous and progressive sections of +all France, and its inhabitants, per square kilometre, are constantly +increasing in numbers, which is more than can be said of every +_departement_. There are multitudes of tiny villages, and one is +scarcely ever out of sight and sound of a habitation. + +[Illustration: _ENVIRONS of ORLEANS_ (MAP)] + +In the great forest, just to the west of Orleans, are two small +villages, each a celebrated battle-ground, and a place of a patriotic +pilgrimage on the eighth and ninth of November of each year. They are +Coulmiers and Bacon, and here some fugitives from Metz and Sedan, with +some young troops exposed to fire for the first time, engaged with the +Prussians (in 1870) who had occupied Orleans since mid-October. There is +the usual conventional "soldiers' monument,"--with considerably more art +about it than is usually seen in America,--before which Frenchmen +seemingly never cease to worship. + +This same _Foret d'Orleans_, one of those wild-woods which so +plentifully besprinkle France, has a sad and doleful memory in the +traditions of the druidical inhabitants of a former day. Their practices +here did not differ greatly from those of their brethren elsewhere, but +local history is full of references to atrocities so bloodthirsty that +it is difficult to believe that they were ever perpetrated under the +guise of religion. + +Surrounding the forest are many villages and hamlets, war-stricken all +in the dark days of seventy-one, when the Prussians were overrunning the +land. + +Of all the cities of the Loire, Orleans, Blois, Tours, Angers, and +Nantes alone show any spirit of modern progressiveness or of likeness +to the capital. The rest, to all appearances, are dead, or at least +sleeping in their pasts. But they are charming and restful spots for all +that, where in melancholy silence sit the old men, while the younger +folk, including the very children, are all at work in the neighbouring +vineyards or in the wheat-fields of La Beauce. + +Meung-sur-Loire and Beaugency sleep on the river-bank, their proud +monuments rising high in the background,--the massive tower of Caesar and +a quartette of church spires. Just below Orleans is the juncture of the +Loiret and the Loire at St. Mesmin, while only a few kilometres away is +Clery, famed for its associations of Louis XI. + +The Loiret is not a very ample river, and is classed by the Minister of +Public Works as navigable for but four kilometres of its length. This, +better than anything else, should define its relative importance among +the great waterways of France. Navigation, as it is known elsewhere, is +practically non-existent. + +The course of the Loiret is perhaps twelve kilometres all told, but it +has given its name to a great French _departement_, though it is +doubtless the shortest of all the rivers of France thus honoured. + +It first comes to light in the dainty park of the Chateau de la Source, +where there are two distinct sources. The first forms a small circular +basin, known as the "Bouillon," which leads into another semicircular +basin called the "Bassin du Miroir," from the fact that it reflects the +facade of the chateau in its placid surface. Of course, this is all very +artificial and theatrical, but it is a pretty conceit nevertheless. The +other source, known as the "Grande Source," joins the rivulet some +hundreds of yards below the "Bassin du Miroir." + +The Chateau de la Source is a seventeenth-century edifice, of no great +architectural beauty in itself, but sufficiently sylvan in its +surroundings to give it rank as one of the notable places of pilgrimage +for tourists who, said a cynical French writer, "take the chateaux of +the Loire _tour a tour_ as they do the morgue, the Moulin Rouge, and the +sewers of Paris." + +In the early days the chateau belonged to the Cardinal Briconnet, and it +was here that Bolingbroke, after having been stripped of his titles in +England, went into retirement in 1720. In 1722 he received Voltaire, who +read him his "Henriade." + +[Illustration: THE LOIRET] + +In 1815 the invading Prince Eckmuehl, with his staff, installed himself +in the chateau, when, after Waterloo, the Prussian and French armies +were separated only by a barrier placed midway on the bridge at Orleans. +It was here also that the Prussian army was disbanded, on the agreement +of the council held at Angerville, near Orleans. + +There are three other chateaux on the borders of the Loiret, which are +of more than ordinary interest, so far as great country houses and their +surroundings go, though their histories are not very striking, with +perhaps the exception of the Chateau de la Fontaine, which has a +remarkable garden, laid out by Lenotre, the designer of the parks at +Versailles. + +Leaving Orleans by the right bank of the Loire, one first comes to La +Chapelle-St. Mesmin. La Chapelle has a church dating from the eleventh +century and a chateau which is to-day the _maison de campagne_ of the +Bishop of Orleans. On the opposite bank was the Abbaye de Micy, founded +by Clovis at the time of his conversion. A stone cross, only, marks the +site to-day. + +St. Ay follows next, and is usually set down in the guide-books as +"celebrated for good wines." This is not to be denied for a moment, and +it is curious to note that the city bears the same name as the famous +town in the champagne district, celebrated also for good wine, though +of a different kind. The name of the Orleannais Ay is gained from a +hermitage founded here by a holy man, who died in the sixth century. His +tomb was discovered in 1860, under the choir of the church, which makes +it a place of pilgrimage of no little local importance. + +At Meung-sur-Loire one should cross the river to Clery, five kilometres +off, seldom if ever visited by casual travellers. But why? Simply +because it is overlooked in that universal haste shown by most +travellers--who are not students of art or architecture, or deep lovers +of history--in making their way to more popular shrines. One will not +regret the time taken to visit Clery, which shared with Our Lady of +Embrun the devotions of Louis XI. + +Clery's three thousand pastoral inhabitants of to-day would never give +it distinction, and it is only the Maison de Louis XI. and the Basilique +de Notre Dame which makes it worth while, but this is enough. + +In "Quentin Durward" one reads of the time when the superstitious Louis +was held in captivity by the Burgundian, Charles the Bold, and of how +the French king made his devotions before the little image, worn in his +hat, of the Virgin of Clery; "the grossness of his superstition, none +the less than his fickleness, leading him to believe Our Lady of Clery +to be quite a different person from the other object of his devotion, +the Madonna of Embrun, a tiny mountain village in southwestern France. + +"'Sweet Lady of Clery,' he exclaimed, clasping his hands and beating his +breast as he spoke, 'Blessed Mother of Mercy! thou who art omnipotent +with omnipotence, have compassion with me, a sinner! It is true I have +sometimes neglected you for thy blessed sister of Embrun; but I am a +king, my power is great, my wealth boundless; and were it otherwise, I +would double my _gabelle_ on my subjects rather than not pay my debts to +you both.'" + +Louis endowed the church at Clery, and the edifice was built in the fine +flamboyant style of the period, just previous to his death, which De +Commines gives as "_le samedy penultieme jour d'Aoust, l'an mil quatre +cens quatre-vingtz et trois, a huit heures du soir_." + +Louis XI. was buried here, and the chief "sight" is of course his tomb, +beside which is a flagstone which covers the heart of Charles VIII. The +Chapelle St. Jacques, within the church, is ornamented by a series of +charming sculptures, and the Chapelle des Dunois-Longueville holds the +remains of the famous ally of Jeanne d'Arc and members of his family. + +In the choir is the massive oaken statue of Our Lady of Clery +(thirteenth century); the very one before which Louis made his vows. +There is some old glass in the choir and a series of sculptured stalls, +which would make famous a more visited and better known shrine. There is +a fine sculptured stone portal to the sacristy, and within there are +some magnificent old _armoires_, and also two chasubles, which saw +service in some great church, perhaps here, in the times of Louis +himself. + +The "Maison de Louis XI.," near the church, is a house of brick, +restored in 1651, and now--or until a very recent date--occupied by a +community of nuns. In the Grande Rue is another "Maison de Louis XI.;" +at least it has his cipher on the painted ceiling. It is now occupied by +the Hotel de la Belle Image. Those who like to dine and sleep where have +also dined and slept royal heads will appreciate putting up at this +hostelry. + +[Illustration: _The Loire at Meung_] + +Meung-sur-Loire was the birthplace of Jehan Clopinel, better known as +Jean de Meung, who continued Guillaume de Lorris's "Roman de la Rose," +the most famous bit of verse produced by the _trouveres_ of the +thirteenth century. The voice of the troubadour was soon after hushed +for ever, but that thirteenth-century masterwork--though by two hands +and the respective portions unequal in merit--lives for ever as the +greatest of its kind. In memory of the author, Meung has its Rue Jehan +de Meung, for want of a more effective or appealing monument. + +Dumas opens the history of "Les Trois Mousquetaires" with the following +brilliantly romantic lines anent Meung: "_Le premier lundi du mois +d'Avril, 1625, le bourg de Meung, ou naquit l'auteur du 'Roman de la +Rose.'_" (One of the authors, he should have said, but here is where +Dumas nodded, as he frequently did.) + +Continuing, one reads: "The town was in a veritable uproar. It was as if +the Huguenots were up in arms and the drama of a second Rochelle was +being enacted." Really the description is too brilliant and entrancing +to be repeated here, and if any one has forgotten his Dumas to the +extent that he has forgotten D'Artagnan's introduction to the hostelry +of the "Franc Meunier," he is respectfully referred back to that +perennially delightful romance. + +Meung was once a Roman fortress, known as Maudunum, and in the eleventh +century St. Liphard founded a monastery here. + +In the fifteenth century Meung was the prison of Francois Villon. Poor +vagabond as he was then, it has become the fashion to laud both the +personality and the poesy of Maitre Francois Villon. + +By the orders of Thibaut d'Aussigny, Bishop of Orleans, Villon was +confined in a strong tower attached to the side of the _clocher_ of the +parish church of St. Liphard, and which adjoined the _chateau de +plaisance_ belonging to the bishop. Primarily this imprisonment was due +to a robbery in which the poet had been concerned at Orleans. He spent +the whole of the summer in this dungeon, which was overrun with rats, +and into which he had to be lowered by ropes. As his food consisted of +bread and water only, his sufferings at this time were probably greater +than at any other period in his life. Here the burglar-poet remained +until October, 1461, when Louis XI. visited Meung, and, to mark the +occasion, ordered the release of all prisoners. For this delivery, +Villon, according to the accounts of his life, appears to have been +genuinely grateful to the king. + +At Beaugency, seven kilometres from Meung, one comes upon an +architectural and historical treat which is unexpected. + +In the eleventh century Beaugency was a fief of the bishopric of Amiens, +and its once strong chateau was occupied by the Barons de Landry, the +last of whom died, without children, in the thirteenth century. +Philippe-le-Bel bought the fief and united it with the Comte de Blois. +It was made an independent _comte_ of itself in 1569, and in 1663 became +definitely an appanage of Orleans. The Prince de Galles took Beaugency +in 1359, the Gascons in 1361, Duguesclin in 1370 and again in 1417; in +1421 and in 1428 it was taken by the English, from whom it was delivered +by Jeanne d'Arc in 1429. Internal wars and warfares continued for +another hundred and fifty years, finally culminating in one of the +grossest scenes which had been enacted within its walls,--the bloody +revenge against the Protestants, encouraged doubtless by the affair of +St. Bartholomew's night at Paris. + +The ancient square donjon of the eleventh century, known as the Tour de +Cesar, still looms high above the town. It must be one of the hugest +keeps in all France. The old chateau of the Dunois is now a charitable +institution, but reflects, in a way, the splendour of its +fourteenth-century inception, and its Salle de Jeanne d'Arc, with its +great chimneypiece, is worthy to rank with the best of its kind along +the Loire. The spiral staircase, of which the Loire builders were so +fond, is admirable here, and dates from 1530. + +The Hotel de Ville of Beaugency is a charming edifice of the very best +of Renaissance, which many more pretentious structures of the period are +not. It dates from 1526, and was entirely restored--not, however, to its +detriment, as frequently happens--in the last years of the nineteenth +century. Its charm, nevertheless, lies mostly in its exterior, for +little remains of value within except a remarkable series of old +embroideries taken from the choir of the old abbey of Beaugency. + +The Eglise de Notre Dame is a Romanesque structure with Gothic +interpolations. It is not bad in its way, but decidedly is not +remarkable as mediaeval churches go. + +The old streets of Beaugency contain a dazzling array of old houses in +wood and stone, and in the Rue des Templiers is a rare example of +Romanesque civil architecture; at least the type is rare enough in the +Orleannais, though more frequently seen in the south of France. The Tour +St. Firmin dates from 1530, and is all that remains of a church which +stood here up to revolutionary times. The square ruined towers known +as the Porte Tavers are relics of the city's old walls and gates, and +are all that are left to mark the ancient enclosure. + +[Illustration: _Beaugency_] + +The Tour du Diable and the house of the ruling abbot remain to suggest +the power and magnificence of the great abbey which was built here in +the tenth century. In 1567 it was burned, and later restored, but beyond +the two features just mentioned there is nothing to indicate its former +uses, the remaining structures having passed into private hands and +being devoted to secular uses. + +The old bridge which crosses the Loire at this point is most curious, +and dates from various epochs. It is 440 metres in length, and is +composed of twenty-six arches, one of which dates from the fourteenth +century, when bridge-building was really an art. Eight of the +present-day arches are of wood, and on the second is a monolith +surmounted by a figure of Christ in bronze, replacing a former chapel to +St. Jacques. A chapel on a bridge is not a unique arrangement, but few +exist to-day, one of the most famous being, perhaps, that on the ruined +bridge of St. Benezet at Avignon. + +Altogether, Beaugency, as it sleeps its life away after the strenuous +days of the middle ages, is more lovable by far than a great +metropolis. + +The traveller is well repaid who makes a stop at Beaugency a part of a +three days' gentle ramble among the usually neglected towns and villages +of the Orleannais and the Blaisois, instead of rushing through to Blois +by express-train, which is what one usually does. + +Southward one's route lies through pleasant vineyards, on one side the +Sologne, and on the other the Coteau de Guignes, which latter ranks as +quite the best among the vine-growing districts of the Orleannais. + +Near Tavers is a natural curiosity in the shape of the "Fontaine des +Sables Mouvants," where the sands of a tiny spring boil and bubble like +a miniature geyser. + +Mer, another small town, follows, twelve kilometres farther on. Like +Beaugency it is a somnolent bourg, and the life of the peasant folk +round about, who go to market on one day at Beaugency and on another at +Blois, and occasionally as far away as Orleans, is much the same as it +was a century ago. + +There is a Boulevard de la Gare and a Grande Rue at Mer, the latter +leading to a fine Gothic church with a fifteenth-century tower, which is +admirable in every way, and forms a beacon by land for many miles +around. The primitive church at Mer dates from the eleventh century, the +side walls, however, being all that remain of that period. There is a +sculptured pulpit of the seventeenth century, and a great painting, +which looks ancient and is certainly a masterful work of art, +representing an "Adoration of the Magi." + +When all is said and done, it is its irresistible and inexpressible +charm which makes Mer well-beloved, rather than any great wealth of +artistic atmosphere of any nature. + +Away to the south, across the Loire to Muides, runs the route to +Chambord, through the Sologne, where immediately the whole aspect of +life changes from that on the borders of the rich grain-lands of the +Orleannais and La Beauce. + +All the way from Beaugency to Blois the Loire threads its way through a +lovely country, whose rolling slopes, back from the river, are +surmounted here and there by windmills, a not very frequent adjunct to +the landscape of France, except in the north. + +Near Mer is Menars, with its eighteenth-century chateau of La Pompadour; +Suevres, the site of an ancient Roman city; the lowlands lying before +Chambord; St. Die; Montlivault; St. Claude, and a score of little +villages which are entrancing in their old-world aspect even in these +days of progress. This completes the panorama to Blois which, with the +Blaisois, forms the borderland between the Orleannais and Touraine. + +Before reaching Blois, Menars, at any rate, commands attention. It +fronts upon the Loire, but is practically upon the northern border of +the Foret de Blois, hence properly belongs to the Blaisois. Menars was +made a rendezvous for the chase by the wily and pleasure-loving La +Pompadour, who quartered herself at the chateau, which afterward passed +to her brother, De Marigny. + +Before the Revolution, Menars was the seat of a marquisate, of which the +land was bought by Louis XV. for his famous, or infamous, _maitresse_. +The property has frequently changed hands since that day, but its +gardens and terraces, descending toward the river-bank, mark it as one +of those _coquette_ establishments, with which France was dotted in the +eighteenth century. + +These establishments possessed enough of luxurious appointments to be +classed as fitting for the butterflies of the time, but in no way, so +far as the architectural design or the artistic details were concerned, +were any of them worthy to be classed with the great domestic chateaux +of the early years of the Renaissance. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE BLAISOIS AND THE SOLOGNE + + +The Blesois or Blaisois was the ancient name given to the _petit pays_ +which made a part of the government of the Orleannais. It was, and is, +the borderland between the Orleannais and Touraine, and, with its +capital, Blois, the city of counts, was a powerful territory in its own +right, in spite of the allegiance which it owed to the Crown. Twenty +leagues in length by thirteen in width, it was bounded on the north by +the Dunois and the Orleannais, on the east by Berry, on the south by +Touraine, and on the west by Touraine and the Vendomois. + +Blois, its capital, was famed ever in the annals of the middle ages, and +to-day no city in the Loire valley possesses more sentimental interest +for the traveller than does Blois. + +To the eastward lay the sands of the Sologne, and southward the ample +and fruitful Touraine, hence Blois's position was one of supreme +importance, and there is no wonder that it proved to be the scene of so +many momentous events of history. + +The present day Department of the Loir et Cher was carved out from the +Blaisois, the Vendomois, and the Orleannais. The Baisois was, in olden +time, one of the most important of the _petits gouvernements_ of all the +kingdom, and gave to Blois a line of counts who rivalled in power and +wealth the churchmen of Tours and the dukes of Brittany. Gregory of +Tours is the first historian who makes mention of the ancient _Pagus +Blensensis_. + +One must not tell the citizen of Blois that it is at Tours that one +hears the best French spoken. Everybody knows this, but the inhabitant +of the Blaisois will not admit it, and, in truth, to the stranger there +is not much apparent difference. Throughout this whole region he +understands and makes himself understood with much more facility than in +any other part of France. + +For one thing, not usually recalled, Blois should be revered and +glorified. It was the native place of Lenoir, who invented the +instrument which made possible the definite determination of the metric +system of measurement. + +One reads in Bernier's "Histoire de Blois" that the inhabitants are +"honest, gallant, and polite in conversation, and of a delicate and +diffident temperament." This was written nearly a century ago, but there +is no excuse for one's changing the opinion to-day unless, as was the +misfortune of the writer, he runs up against an unusually importunate +vender of post-cards or an aggressive _garcon de cafe_. + +[Illustration: ARMS OF THE CITY OF BLOIS] + +Blois, among all the cities of the Loire, is the favourite with the +tourist. Why this should be is an enigma. It is overburdened, at times, +with droves of tourists, and this in itself is a detraction in the eyes +of many. + +Perhaps it is because here one first meets a great chateau of state; and +certainly the Chateau de Blois lives in one's memory more than any other +chateau in France. + +[Illustration: _The Riverside at Blois_] + +Much has been written of Blois, its counts, its chateau, and its many +and famous _hotels_ of the nobility, by writers of all opinions and +abilities, from those old chroniclers who wrote of the plots and +intrigues of other days to those critics of art and architecture who +have discovered--or think they have discovered--that Da Vinci designed +the famous spiral staircase. + +From this one may well gather that Blois is the foremost chateau of all +the Loire in popularity and theatrical effect. Truly this is so, but it +is by no manner of means the most lovable; indeed, it is the least +lovable of all that great galaxy which begins at Blois and ends at +Nantes. It is a show-place and not much more, and partakes in every form +and feature--as one sees it to-day--of the attributes of a museum, and +such it really is. All of its former gorgeousness is still there, and +all the banalities of the later period when Gaston of Orleans built his +ugly wing, for the "personally conducted" to marvel at, and honeymoon +couples to envy. The French are quite fond of visiting this shrine +themselves, but usually it is the young people and their mammas, and +detached couples of American and English birth that one most sees +strolling about the courts and apartments were formerly lords and ladies +and cavaliers moved and plotted. + +The great chateau of the Counts of Blois is built upon an inclined rock +which rises above the roof-tops of the lower town quite in fairy-book +fashion,-- + + "... Batie en pierre et d'ardoise converte, + Blanche et carree au bas de la colline verte." + +Commonly referred to as the Chateau de Blois, it is really composed of +four separate and distinct foundations; the original chateau of the +counts; the later addition of Louis XII.; the palace of Francois I., and +the most unsympathetically and dismally disposed _pavillon_ of Gaston of +Orleans. + +[Illustration: _Signature of Francois Premier_] + +The artistic qualities of the greater part of the distinct edifices +which go to make up the chateau as it stands to-day are superb, with the +exception of that great wing of Gaston's, before mentioned, which is as +cold and unfeeling as the overrated palace at Versailles. + +The Comtes de Chatillon built that portion just to the right of the +present entrance; Louis XII., the edifice through which one enters the +inner court and which extends far to the left, including also the chapel +immediately to the rear; while Francois Premier, who here as elsewhere +let his unbounded Italian proclivities have full sway, built the +extended wing to the left of the inner court and fronting on the present +Place du Chateau, formerly the Place Royale. + +Immediately to the left, in the Basse Cour de Chateau, are the Hotel +d'Amboise, the Hotel d'Epernon, and farther away, in the Rue St. Honore, +the Hotel Sardini, the Hotel d'Alluye, and a score of others belonging +to the nobility of other days; all of them the scenes of many stirring +and gallant events in Renaissance times. + +This is hardly the place for a discussion of the merits or demerits of +any particular artistic style, but the frequently repeated expression of +Buffon's "_Le style, c'est l'homme_" may well be paraphrased into +"_L'art, c'est l'epoque._" In fact one finds at all times imprinted upon +the architectural style of any period the current mood bred of some +historical event or a passing fancy. + +At Blois this is particularly noticeable. As an architectural monument +the chateau is a picturesque assemblage of edifices belonging to many +different epochs, and, as such, shows, as well as any other document of +contemporary times, the varying ambitions and emotions of its builders, +from the rude and rough manners of the earliest of feudal times through +the highly refined Renaissance details of the imaginative brain of +Francois, down to the base concoction of the elder Mansart, produced at +the commands of Gaston of Orleans. + +[Illustration: CYPHER OF ANNE D'BRETANGE CHATEAU DE BLOIS] + +The whole gamut, from the gay and winsome to the sad and dismal, is +found here. + +The escutcheons of the various occupants are plainly in evidence,--the +swan pierced by an arrow of the first Counts of Blois; the ermine of +Anne de Bretagne; the porcupine of the Ducs d'Orleans, and the +salamander of Francois Premier. + +In the earliest structure were to be seen all the attributes of a feudal +fortress, towers and walls pierced with narrow loopholes, and damp, dark +dungeons hidden away in the thick walls. Then came a structure which was +less of a fortress and more habitable, but still a stronghold, though +having ample and decorative doorways and windows, with curious +sculptures and rich framings. Then the pompous Renaissance with +_escaliers_ and _balcons a jour_, balustrades crowning the walls, +arabesques enriching the pilasters and walls, and elaborate cornices +here, there, and everywhere,--all bespeaking the gallantry and taste of +the _roi-chevalier_. Finally came the cold, classic features of the +period of the brother of Louis XIII., decidedly the worst and most +unlivable and unlovely architecture which France has ever produced. All +these features are plain in the general scheme of the Chateau de Blois +to-day, and doubtless it is this that makes the appeal; too much +loveliness, as at Chenonceaux or Azay-le-Rideau, staggers the modern +mortal by the sheer impossibility of its modern attainment. + +In plan the Chateau de Blois forms an irregular square situated at the +apex of a promontory high above the surface of the Loire, and +practically behind the town itself. The building has a most picturesque +aspect, and, to those who know, gives practically a history of the +chateau architecture of the time. Abandoned, mutilated, and dishonoured +from time to time, the structure gradually took on new forms until the +thick walls underlying the apartment known to-day as the Salle des +Etats--probably the most ancient portion of all--were overshadowed by +the great richness of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. One early +fragment was entirely enveloped in the structure which was built by +Francois Premier, the ancient Tour de Chateau Regnault, or De Moulins, +or Des Oubliettes, as it was variously known, and from the outside this +is no longer visible. + +From the platform one sees a magnificent panorama of the city and the +far-reaching Loire, which unrolls itself southward and northward for +many leagues, its banks covered by rich vineyards and crowned by thick +forests. + +The building of Louis XII. presents its brick-faced exterior in black +and red lozenge shapes, with sculptured window-frames, squarely upon the +little tree-bordered _place_ of to-day, which in other times formed a +part of that magnificent terrace which looked down upon the roof of the +Eglise St. Nicolas, and the Jesuit Church of the Immaculate Conception, +and the silvery belt of the Loire itself. + +[Illustration: ARMS OF LOIS XII] + +On the west facade of this vast conglomerate structure one sees the +effigy of the porcupine, that weird symbol adopted by the family of +Orleans. + +The choice of this ungainly animal--in spite of which it is most +decorative in outline--was due to the first Louis, who was Duc +d'Orleans. In the year 1393 Louis founded the order of the porcupine, +in honour of the birth of Charles, his eldest son, who was born to him +by Valentine de Milan. The legend which accompanied the adoption of the +symbol--though often enough it was missing in the sculptured +representations--was _Cominus et eminus_, which had its origin in the +belief that the porcupine could defend himself in a near attack, but +that when he himself attacked, he fought from afar by launching forth +his spines. + +Naturalists will tell you that the porcupine does no such thing; but in +those days it was evidently believed that he did, and in many, if not +all, of the sculptured effigies that one sees of the beast there is a +halo of detached spines forming a background as if they were really +launching themselves forth in mid-air. + +Above this central doorway, or entrance to the courtyard, is a niche in +which is a modern equestrian statue of Louis XII., replacing a more +ancient one destroyed at the Revolution. This old statue, it is claimed, +was an admirable work of art in its day, and the present statue is +thought to be a replica of it. + +It originally bore the following inscription--a verse written by Fausto +Andrelini, the king's favourite poet. + +[Illustration: _Central Doorway, Chateau de Blois_] + + "Hic ubi natus erat dextro Lodoicus Olympo, + Sumpsit honorata Regia sceptra manu; + Felix quae tanti fulfit lux nuntia Regis; + Gallia non alio Principe digna fuit. + + FAUSTUS 1498." + +According to an old French description this old statue was: "_tres beau +et tres agreable ainsy que tous ses portraits l'ont represente, comme +celui qui est au grand portail de Bloys_." + +Above rises a balustrade with fantastic gargoyles with the pinnacles and +fleurons of the window gables all very ornate, the whole topped off with +a roofing of slate. + +Blois, in its general aspect, is fascinating; but it is not sympathetic, +and this is not surprising when one remembers men and women who worked +their deeds of bloody daring within its walls. + +The murders and other acts of violence and treason which took place here +are interesting enough, but one cannot but feel, when he views the +chimneypiece before which the Duc de Guise was standing when called to +his death in the royal closet, that the men of whom the bloody tales of +Blois are told quite deserved their fates. + +One comes away with the impression of it all stamped only upon the +mind, not graven upon the heart. Political intrigue to-day, if quite as +vulgar, is less sordid. Bigotry and ambition in those days allowed few +of the finer feelings to come to the surface, except with regard to the +luxuriance of surroundings. Of this last there can be no question, and +Blois is as characteristically luxurious as any of the magnificent +edifices which lodged the royalty and nobility of other days, throughout +the valley of the Loire. + +A numismatic curiosity, connected with the history of the Chateau de +Blois, is an ancient piece of money which one may see in the local +museum. It is the oldest document in existence in which, or on which, +the name of Blois is mentioned. On one side is a symbolical figure and +the legend _Bleso Castro_, and on the other a _croix haussee_ and the +name of the officer of the mint at Blois, _Pre Cistato, monetario_. + +The plan of the Chateau de Blois here given shows it not as it is +to-day, but as it was at the death of Gaston d'Orleans in 1660. The +constructions of the different epochs are noted on the plan as follows: + + ERECTED BY THE COMTES DE CHATILLON + + 1. Tour de Donjon, Chateau-Regnault, Moulins, or des + Oubliettes. + + 2. Salle des Etats. + + 3. Tour du Foix or Observatory. + + + ERECTED BY THE DUCS D'ORLEANS + + 4. Portico and Galerie d'Orleans. (Destroyed in part by the + military.) + + 5. Galerie des Cerfs. (Built in part by Gaston, but made away + with by the city of Blois when the Jardins du Roi were built.) + + + ERECTED BY LOUIS XII. + + 6. Chapelle St. Calais. (Destroyed in part by the military.) + + 7. La Grande Vis, or Grand Escalier of Louis XI. + + 8. La Petite Vis, or Petit Escalier, in one chamber of which + the corpse of the Duc de Guise was burned. + + 9. Portico and Galerie de Louis XII. + + 10. Portico. + + 11. Salle des Gardes,--of the queen on the ground floor and of + the king on the first floor. + + 12. Bedchamber,--of the queen on the ground floor and of the + king on the first floor. + + 13. Corps de Garde. + + 14. Kitchen. (To-day Salle de Reception for visitors.) + + + ERECTED FROM THE TIME OF FRANCOIS I. TO HENRI III. + + 15 and 16. Portico and Terrace Henri II. (In part built over by + Gaston.) + + 17. Grand Staircase. + + 18. Galerie de Francois I. + + 19. Staircase of the Salle des Etats. (Destroyed by the + military.) + + 20. First floor, Salle des Gardes of the queen; second floor, + Salle des Gardes of the king. + + 21. Staircase leading to the apartments of the queen mother. + Here also Henri III. had made the cells destined for the use + of the Capucins, and here were closeted "_pour s'assurer de + leur discretion_," the "_Quarante-Cinq_" who were to kill the + Duc de Guise. + + 22. Cabinet Neuf of Henri III. (Second floor.) + + 23. Gallery where was held the reunion of the Tiers Etats of + 1576. + + 24. First floor, bedchamber of the king; second floor, + bedchamber of the queen. + + 25. Oratory. + + 26. Cabinet. + + 27. Passage to the Tour de Moulins. + + 28. Passage to the Cabinet Vieux, where the Duc de Guise was + struck down. + + 29. Cabinet Vieux. + + 30. Oratory, where the two chaplains of the king prayed during + the perpetration of the murder. + + 31. Garde-robe, where was first deposited the body of De Guise. + + + ERECTED BY GASTON D'ORLEANS + + 32. Peristyle. (Destroyed by the military.) + + 33. Dome. + + 34. Pavilion des Jardins. + + 35. Pavilion du Foix. + + 36. Petit Pavilion of the Meridionale facade. (Destroyed in + 1825.) + + 37. Terraces. + + 38. Bastions du Foix and des Jardins. + + 39. L'Eperon. + + 40. Le Jardin Haut, or Jardin du Roi. + +[Illustration: _The_ CHATEAUX _of_ BLOIS (DIAGRAM)] + +The interior court is partly surrounded by a colonnade, quite +cloister-like in effect. At the right centre of the Francois I. wing is +that wonderful spiral staircase, concerning the invention of which so +much speculation has been launched. Leonardo da Vinci, the protege of +Francois, has been given the honour, and a very considerable volume has +been written to prove the claim. + +[Illustration: _Cypher of Francois Premier and Claude of France, at +Blois_] + +Within this "_tour octagone"--"qui fait a ses huit pans hurler un +gorgone_"--is built this marvellous openwork stairway,--an _escalier a +jour_, as the French call it,--without an equal in all France, and for +daring and decorative effect unexcelled by any of those Renaissance +motives of Italy itself. Its ascent turns not, as do most _escaliers_, +from left to right, but from right to left. It is the prototype of those +supposedly unique outside staircases pointed out to country cousins in +the abodes of Fifth Avenue millionaires. + +It is as impossible to catalogue the various apartments and their +accessories here, as it is to include a chronology of the great events +which have passed within their walls. One thing should be remembered, +and that is, that the architect Duban restored the chateau throughout in +recent years. In spite of this restoration one may readily enough +reconstruct the scene of the murder of the Duc de Guise from the great +fireplace on the second floor before which De Guise was standing when +summoned by a page to the kingly presence, from the door through which +he entered to his death, and from the wall where hung the tapestry +behind which he was to pass. All this is real enough, and also the "Tour +des Oubliettes," in which the duke's brother, the cardinal, suffered, +and of which many horrible tales are still told by the attendants. + +Duban, the architect, came with his careful restorations and pictured +with a most exact fidelity the decorations and the furnishings of the +times of Francois, of Catherine, and of Henri III. The ornate +chimneypieces have been furbished up anew, the walls and ceilings +covered with new paint and gold; nothing could be more opulent or +glorious, but it gives the impression of a city dwelling or a great +hotel, "newly done up," as the house renovators express it. + +One contrasting emotion will be awakened by a contemplation of the two +great Salles des Gardes and the apartments of Catherine de Medici; here, +at least for the moment, is a relief from the intrigues, massacres, and +assassinations which otherwise went on, for one recalls that, at one +period, "_danses, ballets et jeux_" took place here continuously. + +In the apartments of Catherine there is much to remind one of "the base +Florentine," as it has been the fashion of latter-day historians to +describe the first of the Medici queens. Nothing could be more sumptuous +than the Galerie de la Reine, her _Cabinet de Toilette_, or her _Chambre +a Coucher_, with its secret panels, where she died on the 5th of +January, 1589, "adored and revered," but soon forgotten, and of no more +account than "_une chevre mort_," says one old chronicler. + +The apartments of Catherine de Medici were directly beneath the +guard-room where the Balafre was murdered, and that event, taking place +at the very moment when the "queen-mother" was dying, cannot be said to +have been conducive to a peaceful demise. + +Here, on the first floor of the Francois Premier wing, the _reine-mere_ +held her court, as did the king his. The great gallery overlooked the +town on the side of the present Place du Chateau. It was, and is, a +truly grand apartment, with diamond-paned windows, and rich, dark, wall +decorations on which Catherine's device, a crowned C and her monogram in +gold, frequently appears. There was, moreover, a great oval window, +opposite which stood her altar, and a doorway, half concealed, led to +her writing-closet, with its secret drawers and wall-panels which well +served her purposes of intrigue and deceit. A hidden stairway led to the +floor above, and there was a _chambre a coucher_, with a deep recess for +the bed, the same to which she called her son Henri as she lay dying, +admonishing him to give up the thought of murdering Guise. "What," said +Henri, on this embarrassing occasion, "spare Guise, when he, triumphant +in Paris, dared lay his hand on the hilt of his sword! Spare him who +drove me a fugitive from the capital! Spare them who never spared me! +No, mother, I will _not_." + +As the queen-mother drew near her end, and was lying ill at Blois, +great events for France were culminating at the chateau. Henri III. had +become King of France, and the Balafre, supported by Rome and Spain, was +in open rebellion against the reigning house, and the word had gone +forth that the Duc de Guise must die. The States General were to be +immediately assembled, and De Guise, once the poetic lover of +Marguerite, through his emissaries canvassed all France to ensure the +triumph of the party of the Church against Henri de Navarre and his +queen,--the Marguerite whom De Guise once professed to love,--who soon +were to come to the throne of France. + +The uncomfortable Henri III. had been told that he would never be king +in reality until De Guise had been made away with. + +The final act of the drama between the rival houses of Guise and Valois +came when the king and his council came to Blois for the Assembly. The +sunny city of Blois was indeed to be the scene of a momentous affair, +and a truly sumptuous setting it was, the roof-tops of its houses +sloping downward gently to the Loire, with the chief accessory, the +coiffed and turreted chateau itself, high above all else. + +Details had been arranged with infinite pains, the guard doubled, and a +company of Swiss posted around the courtyard and up and down the +gorgeous staircase. Every nook and corner has its history in connection +with this greatest event in the history of the Chateau of Blois. + +As Guise entered the council-chamber he was told that the king would see +him in his closet, to reach which one had to pass through the guard-room +below. The door was barred behind him that he might not return, when the +trusty guards of the "Forty-fifth," under Dalahaide, already hidden +behind the wall-tapestry, sprang upon the Balafre and forced him back +upon the closed door through which he had just passed. Guise fell +stabbed in the breast by Malines, and "lay long uncovered until an old +carpet was found in which to wrap his corpse." + +Below, in her own apartments, lay the queen-mother, dying, but listening +eagerly for the rush of footsteps overhead, hoping and praying that +Henri--the hitherto effeminate Henri who played with his sword as he +would with a battledore, and who painted himself like a woman, and put +rings in his ears--would not prejudice himself at this time in the eyes +of Rome by slaying the leader of the Church party. + +Guise died as Henri said he would die, with the words on his lips: "_A +moi, mes amis!--trahison!--a moi, Guise,--je me meurs_," but the revenge +of the Church party came when, at St. Cloud, the monk, Jacques Clement, +poignarded the last of the Valois, and put the then heretical Henri de +Navarre on the throne of France. + +Within the southernmost confines of the chateau is the Tour de Foix, so +called for the old faubourg near by. The upper story and roof of this +curious round tower was the work of Catherine de Medici, who installed +there her astrologer and maker of philtres, Cosmo Ruggieri. + +Ruggieri was a most versatile person; he was astrologer, alchemist, and +philosopher alike, besides being many other kinds of a rogue, all of +which was very useful to the Medici now that she had come to power. + +Catherine built an outside stairway up to the platform of this tower, +and a great, flat, stone table was placed there to form a foundation for +Ruggieri's cabalistic instruments. Even this stone table itself was an +uncanny affair, if we are to believe the old chronicles. It rang out in +a clear sharp note whenever struck with some hard body, and on its +surface was graven a line which led the eye directly toward the golden +_fleur-de-lys_ on the cupola of Chambord's chateau, some three leagues +distant on the other side of the Loire. What all this symbolism actually +meant nobody except Catherine and her astrologer knew; at least, the +details do not appear to have come down to enlighten posterity. Over the +doorway of the observatory were graven the words, "_Vraniae Sacrum_," _i. +e._, consecrated to Uranius. + +Wherever Catherine chose to reside, whether in Touraine or at Paris, her +astrologer and his "_observatoire_" formed a part of her train. She had +brought Cosmo from Italy, and never for a moment did he leave her. He +was a sort of a private demon on whom Catherine could shoulder her +poisonings and her stabs, and, as before said, he was an exceedingly +busy functionary of the court. + +That part of the structure built by Mansart for Gaston d'Orleans appears +strange, solemn, and superfluous in connection with the sumptuousness of +the earlier portions. With what poverty the architectural art of the +seventeenth century expressed itself! What an inferiority came with the +passing of the sixteenth century and the advent of the following! One +finds a certain grandeur in the outlines of this last wing, with its +majestic cupola over the entrance pavilion, but the general effect of +the decorations is one of a great paucity of invention when compared to +the more brilliant Renaissance forerunners on the opposite side of the +courtyard. + +It was under the regime of Gaston d'Orleans that the gardens of the +Chateau de Blois came to their greatest excellence and beauty. In 1653 +Abel Brunyer, the first physician of Gaston's suite, published a +catalogue of the fruits and flowers to be found here in these gardens, +of which he was also director. More than five hundred varieties were +included, three-quarters of which belonged to the flora of France. + +Among the delicacies and novelties of the time to be found here was the +Prunier de Reine Claude, from which those delicious green plums known to +all the world to-day as "Reine Claudes" were propagated, also another +variety which came from the Prunier de Monsieur, somewhat similar in +taste but of a deep purple colour. The _pomme de terre_ was tenderly +cared for and grown as a great novelty and delicacy long before its +introduction to general cultivation by Parmentier. The tomato was +imported from Mexico, and even tobacco was grown; from which it may be +judged that Gaston did not intend to lack the good things of life. + +All these facts are recounted in Brunyer's "Hortus Regius Blesensis," +and, in addition, one Morrison, an expatriate Scotch doctor, who had +attached himself to Gaston, also wrote a competing work which was +published in London in 1669 under the title of "Preludia Botanica," and +which dealt at great length with the already celebrated gardens of the +Chateau de Blois. + +Morrison placed at the head of his work a Latin verse which came in time +to be graven over the gateway of the gardens. This--as well as pretty +much all record of it--has disappeared, but a repetition of the lines +will serve to show with what admiration this paradise was held: + + "Hinc, nulli biferi miranda rosaria Pesti, + Nec mala Hesperidum, vigili servata dracone. + Si paradisiacis quicquam (sine crimine) campis + Conferri possit, Blaesis mirabile specta. + Magnifici Gastonis opus! Qui terra capaci ... + + * * * * * + + JACOBUS METELANUS SCOTUS." + +Not merely in history has the famous chateau at Blois played its part. +Writers of fiction have more than once used it as an accessory or the +principal scenic background of their sword and cloak novels; none more +effectively than Dumas in the D'Artagnan series. + +The opening lines of "Le Vicomte de Bragelonne" are laid here. "It +should have been a source of pride to the city of Blois," says Dumas, +"that Gaston of Orleans had chosen it as his residence, and held his +court in the ancient chateau of the States." + +Here, too, in the second volume of the D'Artagnan romances, is the scene +of that most affecting meeting between his Majesty Charles II., King of +England, and Louis XIV. + +Altogether one lives here in the very spirit of the pages of Dumas. Not +only Blois, but Langeais, Chambord, Cheverny, Amboise, and many other +chateaux figure in the novels with an astonishing frequency, and, +whatever the critics may say of the author's slips of pen and memory, +Dumas has given us a wonderfully faithful picture of the life of the +times. + +In 1793 all the symbols and emblems of royalty were removed from the +chateau and destroyed. The celebrated bust of Gaston, the chief artistic +attribute of that part of the edifice built by him, was decapitated, and +the statue of Louis XII. over the entrance gateway was overturned and +broken up. Afterward the chateau became the property of the "domaine" +and was turned into a mere barracks. The Pavilion of Queen Anne became a +"_magasin des subsistances militaires_," the Tour de l'Observatoire, a +powder-magazine, and all the indignities imaginable were heaped upon the +chateau. + +In 1814 Blois became the last capital of Napoleon's empire, and the +chateau walls sheltered the prisoners captured by the imperial army. + +Blois's most luxurious church edifice was the old abbey church of St. +Sauveur, which was built from 1138 to 1210. It lost the royal favour in +1697, when Louis XIV. made Blois a city of bishops as well as of counts, +and transferred the chapter of St. Sauveur's to the bastard Gothic +edifice first known as St. Solenne, but which soon took on the name of +St. Louis. In spite of the claims of the old church, this cold, +unfeeling, and ugly mixture of tomblike Renaissance became, and still +remains, the bishop's church of Blois. + +One must not neglect or forget the magnificent bridge which crosses the +Loire at Blois. A work of 1717-24, it bears the Rue Denis Papin across +its eleven solidly built masonry piers. Above the central arch is +erected a memorial pyramid and tablet which states the fact that it was +one of the first works of the reign of Louis XV. + +Blois altogether, then, offers a multitudinous array of attractions for +the tourist who makes his first entrance to the chateaux country through +its doors. The town itself has not the appeal of Tours, of Angers, or of +Nantes; but, for all that, its abundance of historic lore, the admirable +preservation of its chief monument, and the general picturesqueness of +its site and the country round about make up for many other qualities +that may be lacking. + +The Sologne, lying between Blois, Vierzon, and Chateauneuf-sur-Loire, is +a great region of lakelets, sandy soil, and replanted Corsican pines, +which to-day has taken on a new lease of life and a prosperity which was +unknown in the days when the Comtes de Blois first erected that _maison +de plaisance_, on its western border which was afterward to aggrandize +itself into the later Chateau de Chambord. The soil has been drained and +the vine planted to a hitherto undreamed of extent, until to-day, if the +land does not exactly blossom like the rose, it at least somewhat +approaches it. + +The _chaumieres_ of the Sologne have disappeared to a large extent, and +their mud walls and thatched roofs are not as frequent a detail of the +landscape as formerly, but even now there is a distinct individuality +awaiting the artist who will go down among these vineyard workers of the +Sologne and paint them and their surroundings as other parts have been +painted and popularized. It will be hot work in the summer months, and +lonesome work at all times, but there is a new note to be sounded if one +but has the ear for it, and it is to be heard right here in this tract +directly on the beaten track from north to south, and yet so little +known. + +The peasant of the Sologne formerly ate his _soupe au poireau_ and a +morsel of _fromage maigre_ and was as content and happy as if his were a +more luxurious board, as it in reality became when a stranger demanded +hospitality. Then out from the _armoire_--that ever present adjunct of a +French peasant's home, whether it be in Normandy, Touraine, or the +Midi--came a bottle of _vin blanc_, bought in the wine-shops of +Romorantin or Vierzon on some of his periodical trips to town. + +To-day all is changing, and the peasant of the Sologne nourishes himself +better and trims his beard and wears a round white collar on fete-days. +He is proud of his well-kept appearance, but his neighbours to the +north and the south will tell you that all this hides a deep malice, +which is hard to believe, in spite of the well recognized saying, "_Sot +comme un Solognat_." The women have a physiognomy more passive; when +young they are fresh and lip-lively, but as they grow older their charms +pass quickly. + +The Sologne in most respects has changed greatly since the days of +Arthur Young. Then this classic land was reviled and vehement +imprecations were launched upon the proprietors of its soil,--"those +brilliant and ambitious gentlemen" who figure so largely in the +ceremonies of Versailles. To-day all is changed, and the gentleman +farmer is something more than a _bourgeois parisien_ who hunts and rides +and apes "_le sport_" of the English country squire. + +The jack-rabbit and the hare are the pests of the Sologne now that its +sandy soil has been conquered, but they are quite successfully kept down +in numbers, and the insects which formerly ravaged the vines are +likewise less offensive than they used to be, so the Sologne may truly +be said to have been transformed. + +To-day, as in the days of the royal hunt, when Chambord was but a +shooting-box of the Counts of Blois, the Sologne is rife with small +game, and even deer and an occasional _sanglier_. + +"_La chasse_" in France is no mean thing to-day, and the Sologne, La +Beauce, and the great national forests of Lyons and Rambouillet draw--on +the opening of the season, somewhere between the 28th of August and the +2d of September of each year--their hundreds of thousands of Nimrods and +disciples of St. Hubert. The bearer of the gun in France is indeed a +most ardent sportsman, and in no European country can one buy in the +open market a greater variety of small game,--all the product of those +who pay their twenty francs for the privilege of bagging rabbits, hares, +partridges, and the like. The hunters of France enjoy one superstition, +however, and that is that to accidentally bag a crow on the first shot +means a certain and sudden death before the day is over. + +La Motte-Beuvron is celebrated in the annals of the Sologne; it is, in +fact, the metropolis of the region, and the centre from which radiated +the influences which conquered the soil and made of it a prosperous +land, where formerly it was but a sandy, arid desert. La Motte-Beuvron +is a long-drawn-out _bourgade_, like some of the populous centres of the +great plain of Hungary, and there is no great prosperity or +"up-to-dateness" to be observed, in spite of its constantly increasing +importance, for La Motte-Beuvron and the country round about is one of +the localities of France which is apparently not falling off in its +population. + +La Motte has a most imposing Hotel de Ville, a heavy edifice of brick +built by Napoleon III.--who has never been accused of having had the +artistic appreciation of his greater ancestor--after the model of the +Arsenal at Venice. + +This is all La Motte has to warrant remark unless one is led to +investigate the successful agricultural experiment which is still being +carried out hereabouts. La Motte's hotels and cafes are but ordinary, +and there is no counter attraction of boulevard or park to place the +town among those lovable places which travellers occasionally come upon +unawares. + +To realize the Sologne at its best and in its most changed aspect, one +should follow the roadway from La Motte to Blois. He may either go by +tramway _a vapeur_, or by his own means of communication. In either case +he will then know why the prosperity of the Sologne and the contentment +of the Solognat is assured. + +Romorantin, still characteristic of the Sologne and its historic +capital, is famous for its asparagus and its paternal chateau of +Francois Premier, where that prince received the scar upon his face, at +a tourney, which compelled him ever after to wear a beard. + +To-day the Sous-Prefecture, the Courts and their prisoners, the +Gendarmerie, and the Theatre are housed under the walls that once formed +the chateau royal of Jean d'Angouleme; within whose apartments the +gallant Francois was brought up. + +[Illustration: _Native Types in the Sologne_] + +The Sologne, like most of the other of the _petits pays_ of France, is +prolific in superstitions and traditionary customs, and here for some +reason they deal largely of the marriage state. When the _paysan +solognais_ marries, he takes good care to press the marriage-ring well +up to the third joint of his spouse's finger, "else she will be the +master of the house," which is about as well as the thing can be +expressed in English. It seems a simple precaution, and any one so +minded might well do the same under similar circumstances, provided he +thinks the proceeding efficacious. + +Again, during the marriage ceremony itself, each of the parties most +interested bears a lighted wax taper, with the belief that whichever +first burns out, so will its bearer die first. It's a gruesome thought, +perhaps, but it gives one an inkling of who stands the best chance of +inheriting the other's goods, which is what matches are sometimes made +for. + +The marriage ceremony in the Sologne is a great and very public +function. Intimates, friends, acquaintances, and any of the neighbouring +populace who may not otherwise be occupied, attend, and eat, drink, and +ultimately get merry. But they have a sort of process of each paying his +or her own way; at least a collection is taken up to pay for the +entertainment, for the Sologne peasant would otherwise start his married +life in a state of bankruptcy from which it would take him a long time +to recover. + +The collection is made with considerable _eclat_ and has all the +elements of picturesqueness that one usually associates with the wedding +processions that one sees on the comic-opera stage. A sort of nuptial +bouquet--a great bunch of field flowers--is handed round from one guest +to another, and for a sniff of their fragrance and a participation in +the collation which is to come, they make an offering, dropping much or +little into a golden (not gold) goblet which is passed around by the +bride herself. + +In the Sologne there is (or was, for the writer has never seen it) +another singular custom of the marriage service--not really a part of +the churchly office, but a sort of practical indorsement of the +actuality of it all. + +The bride and groom are both pricked with a needle until the blood runs, +to demonstrate that neither the man nor the woman is insensible or +dreaming as to the purport of the ceremony about to take place. + +As every French marriage is at the Mairie, as well as being held in +church, this double ceremony (and the blood-letting as well) must make a +very hard and fast agreement. Perhaps it might be tried elsewhere with +advantage. + +Montrichard, on the Cher, is on the borderland between the Blaisois and +Touraine. Its donjon announces itself from afar as a magnificent feudal +ruin. The town is moreover most curious and original, the great +rectangular donjon rising high into the sky above a series of +cliff-dwellers' chalk-cut homes, in truly weird fashion. + +There is nothing so very remarkable about cliff-dwellers in the Loire +country, and their aspect, manners, and customs do not differ greatly +from those of their neighbours, who live below them. + +Curiously enough these rock-cut dwellings appear dry and healthful, and +are not in the least insalubrious, though where a _cave_ has been +devoted only to the storage of wine in vats, barrels, and bottles the +case is somewhat different. + +Montrichard itself, outside of these scores of homes burrowed out of the +cliff, is most picturesque, with stone-pignoned gables and +dormer-windows and window-frames cut or worked in wood or stone into a +thousand amusing shapes. + +Montrichard, with Chinon, takes the lead in interesting old houses in +these parts; in fact, they quite rival the ruinous lean-to houses of +Rouen and Lisieux in Normandy, which is saying a good deal for their +picturesque qualities. + +[Illustration: _Donjon of Montrichard_] + +One-third of Montrichard's population live underground or in houses +built up against the hillsides. Even the lovely old parish church backs +against the rock. + +Everywhere are stairways and _petits chemins_ leading upward or +downward, with little facades, windows, or doorways coming upon one in +most unexpected and mysterious fashion at every turn. + +The magnificent donjon is a relic of the work of that great +fortress-builder, Foulques Nerra, Comte d'Anjou, who dotted the land +wherever he trod with these masterpieces of their kind, most of them +great rectangular structures like the donjons of Britain, but quite +unlike the structures of their class mostly seen in France. + +Richard Coeur de Lion occupied the fortress in 1108, but was obliged to +succumb to his rival in power, Philippe-Auguste, who in time made a +breach in its walls and captured it. Thereafter it became an outpost of +his own, from whence he could menace the Comte d'Anjou. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +CHAMBORD + + +Chambord is four leagues from Blois, from which point it is usually +approached. To reach it one crosses the Sologne, not the arid waste it +has been pictured, but a desert which has been made to blossom as the +rose. + +A glance of the eye, given anywhere along the road from Blois to +Chambord, will show a vineyard of a thousand, two thousand, or even more +acres, where, from out of a soil that was once supposed to be the +poorest in all wine-growing France, may be garnered a crop equalling a +hundred dozen of bottles of good rich wine to the acre. + +This wine of the Sologne is not one of the famous wines of France, to be +sure, but what one gets in these parts is pure and astonishingly +palatable; moreover, one can drink large portions of it--as do the +natives--without being affected in either his head or his pocket-book. + +From late September to early December there is a constant harvest going +on in the vineyards, whose labourers, if not as picturesque and joyous +as we are wont to see them on the comic-opera stage, are at least +wonderfully clever and industrious, for they make a good wine crop out +of a soil which previously gave a living only to charcoal-burners and +goat-keepers. + +Francois was indeed a rare devotee of the building mania when he laid +out the wood which surrounds Chambord and which ultimately grew to some +splendour. The nineteenth century saw this great wood cut and sold in +huge quantities, so that to-day it is rather a scanty copse through +which one drives on the way from Blois. + +The country round about is by no means impoverished,--far from it. It is +simply unworked to its fullest extent as yet. As it is plentifully +surrounded by water it makes an ideal land for the growing of asparagus, +strawberries, and grapes, and so it has come to be one of the most +prosperous and contented regions in all the Loire valley. + +The great white Chateau de Chambord, with its turrets and its +magnificent lantern, looms large from whatever direction it is +approached, though mostly it is framed by the somewhat stunted pines +which make up the pleasant forest. The vistas which one sees when coming +toward Chambord, through the drives and alleys of its park, with the +chateau itself brilliant in the distance, are charming and fairy-like +indeed. Straight as an arrow these roadways run, and he who traverses +one of those centring at the chateau will see a tiny white fleck in the +sunlight a half a dozen kilometres away, which, when it finally is +reached, will be admitted to be the greatest triumph of the art-loving +monarch. + +Francois Premier was foremost in every artistic expression in France, +and the court, as may be expected, were only too eager to follow the +expensive tastes of their monarch,--when they could get the means, and +when they could not, often enough Francois supplied the wherewithal. + +Francois himself dressed in the richest of Italian velvets, the more +brilliant the better, with a preponderant tendency toward pink and sky +blue. + +A dozen years after Francois came to the throne, a dozen years after the +pleasant life of Amboise, when mother, daughter, and son lived together +on the banks of the Loire in that "Trinity of love," the monarch and +his wife, Queen Claude of France, the daughter of Louis XII. and Anne of +Brittany, came to live at Chambord on the edge of the sandy Sologne +waste. + +Here, too, came Marguerite d'Alencon, the ever faithful and devoted +sister of Francois, the duke, her husband, and all the gay members of +the court. The hunt was the order of the day, for the forest tract of +the Sologne, scanty though it was in growth, abounded in small game. + +Chambord at this time had not risen to the grand and ornate proportions +which we see to-day, but set snugly on the low, swampy banks of the tiny +river Cosson, a dull, gloomy mediaeval fortress, whose only aspect of +gaiety was that brought by the pleasure-loving court when it assembled +there. In size it was ample to accommodate the court, but Francois's +artistic temperament already anticipated many and great changes. The +Loire was to be turned from its course and the future pompous palace was +to have its feet bathed in the limpid Loire water rather than in the +stagnant pools of the morass which then surrounded it. + +As a triumph of the royal chateau-builder's art, Chambord is far and +away ahead of Fontainebleau or Versailles, both of which were built in +a reign which ended two hundred years later than that which began with +the erection of Chambord. As an example of the arts of Francois I. and +his time compared with those of Louis XIV. and his, Chambord stands +forth with glorious significance. + +On the low banks of the Cosson, Francois achieved perhaps the greatest +triumph that Renaissance architecture had yet known. + +It was either Chambord, or the reconstruction by Francois of the edifice +belonging to the Counts of Blois, which resulted in the refinement of +the Renaissance style less than a quarter of a century after its +introduction into France by Charles VIII.,--if he really was responsible +for its importation from Italy. Francois lacked nothing of daring, and +built and embellished a structure which to-day, in spite of numerous +shortcomings, stands as the supreme type of a great Renaissance domestic +edifice of state. Every device of decoration and erratic suggestion +seems to have been carried out, not only structurally, as in the great +double spiral of its central stairway, but in its interpolated details +and symbolism as well. + +It was at this time, too, that Francois began to introduce the famous +salamander into his devices and ciphers; that most significant emblem +which one may yet see on wall and ceiling of Chambord surrounded by the +motto: "_Je me nourris et je meurs dans le feu._" + +[Illustration: _Arms of Francois Premier, at Chambord_] + +Chambord, first of all, gives one a very high opinion of Francois +Premier, and of the splendours with which he was wont to surround +himself. The apartments are large and numerous and are admirably planned +and decorated, though, almost without exception, bare to-day of +furniture or furnishings. + +To quote the opinion of Blondel, the celebrated French architect: "The +Chateau de Chambord, built under Francois I. and Henri II., from the +designs of Primatice, was never achieved according to the original plan. +Louis XIII. and Louis XIV. contributed a certain completeness, but the +work was really pursued afterward according to the notions of one +Sertio." + +The masterpiece of its constructive elements is its wonderful doubly +spiralled central staircase, which permits one to ascend or descend +without passing another proceeding in the opposite direction at the same +time. Whatever may have been the real significance of this great double +spiral, it has been said that it played its not unimportant part in the +intrigue and scandal of the time. It certainly is a wonder of its kind, +more marvellous even than that spiral at Blois, attributed, with some +doubt perhaps, to Leonardo da Vinci, and certainly far more beautiful +than the clumsy round tower up which horses and carriages were once +driven at Amboise. + +At all events, it probably meant something more than mere constructive +ability, and a staircase which allows one individual to mount and +another to descend without knowing of the presence of the other may +assuredly be classed with those other mediaeval accessories, sliding +panels, hidden doorways, and secret cabinets. + +Beneath the dome which terminates the staircase in the Orleans wing are +three caryatides representing--it is doubtfully stated--Francois +Premier, La Duchesse d'Etampes, and Madame la Comtesse de +Chateaubriand,--a trinity of boon companions in intrigue. + +In reality Chambord presents the curiously contrived arrangement of one +edifice within another, as a glance of the eye at the plan will show. + +The fosse, the usual attribute of a great mediaeval chateau--it may be a +dry one or a wet one, in this case it was a wet one--has disappeared, +though Brantome writes that he saw great iron rings let into the walls +to which were attached "_barques et grands bateaux_," which had made +their way from the Loire via the dribbling Cosson. + +The Cosson still dribbles its life away to-day, its moisture having, to +a great part, gone to irrigate the sandy Sologne, but formerly it was +doubtless a much more ample stream. + +From the park the ornate gables and dormer-windows loom high above the +green-swarded banks of the Cosson. It was so in Francois's time, and it +is so to-day; nothing has been added to break the spread of lawn, except +an iron-framed wash-house with red tiles and a sheet-iron chimney-pot +beside the little river, and a tin-roofed garage for automobiles +connected with the little inn outside the gates. + +The rest is as it was of yore, at least, the same as the old engravings +of a couple of hundreds of years ago picture it, hence it is a great +shame, since the needs of the tiny village could not have demanded it, +that the foreground could not have been left as it originally was. + +The town, or rather village, or even hamlet, of Chambord is about the +most abbreviated thing of its kind existent. There is practically no +village; there are a score or two of houses, an inn of the frankly +tourist kind, which evidently does not cater to the natives, the +aforesaid wash-house by the river bank, the dwellings of the +gamekeepers, gardeners, and workmen on the estate, and a diminutive +church rising above the trees not far away. These accessories +practically complete the make-up of the little settlement of Chambord, +on the borders of the Blaisois and Touraine. + +Chambord has been called top-heavy, but it is hardly that. Probably the +effect is caused by its low-lying situation, for, as has been intimated +before, this most imposing of all of the Loire chateaux has the least +desirable situation of any. There is a certain vagueness and foreignness +about the sky-line that is almost Eastern, though we recognize it as +pure Renaissance. Perhaps it is the magnitude and lonesomeness of it all +that makes it seem so strange, an effect that is heightened when one +steps out upon its roof, with the turrets, towers, and cupolas still +rising high above. + +[Illustration: _PLAN OF CHAMBORD_] + +The ground-plan is equally magnificent, flanked at every corner by a +great round tower, with another quartette of them at the angles of the +interior court. + +Most of the stonework of the fabric is brilliant and smooth, as if it +were put up but yesterday, and, beyond the occasional falling of a tile +from the wonderful array of chimney-pots, but little evidences are seen +exteriorly of its having decayed in the least. On the tower which flanks +the little door where one meets the _concierge_ and enters, there are +unmistakable marks of bullets and balls, which a revolutionary or some +other fury left as mementoes of its passage. + +Considering that Chambord was not a product of feudal times, these +disfigurements seem out of place; still its peaceful motives could +hardly have been expected to have lasted always. + +The southern facade is not excelled by the elevation of any residential +structure of any age, and its outlines are varied and pleasing enough to +satisfy the most critical; if one pardons the little pepper-boxes on the +north and south towers, and perforce one has to pardon them when he +recalls the magnificence of the general disposition and sky-line of this +marvellously imposing chateau of the Renaissance. + +Francois Premier made Chambord his favourite residence, and in fact +endowed Pierre Nepveu--who for this work alone will be considered one of +the foremost architects of the French Renaissance--with the +inspiration for its erection in 1526. + +[Illustration: _Chateau de Chambord_] + +A prodigious amount of sculpture by Jean Cousin, Pierre Bontemps, Jean +Goujon, and Germain Pilon was interpolated above the doorways and +windows, in the framing thereof, and above the great fireplaces. Inside +and out, above and below, were vast areas to be covered, and Francois +allowed his taste to have full sway. + +The presumptuous Francois made much of this noble residence, perhaps +because of his love of _la chasse_, for game abounded hereabouts, or +perhaps because of his regard for the Comtesse Thoury, who occupied a +neighbouring chateau. + +For some time before his death, Francois still lingered on at Chambord. +Marguerite and her brother, both now considerably aged since the happier +times of their childhood in Touraine, always had an indissoluble +fondness for Chambord. Marguerite had now become Queen of Navarre, but +her beauty had been dimmed with the march of time, and she no longer was +able to comfort and amuse her kingly brother as of yore. His old +pleasures and topics of conversation irritated him, and he had even +tired of poetry, art, and political affairs. + +Above all, he shamefully and shamelessly abused women, at once the prop +and the undermining influence of his kingly power in days gone by. There +is an existing record to the effect that he wrote some "window-pane" +verse on the window of his private apartment to the following effect: + + "Souvent femme varie; + Mal habile quis'y fie!" + +If this be not apocryphal, the incident must have taken place long years +before that celebrated "window-pane" verse of Shenstone's, and Francois +is proven again a forerunner, as he was in many other things. + +Without doubt the Revolution did away with this square of glass, +which--according to Piganiol de la Force--existed in the middle of the +eighteenth century. Perhaps Francois's own jealous humour prompted him +to write these cynical lines, and then again perhaps it is merely one of +those fables which breathe the breath of life in some unaccountable +manner, no one having been present at its birth, and hearsay and +tradition accounting for it all. + +Francois, truly, was failing, and he and his sister discussed but +sorrowful subjects: the death of his favourite son, Charles, the +inheritor of the throne, at Abbeville, where he became infected with the +plague, and also the death of him whom he called "his old friend," Henry +VIII. of England, a monarch whose amours were as numerous and celebrated +as his own. + +Henri II. preferred the attractions of Anet to Chambord, while Catherine +de Medici and Charles IX. cared more for Blois, Chaumont, and +Chenonceaux. Louis XIII. and Louis XIV. only considered it as a +rendezvous for the chase, and the latter's successor, Louis XV., gave it +to the illustrious Maurice de Saxe, the victor of Fontenoy, who spent +his old age here, amid fetes, pleasures, and military parades. Near by +are the barracks, built for the accommodation of the regiment of horse +formed by the marechal and devoted to his special guardianship and +pleasure, and paid for by the king, who in turn repaid himself--with +interest--from the public treasury. The exercising of this "little army" +was one of the chief amusements of the illustrious old soldier. + + "A de feints combats + Lui-meme en se jouant conduit les vieux soldats"-- + +wrote the Abbe de Lille in contemporary times. + +King Stanislas of Poland lived here from 1725 to 1733, and later it was +given to Marechal Berthier, by whose widow it was sold in 1821. + +It was bought by national subscription for a million and a half of +francs and given to the Duc de Bordeaux, who immediately commenced its +restoration, for it had been horribly mutilated by Marechal de Saxe, and +the surrounding wood had been practically denuded under the Berthier +occupancy. + +The Duc de Bordeaux died in 1883, and his heirs, the Duc de Parme and +the Comte de Bardi, are now said to spend a quarter of a million +annually in the maintenance of the estate, the income of which +approximates only half that sum. + +There are thirteen great staircases in the edifice, and a room for every +day in the year. On the ground floor is the Salle des Gardes, from which +one mounts by the great spiral to another similar apartment with a +barrel-vaulted roof, which in a former day was converted into a theatre, +where in 1669-70 were held the first representations of "Pourceaugnac" +and "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme," and where Moliere himself frequently +appeared. + +The second floor is known as the "_grandes terrasses_" and surrounds the +base of the great central lantern so admired from the exterior. On this +floor, to the eastward, were the apartments of Francois Premier. The +chapel was constructed by Henri II., but the tribune is of the era of +Louis XIV. This tribune is decorated with a fine tapestry, made by +Madame Royale while imprisoned in the Temple. At the base of the altar +is also a tapestry made and presented to the Comte de Chambord by the +women of the Limousin. + +The apartments of Louis XIV. contain portraits of Madame de Maintenon +and Madame de Lafayette, a great painting of the "Bataille de Fontenoy," +and another of the Comte de Chambord on horseback. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +CHEVERNY, BEAUREGARD, AND CHAUMONT + + +From Chambord and its overpowering massiveness one makes his way to +Chaumont, on the banks of the Loire below Blois, by easy stages across +the plain of the Sologne. + +One leaves the precincts of Chambord by the back entrance, as one might +call it, through six kilometres of forest road, like that by which one +enters, and soon passes the little townlet of Bracieux. + +One gets glimpses of more or less modern residential chateaux once and +again off the main road, but no remarkably interesting structures of any +sort are met with until one reaches Cheverny. Just before Cheverny one +passes Cour-Cheverny, with a curious old church and a quaint-looking +little inn beside it. + +[Illustration: _Chateau de Cheverny_] + +Cheverny itself is, however, the real attraction, two kilometres away. +Here the chateau is opened by its private owners from April to +October of each year, and, while not such a grand establishment as many +of its contemporaries round about, it is in every way a perfect +residential edifice of the seventeenth century, when the flowery and +ornate Renaissance had given way to something more severely classical, +and, truth to tell, far less pleasing in an artistic sense. + +Cheverny belongs to-day to the Marquis de Vibraye, one of those undying +titles of the French nobility which thrive even in republican France and +uphold the best traditions of the _noblesse_ of other days. + +The chateau was built much later than most of the neighbouring chateaux, +in 1634, by the Comte de Cheverny, Philippe Hurault. It sits +green-swarded in the midst of a beautifully wooded park, and the great +avenue which faces the principal entrance extends for seven kilometres, +a distance not excelled, if equalled, by any private roadway elsewhere. + +In its constructive features the chateau is more or less of rectangular +outlines. The pavilions at each corner have their openings _a la +imperiale_, with the domes, or lanterns, so customary during the height +of the style under Louis XIV. An architect, Boyer by name, who came from +Blois, where surely he had the opportunity of having been well +acquainted with a more beautiful style, was responsible for the design +of the edifice at Cheverny. + +The interior decorations in Cordovan leather, the fine chimneypieces, +and the many elaborate historical pictures and wall paintings, by +Mosnier, Clouet, and Mignard, are all of the best of their period; while +the apartments themselves are exceedingly ample, notably the Appartement +du Roi, furnished as it was in the days of "Vert Galant," the Salle des +Gardes, the library and an elaborately traceried staircase. In the +chapel is an altar-table which came from the Eglise St. Calais, in the +chateau at Blois. + +Just outside the gates is a remarkable crotchety old stone church, with +a dwindling, toppling spire. It is poor and impoverished when compared +with most French churches, and has a most astonishing timbered veranda, +with a straining, creaking roof running around its two unobstructed +walls. The open rafters are filled with all sorts of rubbish, and the +local fire brigade keeps its hose and ladders there. A most suitable old +rookery it is in which to start a first-class conflagration. + +[Illustration: _Cheverny-sur-Loire_] + +Within are a few funeral marbles of the Hurault family, and the daily +offices are conducted with a pomp most unexpected. Altogether it +forms, as to its fabric and its functions, as strong a contrast of +activity and decay as one is likely to see in a long journey. + +The town itself is a sleepy, unprogressive place, where automobilists +may not even buy _essence a petrole_, and, though boasting--if the +indolent old town really does boast--a couple of thousand souls, one +still has to journey to Cour-Cheverny to send a telegraphic despatch or +buy a daily paper. + +Between Cheverny and Blois is the Foret de Russy, which will awaken +memories of the boar-hunts of Francois I., which, along with art in all +its enlightening aspects, appears to have been one of the chief +pleasures of that monarch. Perhaps one ought to include also the love of +fair women, but with them he was not so constant. + +On the road to Blois, also, one passes the Chateau de Beauregard; that +is, one usually passes it, but he shouldn't. It is built, practically, +within the forest, on the banks of the little river Beauvron. An iron +_grille_ gives entrance to a beautiful park, and within is the chateau, +its very name indicating the favour with which it was held by +its royal owner. It was in 1520 that Francois I. established it +as a _rendezvous de chasse_. Under his son, Henri II., it was +reconstructed, in part; entirely remodelled in the seventeenth century; +and "modernized"--whatever that may mean--in 1809, and again, more +lately, restored by the Duc de Dino. It belongs to-day to the Comte de +Cholet, who has tried his hand at "restoration" as well. + +The history of this old chateau is thus seen to have been most varied, +and it is pretty sure to have lost a good deal of its original character +in the transforming process. + +The interior is more attractive than is the exterior. There is a grand +gallery of portraits of historical celebrities, more than 350, executed +between 1617 and 1638 by Paul Ardier, Counsellor of State, who thus +combined the accomplishment of the artist with the sagacity of the +statesman. + +The ceilings of the great rooms are mostly elaborate works in enamel and +carved oak, and there is a tiled floor (_carrelage_) in the portrait +gallery, in blue faience, representing an army in the order of battle, +which must have delighted the hearts of the youthful progeny who may +have been brought up within the walls of the chateau. This pavement is +moreover an excellent example of the craftsmanship of tile-making. + +One gains admission to the chateau freely from the _concierge_, who in +due course expects her _pourboire_, and sees that she gets it. But what +would you, inquisitive traveller? You have come here to see the sights, +and Beauregard is well worth the price of admission, which is anything +you like to give, certainly not less than a franc. + +One may return to Blois through the forest, or may continue his way down +the river to Chaumont on the left bank. + +At Chaumont the Loire broadens to nearly double the width at Blois, its +pebbles and sandbars breaking the mirror-like surface into innumerable +pools and _etangs_. There is a bridge which connects Chaumont with the +railway at Onzain and the great national highway from Tours to Blois. +The bridge, however, is so hideous a thing that one had rather go miles +out of his way than accept its hospitality. It is simply one of those +unsympathetic wire-rope affairs with which the face of the globe is +being covered, as engineering skill progresses and the art instinct dies +out. + +[Illustration: _Chaumont_] + +The Chateau de Chaumont is charmingly situated, albeit it is not very +accessible to strangers after one gets there, as it is open to the +public only on Thursdays, from July to December. It is exactly what one +expects to find,--a fine riverside establishment of its epoch, and in +architectural style combining the well-recognized features of late +Gothic and the early Renaissance. It is not moss-grown or decrepit in +any way, which fact, considering its years, is perhaps remarkable. + +The park of the chateau is only of moderate extent, but the structure +itself is, comparatively, of much larger proportions. The ideal view of +the structure is obtained from midway on that ungainly bridge which +spans the Loire at this point. Here, in the gold and purple of an autumn +evening, with the placid and far-reaching Loire, its pools and its bars +of sand and pebble before one, it is a scene which is as near idyllic as +one is likely to see. + +The town itself is not attractive; one long, narrow lane-like street, +lined on each side by habitations neither imposing nor of a tumble-down +picturesqueness, borders the Loire. There is nothing very picturesque, +either, about the homes of the vineyard workers round about. Below and +above the town the great highroad runs flat and straight between Tours +and Blois on either side of the river, and automobilists and cyclists +now roll along where the state carriages of the court used to roll when +Francois Premier and his sons journeyed from one gay country house to +another. + +It is to be inferred that the aspect of things at Chaumont has not +changed much since that day,--always saving that spider-net wire bridge. +The population of the town has doubtless grown somewhat, even though +small towns in France sometimes do not increase their population in +centuries; but the topographical aspect of the long-drawn-out village, +backed by green hills on one side and the Loire on the other, is much as +it always has been. + +[Illustration: _Signature of Diane de Poitiers_] + +The chateau at Chaumont had its origin as far back as the tenth century, +and its proprietors were successively local seigneurs, Counts of Blois, +the family of Amboise, and Diane de Poitiers, who received it from +Catherine in exchange for Chenonceaux. This was not a fair exchange, and +Diane was, to some extent, justified in her complaints. + +Chaumont was for a time in the possession of Scipion Sardini, one of +the Italian partisans of the Medici, "whose arms bore _trois sardines +d'argent_," and who had married Isabelle de la Tour, "_la Demoiselle de +Limieul_" of unsavoury reputation. + +The "_Demoiselle de Limieul_" was related, too, to Catherine, and was +celebrated in the gallantries of the time in no enviable fashion. She +was a member of that band of demoiselles whose business it was--by one +fascination or another--to worm political secrets from the nobles of the +court. One horrible scandal connected the unfortunate lady with the +Prince de Conde, but it need not be repeated here. The Huguenots +ridiculed it in those memorable verses beginning thus: + + "Puella illa nobilis + Quae erat tam amabilis." + +After the reign of Sardini and of his direct successors, the house of +Bullion, Chaumont passed through many hands. Madame de Stael arrived at +the chateau in the early years of the nineteenth century, when she had +received the order to separate herself from Paris, "by at least forty +leagues." She had made the circle of the outlying towns, hovering about +Paris as a moth about a candle-flame; Rouen, Auxerre, Blois, Saumur, all +had entertained her, but now she came to establish herself in this +Loire citadel. As the story goes, journeying from Saumur to Tours, by +post-chaise, on the opposite side of the river, she saw the imposing +mass of Chaumont rising high above the river-bed, and by her good graces +and winning ways installed herself in the affections of the then +proprietor, M. Leray, and continued her residence "and made her court +here for many years." + +Chaumont is to-day the property of the Princesse de Broglie, who has +sought to restore it, where needful, even to reestablishing the ancient +fosse or moat. This last, perhaps, is not needful; still, a moated +chateau, or even a moated grange has a fascination for the sentimentally +inclined. + +At the drawbridge, as one enters Chaumont to-day, one sees the graven +initials of Louis XII. and Anne de Bretagne, the arms of Georges +d'Amboise, surmounted by his cardinal's hat, and those of Charles de +Chaumont, as well as other cabalistic signs: one a representation of a +mountain (apparently) with a crater-like summit from which flames are +breaking forth, while hovering about, back to back, are two C's: [IMAGE +OF TWO JOINED LETTER 'C' POSITIONED LIKE THIS: )(]. The Renaissance +artists greatly affected the rebus, and this perhaps has some reference +to the etymology of the name Chaumont, which has been variously given +as coming from _Chaud Mont_, _Calvus Mont_, and _Chauve Mont_. + +Georges d'Amboise, the first of the name, was born at Chaumont in 1460, +the eighth son of a family of seventeen children. It was a far cry, as +distances went in those days, from the shores of the shallow, limpid +Loire to those of the forceful, turgent Seine at Rouen, where in the +great Cathedral of Notre Dame, this first Georges of Amboise, having +become an archbishop and a cardinal, was laid to rest beneath that +magnificent canopied tomb before which visitors to the Norman capital +stand in wonder. The mausoleum bears this epitaph, which in some small +measure describes the activities of the man. + + "Pastor eram cleri, populi pater; aurea sese + Lilia subdebant, quercus et ipsa mihi. + + "Martuus en jaceo, morte extinguunter honores, + Et virtus, mortis nescia, mort viret." + +His was not by any means a life of placidity and optimism, and he had +the air and reputation of doing things. There is a saying, still current +in Touraine: "_Laissez faire a Georges._" + +The second of the same name, also an Archbishop of Rouen and a +cardinal, succeeded his uncle in the see. He also is buried beneath the +same canopy as his predecessor at Rouen. + +The main portal of the chateau leads to a fine quadrilateral court with +an open gallery overlooking the Loire, which must have been a +magnificent playground for the nobility of a former day. The interior +embellishments are fine, some of the more noteworthy features being a +grand staircase of the style of Louis XII.; the Salle des Gardes, with a +painted ceiling showing the arms of Chaumont and Amboise; the Salle du +Conseil, with some fine tapestries and a remarkable tiled floor, +depicting scenes of the chase; the Chambre de Catherine de Medici (she +possessed Chaumont for nine years), containing some of the gifts +presented to her upon her wedding with Henri II.; and the curious +Chambre de Ruggieri, the astrologer whom Catherine brought from her +Italian home, and who was always near her, and kept her supplied with +charms and omens, good and bad, and also her poisons. + +Ruggieri's observatory was above his apartment. It was at Chaumont that +the astrologer overstepped himself, and would have used his magic +against Charles IX. He did go so far as to make an image and inflict +certain indignities upon it, with the belief that the same would befall +the monarch himself. Ruggieri went to the galleys for this, but the +scheming Catherine soon had him out again, and at work with his poisons +and philtres. + +Finally there is the Chambre de Diane de Poitiers, Catherine's more than +successful rival, with a bed (modern, it is said) and a series of +sixteenth-century tapestries, with various other pieces of contemporary +furniture. A portrait of Diane which decorates the apartment is supposed +to be one of the three authentic portraits of the fair huntress. The +chapel has a fine tiled pavement and some excellent glass. + +Chaumont is eighteen kilometres from Blois and the same distance from +Amboise. It has not the splendour of Chambord, but it has a greater +antiquity, and an incomparably finer situation, which displays its +coiffed towers and their _machicoulis_ and cornices in a manner not +otherwise possible. It is one of those picture chateaux which tell a +silent story quite independent of guide-book or historical narrative. + +It was M. Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont, the superintendent of the forests +of Berry and the Blaisois, under Louis XVI., who gave hospitality to +Benjamin Franklin, and turned over to the first American ambassador to +France the occupancy of his house at Passy, where Franklin lived for +nine consecutive years. + +Of this same M. de Chaumont Americans cannot have too high a regard, for +his timely and judicious hospitality has associated his name, only less +permanently than Franklin's, with the early fortunes of the American +republic. + +Besides his other offices, M. de Chaumont was the intendant of the Hotel +des Invalides, at Paris, holding confidential relations with the +ministry of the young king, and was in the immediate enjoyment of a +fortune which amounted to two and a half million of francs, besides +owning, in addition to Chaumont on the Loire, another chateau in the +Blaisois. This chateau he afterward tendered to John Adams, who declined +the offer in a letter, written at Passy-sur-Seine, February 25, 1779, in +the following words: "... To a mind as much addicted to retirement as +mine, the situation you propose would be delicious indeed, provided my +country were at peace and my family with me; but, separated from my +family and with a heart bleeding with the wounds of its country, I +should be the most miserable being on earth...." + +The potteries, which now form the stables of the chateau at Chaumont, +are somewhat reminiscent of Franklin. M. de Chaumont had established a +pottery here, where he had found a clay which had encouraged him to hope +that he could compete with the English manufacturers of the time. Here +the Italian Nini, who was invited to Chaumont, made medallions much +sought for by collectors, among others one of Franklin, which was so +much admired as a work of art, and became so much in demand that in +later years replicas were made and are well known to amateurs. + +The family of Le Ray de Chaumont were extensively known in America, +where they became large landholders in New York State in the early +nineteenth century, and the head of the family seems to have been an +amiable and popular landlord. The towns of Rayville and Chaumont in New +York State still perpetuate his name. + +The two male members of the family secured American wives; Le Ray +himself married a Miss Coxe, and their son a Miss Jahel, both of New +York. + +From an anonymous letter to the New York _Evening Post_ of November 19, +1885, one quotes the following: + +"It was in Blois that I first rummaged among these shops, whose +attractions are almost a rival to those of the castle, though this is +certainly one of the most interesting in France. The traveller will +remember the long flight of stone steps which climbs the steep hill in +the centre of the town. Near the foot of this hill there is a +well-furnished book-shop; its windows display old editions and rich +bindings, and tempt one to enter and inquire for antiquities. Here I +found a quantity of old notarial documents and diplomas of college or +university, all more or less recently cleared out from some town hall, +or unearthed from neighbouring castle, and sold by a careless owner, as +no longer valuable to him. This was the case with most of the parchments +I found at Blois; they had been acquired within a few years from the +castle of Madon, and from a former proprietor of the neighbouring castle +of Chaumont (the _calvus mons_ of mediaeval time), and most of them +pertained to the affairs of the _seigneurie de Chaumont_. Contracts, +executions, sales of vineyards and houses, legal decisions, _actes de +vente_, loans on mortgages, the marriage contract of a M. Lubin,--these +were the chief documents that I found and purchased." + +The traveller may not expect to come upon duplicates of these treasures +again, but the incident only points to the fact that much documentary +history still lies more or less deeply buried. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +TOURAINE: THE GARDEN SPOT OF FRANCE + + "C'est une grande dame, une princesse altiere, + Chacun de ses chateaux, marque du sceau royal, + Lui fait une toilette en dentelle de pierre + Et son splendide fleuve un miroir de cristal." + + +It is difficult to write appreciatively of Touraine without echoing the +words of some one who has gone before, and it is likely that those who +come after will find the task no easier. + +Truly, as a seventeenth-century geographer has said: "Here is the most +delicious and the most agreeable province of the kingdom. It has been +named the garden of France because of the softness of its climate, the +affability of its people, and the ease of its life." + +The poets who have sung the praises of Touraine are many, Ronsard, Remy +Belleau, Du Bellay, and for prose authors we have at the head, Rabelais, +La Fontaine, Balzac, and Alfred de Vigny. Merely to enumerate them all +would be impossible, but they furnish a fund of quotable material for +the traveller when he is writing home, and are equally useful to the +maker of guide-books. + +One false note on Touraine, only, has ever rung out in the world of +literature, and that was from Stendahl, who said: "_La Belle Touraine +n'existe pas!_" The pages of Alfred de Vigny and Balzac answer this +emphatically, and to the contrary, and every returning traveller +apparently sides with them and not with Stendahl. + +How can one not love its prairies, gently sloping to the caressing +Loire, its rolling hills and dainty ravines? The broad blue Loire is +always vague and tranquil here, at least one seems always to see it so, +but the beauty of Touraine is, after all, a quiet beauty which must be +seen to be appreciated, and lived with to be loved. + +It is a land of most singular attractions, neither too hot nor too cold, +too dry nor too damp, with a sufficiency of rain, and an abundance of +sunshine. Its market-gardens are prolific in their product, its orchards +overflowing with plenitude, and its vineyards generous in their harvest. + +Touraine is truly the region where one may read history without books, +with the very pages of nature punctuated and adorned with the marvels of +the French Renaissance. Louis XI. gave the first impetus to the alliance +of the great domestic edifice--which we have come to distinguish as the +residential chateau--with the throne, and the idea was amplified by +Charles VIII. and glorified by Francois Premier. + +In the brilliant, if dissolute, times of the early sixteenth century +Francois Premier and his court travelled down through this same Touraine +to Loches and to Amboise, where Francois's late gaoler, Charles Quint, +was to be received and entertained. It was after Francois had returned +from his involuntary exile in Spain, and while he was still in residence +at the Louvre, that the plans for the journey were made. To the Duchesse +d'Etampes Francois said,--the duchess who was already more than a rival +of both Diane and the Comtesse de Chateaubriant,--"I must tear myself +away from you to-morrow. I shall await my brother Charles at Amboise on +the Loire." + +"Shall you not revenge yourself upon him, for his cruel treatment of +you?" said the wily favourite of the time. "If he, like a fool, comes +to Touraine, will you not make him revoke the treaty of Madrid or shut +him up in one of Louis XI.'s oubliettes?" + +"I will persuade him, if possible," said Francois, "but I shall never +force him." + +In due time Francois did receive his brother king at Amboise and it was +amid great ceremony and splendour. His guest could not, or would not, +mount steps, so that great inclined plane, up which a state coach and +its horses might go, was built. Probably there was a good reason for the +emperor's peculiarity, for that worthy or unworthy monarch finally died +of gout in the monastery of San Juste. + +The meeting here at Amboise was a grand and ceremonious affair and the +Spanish monarch soon came to recognize a possible enemy in the royal +favourite, Anne de Pisselieu. The emperor's eyes, however, melted with +admiration, and he told her that only in France could one see such a +perfection of elegance and beauty, with the result that--as is popularly +adduced--the susceptible, ambitious, and unfaithful duchess betrayed +Francois more than once in the affairs attendant upon the subsequent +wars between France, England, and Spain. + +From Touraine, in the sixteenth century, spread that influence which +left its impress even on the capital of the kingdom itself, not only in +respect to architectural art, but in manners and customs as well. + +Whatever may be the real value of the Renaissance as an artistic +expression, the discussion of it shall have no place here, beyond the +qualifying statement that what we have come to know as the French +Renaissance--which undeniably grew up from a transplanted Italian +germ--proved highly tempting to the mediaeval builder for all manner of +edifices, whereas it were better if it had been confined to civic and +domestic establishments and left the church pure in its full-blown +Gothic forms. + +Curiously enough, here in Touraine, this is just what did happen. The +Renaissance influence crept into church-building here and there--and it +is but a short step from the "_gothique rayonnant_" to what are +recognized as well-defined Renaissance features; but it is more +particularly in respect to the great chateaux, and even smaller +dwellings, that the superimposed Italian details were used. A notable +illustration of this is seen in the Cathedral of St. Gatien at Tours. It +is very beautiful and has some admirable Gothic features, but there are +occasional constructive details, as well as those for decorative effect +alone, which are decidedly not good Gothic; but, as they are, likewise, +not Renaissance, they hence cannot be laid to its door, but rather to +the architect's eccentricity. + +In the smaller wayside churches, such as one sees at Cormery, at +Cheverny, and at Cour-Cheverny, there is scarcely a sign of Renaissance, +while their neighbouring chateaux are nothing else, both in construction +and in decoration. + +The Chateau de Langeais is, for the most part, excellent Gothic, and so +is the church near by. Loches has distinct and pure Gothic details both +in its church and its chateau, quite apart from the Hotel de Ville and +that portion of the chateau now used as the Sous-Prefecture, which are +manifestly Renaissance; hence here in Touraine steps were apparently +taken to keep the style strictly non-ecclesiastical. + +A glance of the eye at the topography of this fair province stamps it at +once as something quite different from any other traversed by the Loire. +Two of the great "routes nationales" cross it, the one via Orleans, +leading to Nantes, and the other via Chartres, going to Bordeaux. It is +crossed and recrossed by innumerable "routes secondaires," +"departementales," "vicinales" and "particulieres," second to none of +their respective classes in other countries, for assuredly the roads of +France are the best in the world. Many of these great ways of +communication replaced the ancient Roman roads, which were the pioneers +of the magnificent roadways of the France of to-day. + +Almost invariably Touraine is flat or rolling, its highest elevation +above the sea being but a hundred and forty-six metres, scarce four +hundred and fifty feet, a fact which accounts also for the gentle flow +of the Loire through these parts. + +All the fruits of the southland are found here, the olive alone +excepted. Mortality, it is said, and proved by figures, is lower than in +any other part of France, and for this reason many dwellers in the large +cities, if they may not all have a mediaeval chateau, have at least a +villa, far away from "the madding crowd," and yet within four hours' +travel of the capital itself. + +[Illustration: THE LOIRE IN TOURAINE] + +Touraine, properly speaking, has no natural frontiers, as it is not +enclosed by rivers or mountains. It is, however, divided by the Loire +into two distinct regions, the Meridionale and the Septentrionale; but +the dress, the physiognomy, the language, and the predilections of +the people are everywhere the same, though the two sections differ +somewhat in temperament. In the south, the Tourangeau is timid and +obliging, but more or less engrossed in his affairs; in the north, he is +proud, egotistical, and a little arrogant, but, above all, he likes his +ease and comfort, something after the manner of "mynheer" of Holland. + +These are the characteristics which are enumerated by Stanislas +Bellanger of Tours, in "La Touraine Ancienne et Moderne," and they are +traceable to-day, in every particular, to one who knows well the +by-paths of the region. + +Formerly the peasant was, in his own words, "_sous la main de M. le +comte_," but, with the coming of the eighteenth century, all this was +changed, and the conditions which, in England, succeeded feudalism, are +unknown in Touraine, as indeed throughout France. + +The two great divisions which nature had made of Touraine were further +cut up into five _petits pays_; les Varennes, le Veron, la Champeigne, +la Brenne, and les Gatines; names which exist on some maps to-day, but +which have lost, in a great measure, their former distinction. + +There is a good deal to be said in favour of the physical and moral +characteristics of the inhabitants of Touraine. Just as the descendants +of the Phoceans, the original settlers of Marseilles, differ from the +natives of other parts of France, so, too, do the Tourangeaux differ +from the inhabitants of other provinces. The people of Touraine are a +mixture of Romans, Visigoths, Saracens, Alains, Normans and Bretons, +Anglais and Gaulois; but all have gradually been influenced by local +conditions, so that the native of Touraine has become a distinct variety +all by himself. The deliciousness of the "garden of France" has altered +him so that he stands to-day as more distinctly French than the citizen +of Paris itself. + +Touraine, too, has the reputation of being that part of France where is +spoken the purest French. This, perhaps, is as true of the Blaisois, for +the local bookseller at Blois will tell one with the most dulcet and +understandable enunciation that it is at Blois that one hears the best +accent. At any rate, it is something found within a charmed circle, of +perhaps a hundred miles in diameter, that does not find its exact +counterpart elsewhere. As Seville stands for the Spanish tongue, +Florence for the Italian, and Dresden for the German, so Tours stands +for the French. + +The history of the Loire in Touraine, as is the case at Le Puy, at +Nevers, at Sancerre, or at Orleans, is abundant and vivid, and the +monuments which line its banks are numerous and varied, from the +fortress-chateau of Amboise to the Cathedral of St. Gatien at Tours with +its magnificent bejewelled facade. The ruined towers of the castle of +Cinq-Mars, with its still more ancient Roman "pile," and the feudal +chateaux of the countryside are all eloquent, even to-day, in their +appeal to all lovers of history and romance. + +There are some verses, little known, in praise of the Loire, as it comes +through Touraine, written by Houdon des Landes, who lived near Tours in +the eighteenth century. The following selection expresses their quality +well and is certainly worthy to rank with the best that Balzac wrote in +praise of his beloved Touraine. + + "La Loire enorgueillit ses antiques cites, + Et courounne ses bords de coteaux enchantes; + Dans ses vallons heureux, sur ses rives aimees, + Les pres ont deploye leurs robes parfumees; + Le saule humide et souple y lance ses rameaux. + Ses coteaux sont peuples, et le rocher docile + A l'homme qui le creuse offre un champetre asile. + De notre vieille Gaule, o fleuve paternel! + Fleuve des doux climats! la Valliere et Sorel + Sur tes bords fortunes naquirent, et la gloire + A l'une dut l'amour, a l'autre la victoire." + +Again and again Balzac's words echo in one's ears from his "Scene de la +Vie de Province." The following quotations are typical of the whole: + +"The softness of the air, the beauty of the climate, all tend to a +certain ease of existence and simplicity of manner which encourages an +appreciation of the arts." + +"Touraine is a land to foster the ambition of a Napoleon and the +sentiment of a Byron." + +Another writer, A. Beaufort, a publicist of the nineteenth century, +wrote: + +"The Tourangeaux resemble the good Adam in the garden of Eden. They +drink, they eat, they sleep and dream, and care not what their neighbour +may be doing." + +Touraine was indeed, at one time, a veritable Eden, though guarded by +fortresses, _hallebardes_, and arquebuses, but not the less an Eden for +all that. In addition it was a land where, in the middle ages, the +seigneurs made history, almost without a parallel in France or +elsewhere. + +Touraine, truly enough, was the centre of the old French monarchy in +the perfection of its pomp and state; but it is also true that Touraine +knew little of the serious affairs of kings, though some all-important +results came from events happening within its borders. + +Paris was the law-making centre in the sixteenth century, and Touraine +knew only the domestic life and pleasures of royalty. Etiquette, form, +and ceremony were all relaxed, or at least greatly modified, and the +court spent in the country what it had levied in the capital. + +Curiously enough, the monarchs were omnipotent and influential here, +though immediately they quartered themselves in Paris their powers waned +considerably; indeed, they seemed to lose their influence upon ministers +and vassals alike. + +Louis XIII., it is true, tried to believe that Paris was France,--like +the Anglo-Saxon tourists who descend upon it in such great numbers +to-day,--and built Versailles; but there was never much real glory about +its cold and pompous walls. + +The fortunes of the old chateaux of Touraine have been most varied. +Chambord is vast and bare, elegant and pompous; Blois, just across the +border, is a tourist sight of the first rank whose salamanders and +porcupines have been well cared for by the paternal French government. +Chaumont, Chenonceaux, Langeais, Azay-le-Rideau, and half a dozen others +are still inhabited, and are gay with the life of twentieth-century +luxury; Amboise is a possession of the Orleans family; Loches is, in +part, given over to the uses of a sous-prefecture; and Chinon's chateaux +are but half-demolished ruins. Besides these there are numerous smaller +residential chateaux of the nobility scattered here and there in the +Loire watershed. + +There have been writers who have sought to commiserate with "the poor +peasant of Touraine," as they have been pleased to think of him, and +have deplored the fact that his sole possession was a small piece of +ground which he and his household cultivated, and that he lived in a +little whitewashed house, built with his own hands, or those of his +ancestors. Though the peasant of Touraine, as well as of other parts of +the countryside, works for an absurdly small sum, and for considerably +less than his brother nearer Paris, he sells his produce at the nearest +market-town for a fair price, and preserves a spirit of independence +which is as valuable as are some of the things which are thrust upon him +in some other lands under the guise of benevolent charity, really +patronage of a most demeaning and un-moral sort. At night the Touraine +peasant returns to his own hearthstone conscious that he is a man like +all of his fellows, and is not a mere atom ground between the upper and +nether millstones of the landlord and the squire. He cooks his +"_bouillie_" over three small sticks and retires to rest with the fond +hope that on the next market-day following the prices of eggs, chickens, +cauliflowers, or tomatoes may be higher. He is the stuff that successful +citizens are made of, and is not to be pitied in the least, even though +it is only the hundredth man of his community who ever does rise to more +wealth than a mere competency. + +Touraine, rightly enough, has been called the garden of France, but it +is more than that, much more; it is a warm, soft land where all products +of the soil take on almost a subtropical luxuriance. Besides the great +valley of the Loire, there are the valleys of the tributaries which run +into it, in Touraine and the immediate neighbourhood, all of which are +fertile as only a river-bottom can be. It is true that there are +numerous formerly arid and sandy plateaux, quite unlike the abundant +plains of La Beauce, though to-day, by care and skill, they have been +made to rival the rest of the region in productiveness. + +The Departement d'Indre et Loire is the richest agricultural region in +all France so far as the variety and abundance of its product goes, +rivalling in every way the opulence of the Burgundian hillsides. Above +all, Touraine stands at the head of the vine-culture of all the Loire +valley, the _territoire vinicole_ lapping over into Anjou, where are +produced the celebrated _vins blancs_ of Saumur. + +The vineyard workers of Touraine, in the neighbourhood of Loches, have +clung closely to ancient customs, almost, one may say, to the +destruction of the industry, though of late new methods have set in, +and, since the blight now some years gone by, a new prosperity has come. + +The day worker, who cares for the vines and superintends the picking of +the grapes by the womenfolk and the children, works for two francs fifty +centimes per day; but he invariably carries with him to the scene of his +labours a couple of cutlets from a young and juicy _brebis_, or even a +_poulet roti_, so one may judge from this that his pay is ample for his +needs in this land of plenty. + +[Illustration: _The Vintage in Touraine_] + +In the morning he takes his bowl of soup and a cup of white wine, and of +course huge hunks of bread, and finally coffee, and on each Sunday he +has his _roti a la maison_. All this demonstrates the fact that the +French peasant is more of a meat eater in these parts than he is +commonly thought to be. + +Touraine has no peculiar beauties to offer the visitor; there is nothing +_outre_ about it to interest one; but, rather, it wins by sheer charm +alone, or perhaps a combination of charms and excellencies makes it so +truly a delectable land. + +The Tourangeaux themselves will tell you, when speaking of Rabelais and +Balzac, that it is the land of "_haute graisse, feconde et +spirituelle_." It is all this, and, besides its spirituelle components, +it will supply some very real and substantial comforts. It is the Eden +of the gourmandiser of such delicacies as _truffes_, _rilettes_, and +above all, _pruneaux_, which you get in one form or another at nearly +every meal. Most of the good things of life await one here in abundance, +with kitchen-gardens and vineyards at every one's back door. Truly +Touraine is a land of good living. + +Life runs its course in Touraine, "_facile et bonne_," without any +extremes of joy or sorrow, without chimerical desires or infinite +despair, and the agreeable sensations of life predominate,--the first +essential to real happiness. + +Some one has said, and certainly not without reason, that every +Frenchman has a touch of Rabelais and of Voltaire in his make-up. This +is probably true, for France has never been swept by a wave of +puritanism such as has been manifest in most other countries, and _le +gros rire_ is still the national philosophy. + +In a former day a hearty laugh, or at least an amused cynicism, diverted +the mind of the martyr from threatened torture and even violent death. +Brinvilliers laughed at those who were to torture her to death, and De +la Barre and Danton cracked jokes and improvised puns upon the very edge +of their untimely graves. + +Touraine has the reputation of being a wonderfully productive field for +the book collector, though with books, like many other treasures of a +past time, the day has passed when one may "pick up" for two sous a MS. +worth as many thousands of francs; but still bargains are even now +found, and if one wants great calf-covered tomes, filled with fine old +engravings, bearing on the local history of the _pays_, he can generally +find them at all prices here in old Touraine. + +There was a more or less apocryphal story told us and the landlady of +our inn concerning a find which a guest had come upon in a little +roadside hamlet at which he chanced to stop. He was one of those +omnipresent _commis voyageurs_ who thread the French provinces up and +down, as no other country in the world is "travelled" or "drummed." He +was the representative for a brandy shipper, one of those substantial +houses of the cognac region whose product is mostly sold only in France; +but this fact need not necessarily put the individual very far down in +the social scale. Indeed, he was a most amiable and cultivated person. + +Our fellow traveller had come to a village where all the available +accommodations of the solitary inn were already engaged; therefore he +was obliged to put up with a room in the town, which the landlord hunted +out for him. Repairing to his room without any thought save that of +sleep, the traveller woke the next morning to find the sun streaming +through the opaqueness of a brilliantly coloured window. Not stained +glass here, surely, thought the stranger, for his lodging was a most +humble one. It proved to be not glass at all; merely four great vellum +leaves, taken from some ancient tome and stuck into the window-framing +where the glass ought to have been. Daylight was filtering dimly through +the rich colouring, and it took but a moment to become convinced that +the sheets were something rare and valuable. He learned that the pages +were from an old Latin MS., and that the occupant of the little dwelling +had used "_the paper_" in the place of the glass which had long since +disappeared. The vellum and its illuminations had stood the weather +well, though somewhat dimmed in comparison with the brilliancy of the +remaining folios, which were found below-stairs. There were in all some +eighty pages, which were purchased for a modest forty sous, and +everybody satisfied. + +The volume had originally been found by the father of the old dame who +then had possession of it in an old chateau in revolutionary times. +Whether her honoured parent was a pillager or a protector did not come +out, but for all these years the possession of this fine work meant no +more to this Tourangelle than a supply of "paper" for stopping up broken +window-panes. + +"She parted readily enough with the remaining leaves," said our +Frenchman, "but nothing would induce her to remove those which filled +the window." "No, we have no more glass, and these have answered quite +well for a long time now," she said. And such is the simplicity of the +French provincial, even to-day--_sometimes_. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +AMBOISE + + +As one approaches Amboise, he leaves the comparatively insalubrious +plain of the Sologne and the Blaisois and enters Touraine. + +Amboise! What history has been made there; what a wealth of action its +memories recall, and what splendour, gaiety, and sadness its walls have +held! An entire book might be written about the scenes which took place +under its roof. + +To-day most travellers are content to rush over its apartments, gaze at +its great round tower, view the Loire, which is here quite at its best, +from the battlements, and, after a brief admiration of the wonderfully +sculptured portal of its chapel, make their way to Chenonceaux, or to +the gay little metropolis of Tours. + +[Illustration: _Chateau d'Amboise_] + +No matter whither one turns his steps from Amboise, he will not soon +forget this great fortress-chateau and the memories of the _petite +bande_ of blondes and brunettes who followed in the wake of Francois +Premier. + +Here, and at Blois, the recollections of this little band are strong in +the minds of students of romance and history. Some one has said that +along the corridors of Amboise one still may meet the wraiths of those +who in former days went airily from one pleasure to another, but this of +course depends upon the mood and sentiment of the visitor. + +Amboise has a very good imitation of the climate of the south, and the +glitter of the Loire at midday in June is about as torrid a picture as +one can paint in a northern clime. It is not that it is so very hot in +degree, but that the lack of shade-trees along its quays gives Amboise a +shimmering resemblance to a much warmer place than it really is. The +Loire is none too ample here, and frets its way, as it does through most +of its lower course, through banks of sand and pebbles in a more or less +vain effort to look cool. + +Amboise is old, for, under the name of Ambatia, it existed in the fourth +century, at which epoch St. Martin, the patron of Tours, threw down a +pagan pyramidal temple here and established Christianity; and Clovis and +Alaric held their celebrated meeting on the Ile St. Jean in 496. It was +not long after this, according to the ancient writers, that some sort +of a fortified chateau took form here. Louis-le-Begue gave Amboise to +the Counts of Anjou, and Hughes united the two independent seigneuries +of the chateau and the bourg. After the Counts of Anjou succeeded the +Counts of Berry, Charles VII., by appropriation, confiscation, seizure, +or whatever you please to call it,--history is vague as to the real +motive,--united Amboise to the possessions of the Crown in 1434. Louis +XI. lived for a time at this strong fortress-chateau, before he turned +his affections so devotedly to Plessis-les-Tours. Charles VIII. was born +and died here, and it was he who added the Renaissance details, or at +least the first of them, upon his return from Italy. Indeed, it is to +him and to the nobles who followed in his train during his Italian +travels that the introduction of the Renaissance into France is commonly +attributed. + +It was at Amboise that Charles VIII., forgetful of the miseries of his +Italian campaign, set about affairs of state with a renewed will and +vigour. He was personally superintending some alterations in the old +castle walls, and instructing the workmen whom he brought from Italy +with him as to just how far they might introduce those details which the +world has come to know as Renaissance, when, in passing beneath a low +overhanging beam, he struck his head so violently that he expired almost +immediately (April 17, 1498). + +Louis XII., the superstitious, lived here for some time, and here +occurred some of the most important events in the life of the great +Francois, the real popularizer of the new architectural Renaissance. + +It was in the old castle of Amboise, the early home of Louis XII., that +his appointed successor, his son-in-law and second cousin, Francois, was +brought up. Here he was educated by his mother, Louise de Savoie, +Duchesse d'Angouleme, together with that bright and shining light, that +Marguerite who was known as the "Pearl of the Valois," poetess, artist, +and court intriguer. Here the household formed what in the early days +Francois himself was pleased to call a "trinity of love." + +Throughout the structure may yet be seen the suggestions of Francois's +artistic instincts, traced in the window-framings of the facade, in the +interior decorations of the long gallery, and on the terrace hanging +high above the Loire. + +In the park and in the surrounding forest Francois and his sister +Marguerite passed many happy days of their childhood. Marguerite, who +had already become known as the "tenth muse," had already thought out +her "Heptameron," whilst Francois tried his prentice hand at +love-rhyming, an expression of sentiment which at a later period took +the form of avowals in person to his favourites. + +One recalls those stanzas to the memory of Agnes Sorel, beginning: + + "Gentille Agnes plus de loz tu merite, + La cause etait de France recouvrir; + Que ce que peut dedans un cloitre ouvrir + Close nonnaine? ou bien devot hermite?" + +Francois was more than a lover of the beautiful. His appreciation of +architectural art amounted almost to a passion, and one might well claim +him as a member of the architectural guild, although, in truth, he was +nothing more than a generous patron of the craftsmen of his day. + +Francois was the real father of the French Renaissance, the more +splendid flower which grew from the Italian stalk. He had no liking for +the Van Eycks and Holbeins of the Dutch school, reserving his favour for +the frankly languid masters from the south. He brought from Italy +Cellini, Primaticcio, and the great Leonardo, who it is said had a hand +in that wonderful shell-like spiral stairway in the chateau at Blois. + +By just what means Da Vinci was inveigled from Italy will probably never +be known. The art-loving Francois visited Milan, and among its +curiosities was shown the even then celebrated "Last Supper" of +Leonardo. The next we know is that, "_Francois repasse les Alpes ayant +avec lui Mon Sieur Lyonard, son peintre_." Leonardo was given a pension +of seven _ecus de France_ per year and a residence near Amboise. Vasari +recounts very precisely how Leonardo expired in the arms of his kingly +patron at Amboise, but on the other hand, the court chronicles have said +that Francois was at St. Germain on that day. Be this as it may, the +intimacy was a close one, and we may be sure that Francois felt keenly +the demise of this most celebrated painter of his court. + +It was during those early idyllic days at Amboise that the character of +Francois was formed, and the marvel is that the noble and endearing +qualities did not exceed the baser ones. To be sure his after lot was +hard, and his real and fancied troubles many, and they were not made the +less easy to bear because of his numerous female advisers. + +In his youth at Amboise his passions still slumbered, but when they did +awaken, they burst forth with an unquenchable fury. Meantime he was +working off any excess of imagination by boar-hunts and falconry in the +neighbouring forest of Chanteloup, and had more than one hand-to-hand +affray with resentful citizens of the town, when he encroached upon what +they considered their traditional preserves. So he grew to man's estate, +but the life that he lived in his youth under the kingly roof of the +chateau at Amboise gave him the benefits of all the loyalty which his +fellows knew, and it helped him carry out the ideas which were +bequeathed to him by his uncle. + +It was at a sitting of the court at Amboise, when Francois was still +under his mother's wing,--at the age of twenty only,--that the Bourbon +affair finally came to its head. Many notables were mixed up in it as +partisans of the ungrateful and ambitious Bourbon, Charles de +Montpensier, Connetable de France. It was an office only next in power +to that of the sovereign himself, and one which had been allowed to die +out in the reign of Louis XI. The final outcome of it all was that +Francois became a prisoner at Pavia, through the treachery of the +Connetable and his followers, who went over _en masse_ to Francois's +rival, Charles V., who, as Charles II., was King of Spain. + +Of the subsequent meeting with the Emperor Charles on French soil, +Francois said to the Duchesse d'Etampes: "It is with regret that I leave +you to meet the emperor at Amboise on the Loire." And he added: "You +will follow me with the queen." His queen at this time was poor Eleanor +of Portugal, herself a Spanish princess, Claude of France, his first +wife, having died. "These two," says Brantome, "were the only virtuous +women of his household." + +The Emperor Charles was visibly affected by the meeting, though, it is +true, he had no love for his old enemy, Francois. Perhaps it was on +account of the duchess, for whom Francois had put aside Diane. At any +rate, the emperor was gallant enough to say to her: "It is only in +France that I have seen such a perfection of elegance and beauty. My +brother, your king, should be the envy of all the sovereigns of Europe. +Had I such a captive at my palace in Madrid, there were no ransom that I +would accept for her." + +Francois cared not for the lonely Spanish princess whom he had made his +queen; but he was somewhat susceptible to the charms of his +daughter-in-law, Catherine de Medici, the wife of his son Henri, who, +when at Amboise, was his ever ready companion in the chase. + +Francois was inordinately fond of the hunt, and made of it a most +strenuous pastime, full of danger and of hard riding in search of the +boar and the wolf, which abounded in the thick underwood in the +neighbourhood. One wonders where they, or, rather, their descendants, +have disappeared, since nought in these days but a frightened hare, a +partridge, or perhaps a timid deer ever crosses one's path, as he makes +his way by the smooth roads which cross and recross the forest behind +Amboise. + +When Francois II. was sixteen he became the nominal king of France. To +Amboise he and his young bride came, having been brought thither from +Blois, for fear of the Huguenot rising. The court settled itself +forthwith at Amboise, where the majestic feudal castle piled itself high +up above the broad, limpid Loire, feeling comparatively secure within +the protection of its walls. Here the Loire had widened to the +pretensions of a lake, the river being spanned by a bridge, which +crossed it by the help of the island, as it does to-day. + +Over this old stone bridge the court approached the castle, the retinue +brilliant with all the trappings of a luxurious age, archers, pages, +and men-at-arms. The king and his new-found bride, the winsome Mary +Stuart, rode well in the van. In their train were Catherine, the +"queen-mother" of three kings, the Cardinal de Lorraine, the Duc de +Guise, the Duc de Nemours, and a vast multitude of gay retainers, who +were moved about from place to place like pawns upon the chess-board, +and with about as much consideration. + +The gentle Mary Stuart, born in 1542, at Linlithgow, in stern Caledonia, +of a French mother,--Marie de Lorraine,--was doomed to misfortune, for +her father, the noble James V., prophesied upon his death-bed that the +dynasty would end with his daughter. + +At the tender age of five Mary was sent to France and placed in a +convent. Her education was afterward continued at court under the +direction of her uncle, the Cardinal de Lorraine. By ten she had become +well versed in French, Latin, and Italian, and at one time, according to +Brantome, she gave a discourse on literature and the liberal arts--so +flourishing at the time--before the king and his court. Ronsard was her +tutor in versification, which became one of her favourite pursuits. + +Mary Stuart's charms were many. She was tall and finely formed, with +auburn hair shining like an aureole above her intellectual forehead, and +with a skin of such dazzling whiteness--a trite saying, but one which is +used by Brantome--"that it outrivalled the whiteness of her veil." + +In the spring of 1558, when she was but sixteen, Mary Stuart was married +to the Dauphin, the weak, sickly Francois II., himself but a youth. He +was, however, sincerely and deeply fond of his young wife. + +Unexpectedly, through the death of Henri II. at the hands of Montgomery +at that ever debatable tournament, Francois II. ascended the throne of +France, and Mary Stuart saw herself exalted to the dizzy height which +she had not so soon expected. She became the queen of two kingdoms, and, +had the future been more propitious, the whole map of Europe might have +been changed. + +Disease had marked the unstable Francois for its own, and within a year +he passed from the throne to the grave, leaving his young queen a widow +and an orphan. + +Shortly afterward "_la reine blanche_" returned to her native Scotland, +bidding France that long, last, sad adieu so often quoted: + + "Farewell, beloved France, to thee! + Best native land, + The cherished strand + That nursed my tender infancy! + Farewell my childhood's happy day! + The bark, which bears me thus away, + Bears but the poorer moiety hence, + The nobler half remains with thee, + I leave it to thy confidence, + But to remind thee still of me!" + +The young sovereigns had had a most stately suite of apartments prepared +for them at Amboise, the lofty windows reaching from floor to ceiling +and overlooking the river and the vast terrace where was so soon to be +enacted that bloody drama to which they were to be made unwilling +witnesses. + +This gallery was wainscoted with old oak and hung with rich leathers, +and the lofty ceiling was emblazoned with heraldic emblems and +monograms, as was the fashion of the day. Brocades and tapestries, set +in great gold frames, lined the walls, and, in a boudoir or +retiring-room beyond, still definitely to be recognized, was a +remarkable series of embroidered wall decorations, a tapestry of flowers +and fruits with an arabesque border of white and gold, truly a queenly +apartment, and one that well became the luxurious and dainty Mary, who +came from Scotland to marry the youthful Francois. + +Mary Stuart knew little at the time as to why they had so suddenly +removed from Blois, but Francois soon told her, something after this +wise: "Our mother," said he, "is deeply concerned with affairs of state. +There is some conspiracy against her and your uncles, the Guises." + +"Tell me," she demanded, "concerning this dreadful conspiracy." + +"Were you not suspicious," he asked, querulously, "when we left for +Amboise so suddenly?" + +"_Ah, non, mon Francois_, methought that we came here to hold a jousting +tourney and to hunt in the forest...." + +"Well, at any rate, we are secure here from Turk, or Jew, or Huguenot, +my queen," replied the king. + +Within a short space a council was called in the great hall of Amboise, +which the Huguenot chiefs, Conde, Coligny, the Cardinal de +Chatillon,--who appears to have been a sort of a religious +renegade,--were requested to attend. A conciliatory edict was to be +prepared, and signed by the king, as a measure for gaining time and +learning further the plans of the conspirators. + +This edict ultimately was signed, but it was in force but a short time +and was a subterfuge which the youthful king deep in his heart--and he +publicly avowed the fact--deeply resented. Furthermore it did +practically nothing toward quelling the conspiracy. + +Through the plains of Touraine and over the hills from Anjou the +conspirators came in straggling bands, to rendezvous for a great _coup +de main_ at Amboise. They halted at farms and hid in vineyards, but the +royalists were on the watch and one after another the wandering bands +were captured and held for a bloody public massacre when the time should +become ripe. In all, two thousand or more were captured, including Jean +Barri de la Renaudie. This man was the leader, but he was merely a bold +adventurer, seeking his own advantage, and caring little what cause +employed his peculiar talents. This was his last affair, however, for +his corpse soon hung in chains from Amboise's bridge. Conde, Coligny, +and the other Calvinists soon learned that the edict was not worth the +paper on which it was written. + +After the two thousand had been dispersed or captured the +"queen-mother" threw off the mask. She led the trembling child-king and +queen toward the southern terrace, where, close beneath the windows of +the chateau, was built a scaffold, covered with black cloth, before +which stood the executioner clothed in scarlet. The prisoners were +ranged by hundreds along the outer rampart, guarded by archers and +musketeers. The windows of the royal apartment were open and here the +company placed themselves to witness the butchery to follow. + +Speechless with horror sat the young king and queen, until finally, as +another batch of mutilated corpses were thrown into the river below, the +young queen swooned. + +"My mother," said Francois, "I, too, am overcome by this horrible sight. +I crave your Highness's permission to retire; the blood of my subjects, +even of my enemies, is too horrible to contemplate." + +"My son," said the bloodthirsty Catherine, "I command you to stay. Duc +de Guise, support your niece, the Queen of France. Teach her her duty as +a sovereign. She must learn how to govern those hardy Scots of hers." + +It was on the very terraced platform on which one walks to-day that, +between two ranks of _hallebardiers_ and arquebusiers, moved that long +line of bareheaded and bowed men whose prayers went up to heaven while +they awaited the fate of the gallows. + +Either the cord or the sword-blade quickly accounted for the lives of +this multitude, and their blood flowed in rivulets, while above in the +gallery the willing and unwilling onlookers were gay with laughter or +dumb with sadness. + +When all this horrible murdering was over the Loire was literally a +reeking mass of corpses, if we are to believe the records of the time. +The chief conspirators were hung in chains from the castle walls, or +from the bridge, and the balustrades which overhang the street, which +to-day flanks the Loire beneath the castle walls, were filled with a +ribald crew of jeering partisans who knew little and cared less for +religion of any sort. + +Some days after the execution of the Calvinists the "Protestant poet" +and historian passed through the royal city with his _precepteur_ and +his father, and was shown the rows of heads planted upon pikes, which +decorated the castle walls, and thereupon vowed, if not to avenge, at +least to perpetuate the infamy in prose and verse, and this he did most +effectually. + +An odorous garden of roses, lilacs, honeysuckle, and hawthorn framed the +joyous architecture of the chateau, then as now, in adorable fashion; +but it could not purify the malodorous reputation which it had received +until the domain was ceded by Louis XIV. to the Duc de Penthievre and +made a _duche-pairie_. + +It would be possible to say much more, but this should suffice to stamp +indelibly the fact that Touraine, in general, and the chateau of +Amboise, in particular, cradled as much of the thought and action of the +monarchy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as did the capital +itself. At any rate the memory of it all is so vivid, and the tangible +monuments of the splendour and intrigue of the court of those days are +so very numerous and magnificent, that one could not forget the parts +they played--once having seen them--if he would. + +After the assassination of the Duc de Guise at Blois, Amboise became a +prison of state, where were confined the Cardinal de Bourbon and Cesar +de Vendome (the sons of Henri IV. and Gabrielle d'Estrees), also Fouquet +and Lauzun. In 1762 the chateau was given by Louis XV. to the Duc de +Choiseul, and the great Napoleon turned it over to his ancient +colleague, Roger Ducos, who apparently cared little for its beauties +or associations, for he mutilated it outrageously. + +[Illustration: _Sculpture from the Chapelle de St. Hubert_] + +In later times the history of the chateau and its dependencies has been +more prosaic. The Emir Abd-el-Kader was imprisoned here in 1852, and +Louis Napoleon stayed for a time within its walls upon his return from +the south. To-day it belongs to the family of Orleans, to whom it was +given by the National Assembly in 1872, and has become a house of +retreat for military veterans. This is due to the generosity of the Duc +d'Aumale into whose hands it has since passed. The restoration which has +been carried on has made of Amboise an ideal reproduction of what it +once was, and in every way it is one of the most splendid and famous +chateaux of its kind, though by no means as lovable as the residential +chateaux of Chenonceaux or Langeais. + +The Chapelle de St. Hubert, which was restored by Louis Philippe, is the +chief artistic attraction of Amboise; a bijou of full-blown Gothic. It +is a veritable architectural joy of the period of Charles VIII., to whom +its erection was due. Its portal has an adorable bas-relief, +representing "La Chasse de St. Hubert," and showing St. Hubert, St. +Christopher, and St. Anthony, while above, in the tympanum, are +effigies of the Virgin, of Charles VIII., and of Anne de Bretagne. The +sculpture is, however, comparatively modern, but it embellishes a shrine +worthy in every way, for there repose the bones of Leonardo da Vinci. +Formerly Da Vinci's remains had rested in the chapel of the chateau +itself, dedicated to St. Florentin. + +Often the Chapelle de St. Hubert has been confounded with that described +by Scott in "Quentin Durward," but it is manifestly not the same, as +that was located in Tours or near there, and his very words describe the +architecture as "of the rudest and meanest kind," which this is not. +Over the arched doorway of the chapel at Tours there was, however, a +"statue of St. Hubert with a bugle-horn around his neck and a leash of +greyhounds at his feet," which may have been an early suggestion of the +later work which was undertaken at Amboise. + +All vocations came to have their protecting saints in the middle ages, +and, since "_la chasse_" was the great recreation of so many, +distinction was bestowed upon Hubert as being one of the most devout. +The legend is sufficiently familiar not to need recounting here, and, +anyway, the story is plainly told in this sculptured panel over the +portal of the chapel at Amboise. + +In this Chapel of St. Hubert was formerly held "that which was called a +hunting-mass. The office was only used before the noble and powerful, +who, while assisting at the solemnity, were usually impatient to +commence their favourite sport." + +The ancient Salle des Gardes of the chateau, with the windows giving on +the balcony overlooking the river, became later the Logis du Roi. From +this great chamber one passes on to the terrace near the foot of the +Grosse Tour, called the Tour des Minimes. It is this tower which +contains the "_escalier des voitures_." The entrance is through an +elegant portico leading to the upper stories. Above another portico, +leading from the terrace to the garden, is to be seen the emblem of +Louis XII., the porcupine, so common at Blois. + +In the fosse, which still remains on the garden side, was the +universally installed _jeu-de-paume_, a favourite amusement throughout +the courts of Europe in the middle ages. + +At the base of the chateau are clustered numerous old houses of the +sixteenth century, but on the river-front these have been replaced with +pretentious houses, cafes, automobile garages, and other modern +buildings. + +Near the Quai des Violettes are a series of subterranean chambers known +as the Greniers de Cesar, dating from the sixteenth century. + +[Illustration: _Cipher of Anne de Bretagne, Hotel de Ville, Amboise_] + +Even at this late day one can almost picture the great characters in the +drama of other times who stalked majestically through the apartments, +and over the very flagstones of the courts and terraces which one treads +to-day; Catherine de Medici with her ruffs and velvets; Henri de Guise +with all his wiles; Conde the proud; the second Francois, youthful but +wise; his girl queen, loving and sad; and myriads more of all ranks and +of all shades of morality,--all resplendent in the velvets and gold of +the costume of their time. + +Near the chateau is the Clos Luce, a Gothic habitation in whose oratory +died Leonardo da Vinci, on May 2, 1519. + +Immediately back of the chateau is the Foret d'Amboise, the scene of +many gay hunting parties when the court was here or at Chenonceaux, +which one reaches by traversing the forest route. On the edge of this +forest is Chanteloup, remembered by most folk on account of its +atrocious Chinese-like pagoda, built of the debris of the Chateau de la +Bourdaisiere, by the Duc de Choiseul, in memory of the attentions he +received from the nobles and bourgeois of the ville upon the fall of his +ministry and his disgrace at the hands of Louis XV. and La Du Barry. It +is a curious form to be chosen when one had such beautiful examples of +architectural art near by, only equalled, perhaps, in atrociousness by +the "Royal Pavilion" of England's George IV. + +La Bourdaisiere, near Amboise, of which only the site remains, if not +one of the chief tourist attractions of the chateau country, has at +least a sentimental interest of abounding importance for all who recall +the details of the life of "La Belle Gabrielle." + +Here in Touraine Gabrielle d'Estrees was born in 1565. She was +twenty-six years old when Henri IV. first saw her in the chateau of her +father at Coeuvres. So charmed was he with her graces that he made her +his _maitresse_ forthwith, though the old court-life chronicles of the +day state that she already possessed something more than the admiration +of Sebastian Zamet, the celebrated financier. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +CHENONCEAUX + +"The castle of Chenonceaux is a fine place on the river Cher, in a fine +and pleasant country." + + FRANCOIS PREMIER. + +"The castle of Chenonceaux is one of the best and most beautiful of our +kingdom." + + HENRI II. + + +The average visitor will come prepared to worship and admire a chateau +so praised by two luxury-loving Kings of France. + +Chenonceaux is noted chiefly for its chateau, but the little village +itself is charming. The houses of the village are not very new, nor very +old, but the one long street is most attractive throughout its length, +and the whole atmosphere of the place, from September to December, is +odorous with the perfume of red-purple grapes. The vintage is not the +equal of that of the Bordeaux region, perhaps, nor of Chinon, nor +Saumur; but the _vin du pays_ of the Cher and the Loire, around Tours, +is not to be despised. + +Most tourists come to Chenonceaux by train from Tours; others drive over +from Amboise, and yet others come by bicycle or automobile. They are not +as yet so numerous as might be expected, and accordingly here, as +elsewhere in Touraine, every facility is given for visiting the chateau +and its park. + +If you do not hurry off at once to worship at the abode of the +fascinating Diane, one of the brightest ornaments of the court of +Francois Premier and his son Henri, you will enjoy your dinner at the +Hotel du Bon Laboureur, though most likely it will be a solitary one, +and you will be put to bed in a great chamber overlooking the park, +through which peep, in the moonlight, the turrets of the chateau, and +you may hear the purling of the waters of the Cher as it flows below the +walls. + +Jean Jacques Rousseau, like Francois I., called Chenonceaux a beautiful +place, and he was right; it is all of that and more. Here one comes into +direct contact with an atmosphere which, if not feudal, or even +mediaeval, is at least that of several hundred years ago. + +Chenonceaux is moored like a ship in the middle of the rapidly running +Cher, a dozen miles or more above where that stream enters the Loire. +As a matter of fact, the chateau practically bridges the river, which +flows under its foundations and beneath its drawbridge on either side, +besides filling the moat with water. The general effect is as if the +building were set in the midst of the stream and formed a sort of island +chateau. Round about is a gentle meadow and a great park, which give to +this turreted architectural gem of Touraine a setting which is equalled +by no other chateau. + +What the chateau was in former days we can readily imagine, for nothing +is changed as to the general disposition. Boats came to the water-gate, +as they still might do if such boats still existed, in true, pictorial +legendary fashion. To-day, the present occupant has placed a curiosity +on the ornamental waters in the shape of a gondola. It is out of keeping +with the grand fabric of the chateau, and it is a pity that it does not +cast itself adrift some night. What has become of the gondolier, who was +imported to keep the craft company, nobody seems to know. He is +certainly not in evidence, or, if he is, has transformed himself into a +groom or a _chauffeur_. + +The Chateau of Chenonceaux is not a very ample structure; not so ample +as most photographs would make it appear. It is not tiny, but still it +has not the magnificent proportions of Blois, of Chambord, or even of +Langeais. It was more a habitation than it was a fortress, a _maison de +campagne_, as indeed it virtually became when the Connetable de +Montmorency took possession of the structure in the name of the king, +when its builder, Thomas Bohier, the none too astute minister of +finances in Normandy, came to grief in his affairs. + +Francois I. came frequently here for "_la chasse_," and his memory is +still kept alive by the Chambre Francois Premier. Francois held +possession till his death, when his son made it over to the "admired of +two generations," Diane de Poitiers. + +Diane's memory will never leave Chenonceaux. To-day it is perpetuated in +the Chambre de Diane de Poitiers; but the portrait by Leonardo da Vinci, +which was supposed to best show her charms, has now disappeared from the +"long gallery" at the chateau. This portrait was painted at the command +of Francois, before Diane transferred her affections to his son. + +No one knows when or how Diane de Poitiers first came to fascinate +Francois, or how or why her power waned. At any rate, at the time +Francois pardoned her father, the witless Comte de St. Vallier, for the +treacherous part he played in the Bourbon conspiracy, he really believed +her to be the "brightest ornament of a beauty-loving court." + +Certainly, Diane was a powerful factor in the politics of her time, +though Francois himself soon tired of her. Undaunted by this, she +forthwith set her cap for his son Henri, the Duc d'Orleans, and won him, +too. Of her beauty the present generation is able to judge for itself by +reason of the three well-known and excellent portraits of contemporary +times. + +Diane's influence over the young Henri was absolute. At his death her +power was, of course, at an end, and Chenonceaux, and all else possible, +was taken from her by the orders of Catherine, the long-suffering wife, +who had been put aside for the fascinations of the charming huntress. + +It must have been some satisfaction, however, to Diane, to know that, in +his fatal joust with Montgomery, Henri really broke his lance and met +his death in her honour, for the records tell that he bore her colours +on his lance, besides her initials set in gold and gems on his shield. + +Catherine's eagerness to drive Diane from the court was so great, that +no sooner had her spouse fallen--even though he did not actually die for +some days--than she sent word to Diane, "who sat weeping alone," to +instantly quit the court; to give up the crown jewels--which Henri had +somewhat inconsiderately given her; and to "give up Chenonceaux in +Touraine," Catherine's Naboth's vineyard, which she had so long admired +and coveted. She had known it as a girl, when she often visited it in +company with her father-in-law, the appreciative but dissolute Francois, +and had ever longed to possess it for her own, before even her husband, +now dead, had given it to "that old hag Diane de Poitiers, Duchesse de +Valentinois." + +Diane paid no heed to Catherine's command. She simply asked: "Is the +king yet dead?" + +"No, madame," said the messenger, "but his wound is mortal; he cannot +live the day." + +"Tell the queen, then," replied Diane, "that her reign is not yet come; +that I am mistress still over her and the kingdom as long as the king +breathes the breath of life." + +Henri was more or less an equivocal character, devoted to Diane, and +likewise fondone says it with caution--of his wife. He caused to be +fashioned a monogram (seen at Chenonceaux) after this wise: [MONOGRAM +DEPICTING TWO CAPITAL LETTERS "D", THE SECOND OF WHICH IS INVERTED; THE +LETTERS ARE INTERWOVEN IN THEIR "(" AND ")" PARTS, AND THERE IS A +HORIZONTAL BAR CROSSING THEM IN THE MIDDLE] supposedly indicating his +attachment for Diane and his wife alike. The various initials of the +cipher are in no way involved. Diane returned the compliment by +decorating an apartment for the king, at her Chateau of Anet, with the +black and white of the Medici arms. + +The Chateau of Chenonceaux, so greatly coveted by Catherine when she +first came to France, and when it was in the possession of Diane, still +remains in all the regal splendour of its past. It lies in the lovely +valley of the Cher, far from the rush and turmoil of cities and even the +continuous traffic of great thoroughfares, for it is on the road to +nowhere unless one is journeying cross-country from the lower to the +upper Loire. This very isolation resulted in its being one of the few +monuments spared from the furies of the Revolution, and, "half-palace +and half-chateau," it glistens with the purity of its former glory, as +picturesque as ever, with turrets, spires, and roof-tops all mellowed +with the ages in a most entrancing manner. + +Even to-day one enters the precincts of the chateau proper over a +drawbridge which spans an arm of the Loire, or rather, a moat which +leads directly from the parent stream. On the opposite side are the +bridge piers supporting five arches, the work of Diane when she was the +fair chatelaine of the domain. This ingenious thought proved to be a +most useful and artistic addition to the chateau. It formed a flagged +promenade, lovely in itself, and led to the southern bank of the Cher, +whence one got charming vistas of the turrets and roof-tops of the +chateau through the trees and the leafy avenues which converged upon the +structure. + +[Illustration: CHATEAU DE CHENONCEAUX] + +When Catherine came she did not disdain to make the best use of Diane's +innovation that suggested itself to her, which was simply to build the +"Long Gallery" over the arches of this lovely bridge, and so make of it +a veritable house over the water. A covering was made quite as beautiful +as the rest of the structure, and thus the bridge formed a spacious wing +of two stories. The first floor--known as the "Long Gallery"--was +intended as a banqueting-hall, and possessed four great full-length +windows on either side looking up and down stream, from which was +seen--and is to-day--an outlook as magnificently idyllic as is possible +to conceive. Jean Goujon had designed for the ceiling one of those +wonder-works for which he was famous, but if the complete plan was ever +carried out, it has disappeared, for only a tiny sketch of the whole +scheme remains to-day. + +[Illustration: _Chateau of CHENONCEAUX_ (DIAGRAM)] + +Catherine came in the early summer to take possession of her +long-coveted domain. Being a skilful horsewoman, she came on horseback, +accompanied by a "_petite bande_" of feminine charmers destined to +wheedle political secrets from friends and enemies alike,--a real +"_escadron volant de la reine_," as it was called by a contemporary. + +It was a gallant company that assembled here at this time,--the young +King Charles IX., the Duc de Guise, and "two cardinals mounted on +mules,"--Lorraine, a true Guise, and D'Este, newly arrived from Italy, +and accompanied by the poet Tasso, wearing a "gabardine and a hood of +satin." Catherine showed the Italian great favour, as was due a +countryman, but there was another poet among them as well, Ronsard, the +poet laureate of the time. The Duc de Guise had followed in the wake of +Marguerite, unbeknownst to Catherine, who frowned down any possibility +of an alliance between the houses of Valois and Lorraine. + +A great fete and water-masque had been arranged by Catherine to take +place on the Cher, with a banquet to follow in the Long Gallery in +honour of her arrival at Chenonceaux. + +When twilight had fallen, torches were ignited and myriads of lights +blazed forth from the boats on the river and from the windows of the +chateau. Music and song went forth into the night, and all was as gay +and lovely as a Venetian night's entertainment. The hunting-horns echoed +through the wooded banks, and through the arches above which the chateau +was built passed great highly coloured barges, including a fleet of +gondolas to remind the queen-mother of her Italian days,--the ancestors +perhaps of the solitary gondola which to-day floats idly by the +river-bank just before the grand entrance to the chateau. From +_parterre_ and _balustrade_, and from the clipped yews of the ornamental +garden, fairy lamps burned forth and dwindled away into dim infinity, as +the long lines of soft light gradually lost themselves in the forest. It +was a grand affair and idyllic in its unworldliness. One may not see its +like to-day, for electric lights and "rag-time" music, which mostly +comprise the attractions of such _al fresco_ pleasures, will hardly +produce the same effect. + +Among the great fetes at Chenonceaux will always be recalled that given +by the court upon the coming of the youthful Francois II. and Mary +Stuart, after the horrible massacres at Amboise. + +All the Renaissance skill of the time was employed in the erection of +pompous accessories, triumphal arches, columns, obelisks, and altars. +There were innumerable tablets also, bearing inscriptions in Latin and +Greek,--which nobody read,--and a fountain which bore the following: + + "Au saint bal des dryades, + A Phoebus, ce grand dieu, + Aux humides nyades, + J'ai consacre ce lieu." + +Of Chenonceaux and its glories what more can be said than to quote the +following lines of the middle ages, which in their quaint old French +apply to-day as much as ever they did: + + "Basti si magnifiquement + II est debout, comme un geant, + Dedans le lit de la riviere, + C'est-a-dire dessus un pont + Qui porte cent toises de long." + +The part of the edifice which Bohier erected in 1515 is that through +which the visitor makes his entrance, and is built upon the piers of an +old mill which was destroyed at that time. + +Catherine bequeathed Chenonceaux to the wife of Henri III., Louise de +Vaudemont, who died here in 1601. For a hundred years it still belonged +to royalty, but in 1730 it was sold to M. Dupin, who, with his wife, +enriched and repaired the fabric. They gathered around them a company so +famous as to be memorable in the annals of art and literature. This is +best shown by the citing of such names as Fontenelle, Montesquieu, +Buffon, Bolingbroke, Voltaire, and Rousseau, all of whom were +frequenters of the establishment, the latter being charged with the +education of the only son of M. and Madame Dupin. + +Considering Rousseau's once proud position among his contemporaries, and +the favour with which he was received by the nobility, it is somewhat +surprising that his struggle for life was so hard. The Marquise de +Crequy wrote in her "Souvenirs:" "Rousseau left behind him his +_Memoires_, which I think for the sake of his memory and fame ought to +be much curtailed." And undoubtedly she was right. Rousseau wrote in his +"Confessions:" "In 1747 we went to spend the autumn in Touraine, at the +Chateau of Chenonceaux, a royal residence upon the Cher, built by Henri +II. for Diane de Poitiers, whose initials are still to be seen there.... +We amused ourselves greatly in this fine spot; the living was of the +best, and I became fat as a monk. We made a great deal of music and +acted comedies." + +One might imagine, from a stroll through the magnificent halls and +galleries of Chenonceaux, that Rousseau's experiences might be repeated +to-day if one were fortunate enough to be asked to sojourn there for a +time. The nearest that one can get, however, to becoming personally +identified with the chateau and its life is to sign his name in the +great vellum quarto which ultimately will rest in the archives of the +chateau. + +It is doubtless very wrong to be covetous; but Chenonceaux is such a +beautiful place and comes so near the ideal habitation of our +imagination that the desire to possess it for one's own is but human. + +In the "Galerie Louis XIV." were given the first representations of many +of Rousseau's pieces. + +One gathers from these accounts of the happenings in the Long Gallery +that it formed no bridge of sighs, and most certainly it did not. Its +walls resounded almost continually with music and laughter. Here in +these rooms Henri II. danced and made love and intrigued, while +Catherine, his queen, was left at Blois with her astrologer and his +poisons, to eat out her soul in comparative neglect. + +Before the time of the dwelling built by Bohier for himself and family +on the foundations of the old mill, there was yet a manorhouse +belonging to the ancient family of Marques, from whom the Norman +financier bought the site. The tower, seen to-day at the right of the +entrance to the chateau proper,--an expressive relic of feudal +times,--was a part of the earlier establishment. To-day it is turned +into a sort of _kiosque_ for the sale of photographs, post-cards, and an +admirable illustrated guide to the chateau. + +The interior of the chateau to-day presents the following remarkable +features: The dining-room of to-day, formerly the Salle des Gardes, has +a ceiling in which the cipher of Catherine de Medici is interwoven with +an arabesque. To the left of this apartment is the entrance to the +chapel, which to-day seems a bit incongruously placed, leading as it +does from the dining-room. It is but a tiny chapel, but it is as gay and +brilliant as if it were still the adjunct of a luxury-loving court, and +it has some glass dating from 1521, which, if not remarkable for design +or colouring, is quite choice enough to rank as an art treasure of real +value. + +According to Viollet-le-Duc each feudal seigneur had attached to his +chateau a chapel, often served by a private chaplain, and in some +instances by an entire chapter of prelates. These chapels were not +simple oratories surrounded by the domestic apartments, but were +architectural monuments in themselves, and either entirely isolated, as +at Amboise, or semi-detached, as at Chenonceaux. + +Below, in the sub-basement, at Chenonceaux, are the original foundations +upon which Bohier laid his first stones. Here, too, are various +chambers, known respectively as the prison, the Bains de la Reine, the +_boulangerie_, etc. + +Chenonceaux to-day is no whited sepulchre. It is a real living and +livable thing, and, moreover, when one visits it, he observes that the +family burn great logs in their fireplaces, have luxurious bouquets of +flowers on their dining-table, and use great wax candles instead of the +more prosaic oil-lamps, or worse--acetylene gas. Chenonceaux evidently +has no thoughts of descending to steam heat and electricity. + +All this is as it should be, for when one visits a shrine like this he +prefers to find it with as much as possible of the old-time atmosphere +remaining. Chambord is bare and suggestive of the tomb, in spite of the +splendour of its outline and proportions; Pierrefonds, in the north, is +more so, and so would be Blois except for its restored or imitation +decorations; but here at Chenonceaux all is different, and breathes the +spirit of other days as well as that of to-day. It is, perhaps, not +exactly as Diane left it, or as Rousseau knew it under the regime of the +Dupins, since, after many changings of hands, it became the property of +the _Credit Foncier_, by whom it was sold in 1891 to Mr. Terry, an +American. + +Chenonceaux has two other architectural monuments which are often +overlooked under the spell of the more magnificent chateau. In the +village is a small Renaissance church--in which the Renaissance never +rose to any very great heights--which is here far more effective and +beautiful than usually are Renaissance churches of any magnitude. There +is also a sixteenth-century stone house in the same style and even more +successful as an expression of the art of the time. It is readily found +by inquiry, and is known as the "Maison des Pages de Francois I." + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +LOCHES + + +Much may be written of Loches, of its storied past, of its present-day +quaintness, and of its wealth of architectural monuments. Its church is +certainly the most curious religious edifice in all France, judging from +a cross-section of the vaults and walls. More than all else, however, +Loches is associated in our minds with the memory of Agnes Sorel. + +Within the walls of the old collegiate church the lovely mistress of +Charles VII. was buried in 1450; but later her remains and tomb were +removed to one of the towers of the ancient castle of Loches, where they +now are. She had amply endowed the church, but they would no longer give +shelter to her remains, so her bones were removed five hundred years +later. The statue which surmounts her tomb, as seen to-day, represents +the "gentille Agnes" in all her loveliness, with folded hands on breast, +a kneeling angel at her head and a couchant lamb at her feet,--a +reminder of her innocence, said Henry James, but surely he nodded when +he said it. Lovely she was, and good in her way, but innocent she was +not, as we have come to know the word. + +[Illustration: _Loches_] + +It is fitting to recall that Charles VII. was not the only monarch who +sang her praises, for it was Francois I. who, many years later, wrote +those lines beginning: + +"Gentille Agnes, plus de loz tu merites." + +Whether one comes to Loches by road or by rail, the first impression is +the same; he enters at once into a sleepy, old-world town which has +practically nothing of modernity about it except the electric lights. + +There is but one way to realize the immense wealth of architectural +monuments centred at Loches, and that is to see the city for the first +time, as, perhaps, Francois Premier saw it when he journeyed from +Amboise, and came upon it from the heights of the forest of Loches. The +city has not grown much since that day. Then it had three thousand eight +hundred souls, and now it has five thousand. + +Here, in the Foret de Loches, Henry II. of England built a +monastery,--yet to be seen,--known as the Chartreuse du Liget, in +repentance, or, perhaps, as a penance for the murder of Becket. Over the +doorway of this monastery was graven: + + ANGLORUM HENRICUS REX + THOMAE COEDE CRUENTUS, + LIGETICOS FUNDAT CARTUSIA MONAKOS. + +To-day the monastery is the property of a M. de Marsay, and therefore +not open to the public; but the Chapelle du Liget, near by, is a fine +contemporary church of the thirteenth century, well worth the admiration +too infrequently bestowed upon it. + +The first view of Loches must really be much as it was in Francois's +time, except, perhaps, that the roadway down from the forest has +improved, as roads have all over France, and fruit-trees and vineyards +planted out, which, however, in no way change the aspect when the town +is first seen in the dim haze of an early November morning. + +It is the sky-line _ensemble_ of the chateaux of the Renaissance period +which is their most varied feature. No two are alike, and yet they are +all wonderfully similar in that they cut the sky with turret, tower, and +chimney in a way which suggests nothing as much as the architecture of +fairy-land. + +The artists who illustrated the old fairy-tale books and drew castles +wherein dwelt beautiful maidens could nowhere have found more real +inspiration than among the chateaux of the Loire, the Cher, and the +Indre. + +Loches is a veritable mediaeval town, and it is even more than that, for +its history dates back into the earliest years of feudal times. Loches +is one of those _soi-disant_ French towns not great enough to be a +metropolis, and yet quite indifferent to the affairs of the outside +world. + +The only false notes are those sounded by the various hawkers and +cadgers for the visitor's money, who have hired various old mediaeval +structures, within the walls, and assure one that in the basement of +their establishment there are fragments "recently discovered,"--this in +English,--quite worth the price of admission which they charge you to +peer about in a gloomy hole of a cellar, littered with empty +wine-bottles and rubbish of all sorts. + +All this is delightful enough to the simon-pure antiquarian; but even he +likes to dig things out for himself, and the householders can't all +expect to find _cachots_ in their sub-cellars or iron cages in their +garrets unless they manufacture them. + +The old town, in spite of its lack of modernity, is full of surprises +and contrasts that must make it very livable to one who cares to spend a +winter within its walls. He may walk about on the ramparts on sunny +days; may fish in the Indre, below the mill; and, if he is an artist, he +will find, within a comparatively small area, much more that is +exceedingly "paintable" than is usually found in the fishing-villages of +Brittany or on the sand-dunes of the Pas de Calais, "artist's +sketching-grounds" which have been pretty well worked of late. + +[Illustration: _Loches and Its Church_] + +The history of Loches is so varied and vivid that it is easy to account +for the many remains of feudal and Renaissance days now existing. The +derivation of its name is in some doubt. Loches was unquestionably the +Luccae of the Romans, but the Armorican Celts had the word _loc'h_, +meaning much the same thing,--_un marais_,--which is also wonderfully +like the _loch_ known to-day in the place-names of Scotland and the +_lough_ of Ireland. Partisans may take their choice. + +In the fifth century a monastery was founded here by St. Ours, which +ultimately gave its name to the collegiate church which exists to-day. A +chateau, or more probably a fortress, appeared in the sixth century. The +city was occupied by the Franks in the seventh century, but by 630 it +had become united with Aquitaine. Pepin sacked it in 742, and Charles le +Chauve made it a seat of a hereditary government which, by alliance, +passed to the house of Anjou in 886, to whom it belonged up to 1205. +Jean-sans-Terre gave it to France in 1193. Richard Coeur de Lion +apparently resented this, for he retook it in the year following. In +1204, Philippe-Auguste besieged Chinon and Loches simultaneously, and +took the latter after a year, when he made it a fief, and gave it to +Dreux de Mello, Constable of France, who in turn sold it to St. Louis. + +The chateau of Loches became first a fortress, guarding the ancient +Roman highway from the Blaisois to Aquitaine, then a prison, and then a +royal residence, to which Charles VII. frequently repaired with Agnes +Sorel, which calls up again the strangely contrasting influences of the +two women whose names have gone down in history linked with that of +Charles VII. + +"Louis XI. aggrandized the chateau," says a French authority, "and +perfected the prisons," whatever that may mean. He did, we know, build +those terrible dungeons far down below the surface of the ground, where +daylight never penetrated. They were perfect enough in all conscience as +originally built, at least as perfect as the celebrated iron cage in +which he imprisoned Cardinal Balue. The cage is not in its wonted place +to-day, and only a ring in the wall indicates where it was once made +fast. + +Charles VIII. added the great round tower; but it was not completed +until the reign of Louis XII. Francois I., in a not too friendly +meeting, received Charles Quint here in 1539, just previous to his visit +to Amboise. Marie de Medici, on escaping from Blois, stopped at the +chateau at the invitation of the governor, the Duc d'Epernon, who sped +her on her way, as joyfully as possible, to Angouleme. + +The chateau itself is the chief attraction of interest, just as it is +the chief feature of the landscape when viewed from afar. Of course it +is understood that, when one speaks of the chateau at Loches, he refers +to the collective chateaux which, in more or less fragmentary form, go +to make up the edifice as it is to-day. + +Whether we admire most the structure of Geoffrey Grise-Gonelle, the +elegant edifice of the fifteenth century, or the additions of Charles +VII., Louis XI., Charles VIII., Louis XII., or Henri III., we must +conclude that to know this conglomerate structure intimately one must +actually live with it. Nowhere in France--perhaps in no country--is +there a chateau that suggests so stupendously the story of its past. + +The chief and most remarkable features are undoubtedly the great +rectangular keep or donjon, and the Tour Neuf or Tour Ronde. The first, +in its immensity, quite rivals the best examples of the kind elsewhere, +if it does not actually excel them in dimensions. It is, moreover, +according to De Caumont, the most beautiful of all the donjons of +France. As a state prison it confined Jean, Duc d'Alencon, Pierre de +Breze, and Philippe de Savoie. + +The Tour Ronde is a great cylinder flanked with dependencies which give +it a more or less irregular form. It encloses the prison where were +formerly kept the famous cages, the invention of Cardinal Balue, who +himself became their first victim. The Tour Ronde is reminiscent of two +great female figures in the mediaeval portrait gallery,--Agnes Sorel and +Anne de Bretagne. The tomb of Agnes Sorel is here, and the Duchesse Anne +made an oratory in this grim tower, from which she sent up her prayer +for the success and unity of the political plans which inspired her +marriage into the royal family of France. It is a daintily decorated +chamber, with the queen's family device, the ermine with its twisted +necklet, prominently displayed. + +In the passage which conducts to the dungeons of this great round tower, +one reads this ironical invitation: "_Entres, messieurs, ches le Roy +Nostre Mestre_" (_O.F._). + +That portion of the collective chateaux facing to the north is now +occupied by the Sous-Prefecture, and is more after the manner of the +residential chateaux of the Loire than of a fortress-stronghold or +prison. Before this portion stands the famous chestnut-tree, planted, it +is said, by Francois I., "and large enough to shelter the whole +population of Loches beneath its foliage," says the same doubtful +authority. + +Under a fifteenth-century structure, called the Martelet, are the true +dungeons of Loches. Here one is shown the cell occupied for nine years +by the poor Ludovic Sforza, who died in 1510, from the mere joy of being +liberated. More deeply hidden still is the famous Prison des Eveques of +the era of Francois I. and the dungeon of Comte de St. Vallier, the +father of the fascinating Diane, who herself was the means of securing +his liberation by "fascinating the king," as one French writer puts it. +This may be so. St. Vallier _was_ liberated, we know, and the +susceptible Francois _was_ fascinated, though he soon tired of Diane and +her charms. She had the perspicacity, however, to transfer her +affections to his son, and so kept up a sort of family relationship. + +Like the historic "prisoner of Gisors," the occupants of the dungeons at +Loches whiled away their lonely hours by inscribing their sentiments +upon the walls. Only one remains to-day, though fragmentary stone-carved +letters and characters are to be seen here and there. He who wrote the +following was certainly as cheerful as circumstances would allow: + + "Malgre les ennuis d'une longue souffrance, + Et le cruel destin dont je subis la loy, + Il est encort des biens pour moy, + Le tendre amour et la douce esperance." + +Most of these formidable dungeons of Loches were prisons of state until +well into the sixteenth century. + +[Illustration: _Sketch Plan of Loches_] + +Beneath, or rather beside, the very walls of the chateau is the bizarre +collegiate church of St. Ours. One says bizarre, simply because it is +curious, and not because it is unchurchly in any sense of the word, for +it is not. Its low nave is surmounted by an enormous tower with a stone +spire, while there are two other pyramidal erections over the roof of +the choir which make the whole look, not like an elephant, as a cynical +Frenchman once wrote, but rather like a camel with two humps. This +strange architectural anomaly is, in parts, almost pagan; certainly its +font, a fragment of an ancient altar on which once burned a sacred fire, +_is_ pagan. + +[Illustration: _St. Ours, Loches_] + +There is a Romanesque porch of vast dimensions which is the real +artistic expression of the fabric, dressed with extraordinary primitive +sculptures of saints, demons, stryges, gnomes, and all manner of outre +things. All these details, however, are chiselled with a masterly +conception. + +Behind this exterior vestibule the first bays of the nave form another, +a sort of an inner vestibule, which carries out still further the unique +arrangement of the whole edifice. This portion of the structure dates +from a consecration of the year 965, which therefore classes it as of +very early date,--indeed, few are earlier. Most of the church, however, +is of the twelfth century, including another great pyramid which rises +above the nave and the two smaller ones just behind the spire. The +side-aisles of the nave were added between the twelfth and fifteenth +centuries, while only the stalls and the tabernacle are as recent as the +sixteenth. The eastern end is triapsed, an unusual feature in France. +From this one realizes, quite to the fullest extent possible, the +antiquity and individuality of the Eglise de St. Ours at Loches. + +The quaint Renaissance Hotel-de-Ville was built by the architect Jean +Beaudoin (1535-1543), from sums raised, under letters patent from +Francois I., by certain _octroi_ taxes. From the fact that through its +lower story passes one of the old city entrances, it has come to be +known also as the Porte Picoys. In every way it is a worthy example of +Renaissance civic architecture. + +In the Rue de Chateau is a remarkable Renaissance house, known as the +Chancellerie, which dates from the reign of Henri II. It has most +curious sculptures on its facade interspersed with the devices of +royalty and the inscription: + + IVSTITIA REGNO, PRUDENTIA NUTRISCO. + +The Tour St. Antoine serves to-day as the city's belfry. It is all that +remains of a church, demolished long since, which was built in 1519-30, +in imitation of St. Gatien's of Tours. Doubtless it was base in many of +its details, as is its more famous compeer at Tours; but, if the old +tower which remains is any indication, it must have been an elaborate +and imposing work of the late Gothic and early Renaissance era. + +As a literary note, lovers of Dumas's romances will be interested in the +fact that in the Hotel de la Couroirie at Loches a body of Protestants +captured the celebrated Chicot, the jester of Henri III. and Henri IV. + +Loches has a near neighbour in Beaulieu, which formerly possessed an +ardent hatred for its more progressive and successful contemporary, +Loches. Its very name has been perverted by local historians as coming +from Bellilocus, "the place of war," and not "_le lieu d'un bel +aspect_." + +The abbey church at Beaulieu was built by the warlike Foulques Nerra (in +1008-12), who usually built fortresses and left church-building to monks +and bishops. It is a remarkable Romanesque example, though, since the +fifteenth century, it has been mostly in ruins. Foulques Nerra himself, +whose countenance had "_la majeste de celui d'un ange_," found his last +resting-place within its walls, which also sheltered much rich ornament, +to-day greatly defaced, though that of the nave, which is still intact, +is an evidence of its former worth. + +The abbatial residence, still existent, has a curious exterior pulpit +built into the wall, examples of which are not too frequent in France. + +Agnes Sorel, the belle of belles, lived here for a time in a house near +the Porte de Guigne, which bears a great stone _panonceau_, from which +the armorial bearings have to-day disappeared. It is another notable +monument to "the most graceful woman of her times," and without doubt +has as much historic value as many another more popular shrine of +history. + +In connection with Agnes Sorel, who was so closely identified with +Loches and Beaulieu, it is to be recalled that she was known to the +chroniclers of her time as "_la dame de Beaute-sur-Marne_,"--a place +which does not appear in the books of the modern geographers. It may be +noted, too, that it was the encouragement of the "_belle des belles_" of +Charles VII. that, in a way, contributed to that monarch's success in +politics and arms, for her sway only began with Jeanne d'Arc's +supplication at Gien and Chinon. Tradition has it, indeed, that it was +the "gentille Agnes" who put the sword of victory in his hands when he +set out on his campaign of reconquest. Thus does the Jeanne d'Arc legend +receive a damaging blow. + +[Illustration: _Tours_] + +The chateau of Sausac, an elegant edifice of the sixteenth century, +completely restored in later days, is near by. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +TOURS AND ABOUT THERE + + +Tours, above all other of the ancient capitals of the French provinces, +remains to-day a _ville de luxe_, the elegant capital of a land balmy +and delicious; a land of which Dante sung: + + "Terra molle, e dolce e dilettosa...." + +It is not a very grand town as the secondary cities of France go; not +like Rouen or Lyons, Bordeaux or Marseilles; but it is as typical a +reflection of the surrounding country as any, and therein lies its +charm. + +One never comes within the influence of its luxurious, or, at least, +easy and comfortable appointments, its distinctly modern and up-to-date +railway station, its truly magnificent modern Hotel de Ville, its +well-appointed hotels and cafes and its luxurious shops, but that he +realizes all this to a far greater extent than in any other city of +France. + +And again, referring to the material things of life, everything is most +comfortable, and the restaurants and hotels most attractive in their +fare. Tours is truly one provincial capital where the _cuisine +bourgeoise_ still lives. + +Touraine, and Tours in particular, besides many other things, is noted +for its hotels. Their praises have been sung often and loudly, not +forgetting Henry James's praise of the Hotel de l'Univers, which is all +one expects to find it and more. The same may be said of the Hotel du +Croissant, with the added opinion that it serves the most bountiful and +excellent _dejeuner_ to be had in all provincial France. It is difficult +to say just what actually causes all this excellence and abundance, +except that the catering there is an easy and pleasurable occupation. + +The Rue Nationale--"_toujours et vraiment royale_"--is the great artery +of Tours running riverwards. On it circulates all the life of the city. + +To the right is the Quartier de la Cathedrale, where are assembled the +great houses of the nobility--or such of them as are left--and of the +old _bourgeoisie tourangelle_. + +To the left are the streets of the workers, a silk-mill or two, and the +printing-offices. Tours is and always has been celebrated for the +number and size of its _imprimeries_, with which, in olden times, the +name of the great Christopher Plantin, the master printer of Antwerp, +was connected. To-day, Tours's greatest establishment is that of Alfred +Mame et Fils, known throughout the Roman Catholic world. + +[Illustration: ARMS OF THE PRINTERS, _AVOCATS_, AND INNKEEPERS, TOURS] + +The printers and booksellers of the middle ages were favoured persons, +and their rank was high. In the days of solemn processions the +booksellers led the way, followed by the paper-makers, the +parchment-makers, the scribes,--who had not wholly died out,--the +binders and the illuminators. In these days the printers were granted an +emblazoned arms, which was characteristic and distinguished. The same +was true of the _avocats_, who bore upon their escutcheon a gowned +figure, with something very like a halo surrounding its head. The +innkeepers went one better, and had a bishop with an undeniable halo. +This is curious and inexplicable in the light of our modern conception +of similar things, but it's better than a shield with quarterings +representing half a canal-boat and half a locomotive, which was recently +adopted by an enterprising watering-place which shall be nameless. + +In the same ancient quarter are the old towers of Charlemagne and St. +Martin. This part of the town is the nucleus of the old foundation, the +site of the _oppidum_ of the _Turones_, the _Caesarodunum gallo-romain_, +and of the life which centred around the old abbey of St. Martin, so +venerated and so powerful in the middle ages. + +To the inviolable refuge of this old abbey came multitudes of Christian +pilgrims from the world over; the Merovingians to undergo the penances +imposed upon them by the bishops and clerics in expiation of their +crimes. Under Charlemagne, the Abbe Alcuin founded great schools of +languages, history, astronomy, and music, from which founts of learning +went forth innumerable and illustrious religious teachers. + +All but the two towers of this old religious foundation are gone. The +years of the Revolution saw the fall of the abbey; a street was cut +through the nave of its church, and the two dismembered parts stand +to-day as monuments to the sacrilege of modern times. + +To-day a banal faubourg has sprung up around the site of the abbey, with +here and there old tumble-down houses either of wood and stone, such as +one reads of in the pages of Balzac, or sees in the designs of Dore, or +with their sides covered with overlapping slates. + +Amid all these is an occasional treasure of architectural art, such as +the graceful Fountain of Beaune, the work of Michel Colombe, and some +remains of early Renaissance houses of somewhat more splendid +appointments than their fellows, particularly the Maison de Tristan +l'Hermite, the Hotel Xaincoings, and many exquisite fragments now made +over into an _auberge_ or a _cabaret_, which make one dream of Rabelais +and his Gargantua. + +It is uncertain whether Michel Colombe, who designed this fountain and +also that masterwork, the tomb of the Duc Francois II. and Marguerite de +Foix, at Nantes, was a Tourangeau or a Breton, but Tours claims him for +her own, and settles once for all the spelling of his name by producing +a "_papier des affaires_" signed plainly "Colombe." The proof lies in +this document, signed in a notary's office at Tours, concerning payments +which were made to him on behalf of the magnificent sepulchre which he +executed for the church of St. Sauveur at La Rochelle. In his +time--fifteenth century--Colombe had no rivals in the art of monumental +sculpture in France, and with reason he has been called the Michel Ange +of France. + +The cathedral quarter has for its chief attraction that gorgeously +florid St. Gatien, whose ornate facade was likened by a certain monarch +to a magnificently bejewelled casket. It is an interesting and lovable +Gothic-Renaissance church which, if not quite of the first rank among +the masterpieces of its kind, is a marvel of splendour, and an example +of the "_caprices d'une guipure d'art_," as the French call it. + +Bordering the Loire at Tours is a series of tree-lined quays and +promenades which are the scenes, throughout the spring and summer +months, of fetes and fairs of many sorts. Here, too, at the extremity of +the Rue Nationale, are statues of Descartes and Balzac. + +The Tour de Guise on the river-bank recalls the domination of the +Plantagenet kings of England, who were Counts of Anjou since it formed a +part of the twelfth-century chateau built here by Henry II. of England. + +[Illustration: SCENE IN THE QUARTIER DE LA CATHEDRALE, TOURS] + +At the opposite extremity of the city is another other tower, the Tour +de Foubert, which protected the feudal domain of the old abbey of St. +Martin. The history of days gone by at Tours was more churchly than +political. + +Once only--during the reign of Louis XII.--did the States General meet +at Tours (in 1506). Then the deputies of the _bourgeoisie_ met alone for +their deliberations, the chief outcome of which was to bestow upon the +king the eminently fitting title of "Pere du Peuple." One may question +the righteousness of Louis XII. in throwing over his wife, Jeanne de +France, in order to serve political ends by acquiring the estates of +Anne of Brittany for the Crown of France for ever, but there is no doubt +but that he did it for the "_good of his people_." + +The principal literary shrine at Tours is the house, in the Rue +Nationale, where was born Honore de Balzac. + +One could not do better than to visit Tours during the "_ete de St. +Martin_," since it was the soldier-priest of Tours who gave his name to +that warm, bright prolongation of summer which in France (and in +England) is known as "St. Martin's summer," and which finds its +counterpart in America's "Indian summer." + +The legend tells us that somewhere in the dark ages lived a soldier +named Martin. He was always of a charitable disposition, and none asked +alms of him in vain. One November day, when the wind blew briskly and +the snow fell fast, a beggar asked for food and clothing. Martin had but +his own cloak, and this he forthwith tore in half and gave one portion +to the beggar. Later on the same night there came a knocking at Martin's +door; the snow had ceased falling and the stars shone brightly, and one +of goodly presence stood with the cloak on his arm, saying, "I was naked +and ye clothed me." Martin straightway became a priest of the church, +and died an honoured bishop of Tours, and for ever after the anniversary +of his conversion is celebrated by sunny skies. + +We owe a double debt to St. Martin. We have to thank him for the saying, +"_All my eye_" and the words "_chapel_" and "_chaplain_." The full form +of the phrase, "_All my eye and Betty Martin_," which we all of us have +often heard, is an obvious corruption of "_O mihi beate Martine_," the +beginning of an invocation to the saint. The cloak he divided with a +naked beggar, which, by the way, took place at Amiens, not at Tours, was +treasured as a relic by the Frankish kings, borne before them in battle, +and brought forth when solemn oaths were to be taken. The guardians of +this cloak or cape were known as "_cappellani_," whence "_chaplain_," +while its sanctuary or "_cappella_" has become "_chapel_." + +For their descriptions of Plessis-les-Tours modern English travellers +have invariably turned to the pages of Sir Walter Scott. This is all +very well in its way, but it is also well to remember that Scott drew +his picture from definite information, and it is not merely the product +of his imaginary architectural skill. In this respect Scott was +certainly far ahead of Carlyle in his estimates of French matters. + +"Even in those days" (writing of "Quentin Durward"), said Scott, "when +the great found themselves obliged to reside in places of fortified +strength, it" (Plessis-les-Tours) "was distinguished for the extreme and +jealous care with which it was watched and defended." All this is +substantiated and corroborated by authorities, and, while it may have +been chosen by Scott merely as a suitable accessory for the details of +his story, Plessis-les-Tours unquestionably was a royal stronghold of +such proportions as to be but meanly suggested by the scanty remains of +the present day. + +Louis XI. dreamed fondly of Plessis-les-Tours (Plessis being from the +Latin _Plexitium_, a name borne by many suburban villages of France), +and he sought to make it a royal residence where he should be safe from +every outward harm. It had four great towers, crenelated and +machicolated, after the best Gothic fortresses of the time. At the four +angles of the protecting walls were the principal logis, and between the +lines of its ramparts or fosses was an advance-guard of buildings +presumably intended for the vassals in time of danger. + +This was the castle as Louis first knew it, when it was the property of +the chamberlain of the Duchy of Luynes, from whom the king bought it for +five thousand and five hundred _ecus d'or_,--the value of fifty thousand +francs of to-day. + +Its former appellation, Montilz-les-Tours, was changed (1463) to +Plessis. All the chief features have disappeared, and to-day it is but a +scrappy collection of tumble-down buildings devoted to all manner of +purposes. A few fragmentary low-roofed vaults are left, and a brick and +stone building, flanked by an octagonal tower, containing a stairway; +but this is about all of the former edifice, which, if not as splendid +as some other royal residences, was quite as effectively defended and as +suitable to its purposes as any. + +[Illustration: _PLESSIS-Les-TOURS. In the time of Louis XI_] + +It had, too, within its walls a tiny chapel dedicated to Our Lady of +Clery, before whose altar the superstitious Louis made his inconstant +devotions. + +Once a great forest surrounded the chateau, and was, as Scott says, +"rendered dangerous and well-nigh impracticable by snares and traps +armed with scythe-blades, which shred off the unwary traveller's limbs +... and calthrops that would pierce your foot through, and pitfalls deep +enough to bury you in them for ever." To-day the forest has disappeared, +"lost in the night of time," as a French historian has it. + +The detailed description in "Quentin Durward" is, however, as good as +any, and, if one has no reference works in French by him, he may well +read the dozen or more pages which Sir Walter devotes to the further +description of the castle. + +Perhaps, after all, it is fitting that a Scot should have written so +enthusiastically of it, for the castle itself was guarded by the +Scottish archers, "to the number of three hundred gentlemen of the best +blood of Scotland." + +An anonymous poet has written of the ancient glory of this retreat of +Louis's as follows: + + "Un imposant chateau se presente a la vue, + Par des portes de fer l'entree est defendue; + Les murs en sont epais et les fosses profonds; + On y voit des creneaux, des tours, des bastions, + Et des soldats armes veillent sur ses murailles." + +Frame this with such details as the surrounding country supplies, the +Cher on one side, the Loire on the other, and the fertile hills of St. +Cyr, of Ballon, and of Joue, and one has a picture worthy of the +greatest painter of any time. + +Louis XI. died at Plessis, after having lived there many years. Louis +XII. made of it a _rendezvous de chasse_, but Francois II. confided its +care to a governor and would never live in it. Louis XIV. gave the +governorship as a hereditary perquisite to the widow of the Seigneur de +Sausac. + +In 1778 it was used as a sort of retreat for the indigent, though +happily enough Touraine was never overburdened with this class of +humanity. Under Louis XV. a Mademoiselle Deneux, a momentary rival of La +Pompadour and Du Barry, found a retreat here. Later it became a _maison +de correction_, and finally a _depot militaire_. At the time of the +Revolution it was declared to be national property, and on the +_nineteenth Nivoise, Year IV._, Citizen Cormeri, justice of the peace at +Tours, fixed its value at one hundred and thirty-one thousand francs. + +To-day it is as bare and uncouth as a mere barracks or as a disused +flour-mill, and its ruins are visited partly because of their former +historical glories, as recalled by students of French history, and +partly because of the glamour which was shed over it, for English +readers, by Scott. + +Sixty years ago a French writer deplored the fact that, on leaving these +scanty remains of a so long gone past, he observed a notice nailed to a +pillar of the _porte-cochere_ reading: + + LA FERME DU PLESSIS + O LOUER OU A VENDRE + +To-day some sort of a division and rearrangement of the property has +been made, but the result is no less mournful and sad, and thus a +glorious page of the annals of France has become blurred. + +It is interesting to recall what manner of persons composed the +household of Louis XI. when he resided at Plessis-les-Tours. Commines, +his historian, has said that habitually it consisted of a chancellor, a +_juge de l'hotel_, a private secretary, and a treasurer, each having +under him various employees. In addition there was a master of the +pantry, a cupbearer, a _chef de bouche_ and a _chef de cuisine_, a +_fruitier_, a master of the horse, a quartermaster or master-at-arms, +and, in immediate control of these domestic servants, a _seneschal_ or +_grand maitre_. In many respects the household was not luxuriously +conducted, for the parsimonious Louis lived fully up to the false maxim: +"_Qui peu donne, beaucoup recueille._" + +Louis himself was fond of doing what the modern housewife would call +"messing about in the kitchen." He did not dabble at cookery as a +pastime, or that sort of thing; but rather he kept an eagle eye on the +whole conduct of the affairs of the household. + +One day, coming to the kitchen _en neglige_, he saw a small boy turning +a spit before the fire. + +"And what might you be called?" said he, patting the lad on the +shoulder. + +"Etienne," replied the _marmiton_. + +"Thy _pays_, my lad?" + +"Le Berry." + +"Thy age?" + +"Fifteen, come St. Martin's." + +"Thy wish?" + +"To be as great as the king" (he had not recognized his royal master). + +"And what wishes the king?" + +"His expenses to become less." + +The reply brought good fortune for the lad, for Louis made him his +_valet de chambre_, and took him afterward into his most intimate +confidence. + +Louis was fond of _la chasse_, and Scott does not overlook this fact in +"Quentin Durward." When affairs of state did not press, it was the +king's greatest pleasure. For the royal hunt no pains or expense were +spared. The carriages were without an equal elsewhere in the courts of +Europe, and the hunting establishment was equipped with _chiens +courants_ from Spain, _levriers_ from Bretagne, _bassets_ from Valence, +mules from Sicily, and horses from Naples. + +The attractions of the environs of Tours are many and interesting: St. +Symphorien, Varennes, the Grottoes of Ste. Radegonde, and the site of +that most famous abbey of Marmoutier, also a foundation of St. Martin. +Here, under the name Martinus Monasterium, grew up an immense and superb +establishment. From an old seventeenth-century print one quotes the +following couplet: + + "De quel cote que le vent vente + Marmoutier a cens et rente." + +From this one infers that the abbey's original functions are performed +no more. + +[Illustration: _ENVIRONS OF TOURS_] + +In the middle ages (thirteenth century) it was one of the most powerful +institutions of its class, and its church one of the most beautiful in +Touraine. The tower and donjon are the only substantial remains of this +early edifice. + +A curious chapel, called the "Chapelle des Sept Dormants," is here cut +in the form of a cross into the rock of the hillside, where are buried +the remains of the Seven Sleepers, the disciples of St. Martin, who, as +the holy man had predicted, all died on the same day. + +Beyond Marmoutier, a stairway of 122 steps, cut also in the rock, leads +to the plateau on which stands the gaunt and ugly Lanterne de +Rochecorbon, a fourteenth-century construction with a crenelated summit, +an unlovely companion of that even more enigmatic erection known as "La +Pile," a few miles down the Loire at Cinq-Mars. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +LUYNES AND LANGEAIS + + +Below Tours, and before reaching Saumur, are a succession of panoramic +surprises which are only to be likened to those of our imagination, but +they are very real nevertheless. + +As one leaves Tours by the road which skirts the right bank of the +Loire, he is once more impressed by the fact that the _cailloux de +Loire_ are the river's chief product, though fried fish, of a similar +variety to those found in the Seine, are found on the menus of all +roadside taverns and restaurants. + +Still, the effect of the uncovered bed of the Loire, with its variegated +pebbles and mirror-like pools, is infinitely more picturesque than if it +were mud flats, and its tree-bordered banks are for ever opening great +alleyed vistas such as are only known in France. + +The hills on either bank are not of the stupendous and magnificently +scenic order of those of the Seine above and below Rouen; but, such as +they are, they are of much the same composition, a soft talcy formation +which here serves admirably the purposes of cliff-dwellings for the +vineyard and wine-press workers, who form practically the sole +population of the Loire villages from Vouvray, just above Tours, to +Saumur far below. + +On the hillsides are the vineyards themselves, growing out of the thin +layer of soil in shades of red and brown and golden, which no artist has +ever been able to copy, for no one has painted the rich colouring of a +vineyard in a manner at all approaching the original. + +Not far below Tours, on the right bank, rise the towers and turrets of +the Chateau de Luynes, hanging perilously high above the lowland which +borders upon the river. An unpleasant tooting tram gives communication a +dozen times a day with Tours, but few, apparently, patronize it except +peasants with market-baskets, and vineyard workers going into town for a +jollification. It is perhaps just as well, for the fine little town of +Luynes, which takes its name from the chateau which has been the +residence of a Comte de Luynes since the days of Louis XIII., would be +quite spoiled if it were on the beaten track. + +[Illustration: A VINEYARD OF VOUVRAY] + +The brusque facade of the Chateau de Luynes makes a charming interior, +judging from the descriptions and drawings which are to be met with in +an elaborately prepared volume devoted to its history. + +The stranger is allowed to enter within the gates of the courtyard, +beneath the grim coiffed towers; but he may visit only certain +apartments. He will, however, see enough to indicate that the edifice +was something more than a mere _maison de campagne_. All the attributes +of an important fortress are here, great, round, thickly built towers, +with but few exterior windows, and those high up from the ground. There +is nothing of luxurious elegance about it, and its aspect is forbidding, +though imposing. + +The chateau belies its looks somewhat, for it was built only in the +fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when, in most of its neighbours, the +more or less florid Renaissance was in vogue. A Renaissance structure in +stone and brick forms a part of that which faces on the interior court, +and is flanked by a fine octagonal "_tour d'escalier_." + +From the terrace of the courtyard one gets an impressive view of the +Loire, which glides by two or more kilometres away, and of the towers +and roof-tops of Tours, and the vine-carpeted hills which stretch away +along the river's bank in either direction. + +The chateau of Luynes is still in the possession of a Duc de Luynes, +through whose courtesy one may visit such of the apartments as his +servants are allowed to show. It is not so great an exhibition, nor so +good a one, as is to be had at Langeais; but it is satisfactory as far +as it goes, and, when it is supplemented by the walks and views which +are to be had on the plateau, upon which the grim-towered chateau sits, +the memory of it all becomes most pleasurable. + +The former Ducs de Luynes were continually appearing in the historic +events of the later Renaissance period, but it was only with Louis +XIII., he who would have put France under the protection of the Virgin, +that the chatelain of Luynes came to a position of real power. Louis +made Albert, the Gascon, both Duc de Luynes and Connetable de France, +and thereby gave birth to a tyrant whom he hated and feared, as he did +his mother, his wife, and his minister, Richelieu. + +[Illustration: _Mediaeval Stairway and the Chateau de Luynes_] + +The site occupied by the chateau of Luynes is truly marvellous, though, +as a matter of fact, there is no great magnificence about the +proportions of the chateau itself. It is piled gracefully on the top +of a table-land which rises abruptly from the Loire and has a charmingly +quaint old town nestled confidingly below it, as if for protection. + +One reaches the chateau by any one of a half-dozen methods, by the +highroad which bends around in hairpin curves until it reaches the +plateau above, by various paths across or around the vineyards of the +hillside, or by a quaintly cut mediaeval stairway, levelled and terraced +in the gravelly soil until it ends just beneath the frowning walls of +the chateau itself. From this point one gets quite the most imposing +aspect of the chateau to be had, its towers and turrets piercing the sky +high above the head, and carrying the mind back to the days when +civilization meant something more--or less--than it does to-day, with +the toot of a steam-tram down below on the river's bank and the midday +whistles of the factories of Tours rending one's ears the moment he +forgets the past and recalls the present. + +To-day the Chateau de Luynes is modern, at least to the extent that it +is lived in, and has all the refinements of a modern civilization; but +one does not realize all this from an exterior contemplation, and only +as one strolls through the apartments publicly shown, and gets glimpses +of electrical conveniences and modern arrangements, does he wonder how +far different it may have been before all this came to pass. + +Built in early Renaissance times, the chateau has all the peculiarities +of the feudal period, when window-openings were few and far between, and +high up above the level of the pavement. In feudal and warlike times +this often proved an admirable feature; but one would have thought that, +with the beginning of the Renaissance, a more ample provision would have +been made for the admission of sunshine. + +The _chef-d'oeuvre_ of this really great architectural monument is +undoubtedly the facade of the beautiful fifteenth-century courtyard. +There is nothing even remotely feudal here, but a purely decorative +effect which is as charming in its way as is the exterior facade of +Azay-le-Rideau. "A poem," it has been called, "in weather-worn timber +and stone," and the simile could hardly be improved upon. + +The town, too, or such of it as immediately adjoins the chateau, is +likewise charming and quaint, and sleepily indolent as far as any great +activity is concerned. + +Luynes was the seat of a seigneurie until 1619, when it became a +possession of the Comte de Maille. Finally it came to Charles d'Albert, +known as "D'Albert de Luynes," a former page to Henri IV., who afterward +became the favourite and the Guardian of the Seals of Louis XIV.; and +thus the earlier foundation of Maille became known as Luynes. + +Except for its old houses of wood and stone, its old wooden +market-house, and its tortuous streets of stairs, there are few features +here, except the chateau, which take rank as architectural monuments of +worth. The church is a modern structure, built after the Romanesque +manner and wholly without warmth and feeling. + +From the height on which stands the chateau of Luynes one sees, as his +eye follows the course of the Loire to the southwestward, the gaunt, +unbeautiful "Pile" of Cinq-Mars. The origin of this singular square +tower, looking for all the world like a factory chimney or some great +ventilating-shaft, is lost far back in Carlovingian, or perhaps Roman, +times. It is a mystery to archaeologists and antiquarians, some claiming +it to be a military monument, others a beacon by land, and yet others +believing it to be of some religious significance. + +At all events, all the explanations ignore the four _pyramidions_ of +its topmost course, and these, be it remarked, are quite the most +curious feature of the whole fabric. + +To many the name of the little town of Cinq-Mars will suggest that of +the Marquis de Cinq-Mars, a court favourite of Louis XIII. It was the +ambitious but unhappy career at court of this young gallant which +ultimately resulted in his death on the scaffold, and in the razing, by +Richelieu, of his ancestral residence, the castle of Cinq-Mars, "to the +heights of infamy." The expression is a curious one, but history so +records it. All that is left to-day to remind one of the stronghold of +the D'Effiats of Cinq-Mars are its two crumbling gate-towers with an +arch between and a few fragmentary foundation walls which follow the +summit of the cliff behind "La Pile." + +The little town of not more than a couple of thousand inhabitants +nestles in a bend of the Loire, where there is so great a breadth that +it looks like a long-drawn-out lake. The low hills, so characteristic of +these parts, stretch themselves on either bank, unbroken except where +some little streamlet forces its way by a gentle ravine through the +scrubby undergrowth. Oaks and firs and huge limestone cliffs jut out +from the top of the hillside on the right bank and shelter the town +which lies below. + +[Illustration: _Ruins of Cinq-Mars_] + +Cinq-Mars is a miniature metropolis, though not a very progressive one +at first sight; indeed, beyond its long main street and its houses, +which cluster about its grim, though beautiful, tenth and twelfth +century church, there are few signs of even provincial importance. + +In reality Cinq-Mars is the centre of a large and important wine +industry, where you may hear discussed, at the _table d'hote_ of its not +very readily found little inn, the poor prices which the usually +abundant crop always brings. The native even bewails the fact that he is +not blessed with a poor season or two and then he would be able to sell +his fine vintages for something more than three sous a litre. By the +time it reaches Paris this _vin de Touraine_ of commerce has aggrandized +itself so that it commands two francs fifty centimes on the Boulevards, +and a franc fifty in the University quarter. + +The fall of Henri Cinq-Mars was most pathetic, though no doubt moralists +will claim that because of his covetous ambitions he deserved nothing +better. + +He went up to Paris from Touraine, a boy of twenty, and was presented to +the king, who was immediately impressed by his distinguished manners. +From infancy Cinq-Mars had been a lover of life in the open. He had +hunted the forests of Touraine, and had angled the waters of the Loire, +and thus he came to give a new zest to the already sad life of Louis +XIII. Honour after honour was piled upon him until he was made Grand +Seneschal of France and Master of the King's Horse, at which time he +dropped his natal patronymic and became known as "Monsieur le Grand." + +Cinq-Mars fell madly in love with Marion Delorme and wished to make her +"Madame la Grande," but the dowager Marquise de Cinq-Mars would not hear +of it: Mlle. Marion Delorme, the Aspasia of her day, would be no honour +to the ancestral tree of the Effiats of Cinq-Mars. + +Headstrong and wilful, one early morning, Monsieur le Grand and his +beloved, then only thirty, took coach from her hotel in the Rue des +Tournelles at Paris for the old family castle in Touraine, sitting high +on the hills above the feudal village which bore the name of Cinq-Mars. +In the chapel they were secretly married, and for eight days the +proverbial marriage-bell rang true. Their Nemesis appeared on the ninth +day in the person of the dowager, and Cinq-Mars told his mother that +the whole affair was simply a _passe temps_, and that Mlle. Delorme was +still Mlle. Delorme. His mother would not be deceived, however, and she +flew for succour to Richelieu, who himself was more than slightly +acquainted with the charms of the fair Marion. + +This was Cinq-Mars's downfall. He advised the king "by fair means or +foul, let Richelieu die," and the king listened. A conspiracy was +formed, by Cinq-Mars and others, to do away with the cardinal, _and even +the king_, at whose death Gaston of Orleans was to be proclaimed regent +for his nephew, the infant Louis XIV. + +The court went to Narbonne, on the Mediterranean, that it might be near +aid from Spain; all of which was a subterfuge of Cinq-Mars. The rest +moves quickly: Richelieu discovered the plot; Cinq-Mars attempted to +flee disguised as a Spaniard, was captured and brought as a prisoner to +the castle at Montpellier. + +Richelieu had proved the more powerful of the two; but he was dying, and +this is the reason, perhaps, why he hurried matters. Cinq-Mars, "the +amiable criminal," went to the torture-chamber, and afterward to the +scaffold. + +"Then," say the old chronicles, "Richelieu ordered that the feudal +castle of Cinq-Mars, in the valley of the Loire, should be blown up, +and the towers razed to the height of infamy." + +From Cinq-Mars to Langeais, whose chateau is really one of the most +appealing sights of the Loire, the characteristics of the country are +topographically and economically the same; green hills slope, +vine-covered, to the river, with here and there a tiny rivulet flowing +into the greater stream. + +As at Cinq-Mars, the chief commodity of Langeais is wine, rich, red wine +and pale amber, too, but all of it wine of a quality and at a price +which would make the city-dweller envious indeed. + +There are two distinct chateaux at Langeais; at least, there is _the_ +chateau, and just beyond the ornamental stone-carpet of its courtyard +are the ruins of one of the earliest donjons, or keeps, in all France. +It dates from the year 990, and was built by the celebrated Comte +d'Anjou, Foulques Nerra, "_un criminel devoye des hommes et de Dieu_," +whose hobby, evidently, was building chateaux, as his "follies" in stone +are said to have encumbered the land in those old days. + +Taken and retaken, dismantled and in part razed in the fifteenth +century, it gave place to the present chateau by the orders of Louis +XI. + +[Illustration: _Chateau de Langeais_] + +The Chateau de Langeais of to-day is a robust example of its kind; its +walls, flanked by great hooded towers, have a surrounding "_guette_," or +gallery, which served as a means of communication from one part of the +establishment to another and, in warlike times, allowed boiling oil or +melted lead, or whatever they may have used for the purpose, to be +poured down upon the heads of any besiegers who had the audacity to +attack it. + +There is no glacis or moat, but the machicolations, sixty feet or more +up from the ground, must have afforded a well-nigh perfect means of +repelling a near attack. + +Altogether Langeais is a redoubtable little chateau of the period, and +its aspect to-day has changed but very little. "It is the swan-song of +expiring feudalism," said the Abbe Bosseboeuf. + +One gets a thrill of heroic emotion when he views its hardy walls for +the first time: "a mountain of stone, a heroic poem of Gothic art," it +has with reason been called. + +Jean Bourre, the minister of Louis XI., built the present chateau about +1460. The chief events of its history were the drawing up within its +walls of the "common law" of Touraine, by the order of Charles VII., and +the marriage of Charles VIII. with Anne de Bretagne, on the 16th of +December, 1491. + +The land belonged, in 1276, to Pierre de Brosse, the minister of +Philippe-le-Hardi; later, to Francois d'Orleans, son of the celebrated +_Batard_; to the Princesse de Conti, daughter of the Duc de Guise; to +the families Du Bellay and D'Effiats, Barons of Cinq-Mars; and, finally, +to the Duc de Luynes, in whose hands it remained up to the Revolution. + +Honore de Balzac, who may well be called one of the historians of +Touraine, gave to one of his heroines the name of Langeais. To-day, +however, the family of Langeais does not exist, and, indeed, according +to the chronicles, never had any connection with either the donjon of +Foulques Nerra or the chateau of the fifteenth century. The present +owner is M. Jacques Siegfreid, who has admirably restored and furnished +it after the Gothic style of the middle ages. + +The chateau of Langeais, like that of Chenonceaux, is occupied, as one +learns from a visit to its interior. A lackey of a superior order +receives you; you pay a franc for an admission ticket, and the lackey +conducts you through nearly, if not quite all, of the apartments. Where +the family goes during this process it is hard to say, but doubtless +they are willing to inconvenience themselves for the benefit of +"touring" humanity. + +The interior, no less than the exterior, impresses one as being +something which has lived in the past, and yet exists to-day in all its +original glory, for the present proprietor, with the aid of an admirable +adviser, M. Lucien Roy, a Parisian architect, has produced a resemblance +of its former furnishings which, so far as it goes, is beyond criticism. + +There is nothing of bareness about it, nor is there an over-luxuriant +interpolation of irrelevant things, such as a curator crowds into a +museum. In short, nothing more has been done than to attempt to +reconstitute a habitation of the fifteenth century. For seventeen years +the work has gone on, and there have been collected many authentic +furnishings contemporary with the fabric itself, great oaken beds, +tables, chairs, benches, tapestries, and other articles. In addition, +the decorations have been carried out after the same manner, copied in +many cases from contemporary pictures and prints. + +To-day, the general aspect is that of a peaceful household, with all +recollections of feudal times banished for ever. All is tranquil, +respectable, and luxurious, and it would take a chronic faultfinder not +to be content with the manner with which these admirable restorations +and refurnishings have been carried out. + +One notes particularly the infinite variety and appropriateness of the +tiling which goes to make up the floors of these great salons--modern +though it is. The great chimneypieces, however, are ancient, and have +not been retouched. Those in the Salle des Gardes and the Salle where +was celebrated the marriage of Charles VIII. and Anne de Bretagne, with +their ornamentation in the best of Gothic, are especially noteworthy. + +This latter apartment is the chief attraction of the chateau and the +room of which the present dwellers in this charming monument of history +are naturally the most proud. To-day it forms the great dining-hall of +the establishment. Mementos of this marriage, so momentous for France, +are exceedingly numerous along the lower Loire, but this handsome room +quite leads them all. This marriage, and the goods and lands it brought +to the Crown, had but one stipulation connected with it, and that was +that the Duchesse Anne should be privileged to marry the elderly king's +successor, should she survive her royal husband. + +[Illustration: ARMS OF LOUIS XII. AND ANNE DE BRETAGNE] + +Louis XII. was not at all opposed to becoming the husband of la Duchesse +Anne after Charles VIII. had met his death on the tennis-court, because +this second marriage would for ever bind to France that great province +ruled by the gentle Anne. + +In the Salle des Gardes are six valuable tapestries representing such +heroic figures as Caesar and Charlemagne, surrounded by their companions +in arms. + +From the towers, on a clear day, one may see the pyramids of the +cathedral at Tours rising on the horizon to the northward. Below is the +Chateau de Villandry, where Philippe-Auguste met Henry II. of England to +conclude a memorable peace. To the right is Azay-le-Rideau, and to the +extreme right are the ruined towers of Cinq-Mars and its Pile. Nothing +could be more delicious on a bright summer's day than the view from the +ramparts of Langeais over the roof-tops of the charming little town in +the foreground. + +Some time after the Revolution there was found, in the gardens of the +chateau, the remains of a _chapelle romaine_ which historians, who have +searched the annals of antiquity in Touraine, claim to have been the +chapel in honour of St. Sauveur which Foulques V., called le Jeune, one +of the five Counts of Anjou of that name, constructed upon his return +from his voyage to Palestine in the twelfth century. To-day it is +overgrown with a trellised grapevine and is practically not visible, +still it is another architectural monument of the first rank with which +the not very ample domain of the Chateau de Langeais is endowed. + +From the courtyard the walls of the chateau take on a Renaissance +aspect; a tiny doorway beside the great gate is manifestly Renaissance; +so, too, are the polygonal towers, with their winding stairs, the +pignons and gables of the roof, and what carved stone there is in +evidence. Three stone stairways which mount by the slender _tourelles_ +serve to communicate with the various floors to-day as they did in the +times of Charles VIII. + +The courtyard itself, with its formal carpet design in stone, its shaded +walls, its stone seats, and its Roman sarcophagus, is a pleasant +retreat, but it has not the seclusion of the larger park, delightful +though it is. + +Just before the drawbridge of the old chateau, that mediaeval gateway by +which one enters to-day, one sees the Maison de Rabelais, who is the +deity of Langeais and Chinon, as is Balzac that of Tours. It is a fine +old-time house of a certain amplitude and grandeur among its less +splendid fellows, now given over, on the ground floor, to a bakery and +pastry-shop. Enough is left of its original aspect, and the Renaissance +decorations of its facade are sufficiently well preserved to stamp it as +a worthy abode for the "Cure de Chinon," who lived here for some years. + +Two other names in literature are connected with Langeais: Ronsard, the +poet, who lived here for a time, and Cesar-Alexis-Chichereau, Chevalier +de la Barre, who was a poet and a troubadour of repute. + +The main street of Langeais is still flanked with good Gothic and +Renaissance houses, neither pretentious nor mean, but of that order +which sets off to great advantage the walls and towers and porches of +the chateau and the church. This street follows the ancient Roman +roadway which traversed the valley of the Loire through Gaul. + +The river is here crossed by one of those too frequent, though useful, +suspension-bridges, with which the Loire abounds. The guide-books call +it _beau_, but it is not. One has to cross it to reach Azay-le-Rideau, +which lies ten kilometres or more away across the Indre. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +AZAY-LE-RIDEAU, USSE, AND CHINON + + +From Langeais, one's obvious route lies towards Chinon, via +Azay-le-Rideau and Usse. These latter are practically within the forest, +though the Foret de Chinon proper does not actually begin until one +leaves Azay behind, when for twenty kilometres or more one of the most +superb forest roads in France crosses many hills and dales until it +finally descends into Chinon itself. + +Like most forest roads in France, this highway is not flat; it rises and +falls with a sheer that is sometimes precipitous, but always with a +gravelled surface that gives little dust, and which absorbs water as the +sand from the pounce-box of our forefathers dried up ink. This simile +calls to mind the fact that in twentieth-century France the pounce-box +is still in use, notably at wayside railway stations, where the agent +writes you out your ticket and dries it off in a box, not of sand, but +of sawdust. + +To partake of the hospitality of Azay-le-Rideau one must arrive before +four in the afternoon, and not earlier than midday. From the photographs +and post-cards by which one has become familiar with Azay-le-Rideau, it +appears like a great country house sitting by itself far away from any +other habitation. In England this is often the case, in France but +seldom. + +Clustered around the walls of the not very great park which surrounds +the chateau are all manner of shops and cafes, not of the tourist +order,--for there is very little here to suggest that tourists ever +come, though indeed they do, by twos and threes throughout all the +year,--but for the accommodation of the population of the little town +itself, which must approximate a couple of thousand souls, all of whom +appear to be engaged in the culture of the vine and its attendant +pursuits, as the wine-presses, the coopers' shops, and other similar +establishments plainly show. There is, moreover, the pleasant smell of +fermented grape-juice over all, which, like the odour of the hop-fields +of Kent, is conducive to sleep; and there lies the charm of +Azay-le-Rideau, which seems always half-asleep. + +The Hotel du Grand Monarque is a wonderfully comfortable country inn, +with a dining-room large enough to accommodate half a hundred persons, +but which, most likely, will serve only yourself. One incongruous note +is sounded,--convenient though it be,--and that is the electric light +which illuminates the hotel and its dependencies, including the stables, +which look as though they might once have been a part of a mediaeval +chateau themselves. + +However, since posting days and tallow dips have gone for ever, one +might as well content himself with the superior civilization which +confronts him, and be comfortable at least. + +The Chateau d'Azay-le-Rideau is one of the gems of Touraine's splendid +collection of Renaissance art treasures, though by no means is it one of +the grandest or most imposing. + +A tree-lined avenue leads from the village street to the chateau, which +sits in the midst of a tiny park; not a grand expanse as at Chambord or +Chenonceaux, but a sort of green frame with a surrounding moat, fed by +the waters of the Indre. + +The main building is square, with a great coiffed round tower at each +corner. The Abbe Chevalier, in his "Promenades Pittoresques en +Touraine," called it the purest and best of French Renaissance, and such +it assuredly is, if one takes a not too extensive domestic +establishment of the early years of the sixteenth century as the typical +example. + +Undoubtedly the sylvan surroundings of the chateau have a great deal to +do with the effectiveness of its charms. The great white walls of its +facade, with the wonderful sculptures of Jean Goujon, glisten in the +brilliant sunlight of Touraine through the sycamores and willows which +border the Indre in a genuinely romantic fashion. + +Somewhere within the walls are the remains of an old tower of the +one-time fortress which was burned by the Dauphin Charles in 1418, +after, says history, "he had beheaded its governor and taken all of the +defenders to the number of three hundred and thirty-four." This act was +in revenge for an alleged insult to his sacred person. + +There are no remains of this former tower visible exteriorly to-day, and +no other bloody acts appear to have attached themselves to the present +chateau in all the four hundred years of its existence. + +[Illustration: _Chateau d'Azay-le-Rideau_] + +Gilles Berthelot erected the present structure early in the reign of +Francois I. He was a man close to the king in affairs of state, first +_conseiller-secretaire_, then _tresorier-general des finances_, hence +he knew the value of money. Among the succeeding proprietors was Guy de +Saint Gelais, one of the most accomplished diplomats of his time. He was +followed by Henri de Beringhem, who built the stables and ornamented the +great room known as the Chambre du Roi from the fact that Louis XIV. +once slept there, with the magnificent paintings which are shown to-day. + +Everywhere is there a rich, though not gross, display of decoration, +beginning with such constructive details as the pointed-roofed +_tourelles_, which are themselves exceedingly decorative. The doors, +windows, roof-tops, chimneypieces, and the semi-enclosed circular +stairways are all elaborately sculptured after the best manner of the +time. + +The entrance portico is a wonder of its kind, with a strong sculptured +arcade and arched window-openings and niches filled with bas-reliefs. +Sculptured shells, foliage, and mythological symbols combine to form an +arabesque, through which are interspersed the favourite ciphers of the +region, the ermine and the salamander, which go to prove that Francois +and other royalties must at one time or another have had some connection +with the chateau. + +History only tells us, however, that Gilles Berthelot was a king's +minister and Mayor of Tours. Perhaps he thought of handing it over as a +gift some day in exchange for further honours. His device bore the +words, "_Ung Seul Desir_," which may or may not have had a special +significance. + +The interior of the edifice is as beautiful as is its exterior, and is +furnished with that luxuriance of decorative effect so characteristic of +the best era of the Renaissance in France. + +Until recently the proprietor was the Marquis de Biencourt, who, like +his fellow proprietors of chateaux in Touraine, generously gave visitors +an opportunity to see his treasure-house for themselves, and, moreover, +furnished a guide who was something more than a menial and yet not a +supercilious functionary. + +Within a twelvemonth this "purest joy of the French Renaissance" was put +upon the real estate market, with the result that it might have fallen +into unappreciative hands, or, what a Touraine antiquarian told the +writer would be the worse fate that could possibly befall it, might be +bought up by some American millionaire, who through the services of the +house-breaker would dismantle it and remove it stone by stone and set it +up anew on some asphalted avenue in some western metropolis. This +extraordinary fear or rumour, whatever it was, soon passed away and as +a "_monument historique_" the chateau has become the property of the +French government. + +Less original, perhaps, in plan than Chenonceaux, less appealing in its +_ensemble_ and less fortunate in its situation, Azay-le-Rideau is +nevertheless entitled to the praises which have been heaped upon it. + +It is but a dozen kilometres from Azay-le-Rideau to Usse, on the road to +Chinon. The Chateau d'Usse is indeed a big thing; not so grand as +Chambord, nor so winsome as Langeais, but infinitely more characteristic +of what one imagines a great residential chateau to have been like. It +belongs to-day to the Comte de Blacas, and once was the property of +Vauban, Marechal of France, under Louis XIV., who built the terrace +which lies between it and the river, a branch of the Indre. + +Perched high above the hemp-lands of the river-bottom, which here are +the most prolific in the valley of the Indre, the chateau with its park +of seven hundred or more acres is truly regal in its appointments and +surroundings. This park extends to the boundary of the national +reservation, the Foret de Chinon. + +The Renaissance chateau of to-day is a reconstruction of the sixteenth +century, which preserves, however, the great cylindrical towers of a +century earlier. Its architecture is on the whole fantastic, at least as +much so as Chambord, but it is none the less hardy and strong. +Practically it consists of a series of _pavillons_ bound to the great +fifteenth-century donjon by smaller towers and turrets, all slate-capped +and pointed, with machicolations surrounding them, and above that a sort +of roofed and crenelated battlement which passes like a collar around +all the outer wall. + +The general effect of the exterior walls is that of a great feudal +stronghold, while from the courtyard the aspect is simply that of a +luxurious Renaissance town house, showing at least how the two styles +can be pleasingly combined. + +Crenelated battlements are as old as Pompeii, so it is doubtful if the +feudality of France did much to increase their use or effectiveness. +They were originally of such dimensions as to allow a complete shelter +for an archer standing behind one of the uprights. The contrast to those +of a later day, which, virtually nothing more than a course of +decorative stonework, give no impression of utility, is great, though +here at Usse they are more pronounced than in many other similar +edifices. + +[Illustration: _Chateau d'Usse_] + +The interior arrangements here give due prominence to a fine staircase, +ornamented with a painting of St. John that is attributed to Michel +Ange. + +The Chambre du Roi is hung with ancient embroideries, and there is a +beautiful Renaissance chapel, above the door of which is a +sixteenth-century bas-relief of the Apostles. Most of the other great +rooms which are shown are resplendent in oak-beamed ceilings and massive +chimneypieces, always a distinct feature of Renaissance +chateau-building, and one which makes modern imitations appear mean and +ugly. To realize this to the full one has only to recall the dining-room +of the pretentious hotel which huddles under the walls of Amboise. In a +photograph it looks like a regal banqueting-hall; but in reality it is +as tawdry as stage scenery, with its imitation wainscoted walls, its +imitation beamed ceiling of three-quarter-inch planks, and its plaster +of Paris fireplace. + +Near Usse is the Chateau de Rochecotte which recalls the name of a +celebrated chieftain of the Chouans. It belongs to-day, though it is not +their paternal home, to the family of Castellane, a name which to many +is quite as celebrated and perhaps better known. + +The chateau contains a fine collection of Dutch paintings of the +seventeenth century, and in its chapel there is a remarkably beautiful +copy of the Sistine Madonna. The name of Talleyrand is intimately +connected with the occupancy of the chateau, in pre-revolutionary times, +by Rochecotte. + +On the road to Chinon one passes through, or near, Huismes, which has +nothing to stay one's march but a good twelfth-century church, which +looks as though its doors were never opened. The Chateau de la +Villaumere, of the fifteenth century, is near by, and of more than +passing interest are the ruins of the Chateau de Bonneventure, built, it +is said, by Charles VII. for Agnes Sorel, who, with all her faults, +stands high in the esteem of most lovers of French history. At any rate +this shrine of "_la belle des belles_" is worthy to rank with that +containing her tomb at Loches. + +As one enters Chinon by road he meets with the usual steep decline into +a river-valley, which separates one height from another. Generally this +is the topographic formation throughout France, and Chinon, with its +silent guardians, the fragments of three non-contemporary castles, all +on the same site, is no exception. + +"We never went to Chinon," says Henry James, in his "Little Tour in +France," written thirty or more years ago. "But one cannot do +everything," he continues, "and I would rather have missed Chinon than +Chenonceaux." A painter would have put it differently. Chenonceaux is +all that fact and fancy have painted it, a gem in a perfect setting, and +Chinon's three castles are but mere crumbling walls; but their environs +form a _petit pays_ which will some day develop into an "artists' +sketching-ground," in years to come, beside which Etretat, Moret, Pont +Aven, Giverny, and Auvers will cease to be considered. + +At the base of the escarped rock on which sit the chateaux, or what is +left of them, lies the town of Chinon, with its old houses in wood and +stone and its great, gaunt, but beautiful churches. Before it flows the +Vienne, one of the most romantically beautiful of all the secondary +rivers of France. + +From the _castrum romanum_ of the emperors to the feudal conquest Chinon +played its due part in the history of Touraine. There are those who +claim that Chinon is a "_cite antediluvienne_" and that it was founded +by Cain, who after his crime fled from the paternal malediction and +found a refuge here; and that its name, at first _Caynon_, became +Chinon. Like the derivation of most ancient place-names, this claim +involves a wide imagination and assuredly sounds unreasonable. _Caino_ +may, with more likelihood, have been a Celtic word, meaning an +excavation, and came to be adopted because of the subterranean quarries +from which the stone was drawn for the building of the town. The +annalists of the western empire give it as _Castrum-Caino_, and whether +its origin dates from antediluvian times or not, it was a town in the +very earliest days of the Christian era. + +The importance of Chinon's role in history and the beauty of its +situation have inspired many writers to sing its praises. + + "... Chinon + Petite ville, grand renom + Assise sur pierre ancienne + Au haute le bois, au bas la Vienne." + +The disposition of the town is most picturesque. The winding streets and +stairways are "foreign;" like Italy, if you will, or some of the steps +to be seen in the towns bordering upon the Adriatic. At all events, +Chinon is not exactly like any other town in France, either with +respect to its layout or its distinct features, and it is not at all +like what one commonly supposes to be characteristic of the French. + +[Illustration: _The Roof-tops of Chinon_] + +Dungeons of mediaeval chateaux are here turned into dwellings and +wine-cellars, and have the advantage, for both uses, of being cool in +summer and warm in winter. + +Already, in the year 371, Chinon's population was so considerable that +St. Martin, newly elected Bishop of Tours, longed to preach Christianity +to its people, who were still idolators. Some years afterward St. Mesme +or Maxime, fleeing from the barbarians of the north, came to Chinon, and +soon surrounded himself with many adherents of the faith, and in the +year 402 consecrated the original foundation of the church which now +bears his name. + +Clovis made Chinon one of the strongest fortresses of his kingdom, and +in the tenth century it came into the possession of the Comtes de +Touraine. Later, in 1044, Thibaut III. ceded it to Geoffroy Martel. The +Plantagenets frequently sojourned at Chinon, becoming its masters in the +twelfth century, from which time it was held by the Kings of France up +to Louis XI. + +The most picturesque event of Chinon's history took place in 1428, when +Charles VII. here assembled the States General, and Jeanne d'Arc +prevailed upon him to march forthwith upon Orleans, then besieged by the +English. + +Memories of Charles VII., of Jeanne d'Arc, and of Francois Rabelais are +inextricably mixed in the guide-book accounts of Chinon; but their +respective histories are not so involved as would appear. There is some +doubt as to whether the Pantagruelist was actually born at Chinon or in +the suburbs, therefore there is no "_maison natale_" before which +literary pilgrims may make their devotions. All this is a great pity, +for Rabelais excites in the minds of most people a greater curiosity +than perhaps any other mediaeval man of letters that the world has known. + +Though one cannot feast his eye upon the spot of Rabelais's birth, +historians agree that it took place at Chinon in 1483. Much is known of +the "Cure de Chinon;" but, in spite of his rank as the first of the +mediaeval satirists, his was not a wide-spread popularity, nor can one +speak very highly of his appearance as a type of the Tourangeau of his +time. His portraits make him appear a most supercilious character, and +doubtless he was. He certainly was not an Adonis, nor had he the head +of a god or the cleverness of a court gallant. Indeed there has been a +tendency of late to represent him as a buffoon, a trait wholly foreign +to his real character. + +[Illustration: RABELAIS] + +As for Charles VII. and Jeanne d'Arc, Chinon was simply the +meeting-place between the inspired maid and her sovereign, when she +urged him to put himself at the head of his troops and march upon +Orleans. + +Chinon is of the sunny south; here the grapes ripen early and cling +affectionately, not only to the hillsides, but to the very house-walls +themselves. + +Chinon's attractions consist of fragments of three castles, dating from +feudal times; of three churches, of more than ordinary interest and +picturesqueness; and many old timbered and gabled houses; nor should one +forget the Hotel de France, itself a reminder of other days, with its +vine-covered courtyard and tinkling bells hanging beneath its gallery, +for all the world like the sort of thing one sees upon the stage. + +There is not much else about the hotel that is of interest except its +very ancient-looking high-posted beds and its waxed tiled floors, worn +into smooth ruts by the feet of countless thousands and by countless +polishings with wax. It is curious how a waxed tiled floor strikes one +as being something altogether superior to one of wood. Though harder in +substance, it is infinitely pleasanter to the feet, and warm and mellow, +as a floor should be; moreover it seems to have the faculty of +unconsciously keeping itself clean. + +_The Chateau de Chinon_, as it is commonly called, differs greatly from +the usual Loire chateau; indeed it is quite another variety altogether, +and more like what we know elsewhere as a castle; or, rather it is three +castles, for each, so far as its remains are concerned, is distinct and +separate. + +The Chateau de St. Georges is the most ancient and is an enlargement by +Henry Plantagenet--whom a Frenchman has called "the King Lear of his +race"--of a still more ancient fortress. + +The Chateau du Milieu is built upon the ruins of the _castrum romanum_, +vestiges of which are yet visible. It dates from the eleventh, twelfth, +and thirteenth centuries, and was restored under Charles VI., Charles +VII., and Louis XI. + +One enters through the curious Tour de l'Horloge, to which access is +given by a modern bridge, as it was in other days by an ancient +drawbridge which covered the old-time moat. The Grand Logis, the royal +habitation of the twelfth to fifteenth centuries, is to the right, +overlooking the town. Here died Henry II. of England (1189) and here +lived Charles VII. and Louis XI. It was in the Grand Salle of this +chateau that Jeanne d'Arc was first presented to her sovereign (March 8, +1429). From the hour of this auspicious meeting until the hour of the +departure for Orleans she herself lived in the tower of the Chateau de +Coudray, a little farther beyond, under guard of Guillaume Belier. + +The meeting between the king and the "Maid" is described by an old +historian of Touraine as follows: "The inhabitants of Chinon received +her with enthusiasm, the purpose of her mission having already preceded +her.... She appeared at court as '_une pauvre petite bergerette_' and +was received in the Grande Salle, lighted by fifty torches and +containing three hundred persons." (This statement would seem to point +to the fact that it was not the _salle_ which is shown to-day; it +certainly could not be made to hold three hundred people unless they +stood on each other's shoulders!) "The seigneurs were all clad in +magnificent robes, but the king, on the contrary, was dressed most +simply. The 'Maid,' endowed with a spirit and sagacity superior to her +education, advanced without hesitation. '_Dieu vous donne bonne vie, +gentil roi_,' said she...." + +[Illustration: _Chateau de Chinon_] + +The Grand Logis is flanked by a square tower which is separated from the +Chateau de Coudray and the Tour de Boissy by a moat. In the magnificent +Tour de Boissy was the ancient Salle des Gardes, while above was a +battlemented gallery which gave an outlook over the surrounding country. +This watch-tower assured absolute safety from surprise to any monarch +who might have wished to study the situation for himself. + +The Tour du Moulin is another of the defences, more elegant, if +possible, than the Tour de Boissy. It is taller and less rotund; the +French say it is "svelt," and that describes it as well as anything. It +also fits into the landscape in a manner which no other mediaeval donjon +of France does, unless it be that of Chateau Gaillard, in Normandy. + +The primitive Chateau de Coudray was built by Thibaut-le-Tricheur in +954, and its bastion and sustaining walls are still in evidence. + +The Vienne, which runs by Chinon to join the Loire above Saumur, is, in +many respects, a remarkable river, although just here there is nothing +very remarkable about it. It is, however, delightfully picturesque, as +it washes the tree-lined quays which form Chinon's river-front for a +distance of upward of two kilometres. In general the waterway reminds +one of something between a great traffic-bearing river and a mere +pleasant stream. + +The bridge between Chinon and its faubourg is typical of the art of +bridge-building, at which, in mediaeval times, the French were excelled +by no other nation. To-day, in company with the Americans, they build +iron and steel abominations which are eyesores which no amount of +utility will ever induce one to really admire. Not so the French bridges +of mediaeval times, of the type of those at Blois on the Loire; at Chinon +on the Vienne; at Avignon on the Rhone; or at Cahors on the Lot. + +If Rabelais had not rendered popular Chinon and the Chinonais the public +would have yet to learn of this delightful _pays_, in spite of that +famous first meeting between Charles VII. and Jeanne d'Arc. + +If the modern founders of "garden-cities" would only go as far back as +the time of Richelieu they would find a good example to follow in the +little Touraine town, the _chef-lieu_ of the Commune, which bears the +name of Richelieu. When Armand du Plessis first became the seigneur of +this "_little land_" he resolutely set about to make of the property a +town which should dignify his name. Accordingly he built, at his own +expense, after the plans of Lemercier, "a city, regular, vast, and +luxurious." At the same time the cardinal-minister replaced the paternal +manor with a chateau elaborately and prodigally royal. + +Richelieu was a sort of "petit Versailles," which was to be to Chinon +what the real Versailles was to the capital. + +To-day, as in other days, it is a "_ville vaste, reguliere et +luxueuse_," but it is unfinished. One great street only has been +completed on its original lines, and it is exactly 450 metres long. +Originally the town was to have the dimensions of but six hundred by +four hundred metres; modest enough in size, but of the greatest luxury. +The cardinal had no desire to make it more grand, but even what he had +planned was not to be. Its one great street is bordered with imposing +buildings, but their tenants to-day have not the least resemblance to +the courtiers of the cardinal who formerly occupied them. + +Richelieu disappeared in the course of time, and work on his hobby +stopped, or at least changed radically in its plan. Secondary streets +were laid out, of less grandeur, and peopled with houses without +character, low in stature, and unimposing. The plan of a _ville +seigneuriale_ gave way to a _ville de labeur_. Other habitations grew up +until to-day twenty-five hundred souls find their living on the spot +where once was intended to be only a life of luxury. + +Of the monuments with which Richelieu would have ornamented his town +there remains a curious market-hall and a church in the pure Jesuitic +style of architecture, lacking nothing of pretence and grandeur. + +Not much can be said for the vast Eglise Notre Dame de Richelieu, a +heavy Italian structure, built from the plans of Lemercier. However +satisfying and beautiful the style may be in Italy, it is manifestly, in +all great works of church-building in the north, unsuitable and uncouth. + +There was also a chateau as well, a great Mansart affair with an +overpowering dome. Practically this remains to-day, but, like all else +in the town, it is but a promise of greater things which were expected +to materialize, but never did. + +At the bottom of a little valley, in a fertile plain, lies Fontevrault, +or what there is left of it, for the old abbey is now nothing more than +a matter-of-fact "_maison de detention_" for criminals. The abbey of +yesterday is the prison of to-day. + +Fontevrault is an enigma; it is, furthermore, what the French themselves +call a "_triste et maussade bourg_." Its former magnificent abbey was +one of the few shrines of its class which was respected by the +Revolution, but now it has become a prison which shelters something like +a thousand unfortunates. + +For centuries the old abbey had royal princesses for abbesses and was +one of the most celebrated religious houses in all France. It is a sad +degeneration that has befallen this famous establishment. + +In the eleventh century an illustrious man of God, a Breton priest, +named Robert d'Arbrissel, outlined the foundation of the abbey and +gathered together a community of monks. He died in the midst of his +labours, in 1117, and was succeeded by the Abbess Petronille de +Chemille. + +For nearly six hundred years the abbey--which comprised a convent for +men and another for women--grew and prospered, directed, not +infrequently, by an abbess of the blood royal. It has been claimed +that, as a religious establishment for men and women, ruled over by a +woman, the abbey of Fontevrault was unique in Christendom. + +It is an ample structure with a church tower of bistre which forms a +most pleasing note of colour in the landscape. The basilica was begun in +1101, and consecrated by Pope Calixtus II. in 1119. Its interior showed +a deep vaulting, with graceful and hardy arches supported by massive +columns with quaint and curiously sculptured capitals. + +The twelfth-century cloister was indeed a masterwork among those +examples, all too rare, existing to-day. Its arcade is severely elegant +and was rebuilt by the Abbess Renee de Bourbon, sister of Francois I., +after the best of decorative Renaissance of that day. The chapter-house, +now used by the director of the prison, has in a remarkable manner +retained the mural frescoes of a former day. There are depicted a series +of groups of mystical and real personages in a most curious fashion. The +refectory is still much in its primitive state, though put to other uses +to-day. Its tribune, where the lectrice entertained the sisters during +their repasts, is, however, still in its place. + +[Illustration: _Cuisines, Fontevrault_] + +The curious, bizarre, kilnlike pyramid, known as the Tour d'Evrault, +has ever been an enigma to the archaeologist and antiquarian. Doubtless +it formed the kitchens of the establishment, for it looks like nothing +else that might have belonged to a great abbey. It has a counterpart at +the Abbey of Marmoutier near Tours, and of St. Trinite at Vendome; from +which fact there would seem to be little doubt as to its real use, +although it looks more like a blast furnace or a distillery chimney. + +This curious pyramidal structure is like the collegiate church of St. +Ours at Loches, one of those bizarre edifices which defy any special +architectural classification. At Fontevrault the architect played with +his art when he let all the light in this curious "_tour_" enter by the +roof. At the extreme apex of the cone he placed a lantern from which the +light of day filtered down the slope of the vaulting in a weird and +tomblike manner. It is a most surprising effect, but one that is wholly +lost to-day, since the Tour d'Evrault has been turned into the kitchen +for the "_maison de detention_" of which it forms a part. + +The nave of the church of the old abbey of Fontevrault has been cut in +two and a part is now used as the dormitory of the prison, but the +choir, the transepts, and the towers remain to suggest the simple and +beautiful style of their age. + +In the transepts, behind an iron grille, are buried Henry II., King of +England and Count of Anjou, Eleanore of Guienne, Richard Coeur de Lion, +and Isabeau of Angouleme, wife of Jean-sans-Terre. Four polychromatic +statues, one in wood, the others in stone, lying at length, represent +these four personages so great in English history, and make of +Fontevrault a shrine for pilgrims which ought to be far less ignored +than it is. The cemetery of kings has been shockingly cared for, and the +ludicrous kaleidoscopic decorations of the statues which surmount the +royal tombs are nothing less than a sacrilege. It is needless to say +they are comparatively modern. + +At Bourgueil, near Fontevrault, are gathered great crops of _reglisse_, +or licorice. It differs somewhat in appearance from the licorice roots +of one's childhood, but the same qualities exist in it as in the product +of Spain or the Levant, whence indeed most of the commercial licorice +does come. It is as profitable an industry in this part of France as is +the saffron crop of the Gatinais, and whoever imported the first roots +was a benefactor. At the juncture of the Vienne and the Loire are two +tiny towns which are noted for two widely different reasons. + +These two towns are Montsoreau and Candes, the former noted for the +memory of that bloodthirsty woman who gave a plot to Dumas (and some +real facts of history besides), and the other noted for its prunes, +Candes being the chief centre of the industry which produces the +_pruneaux de Tours_. + +Descending the Vienne from Chinon, one first comes to Candes, which +dominates the confluence of the Vienne with the Loire from its imposing +position on the top of a hill. + +Candes was in other times surrounded by a protecting wall, and there are +to-day remains of a chateau which had formerly given shelter to Charles +VII. and Louis XI. It has, moreover, a twelfth-century church built upon +the site of the cell in which died St. Martin in the fourth century. The +native of the surrounding country cares nothing for churches or +chateaux, but assumes that the prune industry of Candes is the one thing +of interest to the visitor. + +Be this as it may, it is indeed a matter of considerable importance to +all within a dozen kilometres of the little town. All through the region +round about Candes one meets with the fruit-pickers, with their great +baskets laden with prunes, pears, and apples, to be sent ultimately to +the great ovens to be desiccated and dried. Fifty years ago, you will be +told, the cultivators attended to the curing process themselves, but now +it is in the hands of the middle-man. + +At Montsoreau much the same economic conditions exist as at Candes, but +there is vastly more of historic lore hanging about the town. In the +fourteenth century, after a shifting career the fief passed to the +Vicomtes de Chateaudun; then, in the century following, to the Chabots +and the family of Chambes, of which Jean IV., prominent in the massacre +of St. Bartholomew's night, was a member. It was he who assassinated the +gallant Bussy d'Amboise at the near-by Chateau of Coutanciere (at +Brain-sur-Allonnes), who had made a rendezvous with his wife, since +become famous in the pages of Dumas and of history as "La Dame de +Montsoreau." + +To-day the old bourg is practically non-existent, and there is a +smugness of prosperity which considerably discounts the former charm +that it once must have had. But for all that, there is enough left to +enable one to picture what the life here under the Renaissance must +have been. + +The parish church--that of the ancient Paroisse de Retz--still exists, +though in ruins, and there are very substantial remains of an old +priory, an old-time dependency of the Abbey of St. Florent, now +converted into a farm. + +Beside the highroad is the fifteenth-century chateau. It has a double +facade, one side of which is ornamented with a series of _machicoulis_, +great high window-openings, and flanking towers; and, in spite of its +generally frowning aspect, looks distinctly livable even to-day. + +The ornamental facade of the courtyard is somewhat crumbled but still +elegant, and has incorporated within its walls a most ravishing +Renaissance turret, smothered in exquisite _moulures_ and _arabesques_. +On the terminal gallery and on the panels which break up the flatness of +this inner facade are a series of allegorical bas-reliefs, representing +monkeys, surmounted with the inscription, "_Il le Feray_." + +The interior of this fine edifice is entirely remodelled, and has +nothing of its former fitments, furnishings, or decorations. + +Near Port Boulet, almost opposite Candes, is the great farm of a certain +M. Cail. Communication is had with the Orleans railway by means of a +traction engine, which draws its own broad-wheeled wagons on the regular +highway between the _gare d'hommes_ and the tall-chimneyed manor or +chateau which forms the residence of this enterprising agriculturist. + +The property consists of nearly two thousand acres, of which at least +twelve hundred are under the process of intensive cultivation, and is +divided into ten distinct farms, having each an overseer charged +directly with the control of his part of the domain. These farms are +wonderfully well kept, with sanded roadways like the courtyard of a +chateau. There are no trees in the cultivated parts, and the great +grain-fields are as the western prairies. + +The estate bears the generic name of "La Briche." On one side it is +bordered by the railroad for a distance of nearly forty kilometres, and +it gives to that same railway an annual freight traffic of two thousand +tons of merchandise, which would be considerably more if all the cattle +and sheep sent to other markets were transported by rail. + +As might be expected, this domain of "La Briche" has given to the +neighbouring farmers a lesson and an example, and little by little its +influence has resulted in an increased activity among the neighbouring +landholders, who formerly gave themselves over to "_la chasse_," and +left the conduct of their farms to incompetent and more or less ignorant +hirelings. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +ANJOU AND BRETAGNE + + +As one crosses the borderland from Touraine into Anjou, the whole aspect +of things changes. It is as if one went from the era of the Renaissance +back again into the days of the Gothic, not only in respect to +architecture, but history and many of the conditions of every-day life +as well. + +Most of the characteristics of Anjou are without their like elsewhere, +and opulent Anjou of ancient France has to-day a departmental etiquette +in many things quite different from that of other sections. + +A magnificent agricultural province, it has been further enriched by +liberal proprietors; a land of aristocracy and the church, it has ever +been to the fore in political and ecclesiastical matters; and to-day the +spirit of industry and progress are nowhere more manifest than here in +the ancient province of Anjou. + +The Loire itself changes its complexion but little, and its entrance +into Saumur, like its entrance into Tours, is made between banks that +are tinged with the rainbow colours of the growing vine. What hills +there are near by are burrowed, as swallows burrow in a cliff, by the +workers of the vineyards, who make in the rock homes similar to those +below Saumur, in the Vallee du Vendomois, and at Cinq-Mars near Tours. + +Anjou has a marked style in architecture, known as Angevin, which few +have properly placed in the gamut of architectural styles which run from +the Byzantine to the Renaissance. + +The Romanesque was being supplanted everywhere when the Angevin style +came into being, as a compromise between the heavy, flat-roofed style of +the south and the pointed sky-piercing gables of the north. All Europe +was attempting to shake off the Romanesque influence, which had lasted +until the twelfth century. Germany alone clung to the pure style, and, +it is generally thought, improved it. The Angevin builders developed a +species that was on the borderland between the Romanesque and the +Gothic, though not by any means a mere transition type. + +The chief cities of Anjou are not very great or numerous, Angers itself +containing but slightly over fifty thousand souls. Cholet, of thirteen +thousand inhabitants, is an important cloth-manufacturing centre, while +Saumur carries on a great wine trade and was formerly the capital of a +"_petit gouvernement_" of its own, and, like many other cities and towns +of this and neighbouring provinces, was the scene of great strife during +the wars of the Vendee. + +In ancient times the _Andecavi_, as the old peoples of the province were +known, shared with the _Turonii_ of Touraine the honour of being the +foremost peoples of western Gaul, though each had special +characteristics peculiarly their own, as indeed they have to-day. + +After one passes the junction of the Cher, the Indre, and the Vienne, he +notices no great change in the conduct of the Loire itself. It still +flows in and out among the banks of sand and those little round pebbles +known all along its course, nonchalantly and slowly, though now and then +one fancies that he notes a greater eddy or current than he had observed +before. At Saumur it is still more impressed upon one, while at the +Ponts de Ce--a great strategic spot in days gone by--there is evidence +that at one time or another the Loire must be a raging torrent; and +such it does become periodically, only travellers never seem to see it +when it is in this condition. + +When Candes and Montsoreau are passed and one comes under the frowning +walls of Saumur's grim citadel, a sort of provincial Bastille in its +awesomeness, he realizes for the first time that there is, somewhere +below, an outlet to the sea. He cannot smell the salt-laden breezes at +this great distance, but the general appearance of things gives that +impression. + +From Tours to Saumur by the right bank of the Loire--one of the most +superb stretches of automobile roadway in the world--lay the road of +which Madame de Sevigne wrote in "Lettre CCXXIV." (to her mother), which +begins: "_Nous arrivons ici, nous avons quitte Tours ce matin._" It was +a good day's journey for those times, whether by _malle-post_ or the +private conveyance which, likely enough, Madame de Sevigne used at the +time (1630). To-day it is a mere morsel to the hungry road-devouring maw +of a twentieth-century automobile. It's almost worth the labour of +making the journey on foot to know the charms of this delightful +river-bank bordered with historic shrines almost without number, and +peopled by a class of peasants as picturesque and gay as the +Neapolitan of romance. + +[Illustration: _Chateau de Saumur_] + +"_Saumur est, ma foi! une jolie ville_," said a traveller one day at a +_table d'hote_ at Tours. And so indeed it is. Its quays and its squares +lend an air of gaiety to its proud old _hotel de ville_ and its grim +chateau. Old habitations, commodious modern houses, frowning +machicolations, church spires, grand hotels, innumerable cafes, and much +military, all combine in a blend of fascinating interest that one +usually finds only in a great metropolis. + +The chief attraction is unquestionably the old chateau. To-day it +stands, as it has always stood, high above the Quai de Limoges, with +scarce a scar on its hardy walls and never a crumbling stone on its +parapet. + +The great structure was begun in the eleventh century, replacing an +earlier monument known as the Tour du Tronc. It was completed in the +century following and rebuilt or remodelled in the sixteenth. Outside of +its impressive exterior there is little of interest to remind one of +another day. + +To literary pilgrims Saumur suggests the homestead of the father of +Eugenie Grandet, and the _bon-vivant_ reveres it for its soft pleasant +wines. Others worship it for its wonders of architecture, and yet +others fall in love with it because of its altogether delightful +situation. + +Below Saumur are the cliff-dwellers, who burrow high in the chalk cliff +and stow themselves away from light and damp like bottles of old wine. +The custom is old and not indigenous to France, but here it is +sufficiently in evidence to be remarked by even the traveller by train. +Here, too, one sees the most remarkable of all the _coiffes_ which are +worn by any of the women along the Loire. This Angevin variety, like +Angevin architecture, is like none of its neighbours north, east, south, +or west. + +Students of history will revere Saumur for something more than its +artistic aspect or its wines, for it was a favourite residence of the +Angevin princes and the English kings, as well as being the capital of +the _pape des Huguenots_. + +While Nantes is the real metropolis of the Loire, and Angers is +singularly up-to-date and well laid out, neither of these fine cities +have a great thoroughfare to compare with the broad, straight street of +Saumur, which leads from the Gare d'Orleans on the left bank and crosses +the two bridges which span the branches of the Loire, to say nothing of +the island between, and finally merges into the great national highway +which runs south into Poitou. + +Fine houses, many, if not most of them, dating from centuries ago, line +the principal streets of the town, which, when one has actually entered +its confines, presents the appearance of being too vast and ample for +its population. And, in truth, so it really is. Its population barely +reaches fifteen thousand souls, whereas it would seem to have the +grandeur and appointments of a city of a hundred thousand. The +revocation of the Edict of Nantes cut its inhabitants down to the extent +of twenty or twenty-five thousand, and it has never recovered from the +blow. + +In the neighbourhood of Saumur, for a considerable distance up and down +the Loire, the hills are excavated into dwelling-houses and wine-caves, +producing a most curious aspect. One continuous line of these cliff +villages--like nothing so much as the habitations of the cliff-dwelling +Indians of America--extends from the juncture of the Vienne with the +Loire nearly up to the Ponts de Ce. + +The most curious effect of it all is the multitude of openings of +doorways and windows and the uprising of chimney-pots through the chalk +and turf which form the roof-tops of these settlements. + +In many of these caves are prepared the famous _vin mousseux_ of +Saumur, of which the greater part is sold as champagne to an +unsuspecting and indifferent public, not by the growers or makers, but +by unscrupulous middlemen. + +Saumur, like Angers, is fortunate in its climate, to which is due a +great part of the prosperity of the town, for the "Rome of the +Huguenots" is more prosperous--and who shall not say more content?--than +it ever was in the days of religious or feudal warfare. + +Near Saumur is one shrine neglected by English pilgrims which might well +be included in their itineraries. In the Chateau de Moraines at +Dampierre died Margaret of Anjou and Lancaster, Queen of England, as one +reads on a tablet erected at the gateway of this dainty "_petit castel a +tour et creneaux_." + + Manoir de la Vignole-Souzay autrefois Dampierre + Asile et derniere demure + de l'heroine de la guerre des deux roses + Marguerite d'Anjou de Lancastre, reine d'Angleterre + La plus malheureuse des reines, des espouses, et des meres + Qui Morut le 25 Aout 1482 + Agee de 53 Ans. + +The Salvus Murus of the ancients became the Saumur of to-day in the year +948, when the monk Absalom built a monastery here and surrounded it with +a protecting wall. Up to the thirteenth century the city belonged to the +"Angevin kings of Angleterre," as the French historians proudly claim +them. + +The city passed finally to the Kings of France, and to them remained +constantly faithful. Under Henri IV. the city was governed by +Duplessis-Mornay, the "_pape des Huguenots_," becoming practically the +metropolis of Protestantism. Up to this time the chief architectural +monument was the chateau, which was commenced in the eleventh century +and which through the next five centuries had been aggrandized and +rebuilt into its present shape. + +The church of Notre Dame de Nantilly dates from the twelfth century and +was frequently visited by Louis XI. The oratory formerly made use of by +this monarch to-day contains the baptismal fonts. One of the columns of +the nave has graven upon it the epitaph composed by King Rene of Anjou +for his foster-mother, Dame Thiephanie. Throughout, the church is +beautifully decorated. + +The Hotel de Ville may well be called the chief artistic treasure of +Saumur, as the chatteau is its chief historical monument. It is a +delightful _ensemble_ of the best of late Gothic, dating from the +sixteenth century, flanked on its facade by turrets crowned with +_machicoulis_, and lighted by a series of elegant windows _a +croisillons_. Above all is a gracious campanile, in its way as fine as +the belfry of Bruges, to which, from a really artistic standpoint, +rhapsodists have given rather more than its due. + +The interior is as elaborate and pleasing as is the outside. In the +Salle des Mariages and Salle du Conseil are fine fifteenth-century +chimneypieces, such as are only found in their perfection on the Loire. +The library, of something over twenty thousand volumes, many of them in +manuscript, is formed in great part from the magnificent collection +formerly at the abbeys of Fontevrault and St. Florent. Doubtless these +old tomes contain a wealth of material from which some future historian +will perhaps construct a new theory of the universe. This in truth may +not be literally so, but it is a fact that there is a vast amount of +contemporary historical information, with regard to the world in +general, which is as yet unearthed, as witness the case of Pompeii +alone, where the area of the discoveries forms but a small part of the +entire buried city. + +At Saumur numerous prehistoric and _gallo-romain_ remains are +continually being added to the museum, which is also in the Hotel de +Ville. A recent acquisition--discovered in a neighbouring vineyard--is a +Roman "_trompette_," as it is designated, and a more or less complete +outfit of tools, obviously those of a carpenter. + +The notorious Madame de Montespan--"the illustrious penitent," though +the former description answers better--stopped here, in a house +adjoining the Church of St. John, to-day a _maison de retrait_, on her +way to visit her sister, the abbess, at Fontevrault. + +From Saumur to Angers the Loire passes an almost continuous series of +historical guide-posts, some in ruins, but many more as proudly +environed as ever. + +At Treves-Cunault is a dignified Romanesque church which would add to +the fame of a more popular and better known town. It is not a grand +structure, but it is perfect of its kind, with its crenelated facade and +its sturdy arcaded towers curiously placed midway on the north wall. + +Here one first becomes acquainted with _menhirs_ and _dolmens_, +examples of which are to be found in the neighbourhood, not so +remarkable as those of Brittany, but still of the same family. + +The Ponts de Ce follow next, still in the midst of vine-land, and +finally appear the twin spires of Angers's unique Cathedral of St. +Maurice. Here one realizes, if not before, that he is in Anjou; no more +is the atmosphere transparent as in Touraine, but something of the grime +of the commercial struggle for life is over all. + +Here the Maine joins the Loire, at a little village called La Pointe: +"the Charenton of Angers," it was called by a Paris-loving boulevardier +who once wandered afield. + +Much has been written, and much might yet be written, about the famous +Ponts de Ce, which span the Loire and its branches for a distance +considerably over three kilometres. This ancient bridge or bridges +(which, with that at Blois, were at one time, the only bridges across +the Loire below Orleans) formerly consisted of 109 arches, but the +reconstruction of the mid-nineteenth century reduced these to a bare +score. + +[Illustration: _The Ponts de Ce_] + +As a vantage-point in warfare the Ponts de Ce were ever in contention, +the Gauls, the Romans, the Franks, the Normans, and the English +successively taking possession and defending them against their +opponents. The Ponts de Ce is a weirdly strange and historic town which +has lost none of its importance in a later day, though the famous +_ponts_ are now remade, and their antique arches replaced by more solid, +if less picturesque piers and piling. They span the shallow flow of the +Loire water for three-quarters of a league and produce a homogeneous +effect of antiquity, coupled with the city's three churches and its +chateau overlooking the fortified isle in mid-river, which looks as +though it had not changed since the days when Marie de Medici looked +upon it, as recalled by the great Rubens painting in the Louvre. Since +the beginning of the history of these parts, battles almost without +number have taken place here, as was natural on a spot so strategically +important. + +There is a tale of the Vendean wars, connected with the "Roche-de-Murs" +at the Ponts de Ce, to the effect that a battalion, left here to guard +any attack from across the river, was captured by the Vendeans. Many of +the "_Bleus_" refused to surrender, and threw themselves into the river +beneath their feet. Among these was the wife of an officer, to whom the +Vendeans offered life if she surrendered. This was refused, and +precipitately, with her child, she threw herself into the flood beneath. + +On the largest isle, that lying between the Louet and the Loire, is one +vast garden or orchard of cherry-trees, which produce a peculiarly juicy +cherry from which large quantities of _guignolet_, a sort of "cherry +brandy," is made. The Angevins will tell you that this was a well-known +refreshment in the middle ages, and was first made by one of those +monkish orders who were so successful in concocting the subtle liquors +of the commerce of to-day. + +It is with real regret that one parts from the Ponts de Ce, with La +Fontaine's couplet on his lips: + + "... Ce n'est pas petite gloire + Que d'etre pont sur la Loire." + +Some one has said that the provinces find nothing to envy in Paris as +far as the transformation of their cities is concerned. This, to a +certain extent, is so, not only in respect to the modernizing of such +grand cities as Lyons, Marseilles, or Lille, but in respect to such +smaller cities as Nantes and Angers, where the improvements, if not on +so magnificent a scale, are at least as momentous to their immediate +environment. + +For the most part these second and third class cities are to-day +transformed in exceedingly good taste, and, though many a noble monument +has in the past been sacrificed, to-day the authorities are proceeding +more carefully. + +Angers, in spite of its overpowering chateau and its unique cathedral, +is of a modernity and luxuriousness in its present-day aspect which is +all the more remarkable because of the contrast. Formerly the Angevin +capital, from the days of King John up to a much later time Angers had +the reputation of being a town "_plus sombre et plus maussade_" than any +other in the French provinces. In Shakespeare's "King John" one reads of +"black Angers," and so indeed is its aspect to-day, for its roof-tops +are of slate, while many of the houses are built of that material +entirely. In the olden time many of its streets were cut in the slaty +rock, leaving its sombre surface bare to the light of day. One sees +evidences of all this in the massive walls of the great black-banded +castle of Angers, and, altogether, this magpie colouring is one of the +chief characteristics of this grandly historic town. + +Both the new and the old town sit proudly on a height crowned by the two +slim spires of the cathedral. In front, the gentle curves of the river +Maine enfold the old houses at the base of the hillside and lap the very +walls of the grim fortress-chateau itself, or did in the days when the +Counts of Anjou held sway, though to-day the river has somewhat receded. + +Beyond the ancient ramparts, up the hill, have been erected the +"_quartiers neufs_," with houses all admirably planned and laid out, +with gardens forming a veritable girdle, as did the retaining walls of +other days which surrounded the old chateau and its faubourg. To-day +Angers shares with Nantes the title of metropolis of the west, and the +Loire flows on its ample way between the two in a far more imposing +manner than elsewhere in its course from source to sea. + +Angers does not lie exactly at the juncture of the Maine and Loire, but +a little way above, but it has always been considered as one of the +chief Loire cities; and probably many of its visitors do not realize +that it is not on the Loire itself. + +The marvellous fairy-book chateau of Angers, with its fourteen +black-striped towers, is just as it was when built by St. Louis, save +that its chess-board towers lack, in most cases, their coiffes, and all +vestiges have disappeared of the _charpente_ which formerly topped +them off. + +[Illustration: _Chateau d'Angers_] + +Beyond the rocky formation of the banks of the Loire, which crop out +below the juncture of the Maine and the Loire, below Angers, are +Savennieres and La Possoniere, whence come the most famous vintages of +Anjou, which, to the wines of these parts, are what Chateau Margaux and +Chateau Yquem are to the Bordelais, and the Clos Vougeot is to the +Bourguignons. + +The peninsula formed by the Loire and the Maine at Angers is the richest +agricultural region in all France, the nurseries and the kitchen-gardens +having made the fortune of this little corner of Anjou. + +Angers is the headquarters for nursery-garden stock for the open air, as +Orleans is for ornamental and woodland trees and shrubs. + +The trade in living plants and shrubs has grown to very great +proportions since 1848, when an agent went out from here on behalf of +the leading house in the trade and visited America for the purpose of +searching out foreign plants and fruits which could be made to thrive on +French soil. + +Both the soil and climate are very favourable for the cultivation of +many hitherto unknown fruits, the neighbourhood of the sea, which, not +far distant, is tempered by the Gulf Stream, having given to Anjou a +lukewarm humidity and a temperature of a remarkable equality. + +Some of the nurseries of these parts are enormous establishments, the +Maison Andre Leroy, for example, covering an extent of some six hundred +acres. A catalogue of one of these establishments, located in the +suburbs of Angers, enumerates over four hundred species of pear-trees, +six hundred varieties of apple-trees, one hundred and fifty varieties of +plums, four hundred and seventy-five of grapes, fifteen hundred of +roses, and two hundred and nineteen of rhododendrons. + +Each night, or as often as fifty railway wagons are loaded, trains are +despatched from the _gare_ at Angers for all parts. When the +_choux-fleurs_ are finished, then come the _petits pois_, and then the +_artichauts_ and other _legumes_ in favour with the Paris _bon-vivants_. + +Near Angers is one of those Caesar's camps which were spread thickly up +and down Gaul and Britain alike. One reaches it by road from Angers, +and, until it dawns upon one that the vast triangle, one of whose +equilateral sides is formed by the Loire, another by the Maine, and the +third by a ridge of land stretching between the two, covers about +fourteen kilometres square, it seems much like any other neck or +peninsula of land lying between two rivers. One hundred thousand of the +Roman legion camped here at one time, which is not so very wonderful +until it is recalled that they lived for months on the resources of this +comparatively restricted area. + +Before coming to Nantes, Ancenis and Oudon should claim the attention of +the traveller, though each is not much more than a typically interesting +small town of France, in spite of the memories of the past. + +Ancenis has an ancient chateau, remodelled and added to in the +nineteenth century, which possesses some remarkably important +constructive details, the chief of which are a great tower-flanked +doorway and the _corps de logis_, each the work of an Angevin architect, +Jean de Lespine, in the sixteenth century. Within the walls of this +chateau Francois II., Duc de Bretagne, and Louis XI. signed one of the +treaties which finally led up to the union of the Duche de Bretagne with +the Crown of France. + +Oudon possesses a fine example of a mediaeval donjon, though it has been +restored in our day. + +One does not usually connect Brittany with the Loire except so far as +to recollect that Nantes was a former political and social capital. As a +matter of fact, however, a very considerable proportion of Brittany +belongs to the Loire country. + +Anjou of the counts and kings and Bretagne of the dukes and duchesses +embrace the whole of the Loire valley below Saumur, although the +river-bed of the Loire formed no actual boundary. Anjou extended nearly +as far to the southward as it did to the north of the vine-clad banks, +and Bretagne, too, had possession of a vast tract south of Nantes, known +as the Pays de Retz, which bordered upon the Vendee of Poitou. + +All the world knows, or should know, that Nantes and St. Nazaire form +one of the great ports of the world, not by any means so great as New +York, London, or Hamburg, nor yet as great as Antwerp, Bordeaux, or +Marseilles, but still a magnificent port which plays a most important +part with the affairs of France and the outside world. + +Nantes, la Brette, is tranquil and solid, with the life of the laborious +bourgeois always in the foreground. It is of Bretagne, to which province +it anciently belonged, only so far as it forms the bridge between the +Vendee and the old duchy; literally between two opposing feudal lords +and masters, both of whom were hard to please. + +The memoirs of this corner of the province of Bretagne of other days are +strong in such names as the Duchesse Anne, the monk Abelard, the +redoubtable Clisson, the infamous Gilles de Retz, the warrior Lanoue, +surnamed "Bras de Fer," and many others whose names are prominent in +history. + +"_Ventre Saint Gris! les Ducs de Bretagne n'etaient pas de petits +compagnons!_" cried Henri Quatre, as he first gazed upon the Chateau de +Nantes. At that time, in 1598, this fortress was defended by seven +curtains, six towers, bastions and caponieres, all protected by a wide +and deep moat, into which poured the rising tide twice with each round +of the clock. + +To-day the aspect of this chateau is no less formidable than of yore, +though it has been debased and the moat has disappeared to make room for +a roadway and the railroad. + +It was in the chateau of Nantes, the same whose grim walls still +overlook the road by which one reaches the centre of the town from the +inconveniently placed station, that Mazarin had Henri de Gondi, Cardinal +de Retz and co-adjutor of the Archbishop of Paris, imprisoned in 1665, +because of his offensive partisanship. Fouquet, too, after his splendid +downfall, was thrown into the donjon here by Louis XIV. + +De Gondi recounts in his "Memoires" how he took advantage of the +inattention of his guards and finally evaded them by letting himself +over the side of the Bastion de Mercoeur by means of a rope smuggled +into him by his friends. The feat does not look a very formidable one +to-day, but then, or in any day, it must have been somewhat of an +adventure for a portly churchman, and the wonder is that it was +performed successfully. At any rate it reads like a real adventure from +the pages of Dumas, who himself made a considerable use of Nantes and +its chateau in his historical romances. + +Landais, the minister and favourite of Francois II. of Bretagne, was +arrested here in 1485, in the very chamber of the prince, who delivered +him up with the remark: "_Faites justice, mais souvenez-vous que vous +lui etes redevable de votre charge._" + +There is no end of historical incident connected with Nantes's old +fortress-chateau of mediaeval times, and, in one capacity or another, it +has sheltered many names famous in history, from the Kings of France, +from Louis XII. onward, to Madame de Sevigne and the Duchesse de Berry. + +Nantes's Place de la Bouffai (which to lovers of Dumas will already be +an old friend) was formerly the site of a chateau contemporary with that +which stands by the waterside. The Chateau de Bouffai was built in 990 +by Conan, first Duc de Bretagne, and served as an official residence to +him and many of his successors. + +In Nantes's great but imperfect and unfinished Cathedral of St. Pierre +one comes upon a relic that lives long in the memory of those who have +passed before it: the tomb of Francois II., Duc de Bretagne, and +Marguerite de Foix. The cathedral itself is no mean architectural work, +in spite of its imperfections, as one may judge from the following +inscription graven over the sculptured figure of St. Pierre, its patron: + + "L'an mil quatre cent trente-quatre, + A my-avril sans moult rabattre: + An portail de cette eglise, + Fut la premiere pierre assise." + +Within, the chief attraction is that masterwork of Michel Colombe, the +before-mentioned tomb, which ranks among the world's art-treasures. The +beauty of the emblematic figures which flank the tomb proper, the fine +chiselling of the recumbent effigies themselves, and the general +_ensemble_ is such that the work is bound to appeal, whatever may be +one's opinion of Renaissance sculpture in France. The tomb was brought +here from the old Eglise des Carmes, which had been pillaged and burned +in the Revolution. + +The mausoleum was--in its old resting-place--opened in 1727, and a +small, heart-shaped, gold box was found, supposed to have contained the +heart of the Duchesse Anne. The coffer was surmounted by a royal crown +and emblazoned with the order of the Cordeliere, but within was found +nothing but a scapulary. On the circlet of the crown was written in +relief: + + "Cueur de vertus orne + Dignement couronne." + +And on the box beneath one read: + + "En ce petit vaisseau, de fin or pur et munde, + Repose un plus grand cueur que oncque dame eut au monde. + Anne fut le nom d'elle, en France deux fois Royne + + * * * * * + + Et ceste parte terrestre en grand deuil nos demure. + + IX. JANVIER M.V.XIII." + +In one respect only has Nantes suffered through the march of time. Its +magnificent Quai de la Fosse has disappeared, a long facade which a +hundred or more years ago was bordered by the palatial dwellings of the +great ship-owners of the Nantes of a former generation. The whole, +immediately facing the river where formerly swung many ships at anchor, +has disappeared entirely to make way for the railway. + +[Illustration: _ENVIRONS OF NANTES_] + + * * * * * + +The islands of the Loire opposite Nantes are an echo of the life of the +metropolis itself. The Ile Feydeau is monumental, the Ile Gloriette +hustling and nervous with "_affaires_," and Prairie-au-Duc busy with +industries of all sorts. + +Coueron, below Nantes on the right bank, is sombre with gray walls +surrounding its numberless factories, and chimney-stacks belching forth +clouds of dense smoke. Behind are great walls of chalky-white rock +crowned with verdure. Nearly opposite is the little town of Le Pellerin +graciously seated on the river's bank and marking the lower limit of the +Loire Nantaise. + +Another hill, belonging to the domain of Bois-Tillac and La Martiniere, +where was born Fouche, the future Duc d'Otranta, comes to view, and the +basin of the Loire enlarges into the estuary, and all at once one finds +himself in the true "Loire Maritime." + +At Martiniere is the mouth of the Canal Maritime a la Loire, which, from +Paimboeuf to Le Pellerin, is used by all craft ascending the river to +Nantes, drawing more than four metres of water. + +At the entrance of the Acheneau is the Canal de Buzay, which connects +that stream with the more ambitious Loire, and makes of the Lac de Grand +Lieu a public domain, instead of a private property as claimed by the +"marquis" who holds in terror all who would fish or shoot over its +waters. All this immediate region formerly belonged to the monks of the +ancient Abbey of Buzay, and it was they who originally cut the waterway +through to the Loire. About half-way in its length are the ruins of the +ancient monastery, clustered about the tower of its old church. It is a +most romantically sad monument, and for that very reason its grouping, +on the bank of the busy canal, suggests in a most impressive manner the +passing of all great works. + +The prosperity of Nantes as a deep-sea port is of long standing, but +recent improvements have increased all this to a hitherto unthought-of +extent. Progress has been continuous, and now Nantes has become, like +Rouen, a great deep-water port, one of the important seaports of France, +the realization of a hope ever latent in the breast of the Nantais since +the days and disasters of the Edict and its revocation. + +Below Nantes, in the actual "Loire Maritime," the aspect of all things +changes and the green and luxuriant banks give way to sand-dunes and +flat, marshy stretches, as salty as the sea itself. This gives rise to a +very considerable development of the salt industry which at Bourg de +Batz is the principal, if not the sole, means of livelihood. + +St. Nazaire, the real deep-water port of Nantes, dates from the +fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when it was known as Port Nazaire. It +is a progressive and up-to-date seaport of some thirty-five thousand +souls, but it has no appeal for the tourist unless he be a lover of +great smoky steamships and all the paraphernalia of longshore life. + +Pornichet, a "_station de bains de mer tres frequentee_;" Batz, with its +salt-works; Le Croisic, with its curious waterside church, and the old +walled town of Guerande bring one to the mouth of the Loire. The rest is +the billowy western ocean whose ebb and flow brings fresh breezes and +tides to the great cities of the estuary and makes possible that +prosperity with which they are so amply endowed. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +SOUTH OF THE LOIRE + + +The estuary of the Loire belongs both to Brittany and to the Vendee, +though, as a matter-of-fact, the southern bank, opposite Nantes, formed +a part of the ancient Pays de Retz, one of the old seigneuries of +Bretagne. + +It was Henri de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz, who was the bitter rival of +Mazarin. French historians have told us that when the regency under Anne +of Austria began, Mazarin, who had been secretary to the terrible +Richelieu, was just coming into his power. He was a subtle, insidious +Italian, plodding and patient, but false as a spring-time rainbow. Gondi +was bold, liberal, and independent, a mover of men and one able to take +advantage of any turn of the wind, a statesman, and a great +reformer,--or he would have been had he but full power. It was Cromwell +who said that De Retz was the only man in Europe who saw through his +plans. + +Gondi had entered the church, but he had no talents for it. His life +was free, too free even for the times, it would appear, for, though he +was ordained cardinal, it was impossible for him to supplant Mazarin in +the good graces of the court. As he himself had said that he preferred +to be a great leader of a party rather than a partisan of royalty, he +was perhaps not so very greatly disappointed that he was not able to +supplant the wily Italian successor of Richelieu in the favour of the +queen regent. Gondi was able to control the parliament, however, and, +for a time, it was unable to carry through anything against his will. +Mazarin rose to power at last, barricaded the streets of Paris, and +decided to exile Gondi--as being the too popular hero of the people. +Gondi knew of the edict, but stuck out to the last, saying: "To-morrow, +I, Henri de Gondi, before midday, will be master of Paris." Noon came, +and he _was_ master of Paris, but as he was still Archbishop-Coadjutor +of Paris his hands were tied in more ways than one, and the plot for his +supremacy over Mazarin, "the plunderer," fell through. + +The whole neighbouring region south of the Loire opposite Nantes, the +ancient Pays de Retz, is unfamiliar to tourists in general, and for that +reason it has an unexpected if not a superlative charm. It was the +bloodiest of the battle-grounds of the Vendean wars, and, though its +monumental remains are not as numerous or as imposingly beautiful as +those in many other parts, there is an interest about it all which is as +undying as is that of the most ornate or magnificent chateau or +fortress-peopled land that ever existed. + +Not a corner of this land but has seen bloody warfare in all its +grimness and horror, from the days when Clisson was pillaged by the +Normans in the ninth century, to the guerilla warfare of the Vendean +republicans in the eighteenth century. The advent of the railway has +changed much of the aspect of this region and brought a +twentieth-century civilization up to the very walls of the ruins of +Clisson and Maulevrier, the latter one of the many chateaux of this +region which were ruined by the wars of Stofflet, who, at the head of +the insurgents, obliged the nobility to follow the peasants in their +uprising. + +Now and then, in these parts, one comes upon a short length of railway +line not unlike that at which our forefathers marvelled. The line may be +of narrow gauge or it may not, but almost invariably the two or three +so-called carriages are constructed in the style (or lack of style) of +the old stage-coach, and they roll along in much the same lumbering +fashion. The locomotive itself is a thing to be wondered at. It is a +pigmy in size, but it makes the commotion of a modern decapod, or one of +those great flyers which pull the Southern Express on the main line via +Poitiers and Angouleme, not fifty kilometres away. + +There is a little tract of land lying just south of the Loire below +Angers which is known as "le Bocage Vendeen." One leaves the Loire at +Chalonnes and, by a series of gentle inclines, reaches the plateau where +sits the town of Cholet, the very centre of the region, and a town whose +almost only industry is the manufacture of pocket-handkerchiefs. + +The aspect of the Loire has changed rapidly and given way to a more +vigorous and varied topography; but, for all that, Cholet and the +surrounding country depend entirely upon the great towns of the Loire +for their intercourse with the still greater markets beyond. Like +Angers, Cholet and all the neighbouring villages are slate-roofed, with +only an occasional red tile to give variety to the otherwise gray and +sombre outlook. + +_En route_ from Chalonnes one passes Chemille almost the only +market-town of any size in the district. It is very curious, with its +Romanesque church and its old houses distributed around an amphitheatre, +like the _loges_ in an opera-house. + +This is the very centre of the Bocage, where, in Revolutionary times, +the Republican armies so frequently fought with the bands of Vendean +fanatics. + +The houses of Cholet are well built, but always with that grayness and +sadness of tone which does not contribute to either brilliancy of aspect +or gaiety of disposition. Save the grand street which traverses the town +from east to west, the streets are narrow and uncomfortable; but to make +up for all this there are hotels and cafes as attractive and as +comfortable as any establishments of the kind to be found in any of the +smaller cities of provincial France. + +The handkerchief industry is very considerable, no less than six great +establishments devoting themselves to the manufacture. + +Cholet is one of the greatest cattle markets, if not the greatest, in +the land. The farmers of the surrounding country buy _boeufs maigres_ in +the southwest and centre of France and transform them into good fat +cattle which in every way rival what is known in England as "best +English." This is accomplished cheaply and readily by feeding them with +cabbage stalks. + +On Saturdays, on the Champ de Foire, the aspect is most animated, and +any painter who is desirous of emulating Rosa Bonheur's "Horse Fair" +(painted at the great cattle market of Bernay, in Normandy) cannot find +a better vantage-ground than here, for one may see gathered together +nearly all the cattle types of Poitou, the Vendee, Anjou, Bas Maine, and +of Bretagne Nantaise. + +In earlier days Cholet was far more sad than it is to-day; but there +remain practically no souvenirs of its past. The wars of the Vendee +left, it is said, but three houses standing when the riot and bloodshed +was over. Two of the greatest battles of this furious struggle were +fought here. + +On the site of the present railroad station Kleber and Moreau fought the +royalists, and the heroic Bonchamps received the wound of which he died +at St. Florent, just after he had put into execution the order of +release for five thousand Republican prisoners. This was on the 17th +October, 1793. Five months later Stofflet possessed himself of the town +and burned it nearly to the ground. Not much is left to remind one of +these eventful times, save the public garden, which was built on the +site of the old chateau. + +[Illustration: _Donjon of the Chateau de Clisson_] + +La Moine, a tiny and most picturesque river, still flows under the +antique arches of the old bridge, which was held in turn by the Vendeans +and the Republicans. + +To the west of Cholet runs another line of railway, direct through the +heart of the Sevre-Nantaise, one of those _petits pays_ whose old-time +identity is now all but lost, even more celebrated in bloody annals than +is that region lying to the eastward. Here was a country entirely sacked +and impoverished. Mortagne was completely ruined, though it has yet left +substantial remains of its fourteenth and fifteenth century chateau. +Torfou was the scene of a bloody encounter between the Vendean hordes +and Kleber's two thousand _heroiques de Mayence_. The able Vendean +chiefs who opposed him, Bonchamps, D'Elbee, and Lescure, captured his +artillery and massacred all the wounded. + +At the extremity of this line was the stronghold of Clisson, which +itself finally succumbed, but later gave birth to a new town to take the +place of that which perished in the Vendean convulsion. + +Throughout this region, in the valleys of the Moine and the +Sevre-Nantaise, the rocks and the verdure and the admirable, though ill +preserved, ruins, all combine to produce as unworldly an atmosphere as +it is possible to conceive within a short half-hundred kilometres of the +busy world-port of Nantes and the great commercial city of Angers. One +continually meets with ruins that recall the frightful struggle of +Revolutionary times; hence the impression that one gets from a ramble +through or about this region is well-nigh unique in all France. + +The coast southward, nearly to La Rochelle, is a vast series of shallow +gulfs and salt marshes which form weirdly wonderful outlooks for the +painter who inclines to vast expanses of sea and sky. + +Pornic is a remarkably picturesque little seaside village, where the +inflowing and outflowing tides of the Bay of Biscay temper the southern +sun and make of it--or would make of it if the tide of fashion had but +set that way--a watering-place of the first rank. + +It is an entrancing bit of coast-line which extends for a matter of +fifty kilometres south of the juncture of the Loire with the ocean, with +an aspect at times severe with a waste of sand, and again gracious with +verdure and tree-clad and rocky shores. + +The great Bay of Bourgneuf and its enfolding peninsula of Noirmoutier +form an artist's sketching-ground that is not yet overrun with mere +dabblers in paint and pencil, and is accordingly charming. + +The Bay of Bourgneuf has most of the characteristics of the Morbihan, +without that severity and sternness which impress one so deeply when on +the shores of the great Breton inland sea. + +The little town of Bourgneuf-en-Retz, with its little port of Colletis, +is by no means a city of any artistic worth; indeed it is nearly bare of +most of those things which attract travellers who are lovers of old or +historic shrines; but it is a delightful stopping-place for all that, +provided one does not want to go farther afield, to the very tip of the +Vendean "land's end" at Noirmoutier across the bay. + +Three times a day a steamer makes the journey to the little island town +which is a favourite place of pilgrimage for the Nantais during the +summer months. Once it was not even an island, but a peninsula, and not +so very long ago either. The alluvial deposits of the Loire made it in +the first place, and the sea, backing in from the north, made a strait +which just barely separates it to-day from the mainland. + +On this out-of-the-way little island there are still some remains of +prehistoric monuments, the dolmen of Chiron-Tardiveau, the menhirs of +Pinaizeaux and Pierre-Levee, and some others. In the speech of the +inhabitants the isle is known as Noirmoutier, a contraction of "_Nigrum +Monasterium_," a name derived from the monastery founded here in the +seventh century by St. Philibert. + +In the town is an old chateau, the ancient fortress-refuge of the Abbe +of Her. It is a great square structure flanked at the angles with little +towers, of which two are roofed, one uncovered, and the fourth +surmounted by a heliograph for communicating with the Ile de Yeu and the +Pointe de Chenoulin. The view from the heights of these chateau towers +is fascinating beyond compare, particularly at sundown on a summer's +evening, when the golden rays of the sinking sun burnish the coast of +the Vendee and cast lingering shadows from the roof-tops and walls of +the town below. To the northwest one sees the Ilot du Pilier, with its +lighthouse and its tiny coast-guard fortress; to the north is clearly +seen Pornic and the neighbouring coasts of the Pays de Retz and of +Bouin with its encircling dikes,--all reminiscent of a little Holland. +To the south is the narrow neck of Fromentin, the jagged Marguerites, +which lift their fangs wholly above the surface of the sea only at low +water, and the towering cliffs of the Ile de Yeu, which rise above the +mists. + +Just south of the Loire, between Nantes and Bourgneuf, is the Lac de +Grand-Lieu, in connection with which one may hear a new rendering of an +old legend. At one time, it is said, it was bordered by a city, whose +inhabitants, for their vices, brought down the vengeance of heaven upon +them, even though they cried out to the powers on high to avert the +threatened flood which rose up out of the lake and overflowed the banks +and swallowed the city and all evidences of its past. In this last lies +the flaw in the legend; but, like the history of Sodom, of the Ville +d'Ys in Bretagne, and of Ars in Dauphine, tradition has kept it alive. + +This wicked place of the Loire valley was called _Herbauge_ or +_Herbadilla_, and, from St. Philibert at the southern extremity of the +lake, one looks out to-day on a considerable extent of shallow water, +which is as murderous-looking and as uncanny as a swamp of the +Everglades. + +From the central basin flow two tiny rivers, the Ognon and the Boulogne, +which are charming enough in their way, as also is the route by highroad +from Nantes, but the gray monotonous lake, across which the wind +whistles in a veritable tempest for more than six months of the year, is +most depressing. + +There are various hamlets, with some pretence at advanced civilization +about them, scattered around the borders of the lake, St. Leger, St. +Mars, St. Aignan, St. Lumine, Bouaye, and La Chevroliere; but in the +whole number you will not get a daily paper that is less than +forty-eight hours old, and nothing but the most stale news of happenings +in the outside world ever dribbles through. St. Philibert is the +metropolis of these parts, and it has no competitors for the honour. + +At the entrance of the Ognon is the little village of Passay, built at +the foot of a low cliff which dominates all this part of the lake. It is +a picturesque little village of low houses and red roofs, with a little +sandy beach in the foreground, through which little rivulets of soft +water trickle and go to make up the greater body. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +BERRY AND GEORGE SAND'S COUNTRY + + +Whether one enters Berry through the valley of the Cher or the Indre or +through the gateway of Sancerre in the mid-Loire, the impression is much +the same. The historic province of Berry resounds again and again with +the echoes of its past, and no province adjacent to the Loire is more +prolific in the things that interest the curious, and none is so little +known as the old province which was purchased for the Crown by Philippe +I. in 1101. + +[Illustration: BERRY (MAP)] + +With the interior of the province, that portion which lies away from +the river valleys, this book has little to do, though the traveller +through the region would hardly omit the episcopal city of Bourges, and +its great transeptless cathedral, with its glorious front of quintupled +portals. With the cathedral may well be coupled that other great +architectural monument, the Maison de Jacques Coeur. At Paris one is +asked, "_Avez-vous vu le Louvre?_" but at Bourges it is always, +"_Etes-vous alle a Jacques Coeur?_" even before one is asked if he has +seen the cathedral. + +From the hill which overlooks Sancerre, and forms a foundation for the +still existing tower of the chateau belonging to the feudal Counts of +Sancerre, one gets one of the most wonderfully wide-spread views in all +the Loire valley. The height and its feudal tower stand isolated, like a +rock rising from the ocean. From Cosne and beyond, on the north, to La +Charite, on the south, is one vast panorama of vineyard, wheat-field, +and luxuriant river-bottom. At a lesser distance, on the right bank, is +the line of the railroad which threads its way like a serpent around the +bends of the river and its banks. + +Below the hill of Sancerre is a huge overgrown hamlet--and yet not large +enough to be called a village--surrounding a most curious church (St. +Satur), without either nave or apse. The old Abbey of St. Satur once +possessed all the lands in the neighbourhood that were not in the actual +possession of the Counts of Sancerre, and was a power in the land, as +were most of the abbeys throughout France. The church was begun in +1360-70, on a most elaborate plan, so extensive in fact (almost +approaching that great work at La Charite) that it has for ever remained +uncompleted. The history of this little churchly suburb of Sancerre has +been most interesting. The great Benedictine church was never finished +and has since come to be somewhat of a ruin. In 1419 the English sacked +the abbey and stole its treasure to the very last precious stone or +piece of gold. A dozen flatboats were anchored or moored to the banks of +the river facing the abbey, and the monks were transported thither and +held for a ransom of a thousand crowns each. As everything had already +been taken by their captors, the monks vainly protested that they had no +valuables with which to meet the demand, and accordingly they were bound +hand and foot and thrown into the river, to the number of fifty-two, +eight only escaping with their lives. A bloody memory indeed for a fair +land which now blossoms with poppies and roses. + +Sancerre, in spite of the etymology of its name (which comes down from +Roman times--Sacrum Caesari), is of feudal origin. Its fortress, and the +Comte as well, were under the suzerainty of the Counts of Champagne, and +it was the stronghold and refuge of many a band of guerilla warriors, +adventurers, and marauding thieves. + +At the end of the twelfth century a certain Comte de Sancerre, at the +head of a coterie of bandits called Brabacons, marched upon Bourges and +invaded the city, killing all who crossed their path, and firing all +isolated dwellings and many even in the heart of the city. + +Sancerre was many times besieged, the most memorable event of this +nature being the attack of the royalists in 1573 against the Frondeurs +who were shut up in the town. The defenders were without artillery, but +so habituated were they to the use of the _fronde_ that for eight months +they were able to hold the city against the foe. From this the _fronde_ +came to be known as the "_arquebuse de Sancerre_." + +[Illustration: _La Tour, Sancerre_] + +Sancerre is to-day a ruined town, its streets unequal and tortuous, all +up and down hill and blindly rambling off into _culs-de-sac_ which +lead nowhere. Above it all is the fine chateau, built in a modern day +after the Renaissance manner, of Mlle. de Crussol, proudly seated on the +very crest of the hill. Within the grounds, the only part of the domain +which is free to the public, are the ruins of the famous citadel which +was bought by St. Louis, in 1226, from the Comte Thibaut. The only +portion of this feudal stronghold which remains to-day is known as the +"Tour des Fiefs." + +One may enter the grounds and, in the company of a _concierge_, ascend +to the platform of this lone tower, whence a wonderful view of the broad +"_ruban lumineux_" of the Loire spreads itself out as if fluttering in +the wind, northward and southward, as far as the eye can reach. Beside +it one sees another line of blue water, as if it were a strand detached +from the broader band. This is the Canal Lateral de la Loire, one of +those inland waterways of France which add so much to the prosperity of +the land. + +Above Sancerre is Gien, another gateway to Berry, through which the +traveller from Paris through the Orleannais is bound to pass. + +[Illustration: _Chateau de Gien_] + +At a distance of five kilometres or more, coming from the north, one +sees the towers of the chateau of Gien piercing the horizon. The +chateau is a most curious affair, with its chainbuilt blocks of stone, +and its red and black--or nearly black--_brique_, crossed and recrossed +in quaint geometrical designs. It was built in 1494 for Dame Anne de +Beaujeau, who was regent of the kingdom immediately after the death of +Charles VIII. This building replaced another of a century before, built +by Jean-sans-Peur, where was celebrated the marriage of his daughter +with the Comte de Guise. Gien's chateau, too, may be said to be a +landmark on Jeanne d'Arc's route to martyrdom and fame, for here she +made her supplication to Charles VII. to march on Reims. In +Charlemagnian times this old castle had a predecessor, which, however, +was more a fortress than a habitable chateau; but all remains of this +had apparently disappeared before the later structure made its +appearance. Louis XIV. and Anne of Austria, regent, held a fugitive, +impoverished court in this chateau, and heard with fear and trembling +the cannon-shots of the armies of Turenne and Conde at Bleneau, five +leagues distant. + +At Nevers or at La Charite one does not get the view of the Loire that +he would like, for, in one case, the waterway is masked by a row of +houses, and in the other by a series of walled gardens; but at Gien, +where everything is splendidly theatrical, there is a tree-bordered quay +and innumerable examples of those coquettish little houses of brick +which are not beautiful, but which set off many a French riverside +landscape as nothing else will. + +In Gien's main street there are a multitude of rare mellowed old houses +with sculptured fronts and high gables. This street twists and turns +until it reaches the old stone and brick chateau, with its harmoniously +coloured walls, making a veritable symphony of colour. Each turn in this +old high-street of Gien gives a new vista of mediaevalism quite +surprising and eerielike, as fantastic as the weird pictures of Dore. + +Gien and its neighbour Briare are chiefly noted commercially for their +pottery. Gien makes crockery ware, and Briare inundates the entire world +with those little porcelain buttons which one buys in every land. + +Crossing the Sologne and entering Berry from the capital of the +Orleannais, or coming out from Tours by the valley of the Cher, one +comes upon the little visited and out-of-the-way chateau of Valencay, in +the charming dainty valley of the Nahon. + +There is some reason for its comparative neglect by the tourist, for it +is on a cross-country railway line which demands quite a full day of +one's time to get there from Tours and get away again to the next centre +of attraction, and if one comes by the way of the Orleannais, he must be +prepared to give at least three days to the surrounding region. + +This is the gateway to George Sand's country, but few English-speaking +tourists ever get here, so it may be safely called unknown. + +It is marvellous how France abounds in these little corners all but +unknown to strangers, even though they lie not far off the beaten track. +The spirit of exploration and travel in unknown parts, except the Arctic +regions, Thibet, and the Australian desert, seems to be dying out. + +The chateau of Valencay was formerly inhabited by Talleyrand, after he +had quitted the bishopric of Autun for politics. It is seated proudly +upon a vast terrace overlooking one of the most charming bits of the +valley of the Nahon, and is of a thoroughly typical Renaissance type, +built by the great Philibert Delorme for Jacques d'Etampes in 1540, and +only acquired by the minister of Napoleon and Louis XVIII. in 1805. + +The architect, in spite of the imposing situation, is not seen at his +best here, for in no way does it compare with his masterwork at Anet, or +the Tuileries. The expert recognizes also the hands of two other +architects, one of the Blaisois and the other of Anjou, who in some +measure transformed the edifice in the reign of Francois I. + +The enormous donjon,--if it is a donjon,--with its great, round corner +tower with a dome above, which looks like nothing so much as an +observatory, is perhaps the outgrowth of an earlier accessory, but on +the whole the edifice is fully typical of the Renaissance. + +The court unites the two widely different terminations in a fashion more +or less approaching symmetry, but it is only as a whole that the effect +is highly pleasing. + +Beyond a _balustrade a jour_ is the Jardin de la Duchesse, communicating +with the park by a graceful bridge over an ornamental water. In general +the apartments are furnished in the style of the First Empire, an epoch +memorable in the annals of Valencay. + +[Illustration: _Chateau de Valencay_] + +By the orders of Napoleon many royalties and ambassadors here received +hospitality, and in 1808-14 it became a gilded cage--or a "golden +prison," as the French have it--for the Prince of the Asturias, +afterward Ferdinand VII. of Spain, who consoled himself during his +captivity by constructing wolf-traps in the garden and planting +cauliflowers in the great urns and vases with which the terrace was set +out. + +There is a great portrait gallery here, where is gathered a collection +of portraits in miniature of all the sovereigns who treated with +Talleyrand during his ministerial reign, among others one of the Sultan +Selim, painted from life, but in secret, since the reproduction of the +human form is forbidden by the Koran. + +In the Maison de Charite, in the town, beneath the pavement of the +chapel, is found the tomb of the family of Talleyrand, where are +interred the remains of Talleyrand and of Marie Therese Poniatowska, +sister of the celebrated King of Poland who served in the French army in +1806. In this chapel also is a rare treasure in the form of a chalice +enriched with precious stones, originally belonging to Pope Pius VI., +the gift of the Princess Poniatowska. + +The Pavillon de la Garenne,--what in England would be called a +"shooting-box,"--a rendezvous for the chase, built by Talleyrand, is +some distance from the chateau on the edge of the delightful little +Foret de Gatine. + +Varennes, just above Valencay, is thought by the average traveller +through the long gallery of charms in the chateau country to be wholly +unworthy of his attention. As a matter of fact, it does not possess much +of historical or artistic interest, though its fine old church dates +from the twelfth century. + +Ascending the Cher from its juncture with the Loire, one passes a number +of interesting places. St. Aignan, with its magnificent Gothic and +Renaissance chateau; Selles; Romorantin, a dead little spot, dear as +much for its sleepiness as anything else; Vierzon, a rich, industrial +town where they make locomotives, automobiles, and mechanical hay-rakes, +copying the most approved American models; and Mehun-sur-Yevre, all +follow in rapid succession. + +Mehun-sur-Yevre, which to most is only a name and to many not even that, +is possessed of two architectural monuments, a grand ruin of a Gothic +fortress of the time of Charles VII. and a feudal gateway of two great +rounded cone-roofed towers, bound by a ligature through which a +port-cullis formerly slid up and down like an act-drop in a theatre. + +[Illustration: GATEWAY OF MEHUN-SUR-YEVRE] + +Wonderfully impressive all this, and the more so because these +magnificent relics of other days are unspoiled and unrestored. + +[Illustration: _Le Carrior Dore, Romorantin_] + +Charles VII. was by no means constant in his devotions, it will be +recalled, though he seems to have been seriously enamoured of Agnes +Sorel--at any rate while she lived. Afterward he speedily surrounded +himself with a galaxy of "_belles demoiselles vetues comme reines_." +They followed him everywhere, and he spent all but his last sou upon +them, as did some of his successors. + +One day Charles VII. took refuge in the strong towers of the chateau of +Mehun-sur-Yevre, which he himself had built and which he had frequently +made his residence. Here he died miserable and alone,--it is said by +history, of hunger. Thus another dark chapter in the history of kings +and queens was brought to a close. + +If one has the time and so desires, he may follow the Indre, the next +confluent of the Loire south of the Cher, from Loches to "George Sand's +country," as literary pilgrims will like to think of the pleasant +valleys of the ancient province of Berry. + +The history of the province before and since Philippe I. united it with +the Crown of France was vivid enough to make it fairly well known, but +on the whole it has been very little travelled. It is essentially a +pastoral region, and, remembering George Sand and her works, one has +refreshing memories of the idyls of its prairies and the beautiful +valleys of the Indre and the Cher, which join their waters with the +Loire near Tours. + +If one would love Berry as one loves a greater and more famous haunt of +a famous author, and would prepare in advance for the pleasure to be +received from threading its highways and byways, he should read those +"_petits chefs-d'oeuvre_ of sentiment and rustic poesy", the romances of +George Sand. If he has done this, he will find almost at every turning +some long familiar spot or a peasant who seems already an old friend. + +Chateauroux is the real gateway to the country of George Sand. + +Nohant is the native place of the great authoress, Madame Dudevant, whom +the world best knows as George Sand; a little by-corner of the great +busy world, loved by all who know it. Far out in the open country is the +little station at which one alights if he comes by rail. Opposite is a +"_petite route_" which leads directly to the banks of the Indre, where +it joins the highway to La Chatre. + +Nohant itself, as a dainty old-world village, is divine. Has not George +Sand expressed her love of it as fervidly as did Marie Antoinette for +the Trianon? The French call it a "_bon et honnete petit village +berrichon_." Nude of artifice, it is deliciously unspoiled. A delightful +old church, with a curious wooden porch and a parvise as rural as could +possibly be, not even a cobblestone detracting from its rustic beauty, +is the principal thing which strikes one's eye as he enters the village. +Chickens and geese wander about, picking here and there on the very +steps of the church, and no one says them nay. + +The house of George Sand is just to the right of the church, within +whose grounds one sees also the pavilion known to her as the "_theatre +des marionettes_." + +In a corner of the poetic little cemetery at Nohant, one sees among the +humble crosses emerging from the midst of the verdure, all +weather-beaten and moss-grown, a plain, simple stone, green with mossy +dampness, which marks the spot where reposes all that was mortal of +George Sand. Here, in the midst of this land which she so loved, she +still lives in the memory of all; at the house of the well-lettered for +her abounding talent--second only to that of Balzac--and in the homes +of the peasants for her generous fellowship. + +Through her ancestry she could and did claim relationship with Charles +X. and Louis XVIII.; but her life among her people had nought of +pretence in it. She was born among the roses and to the sound of music, +and she lies buried amid all the rusticity and simple charm of what may +well be called the greenwood of her native land. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +THE UPPER LOIRE + + +The gateway to the upper valley may be said to be through the Nivernais, +and the capital city of the old province, at the juncture of the Allier +and the Loire. + +After leaving Gien and Briare, the Loire passes through quite the most +truly picturesque landscape of its whole course, the great height of +Sancerre dominating the view for thirty miles or more in any direction. + +Cosne is the first of the towns of note of the Nivernais, and is a gay +little bourg of eight or nine thousand souls who live much the same life +that their grandfathers lived before them. As a place of residence it +might prove dull to the outsider, but as a house of call for the wearied +and famished traveller, Cosne, with its charming situation, its +tree-bordered quays, and its Hotel du Grand Cerf, is most attractive. + +[Illustration: _Eglise S. Aignan, Cosne_] + +Pouilly-sur-Loire is next, with three thousand or more inhabitants +wholly devoted to wine-growing, Pouilly being to the upper river what +Vouvray is to Touraine. It is not a tourist point in any sense, nor is +it very picturesque or attractive. + +Some one has said that the pleasure of contemplation is never so great +as when one views a noble monument, a great work of art, or a charming +French town for the first time. Never was it more true indeed than of +the two dissimilar towns of the upper Loire, Nevers, and La +Charite-sur-Loire. The old towers of La Charite rise up in the sunlight +and give that touch to the view which marks it at once as of the +Nivernais, which all archaeologists tell one is Italian and not French, +in motive as well as sentiment. + +It is remarkable, perhaps, that the name La Charite is so seldom met +with in the accounts of English travellers in France, for in France it +is invariably considered to be one of the most picturesque and famous +spots in all mid-France. + +It is an unprogressive, sleepy old place, with streets mostly unpaved, +whose five thousand odd souls, known roundabout as Les Caritates, live +apparently in the past. + +[Illustration: _Pouilly-sur-Loire_] + +Below, a stone's throw from the windows of your inn, lies the Loire, +its broad, blue bosom scarcely ruffled, except where it slowly eddies +around the piers of the two-century-old _dos d'ane_ bridge; a lovely old +structure, built, it is recorded, by the regiment known as the "Royal +Marine" in the early years of the eighteenth century. + +The town is terraced upon the very edge of the river, with views up and +down which are unusually lovely for even these parts. Below, almost +within sight, is Nevers, while above are the heights of Sancerre, still +visible in the glowing western twilight. + +Beyond the bridge rises a giant column of blackened stone, festooned by +four ranges of arcades, the sole remaining relic of the ancient church +standing alone before the present structure which now serves the +purposes of the church in La Charite. + +The walls which surrounded the ancient town have disappeared or have +been built into house walls, but the effect is still of a self-contained +old burg. + +In the fourteenth century, during the Hundred Years' War, the town was +frequently besieged. In 1429 Jeanne d'Arc, coming from her success at +St. Pierre-le-Moutier, here met with practically a defeat, as she was +able to sustain the siege for only but a month, when she withdrew. + +La Charite played an important part in the religious wars of the +sixteenth century, and Protestants and Catholics became its occupants in +turn. Virtually La Charite-sur-Loire became a Protestant stronghold in +spite of its Catholic foundation. + +In 1577 it bade defiance to the royal arms of the Duc d'Alencon, as is +recounted by the following lines: + + "Ou allez-vous, helas! furieux insenses + Cherchant de Charite la proie et la ruine, + Qui sans l'ombre de Foy abbatre la pensez! + + * * * * * + + Le canon ne peut rien contre la Charite, + Plus tot vous detruira la peste et la famine, + Car jamais sans Foy n'aurez la Charite." + +In spite of this defiance it capitulated, and, on the 15th of May, at +the chateau of Plessis-les-Tours on the Loire, Henri III. celebrated the +victory of his brother by a fete "_ultra-galante_," where, in place of +the usual pages, there were employed "_des dames vestues en habits +d'hommes...._" Surely a fantastic and immodest manner of celebrating a +victory against religious opponents; but, like many of the customs of +the time, the fete was simply a fanatical debauch. + +[Illustration: _Porte du Croux, Nevers_] + +At Nevers one meets the Canal du Nivernais, which recalls Daudet's "La +Belle Nivernaise" to all readers of fiction, who may accept it without +question as a true and correct guide to the region, its manners, and +customs. + +The chief characteristic of Nevers is that it is Italian in nearly, if +not quite all, its aspects; its monuments and its history. Its ancient +ducal chateau, part of which dates from the feudal epoch, was the abode +of the Italian dukes who came in the train of Mazarin, the last of whom +was the nephew of the cardinal, "who himself was French if his speech +was not." + +Nevers has also a charming Gothic cathedral (St. Cyr) with a double +Romanesque apse (in itself a curiosity seldom, if ever, seen out of +Germany), and, in addition to the cathedral, can boast of St. Etienne, +one of the most precious of all the Romanesque churches of France. + +The old walls at Nevers are not very complete, but what remain are +wonderfully expressive. The Tour Gouguin and the Tour St. Eloi are +notable examples, but they are completely overshadowed by the Porte du +Croux, which is one of the best examples of the city gates which were so +plentiful in the France of another day. + +Above Nevers, Decize, Bourbon-Lancy, Gilly, and Digoin are mere names +which mean nothing to the traveller by rail. They are busy towns of +central France, where the bustle of their daily lives is of quite a +different variety from that of the Ile de France, of Normandy, or of the +Pas de Calais. + +From Digoin to Roanne the Loire is followed by the Canal Lateral. Roanne +is a not very pleasing, overgrown town which has become a veritable +_ville des ouvriers_, all of whom are engaged in cloth manufacture. + +Virtually, then, Roanne is not much more than a guide-post on the route +to Le Puy--"the most picturesque place in the world"--and the +wonderfully impressive region of the Cevennes and the Vivaris, where +shepherds guard their flocks amid the solitudes. + +Far above Le Puy, in a rocky gorge known as the Gerbier-de-Jonc, near +Ste. Eulalie, in the Ardeche, rises the tiny Liger, which is the real +source of the mighty Loire, that natural boundary which divides the +north from the south and forms what the French geographers call "_la +bassin centrale de France_." + +THE END. + + + + +INDEX + + + Abbeville, 107. + + _Abd-el-Kader, Emir_, 165. + + _Abelard_, 293. + + _Absalom_, 281. + + Acheneau, The, 298. + + _Adams, John_, 124. + + _Alaric_, 149. + + _Alcuin, Abbe_, 206. + + _Alencon, Ducs d'_, 195, 334. + + _Alencon, Marguerite d'_, 97, 150, 151-152. + + Allier, The, 330. + + Amboise and Its Chateau, 3, 20, 82, 96, 100, 123, 130-131, 137, 140, + 148-169, 172, 181, 186, 194, 249. + + _Amboise, Family of_, 118, 120-122. + + Amboise, Foret d', 169. + + Amiens, 210. + + Ancenis and Its Chateau, 11, 21-23, 291. + + _Andrelini, Fausto_, 66. + + Anet, Chateau d', 107, 177, 322. + + _Ange, Michel_, 208, 249. + + Angers and Its Chateau, 7, 10-13, 15, 21-23, 40, 84, 275, 278, + 280, 283-284, 286-290, 304, 308. + + Angouleme, 194, 304. + + _Angouleme, Isabeau d'_, 267. + + _Angouleme, Jean d'_, 89. + + _Angouleme, Louise de Savoie, Duchesse d'_ (See _Savoie, + Louise de_). + + Anjou, 15, 26, 142, 161, 273, 274, 284, 289-290, 292, 306, 322. + + _Anjou, Counts of_, 150, 193, 208, 232, 239, 267, 288. + + _Anjou, Foulques Nerra, Comte d'_ (See _Foulques Nerra_). + + _Anjou, Margaret of_, 280. + + _Anne of Austria_, 301-302, 319. + + Aquitaine, 18, 193. + + _Arbrissel, Robert d'_, 263. + + _Arc, Jeanne d'_, 202, 254-256, 258-260. + + _Ardier, Paul_, 115. + + Arques, Chateau d', 9. + + _Aumale, Duc d'_, 165. + + _Aussigny, Thibaut d'_, 48. + + Authion, The, 13. + + Autun, 321. + + Auvergne, 15. + + Auvers, 251. + + Auxerre, 17, 119. + + Avignon, 51, 260. + + Azay-le-Rideau and Its Chateau, 10, 63, 140, 226, 238, 240-247. + + + Bacon, 40. + + Ballon, 215. + + _Balue, Cardinal_, 194, 196. + + _Balzac, Honore de_, 3, 6, 20, 128-129, 137-138, 143, 207-209, + 234, 239, 329. + + _Bardi, Comte de_, 108. + + _Barre, De la_, 144, 240. + + _Barry, Madame du_, 169, 215. + + _Beaudoin, Jean_, 200. + + _Beaufort, A._, 138. + + Beaugency and Its Chateau, 9, 41, 48-53. + + _Beaujeau, Anne de_, 319. + + Beaulieu, 201-202. + + Beauregard, Chateau de, 114-116. + + Beauvron, The, 114. + + _Becket_, 190. + + _Belier, Guillaume_, 258. + + _Bellanger, Stanislas_, 135. + + _Bellay Family, Du_, 5, 128, 234. + + _Belleau, Remy_, 128. + + _Beringhem, Henri de_, 245. + + Bernay, 306. + + _Bernier_, 57. + + Berry, 7, 15, 56, 123, 313-314, 318, 320, 326-329. + + _Berry, Counts of_, 150. + + _Berry, Duchesse de_, 295. + + _Berthelot, Gilles_, 244, 246. + + _Berthier, Marechal_, 108. + + Beuvron, 87-88. + + _Biencourt, Marquis de_, 246. + + _Blacas, Comte de_, 247. + + Blaisois, The, 52, 54, 56-84, 102, 123-124, 136, 148, 193, 322. + + Bleneau, 319. + + Blesois, The (_See_ Blaisois, The). + + Blois and Its Chateau, 3, 9, 11, 20, 40, 52-54, 56-84, 88, 94-95, 98, + 100, 107, 110-112, 116-117, 119, 123, 125-126, 136, 139, 149, 156, + 160, 164, 167, 174, 184, 186, 194, 260, 284. + + _Blois, Comtes de_, 57-59, 62, 84, 87, 98, 118. + + Blois, Foret de, 54. + + _Blondel_, 99. + + Bocage, The, 304-305. + + _Bohier, Thomas_, 174, 182, 184-186. + + Bois-Tillac, 298. + + _Bolingbroke_, 42, 183. + + _Bonchamps_, 306-307. + + _Bonheur, Rosa_, 306. + + Bonneventure, Chateau de, 250. + + _Bontemps, Pierre_, 105. + + Bordeaux, 133, 171, 203, 292. + + _Bordeaux, Duc de_, 108. + + _Bosseboeuf, Abbe_, 233. + + Bouaye, 312. + + Bouin, 311. + + Boulogne, The, 312. + + _Bourbon, Cardinal de_, 164. + + _Bourbon, Renee de_, 264. + + Bourbon-Lancy, 336. + + Bourbonnais, 15. + + Bourdaisiere, Chateau de la, 169. + + Bourg de Batz, 300. + + Bourges, 15, 314, 316. + + Bourgneuf-en-Retz, 309, 311. + + Bourgogne, 4, 15, 142. + + Bourgueil, 267. + + _Bourre, Jean_, 233. + + _Boyer_, 111. + + Bracieux, 110. + + Brain-sur-Allonnes, 269. + + _Brantome_, 101, 155, 157, 158. + + Brenne, 135. + + Bretagne, 15, 26, 35-36, 57, 192, 218, 284, 291-293, 301. + + _Bretagne, Anne de_, 63, 97, 120, 168, 196, 209, 234, + 236-238, 293, 296. + + _Bretagne, Conan, Duc de_, 295. + + _Bretagne, Francois II., Duc de_, 291, 294-296. + + _Breze, Pierre de_, 195. + + Briare, 320, 330. + + _Briconnet, Cardinal_, 42. + + _Brinvilliers_, 144. + + Brittany (_See_ Bretagne). + + _Broglie, Princesse de_, 120. + + _Brosse, Pierre de_, 234. + + Bruges, 282. + + _Brunyer, Abel_, 80, 81. + + _Buffon_, 61, 183. + + _Bullion_, 119. + + _Bussy d'Amboise, De_, 269. + + Buzay, Abbey of, 299. + + _Byron_, 138. + + + _Caesar_, 18, 290. + + Cahors, 260. + + _Cail, M._, 270-272. + + _Cain_, 251. + + _Calixtus II._, 264. + + Canal de Brest a Nantes, 24. + + Canal de Buzay, 298. + + Canal d'Orleans, 36-37. + + Canal du Nivernaise, 17, 335. + + Canal Lateral, 12, 17, 318, 336. + + Canal Maritime, 298. + + Candes, 268-270, 276. + + _Castellane Family_, 250. + + _Caumont, De_, 195. + + _Cellini_, 152. + + Chalonnes, 24, 304. + + Chambord and Its Chateau, 2-3, 20, 53, 79, 82, 84, 86, 94-110, 123, + 139, 174, 186, 243, 247-248. + + _Chambord, Comte de_, 109. + + Chambris, 10. + + _Champagne, Counts of_, 316. + + Champeigne, 135. + + Champtoce, 24. + + Chanteloup, 154, 169. + + _Charlemagne_, 206. + + _Charles I. (the Bald)_, 18, 193. + + _Charles II. of England_, 82. + + _Charles V., Emperor_, 130-131, 155, 194. + + _Charles VI._, 257. + + _Charles VII._, 150, 188-189, 194-195, 202, 233, 250, 254-256, + 257-260, 268, 319, 324, 326. + + _Charles VIII._, 45, 98, 130, 150, 165, 194-195, 234, 236, 238-239, + 319. + + _Charles IX._, 107, 122, 180. + + _Charles X._, 329. + + _Charles Martel_, 5. + + _Charles the Bold of Burgundy_, 44. + + Chartres, 22, 133. + + Chartreuse du Liget, 190. + + _Chateaubriand, Comtesse de_, 101, 130. + + Chateau Chevigne, 22. + + Chateau de la Fontaine, 43. + + Chateau de la Source, 42-43. + + Chateaudun and Its Castle, 21-22. + + _Chateaudun, Vicomtes de_, 269. + + Chateau Gaillard, 259. + + Chateau l'Epinay, 22. + + Chateauneuf-sur-Loire, 36, 84. + + Chateauroux, 327. + + Chateau Serrand, 22. + + Chatillon, 12, 17, 19. + + _Chatillon, Cardinal de_, 160. + + _Chatillon, Comtes de_, 61, 68. + + Chaumont and Its Chateau, 11, 20, 107, 110, 116-126, 140. + + _Chaumont, Charles de_, 120. + + _Chaumont, Donatien Le Ray de_, 123-125. + + Chemille, 304-305. + + _Chemille, Petronille de_, 263. + + Chenonceaux and Its Chateau, 10, 63, 107, 118, 140, 148, 165, + 169, 171-187, 234, 243, 247, 251. + + Cher, The, 10, 21, 91, 171-173, 177-178, 180, 183, 191, 215, + 275, 313, 320, 324, 326-327. + + _Chevalier, Abbe_, 243. + + Cheverny and Its Chateau, 82, 110-114, 133. + + _Cheverny, Philippe Hurault, Comte de_, 111. + + _Chicot_, 201. + + Chinon and Its Chateaux, 10, 92, 140, 171, 193, 202, 239, + 241, 247, 250-261, 268. + + Chinon, Foret de, 241, 247. + + Chiron-Tardiveau, 310. + + _Choiseul, Duc de_, 164, 169. + + Cholet, 275, 304-307. + + _Cholet, Comte de_, 115. + + Cinq-Mars and Its Ruins, 7, 21, 137, 220, 227-232, 238, 274. + + _Cinq-Mars, Henri, Marquis de_, 228, 229-231, 234. + + _Cinq-Mars, Marquise de_, 230, 231. + + _Claude of France_, 72, 80, 97, 155. + + _Clement, Jacques_, 78. + + Clermont-Ferrand, 15. + + Clery, 32, 41, 44-46, 214. + + Clisson and Its Chateau, 8, 303, 307. + + _Clisson_, 293. + + _Clopinel, Jehan_ (See _Jean de Meung_). + + _Clouet_, 112. + + _Clovis_, 43, 149, 253. + + Coeuvres, 170. + + _Coligny_, 160-161. + + Colletis, 309. + + _Colombe, Michel_, 207-208, 295. + + _Commines, De_, 45. + + _Conde, Prince de_, 119, 160-161, 168, 319. + + _Conti, Princesse de_, 234. + + _Cormeri, Citizen_, 215. + + Cormery, 133. + + Cosne, 18, 314, 330. + + Cosson, The, 2, 97-98, 101. + + Coteau de Guignes, 52. + + Coueron, 298. + + _Coulanges, M. de_, 18. + + Coulmiers, 40. + + Cour-Cheverny, 110, 114, 133. + + _Cousin, Jean_, 105. + + Coutanciere, Chateau of, 269. + + _Coxe, Miss_, 125. + + _Crequy, Marquise de_, 183. + + Croix de Monteuse, 16. + + _Cromwell_, 301. + + _Crussol, Mlle. de_, 318. + + + _Dalahaide_, 77. + + Dampierre, 280. + + _Dante_, 203. + + _Danton_, 144. + + _Daudet_, 17, 335. + + Decize, 336. + + _Delavigne, Casimir_, 34. + + _Delorme, Marion_, 230-231. + + _Delorme, Philibert_, 321. + + _Deneux, Mlle._, 215. + + _Descartes_, 3, 208. + + Digoin, 336. + + Dijon, 15. + + _Dino, Duc de_, 115. + + Dive, The, 13. + + Domfront, Chateau de, 9. + + _Dore_, 207, 320. + + _Duban_, 73. + + _Ducos, Roger_, 164-165. + + _Dudevant, Madame_ (See _Sand, George_). + + _Duguesclin_, 49. + + _Dumas_, 3, 6, 47, 82, 201, 268-269, 294-295. + + Dunois, The, 56. + + _Dupin, M. and Mme._, 183, 187. + + _Duplessis-Mornay_, 281. + + + _Eckmuehl, Prince_, 42. + + _Effiats Family, D'_ (See _Cinq-Mars_). + + _Elbee, D'_, 307. + + _Eleanor of Portugal_, 155. + + _Eleanore of Guienne_, 267. + + Embrun, 44, 45. + + _Epernon, Duc d'_, 194. + + _Este, Cardinal d'_, 180. + + _Estrees, Gabrielle d'_, 164, 169-170. + + _Etampes, Duchesse d'_, 101, 130-131, 155. + + _Etampes, Jacques d'_, 321. + + Etretat, 251. + + Eure et Loir, Department of, 35. + + + Falaise, Chateau de, 9. + + _Ferdinand VII. of Spain_, 323. + + Finistere, 35. + + _Flaubert_, 6. + + _Foix, Marguerite de_, 295-296. + + Folie-Siffait, 26. + + Fontainebleau, 97. + + Fontaine des Sables Mouvants, 52. + + _Fontenelle_, 183. + + Fontenoy, 107. + + Fontevrault, Abbey of, 3, 263-267, 282. + + _Force, Piganiol de la_, 106. + + Forez, Plain of, 17. + + _Fouche_, 298. + + _Foulques Nerra_, 93, 201, 232, 234. + + _Foulques V._, 238. + + _Fouquet_, 164, 294. + + _Francois I._, 60-64, 69-70, 72-73, 75, 89, 94-99, 101, 104-107, + 109, 114, 118, 130, 148, 151-156, 171-172, 174-176, 189-190, + 194, 196-197, 200, 244-245, 264, 322. + + _Francois II._, 156-162, 168, 181, 215. + + _Franklin, Benjamin_, 123-124, 125. + + Freiburg, 22. + + Fromentin, 311. + + + _Galles, Prince de_, 49. + + _Gaston of Orleans_, 59-60, 62, 68-70, 79-82. + + Gatanais, The, 36. + + Gatine, Foret de, 324. + + _George IV._, 169. + + Gerbier-de-Jonc, 16, 336. + + Gien and Its Chateau, 8, 18, 19, 202, 318-320, 330. + + Gilly, 336. + + Giverny, 251. + + _Gondi, Henri de_, 293-294, 301-302. + + _Goujon, Jean_, 105, 179, 244. + + _Gregory of Tours_, 57. + + _Grise-Gonelle, Geoffroy_, 195. + + Grottoes of Ste. Radegonde, 218. + + Guerande, 300. + + _Guise, Henri, Duc de (Le Balafre)_, 67, 69-70, 73-78, 157, 160, + 162, 164, 168, 180, 234. + + + Haute Loire, Department of, 11. + + _Henri II._, 69, 99, 107, 109, 115, 156, 158, 171-172, 174-177, + 183-184, 197, 200. + + _Henri III._, 69-70, 73, 75-78, 182, 195, 201, 334. + + _Henri IV. (de Navarre)_, 78, 164, 170, 201, 281, 293. + + _Henry II. of England_, 190, 208, 238, 257-258, 267. + + _Henry VIII. of England_, 107. + + _Holbein_, 152. + + _Hugo, Victor_, 37. + + Huismes, 250. + + _Hurault, Philippe_, 111, 112. + + + Ile de Yeu, 310-311. + + Ile Feydeau, 298. + + Ile Gloriette, 298. + + Ile St. Jean, 149. + + Ilot du Pilier, 310. + + Indre, The, 10, 21, 191-192, 240, 243-244, 247, 275, 313, 326-327. + + Indre et Loire, Departement d', 142. + + + _Jahel, Miss_, 125. + + _James V. of Scotland_, 157. + + _James, Henry_, 14, 189, 204, 251. + + Jargeau, 36. + + _Jean de Meung_, 46-47. + + _Jean-sans-Peur_, 319. + + _Jean-sans-Terre_, 193, 267. + + _Jeanne d'Arc_, 33-35, 38, 49, 319, 333. + + _Jeanne of France_, 209. + + _John, King_, 287. + + Joue, 215. + + _Juvenet_, 34. + + + _Kleber_, 306, 307. + + + La Beauce, 38, 41, 53, 87, 141. + + "La Briche," 270-272. + + Lac de Grand Lieu, 298-299, 311-312. + + Lac d'Issarles, 16. + + La Chapelle, 43. + + La Charite, 17-18, 314-315, 319, 332-334. + + La Chatre, 327. + + La Chevroliere, 312. + + _Lafayette, Madame de_, 109. + + _La Fontaine_, 128, 286. + + La Martiniere, 298. + + La Motte, 87-88. + + _Landais_, 294. + + _Landes, Houdon des_, 137. + + Langeais and Its Chateau, 7, 21, 82, 133, 140, 165, 174, 224, + 232-241, 247. + + Languedoc, 15. + + _Lanoue_, 293. + + Lanterne de Rochecorbon, 220. + + La Pointe, 13, 22-23, 284. + + La Possoniere, 289. + + Larcay, 10. + + La Rochelle, 208, 308. + + _Lauzun_, 164. + + _Lavedan_, 31-32. + + Layon, The, 13. + + Le Croisic, 300. + + Le Havre, 27. + + _Lemaitre, Jules_, 34. + + _Lemercier_, 261-262. + + _Lenoir_, 57. + + _Lenotre_, 43. + + _Lepage_, 35. + + Le Pellerin, 298. + + Le Puy, 4-5, 10, 16, 137, 336. + + _Leray, M._, 120. + + Les Andelys, Chateau de, 9. + + _Lescure_, 307. + + _Lespine, Jean de_, 291. + + Liger, The, 336. + + Lille, 286. + + _Lille, Abbe de_, 107. + + "_Limieul, La Demoiselle de_" (See _Tour, Isabelle de la_). + + Limousin, The, 109. + + Lisieux, 92. + + Loches and Its Chateaux, 3, 9-10, 130, 133, 140, 142, 188-202, 250, + 266, 326. + + Loches, Foret de, 190. + + Loir, The, 13, 21. + + Loir et Cher, Department of the, 35, 57. + + Loire, The, 1, 3-30, 32, 34-38, 40-41, 43, 50-51, 53-54, 56, 58, + 64-65, 68, 92, 95-97, 101-102, 110, 116-118, 120-122, 124, 129, + 133, 134, 137, 140-142, 148-149, 156, 163, 171, 173, 177-178, 191, + 196, 208, 215, 220-223, 225, 227-228, 232, 236, 240, 257, 259-260, + 267, 273, 275-276, 278-279, 282-286, 288-290, 292-293, 297-302, + 304, 308-309, 311, 313-314, 318-319, 324, 326-327, 330, 332-334, + 336. + + Loiret, The, 41-43. + + Loiret, Department of the, 35-36. + + _Lorraine, Cardinal de_, 157, 180. + + _Lorraine, Marie de_, 157. + + Lorris, 37. + + _Lorris, Guillaume de_, 37, 46. + + Lot, The, 260. + + Louet, The, 286. + + _Louis II. (Le Begue)_, 150. + + _Louis IX._ (See _St. Louis_). + + _Louis XI._, 5, 32, 41, 44-46, 48, 69, 130-131, 150, 154, 194, + 195, 211-212, 214-218, 232-233, 253, 257-258, 268, 281, 291. + + _Louis XII._, 60-61, 64, 66, 83, 97, 120, 122, 151, 167, + 194-195, 209, 215, 238, 294. + + _Louis XIII._, 63, 99, 107, 139, 222, 224, 228, 230-231. + + _Louis XIV._, 32, 82-83, 98-99, 107, 109, 111, 164, 215, 227, + 232, 245, 247, 294, 319. + + _Louis XV._, 54, 84, 107, 164, 169, 215. + + _Louis XVI._, 32, 123. + + _Louis XVIII._, 321, 329. + + _Louis Philippe_, 165. + + Louvre, The, 130, 285. + + _Lubin, M._, 126. + + Luynes and Its Chateau, 21, 222-227. + + _Luynes Family_, 222, 224, 227, 234. + + Lyonnais, 15. + + Lyons, 16, 203, 286. + + Lyons, Foret de, 87. + + + Madon, 126. + + _Maille, Comte de_, 227. + + Maine, The, 12-13, 21-23, 284, 288-290. + + _Maintenon, Madame de_, 109. + + _Malines_, 77. + + _Mame et Fils, Alfred_, 205. + + _Mansart_ (elder), 62, 79. + + Marguerites, The, 311. + + _Marie Antoinette_, 328. + + _Marigny, De_, 54. + + Marmoutier, Abbey of, 218-220, 266. + + _Marques, Family of_, 185. + + _Marsay, M. de_, 190. + + Marseilles, 27, 136, 203, 286, 292. + + _Martel, Geoffroy_, 253. + + Maulevrier, Chateau of, 303. + + Mauves, Plain of, 26. + + Mayenne, 21. + + Mayenne, The, 21. + + _Mazarin_, 6, 293, 301-302, 335. + + _Medici, Catherine de_, 73-79, 107, 118-119, 122-123, 156-157, + 160-162, 168, 175-182, 184-185. + + _Medici, Marie de_, 194, 285. + + Mehun-sur-Yevre and Its Chateau, 324-326. + + _Mello, Dreux de_, 193. + + Menars and Its Chateau, 53-54. + + Mer, 52-53. + + Metz, 40. + + Meung-sur-Loire, 41, 44, 46-48. + + Micy, Abbaye de, 43. + + _Mignard_, 112. + + Moine, The, 307-308. + + _Moliere_, 108. + + Montbazon, 10. + + _Montespan, Madame de_, 283. + + _Montesquieu_, 183. + + _Montgomery_, 158, 175. + + Montjean, 24. + + Montlivault, 53. + + _Montmorency, Connetable de_, 174. + + Montpellier, Castle of, 231. + + _Montpensier, Charles de_, 154-155. + + Montrichard and its Donjon, 9-10, 91-93. + + Montsoreau, 268-270, 276. + + Moraines, Chateau de (_See_ Dampierre). + + _Moreau_, 306. + + Moret, 251. + + _Morrison_, 81. + + Mortagne, 307. + + _Mosnier_, 112. + + Moulins, 15. + + Muides, 53. + + + Nahon, The, 320-321. + + Nantes and Its Chateau, 3, 7-8, 12-13, 23, 25-28, 40, 59, 84, 133, + 207, 278-279, 286, 288, 291-302, 308, 311-312. + + _Napoleon I._, 83, 138, 164, 321-322. + + _Napoleon III._, 88. + + _Napoleon, Louis_, 165. + + Narbonne, 231. + + _Navarre, Marguerite of_ (See _Alencon, Marguerite d'_). + + _Nemours, Duc de_, 157. + + _Nepveu, Pierre_, 104. + + Nevers, 4, 6, 11, 15, 17, 137, 319, 332-333, 335-336. + + _Nini_, 125. + + Nivernais, The, 15, 330, 332. + + Nohant, 327-329. + + Noirmoutier, 309-310. + + Normandy, 85, 92, 306. + + + Ognon, The, 312. + + Onzain, 116. + + Orleannais, The, 4, 10, 15, 19, 23, 30-57, 318, 320-321. + + Orleans, 7-8, 10-12, 15, 17, 19, 30-35, 37-41, 43, 52, 133, 137, + 256, 258, 270, 284, 289. + + _Orleans Family_, 63, 65-66, 69, 140, 165, 231, 234 (See also + _Gaston of Orleans_). + + Orleans, Foret d', 39-40. + + Oudon, 25-26, 291. + + + Paimboeuf, 298. + + Paris, 13, 30, 33, 42, 79, 119, 124, 136, 139-140, 229-230, 284, + 302, 314. + + _Parme, Duc de_, 108. + + _Parmentier_, 80. + + Pas de Calais, 192. + + Passay, 312. + + Passy-sur-Seine, 124. + + Pays de Retz, 292, 301-302, 310. + + _Penthievre, Duc de_, 164. + + _Pepin_, 193. + + _Philippe I._, 313, 326. + + _Philippe II. (Auguste)_, 93, 193, 238. + + _Philippe III. (Le Hardi)_, 234. + + _Philippe IV. (Le Bel)_, 49. + + Pierrefonds, Chateau of, 186. + + Pierre-Levee, 310. + + _Pilon, Germain_, 105. + + Pinaizeaux, 310. + + _Pius VI._, 323. + + _Plantagenet, Henry_ (See _Henry II. of England_). + + _Plantin, Christopher_, 205. + + _Plessis, Armand du_ (See _Richelieu, Cardinal_). + + Plessis-les-Tours, 7, 150, 211-218, 334. + + Pointe de Chenoulin, 310. + + Poitiers, 304. + + _Poitiers, Diane de_, 118, 123, 130, 155, 172, 174-178, 183, + 187, 197. + + Poitou, 278, 292, 306. + + _Pompadour, La_, 215. + + _Poniatowska, Marie Therese_, 323. + + Pont Aven, 251. + + Ponts de Ce, 21-22, 275, 279, 284-286. + + Pornic, 308, 310. + + Pornichet, 300. + + Port Boulet, 270. + + Pouilly, 18, 330-332. + + Prairie-au-Duc, 298. + + _Primaticcio_, 152. + + _Primatice_, 99. + + Puy-de-Dome, 16. + + + _Rabelais, Francois_, 3, 128, 143-144, 239-240, 254-256, 260. + + Rambouillet, Foret de, 87. + + Reims, 319. + + _Renaudie, Jean Barri de la_, 161. + + _Rene, King_, 23, 281. + + Rennes, 15. + + _Retz, Cardinal de_ (See _Gondi, Henri de_). + + _Retz, Gilles de_, 24, 293. + + Rhine, The, 13, 26. + + Rhone, The, 13, 23, 260. + + _Richard Coeur de Lion_, 93, 193, 267. + + Richelieu, 260-262. + + _Richelieu, Cardinal_, 224, 228, 231-232, 260-262, 301-302. + + Roanne, 12, 16-17, 336. + + _Rochecotte_, 250. + + Rochecotte, Chateau de, 249-250. + + Romorantin and Its Chateau, 85, 88-89, 324. + + _Ronsard_, 128, 157, 180, 240. + + Rouen, 92, 119, 121-122, 203, 221, 299. + + _Rousseau, Jean Jacques_, 172, 183-184, 187. + + _Roy, Lucien_, 235. + + _Royale, Madame_, 109. + + _Rubens_, 285. + + _Ruggieri, Cosmo_, 78-79, 122-123. + + Russy, Foret de, 114. + + + _Saint Gelais, Guy de_, 245. + + Sancerre and Its Chateaux, 18, 137, 313-318, 330, 333. + + _Sancerre, Counts of_, 314-316. + + _Sand, George_, 7, 321, 326-329. + + San Juste, Monastery of, 131. + + Saone, The, 23. + + _Sardini, Scipion_, 119. + + Sarthe, The, 13, 21. + + Saumur and Its Chateau, 21, 119-120, 142, 171, 221-222, 259, + 274-283, 292. + + Sausac, Chateau of, 202. + + _Sausac, Seigneur de_, 215. + + Savennieres, 289. + + _Savoie, Louise de_, 151. + + _Savoie, Philippe de_, 195. + + _Saxe, Maurice de_, 107-108. + + _Scott, Sir Walter_, 166, 211, 216, 218. + + Sedan, 40. + + Seine, The, 4, 13, 25, 36, 121, 221. + + Selles, 10, 324. + + _Sertio_, 100. + + _Sevigne, Madame de_, 18, 276, 295. + + _Sforza, Ludovic_, 197. + + _Shenstone_, 106. + + _Siegfreid, Jacques_, 234. + + Sologne, The, 38, 52-53, 56, 84-94, 97, 101, 110, 148, 320. + + _Sorel, Agnes_, 152, 188-189, 194, 196, 201-202, 250, 326. + + _Stael, Madame de_, 119-120. + + St. Aignan and Its Chateau, 10, 312, 324. + + _Stanislas of Poland, King_, 107-108. + + St. Ay, 43-44. + + St. Benoit-sur-Loire, 10, 19. + + St. Claude, 54. + + St. Cyr, 215. + + St. Die, 53. + + Ste. Eulalie, 336. + + _Stendahl_, 128. + + St. Etienne, 5, 16. + + St. Florent, Abbey of, 282, 306. + + St. Galmier, 16. + + St. Georges-sur-Loire, 22. + + St. Leger, 312. + + _St. Liphard_, 48. + + _St. Louis_, 37, 193, 288, 318. + + St. Lumine, 312. + + St. Mars, 312. + + _St. Martin_, 5, 149, 209-211, 218, 220, 253, 268. + + _St. Mesme_, 253. + + St. Mesmin, 41, 43. + + St. Nazaire, 23, 28, 292, 300. + + _Stofflet_, 303, 306. + + _St. Ours_, 193. + + St. Philibert, 311-312. + + _St. Philibert_, 310. + + St. Pierre-le-Moutier, 333. + + St. Rambert, 17. + + _St. Sauveur_, 238. + + Strasburg, 22. + + St. Symphorien, 218. + + St. Trinite, Abbey of, 266. + + _Stuart, Mary_, 157-162, 168, 181. + + _St. Vallier, Comte de_, 175, 197. + + Suevres, 53. + + Sully, 19. + + + _Talleyrand_, 250, 321, 323. + + _Tasso_, 180. + + Tavers, 52. + + _Terry, Mr._, 187. + + _Texier_, 22. + + Thezee, 10. + + _Thibaut-le-Tricheur_, 259. + + _Thibaut III._, 253. + + _Thiephanie, Dame_, 281. + + Thouet, The, 13. + + _Thoury, Comtesse_, 105. + + Torfou, 307. + + Toulouse, 15. + + _Tour, Isabelle de la_, 119. + + Touraine, 1-4, 6-9, 15, 19-21, 23, 32, 54, 56, 79, 85, 92, 102, + 105, 121, 128-148, 161, 164, 169, 172-173, 176, 183, 204, 215, + 220, 229-230, 233-234, 238, 243-244, 246, 251, 260, 273, 275, + 284, 332. + + _Touraine, Comtes de_, 253. + + Tours, 3, 4, 7, 8, 10-11, 20-21, 40, 57, 84, 116-117, 120, 132-133, + 137, 148-149, 166, 171-172, 200, 203-211, 215, 221-222, 224-225, + 238-239, 246, 253, 266, 274, 276-277, 320-321, 327. + + Treves-Cunault, 283-284. + + _Turenne_, 319. + + _Turner_, 12. + + + Usse and Its Chateau, 241, 247-249. + + + Valencay and Its Chateau, 320-324. + + _Valentine de Milan_, 66. + + _Valentinois, Duchesse de_ (See _Poitiers, Diane de_). + + Vallee du Vendomois, 274. + + _Valois, Marguerite de_ (_sister of Francois I._) (See _Alencon, + Marguerite d'_). + + _Valois, Marguerite de (de Navarre)_, 180. + + _Van Eyck_, 152. + + Varennes, 218, 324. + + Varennes, The, 135. + + _Vasari_, 153. + + _Vauban_, 247. + + _Vaudemont, Louise de_, 182. + + Vendome, 22, 266. + + _Vendome, Cesar de_, 164. + + Vendomois, The, 56-57. + + Veron, 135. + + Versailles, 43, 60, 86, 98, 139, 261. + + _Vibraye, Marquis de_, 111. + + Vienne, The, 10, 21, 251, 259-260, 267-268, 275, 279. + + Vierzon, 84-85, 324. + + _Vigny, Alfred de_, 128-129. + + Villandry, Chateau de, 238. + + Villaumere, Chateau de la, 250. + + _Villon, Francois_, 48. + + _Vinci, Leonardo da_, 59, 72, 100, 152-153, 166, 169, 174. + + _Viollet-le-Duc_, 185. + + Vivarais Mountains, 16. + + _Voltaire_, 42, 142, 183. + + Vorey, 11, 16. + + Vouvray, 222, 332. + + + Yonne, The, 17. + + _Young, Arthur_, 86. + + + _Zamet, Sebastian_, 170. + + * * * * * + +Transcriber's Notes + +1. Replaced chateau(x) with chateau(x) throughout the text (title pages +and pp. xi, 1, 9, 62, 72, 327). + +2. P. 36: added quotes after a verse. + +3. P. 67: replaced "tres" with "tres" ("tres beau et tres agreable ainsy +que tous ses portraits l'ont represente..."). + +4. P. 83: added quotes after the phrase "magasin des subsistances +militaires". + +5. P. 86: added quotes after a phrase "those brilliant and ambitious +gentlemen". + +6. P. 94: "potions" are replaced with "portions" ("... moreover, one can +drink large portions of it..."). + +7. P. 108: "know" is replaced with "known" ("The second floor is known +as the..."). + +8. All instances of "Francois" are replaced with "Francois" (pp. 69, +171, 304, 338, 346). + +9. P. 187: "Credit Foncier" is replaced by "Credit Foncier". + +10. P. 235: Replaced "irrelevent" with "irrelevant" ("...an +over-luxuriant interpolation of irrelevant things..."). + +11. P. 290: Replaced "Andre" with "Andre" ("Maison Andre Leroy"). + +12. P. 296: Added quotes after a verse "Cueur de vertus orne Dignement +couronne." + +13. P. 314: Replaced "Etes-vous" with "Etes-vous" ("Etes-vous alle a..."). + +14. P. 322: Replaced "Valencay" with "Valencay" ("Chateau de +Valencay"). + +15. Replaced "Eglise" with "Eglise" (illustration caption: "Eglise S. +Aignan, Cosne"). + +16. Innkeepers, manorhouse, sandbar, Bellilocus, seaside, harbourside, +headwaters, stairway, and waterways are chosen to be written without a +hyphen. + +17. Dining-table, wine-shops, and quatre-vingzt are chosen to be written +with a hyphen. + +18. P. 338: Replaced "Breze" with "Breze" (Breze, Pierre de). + +19. P. 269: Replaced "Chateaudun" with "Chateaudun" ("... the fief +passed to the Vicomtes de Chateaudun..."). + +20. Pp. 12, 17, and 339: Replaced "Canal Lateral" with "Canal Lateral". + +21. P. 344: Replaced "Orleans" with "Orleans". + +22. P. 286: Quotes after the verse added ("... sur la Loire."). + +23. P. 327: The (missing) closing quotes are added ("_petits +chefs-d'oeuvre_ of sentiment and rustic poesy"). + +24. Added a description of a monogram on p. 177. + +25. P. 120: An image description is added. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine +and the Loire Country, by Francis Miltoun + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CASTLES, CHATEAUX OF OLD TOURAINE *** + +***** This file should be named 37211.txt or 37211.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/2/1/37211/ + +Produced by Elizaveta Shevyakhova, Juliet Sutherland and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian +Libraries) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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