Chapter X: Part 10

The palace is built like a castle; it is of brick with corners of white marble, and covered with a slate roof. Every one knows that Philip II. had it built by the celebrated architect Herrera, and that nearly all his successors embellished it, and lived there during the summer season. I entered: the interior is splendid; there is a resplendent hall for the reception of ambassadors, a beautiful Chinese cabinet of Charles III., a superb dressing-room of Isabella II., and a profusion of precious ornaments. But all the riches of the palace are not worth the view of the gardens. Expectations are not deceived. The gardens of Aranjuez (Aranjuez is the name of the little town situate a short distance from the palace) seem to have been laid out for the family of Titan Kings, to whom the parks and gardens of our Kings would have appeared like terrace parterres and sheep-folds. Avenues, extending as far as the eye can reach and bordered by trees of an inordinate height uniting their branches and leaning towards us as if bent by two contrary winds, in every direction cross a forest the boundaries of which one cannot see; and through this forest the wide and rapid Tagus describes a majestic curve, forming here and there cascades and basins; a luxuriant and flourishing vegetation abounds amid a labyrinth of little avenues and cross-roads; everywhere is seen the whiteness of statues, fountains, columns and high jets of water that fall in sheets and rain and spray on all the flowers known to Europe and America; and to the majestic sound of the cascade of the Tagus is joined the song of innumerable nightingales that pour their trills into the mysterious shade of the lonely paths. Beyond the gardens, rises a little marble palace, modest in appearance, which contains all the marvels of the most magnificent royal residence, and where one still breathes the atmosphere of the life of the Kings of Spain. Here are the little secret chambers the ceilings of which may be touched by the hand, the billiard-room of Charles IV., cushions embroidered by the hands of queens, musical clocks that amused the idle children, little stairways, tiny windows that preserve a hundred little traditions of the caprice of princes: and, finally, the richest toilet-room in Europe, due to a whim of Charles IV., and which contains in itself so much wealth that one could draw enough from it to build a palace, without depriving it of the noble pre-eminence it boasts above all rooms appropriated to the same use.

Beyond this palace, and around the woodlands, extend vineyards, olive-trees, plantations of fruit-trees and smiling meadows. It is a veritable oasis surrounded by a desert which Philip II. chose in a day of good humour, as if to alleviate the black melancholy of the Escurial with a gay picture. On returning from the little marble palace to the great palace of the Escurial down these long avenues, beneath the shade of these large trees, in this profound peace of the forest, I thought of the splendid pageants of ladies and cavaliers that formerly followed the steps of the gay young monarchs and capricious and unrestrained queens to the sound of love-songs and hymns, celebrating the grandeur and the glory of unvanquished Spain, and I repeated sadly with the poet of Recanati:

“... All is peace and silence,
And one speaks no longer of them....”

GLAMIS CASTLE

LADY GLAMIS

To the lover of Shakespeare, the name of Glammis (as it was sometimes spelt) will recall the act of treachery and murder which tradition gives as having taken place there, when King Duncan was done to death by the hand or at the instigation of the ambitious and unscrupulous Lady Macbeth; although there is no possibility of proving or testing the truth as to the details or locality of the tragedy.

To the antiquarian, the Castle must be of immense interest on account of the great age of the central portion, or keep, which is known to have been standing in 1016, but “whose birth tradition notes not”; while to the romantic and superstitious it is associated as a place where ghosts and spirits moving silently down winding stairs and dark passages are wont to make night fearsome. This feeling of eeriness is not confined to the naturally nervous, for Sir Walter Scott, who spent a night at Glamis in 1794, writes:

“After a very hospitable reception, ... I was conducted to my apartment in a distant part of the building. I must own that when I heard door after door shut, after my conductor had retired, I began to consider myself too far from the living and somewhat too near the dead.”

Additional interest attaches to this castle from the fact that its venerable walls enshroud a _mysterious something_, which has for centuries baffled the curiosity and investigations of all unauthorized persons; this secret is known only to three people--the Earl of the time being, his eldest son, and one other individual, whom they think worthy of their confidence.

Most people have theories upon this subject, and many ridiculous stories are told; but so carefully has the mystery been guarded, that no suspicion of the truth has ever come to light. One version of the story is as follows: Several centuries ago the Lord Glamis of the time was entertaining the head of another noble family then resident in Angus; and in the course of the evening they commenced to play cards. It was Saturday night, and so intent were they on wagering lands and money on the issue of the game, that they did not recognize the fact that Sunday morning was approaching until an old retainer ventured to remind them of the hour. Whereupon one of the gamblers swore a great oath, with the tacit approval of the other, that they did not care what day it might be, but they would finish their game at any cost, even if they went on playing till Doomsday! It had struck midnight ere he had finished his sentence, when there suddenly appeared a stranger dressed in black, who politely informed their lordships that he would take them at their word, and vanished.

The story goes on to aver that annually on that night three noblemen, or their spirits, meet and play cards in the _secret room_ of the Castle, and that this will go on till Doomsday. In corroboration of this story, it is said that on a certain night in the autumn of every year, loud noises are heard, and some of the casements of the Castle are blown open.

Glamis Castle stands in the centre of the vale of Strathmore, in a picturesque and well-wooded part of Forfarshire; the heather-clad sides of the Sidlaws, which divide Strathmore from the sea, rising to the south, while away to the north tower the Grampians, which form a magnificent background to the ancient pile of buildings, whose turrets rise some hundred and fifteen feet above the level of the ground.

The poet, Gray, in a letter, describes the exterior of the castle in the following words:

“The house, from the height of it, the greatness of its mass, the many towers atop, and the spread of its wings, has really a very singular and striking appearance, like nothing I ever saw.”

The oldest portions of the Castle are formed of huge irregular blocks of old red sandstone, which time and weather have mellowed into a beautiful grey, pink colour. The walls in many places are sixteen feet thick, which in the olden days had the essential recommendation of great security, and also of allowing space for secret rooms and passages as means of escape in times of peril; and as a matter of fact, two secret staircases have been discovered within the last five-and-twenty years, and possibly there are others which still remain forgotten and unused.

The narrow windows appear at irregular heights and distances in the central building or keep and left wing (the right wing having been burnt down and rebuilt early in 1800, is not so interesting), but the great staircase added by Patrick, Lord Glamis, in 1605, is very fine, occupying a circular tower, the space for which has been partly dug out of the old walls of the keep, and rises to the third story. This staircase (the designing for which has been attributed to Inigo Jones) is spiral, with a hollow newel in the centre, and is composed of stone to the summit. It consists of 143 steps, 6 feet 10 inches in width, each of _one_ stone.

The staircases, which were in use before 1600, are very narrow, dark, and some of them winding, the steps steep and irregular in height, worn into hollows by the many feet that for centuries climbed them. Up two flights of these dimly lit, uneven stairs, the wounded king, Malcolm II., after having been treacherously attacked and mortally wounded by Kenneth V. and his adherents on the Hunter’s Hill, about a mile from the Castle, was carried by his followers to die in the chamber that still bears the name of King Malcolm’s room. This murder of King Malcolm is the first authentic event mentioned by the chroniclers in connection with Glamis.

In the time of King Malcolm, Glamis was a royal residence, and remained so till 1372, when Sir John Lyon, “a young man of very good parts and qualities, and of a very graceful and comely person, and a great favourite with the king” (Robert II.), was made Lord High Chamberlain of Scotland. At that time the king’s daughter, the Princess Jean, fell in love with this young knight, and was given him in marriage together with the lands of the thanedom of Glamis, “_pro laudabili et fideli servitio et continuis laboribus_,” as the charter bears witness, March 18, 1372. Ten years later Sir John fell in a duel with Sir James Lindsay of Crawford, and was buried at Scone among the kings of Scotland. He left one son, from whom the present family of Lyon have descended without a break from _father to son_ to the present day. Fifty years later, Sir Patrick Lyon (Sir John’s grandson), who was one of the hostages to the English for the ransom of James I. from 1424 to 1427, was created Baron Glamis, and appointed Master of the Household to the King of Scotland. For the next hundred years nothing of interest occurred till John, sixth Lord Glamis, married the beautiful Janet Douglas, granddaughter of the great Earl of Angus (Bell-the-Cat), and died in 1528. Lady Glamis married, secondly, Archibald Campbell, of Kepneith, whose relative, another Campbell, fell in love with her. Finding, however, that his addresses were but ill received by this lady, who was as good as she was lovely, his love turned to hate, and he revenged himself by informing the authorities that Lady Glamis, her son, Lord Glamis, and John Lyon, his relative, were conspiring against the life of the king, James V., by poison or witchcraft. They were tried for high treason, and wrongfully convicted! Lady Glamis and her young son were both sentenced to be _burned_, and the estate of Glamis was forfeited and annexed to the Crown by Act of Parliament, December 3d, 1540. However, these brutal judges, on account of the extreme youth of Lord Glamis, feared to bring him to execution, so the boy was kept in prison, with the death sentence hanging over him, while the beautiful Lady Glamis was dragged forth and burned at the stake on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh, July 17th, 1537. Those were days when acts of violence and cruelty were regarded with an indifference that we cannot now realize, although when she stood up in her beauty to undergo this fearful sentence, it is recorded that all heads were bowed in sorrowful sympathy. When this infamous execution was accomplished, remorse seems to have come over Campbell, who was visited by visions of his victim looking at him with sad, reproachful eyes. When, some years later, his death was drawing nigh, he confessed that his evidence at the trial was altogether false. Lord Glamis was therefore released from prison, and his estates and honours restored.

To return to the Castle. The exterior is much ornamented with ancient armorial bearings in carved stone, while a round niche over the front door contains a bust of Earl Patrick. The principal entrance is a striking feature. The doorway is small and low, and a stout iron-clenched oaken door, thickly studded with nails, is guarded on the inside by a heavily grated iron gate, which opens right on to the staircase. A flight of steps to the right of the entrance leads down to the dungeons, vaults, and the old well (now filled up) which supplied the inmates with water in times of siege; while another stair to the left leads up to the Retainers’ Hall (or Crypt as it is now called), low, and fifty feet in length, with walls and arched roof entirely composed of stone. Of the seven windows, which are small, four or five are cut out of the thickness of the walls, and make recesses just large enough to form small rooms, which might have been used as sleeping chambers in old days. Lay figures, clad in complete armour, stand in the recesses, which, especially in the dusk, give an eerie effect to this part of the Castle. It is said that a ghostly man in armour walks this floor at night--possibly the original of one of those armoured figures standing silently in the crypt year after year, who may, perchance, have ended his life in the dungeon that lies exactly underneath.

CHÂTEAU DE CHINON

J. J. BOURRASSÉE

To the traveller who arrives at Chinon from the south or west, the aspect of the old castle is imposing. What an effect it must have produced at the period of its full splendour! Originally it was a fortress situated on an eminence commanding the course of the Vienne and the fertile plain of Veron. It might be regarded as the key of lower Touraine. Therefore we see the Romans, the Visigoths, the Franks, and, later, the Counts of Anjou and Touraine, the Kings of England and France sparing no efforts to secure its possession. In 462, Frederic, brother of Theodoric King of the Visigoths, having advanced as far as the banks of the Loire, seized the Castle of Chinon: up to that time the Romans had occupied it, and by its favourable position it had become the last citadel of their power in this part of Gaul. Ægidius Afranius, the Roman governor of Gaul, hastened into Touraine to recover Chinon; but he could not do it by force of arms. Despairing of carrying the place of assault, the Romans blockaded it. The defenders were at the last extremity from lack of water when a violent storm poured abundant rain within the ramparts. The Romans raised the siege and the Visigoths remained masters of the castle until the defeat of Alaric in the plains of Vouille. The conquering Clovis understood the importance of this military post and made it one of the ramparts of his kingdom.

The Frankish princes installed themselves there so well that no foe ever thought of disputing its possession with them. The Carlovingians were still its masters when feudalism transformed to the profit of the great barons the precarious title that they held by the confidence of the sovereign. Thibault the Trickster had Touraine as his share in this vast parcelling out of France. He had the Castle of Chinon repaired and often resided there, as in an impregnable fortress. Thibault’s lot in the partition of the territory was not in the least an agreeable one, for he had to defend it against the envy of his neighbors. Touraine for about a century was a prey over which rival powers fought. In the end it remained with the strongest. The Count of Anjou became completely master of it after the battle of Nouy, fought on the heights of Montlouis in 1044. Even in the bosom of this powerful house there were quarrels over the possession of the Castle of Chinon. An unequal partition between Geoffroy le Barbu and Foulques le Rechin led to war between those two brothers. Abandoned and betrayed by his followers, Geoffroy was made prisoner and cast into the cells of the Castle of Chinon, where he remained closely immured for the space of eighteen years with such rigour that he almost lost his reason. Nothing less than the intervention of Pope Urban II. in 1096 was required to have him set at liberty.

Thanks to a marriage, the house of Anjou mounted the throne of England and Chinon became a royal possession. Henry Plantagenet, great-grandson of Foulques le Rechin, brings this fine residence into new relief. Henry II. made it his favourite manor. He made it the seat of a royally privileged domain, comprising Cande, Champigny, La Haye, L’Île Bouchard, Saint Epain, Sainte Maure, Azay le Rideau and Bourgueil. Henry II. added to the Castle of Chinon a fortress distinct from the other buildings, with its own ramparts, moats, gates, drawbridges, buildings for the accommodation of the King, his court and his archers, and its church dedicated to St. George. From his donjon keep, the King of England ceaselessly laboured to increase his territory and his influence on the Continent. By means of his marriage with Eleanor of Guienne, repudiated by King Louis VII., he had become more powerful than his sovereign. It seems as if nothing could stay the course of such success, were it not for discord in his own family. At war with Philip Augustus, and with his own son the famous Richard Cœur de Lion, the King of England retired to Chinon. Necessity compelled him to sign with the King of France the humiliating peace of Azay sur Cher. “Shame!” he cried, “shame to the vanquished king! Cursed be the day I was born! Curses upon my two sons!” This fit of fury sent him to the tomb, July 6, 1189. He was carried without pomp to the Abbey of Fontévrault, near Chinon, where he had desired to be buried.

Ten years later, another train took the same road: it was that of Richard Cœur de Lion. Being mortally wounded at the siege of Chaluz, that prince caused himself to be taken to Chinon, where he quickly succumbed in cruel agony. He was buried beside Henry II. in the Abbey of Fontévrault, that celebrated house that has had as abbess fourteen princesses of the royal blood, and that had deserved the name of _King’s Cemetery_. In an obscure corner are still to be seen the admirable statues of the counts of Anjou, masterpieces of the statuary at the close of the Twelfth Century.

At that time, nothing presaged that the Castle of Chinon was to leave the hands of the Kings of England, when suddenly a protracted cry of horror and indignation resounded through the world. John Lackland had just got rid of his nephew, Arthur of Brittany, by a cowardly murder at Rouen. Philip Augustus summoned the murderer to appear before the court of the peers of the realm. After several adjournments regularly notified, the criminal, not having presented himself, was condemned to lose the fiefs held from the French crown. The sentence was easy to deliver, but not so easy to execute. The King of France hastened to Touraine at the head of an army and took possession of Tours, Loches and Chinon.

It must be admitted that the Castle of Chinon was valiantly defended; it was carried by assault after an obstinate struggle in 1205. Philip Augustus gave it a good garrison. After that day, the English never set foot in it; and when during our intestine discord they profited by treason and dominated many of our provinces, the Castle of Chinon was the last refuge of the monarchy. From there were struck all the blows that gave France back her independence.

Feudalism had greatly lessened the royal power. Noble efforts had been made to restore the authority that the king ought never to have lost. These attempts had produced memorable results; but the great feudatories were discontented. They wanted to profit by the minority of Louis IX. and the regency of a woman to recover the power that had escaped them. Events called St. Louis and Queen Blanche to Chinon. The young king held a parliament of twenty days at the castle gates. The rebel lords refused to attend, but their plans were rendered abortive, thanks to the activity of Blanche of Castile.

Philip Augustus had partly rebuilt the Castle of Chinon: the Thirteenth Century work is easily visible amid the later constructions. Under the reign of St. Louis, further works to render this fortress as a whole more formidable were executed.

In 1308, a great bustle was manifest in the Castle and town of Chinon: Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Order of the Templars, Hughes de Péraldo, Visitor of France, and the Commanders of Cyprus, Aquitaine and Normandy had just been brought in. Other Knights of the same Order had already been confined there. They were all to be taken to Poictiers where were Pope Clement V. and Philippe le Bel, King of France; but several of them had fallen ill on the road, so the sovereign pontiff deputed three cardinals to proceed with the investigation at Chinon. Every one knows the result of these grave proceedings: the Order of the Templars was suppressed, and those who were prisoners at Chinon only left their cells to go to the stake at Paris. They had confessed their crimes in the question to which they had been put; but most of them retracted amidst the flames. This frightful execution took place in 1313.

Towards the end of the Fourteenth Century, Charles VI. ceded the duchy of Touraine and the county of Chinon to his brother Louis, Duke of Orleans, who was afterwards assassinated by order of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy. This period recalls the most mournful memories of our history. Our land was ravaged by bands of English, skilful to profit by our dissensions. At last the hour of deliverance has arrived. France will now see more prosperous days; and Charles VII., the Victorious, will stretch his sceptre over the territory formerly subject to his ancestor.

Charles VII. established his court at Chinon. Joan of Arc came to see him there and to inaugurate her extraordinary mission beneath the castle arches. Everybody knows the details of the heroine’s arrival at Chinon: how she recognized the disguised king in the midst of his courtiers, revealed a secret known only to himself and God, showed herself full of confidence in the cause that she was to make triumphant and finally succeeded in inspiring the hearts of others with the enthusiasm that overflowed her own.

Thus the first public deeds of the providential mission of Joan of Arc are connected with Chinon. At this moment, Charles VII. had by his side another woman of generous heart and strong spirit: this was the queen, Marie of Anjou. Her influence was greater than historians have recognized; it was much more salutary and efficacious than that of Agnes Sorel. When the latter appeared at Chinon for the first time before the eyes of Charles VII., it was already six months since Joan of Arc had gone to the stake at Rouen. Is not that enough for us to say that France had already been saved and that the advice and remonstrances of Agnes Sorel came too late?

However that may be, the presence of Agnes Sorel at the court of Chinon was insupportable to the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XI. He even made it a pretext for a conspiracy against his father. These designs of an unnatural son did not succeed, but they poisoned the King’s last years.

In 1461, Charles VII. died at Mehun sur Yèvre, and Louis XI. succeeded to the throne. Louis XI. took up his abode by preference at the Castle of Plessis-lez-Tours: he often came to Chinon. It was in the environs of that town, at the Castle of Forges, that he felt the first attack of the malady that carried him off. Philippe de Commines, Seigneur d’Argenton, governor of the Castle of Chinon, informs us how this accident, which was nothing less than an attack of apoplexy, came upon him.

In the very year of the death of Louis XI. a famous personage in buffoon literature was born at Chinon. François Rabelais is the most cynical of writers, and if, as some people assert, he tried to hide his philosophy beneath the masque of folly, it must be acknowledged that he succeeded.

After the reign of Louis XI., the Castle of Chinon was very little frequented by the court. Catherine de’Medici was there in 1560, and the Duke of Anjou, afterwards Henri III. appeared there at the head of his army, marching against the Reformers, who were to be so rudely chastised in the plains of Montoncour.

In 1629, the Princess de Conti, who possessed Chinon by virtue of an exchange of property with Henry of Lorraine, Duke of Chevreuse, sold the castle with all its dependencies to Cardinal Richelieu. The sale gave the signal, so to speak, for the demolition of the royal castle of the Plantagenets and French monarchs. When the Revolution, that piled up so many ruins arrived, it found nothing more to do here.

The remains of the old manor are still gigantic. Those high walls, dismantled curtains, crenellated masonry, and discrowned turrets harbour glorious memories; but it is not always easy to distinguish what belongs to each century, or clearly to discern the work of the Romans or the Visigoths, of Thibault the Trickster, Henry II., Philip Augustus, Charles VII., or Louis XI. The greater part of these ruins, however, is characteristic of the Fifteenth Century. Scarcely anything remains intact except the belfry tower, now called the _Tour de l’Horloge_, twenty to twenty-five meters in height. These picturesque ruins belong to the town of Chinon, having been left to it by the house of Richelieu.

THE SUMMER PALACE

MAURICE PALÉOLOGUE

THE last time that I saw the Imperial Palace of Pekin was on a morning in the last of April. The air was fresh and limpid, and the vault of heaven seemed to have lifted itself to a prodigious height. It was not that somewhat misty atmosphere of spring in France, which seems impregnated with damp and vegetable odours, and which bathes the unstable outlines of objects; neither was it that tenuous light of those mornings in the East that overspreads the distances, envelops objects, and defines their planes. It was a very dry air, for five months had passed since a drop of rain had fallen, with an almost brutal clearness which seemed to bring the horizon nearer and which harshly exhibited the forms of the buildings and the lines of the landscape.

I went out very early, and the windings of my course took me to the Imperial City, one of the three cities that compose the capital of the Middle Kingdom. The streets differed in appearance from those of the quarters I had just traversed, the shops became rarer, the roadways wider, and the temples and palaces closer together. But at this early hour there was still greater animation here, and a crowd of horsemen, pedestrians, and carriages made passage difficult.

I was about to turn in order to return to the French Legation, when a cart, peculiarly constructed upon two wheels placed almost at the back, and escorted by two horsemen, made my horse stand aside; it was a Tartar carriage from the court stables: a black mule harnessed with yellow leather and led by a groom, also in yellow livery, drew it along with great strides.

In front, visible between the open curtains, a young woman was seated with her legs crossed beneath her. She was clothed in a large mantle of salmon-pink silk bordered with blue and gold lace and ornamented down the front and on the sleeves with clusters of flowers embroidered with very delicate brilliancy and delicious harmony of colour. This vestment almost entirely covered her gown of a pale and dead green that fell in folds about her.

Her hair, gathered up on the top of her head, was divided in two thick folds, crossed here and there by long pins of gold, surmounted by butterflies of silver filagree, and artificial flowers of the strangest forms and hues. Also, as is customary among ladies of quality, her face was entirely painted with ceruse; but the cheeks and the dimple of the chin and the lips were coated with a thick layer of carmine, while a line of antimony immoderately lengthened her eyes out towards the temples, and two black _mouches_ stuck near the cheek-bone, gave a peculiar appearance, a sort of air of morbid coquetry, to this depressing face in which life seemed to have been extinguished.

She held herself in a paralyzed immobility, with a hebetated fixity of gaze and a doubtful glimmer of intelligence, oscillating like a waxen puppet or an idol in a procession, at each jolt of the carriage. She was, doubtless, judging from the livery of the driver and the escorting horsemen, a young Tartar lady of the court, one of the Empress’s maids of honour, or one of the imperial princesses shut up in the Palace.

I set out to follow her at a distance. Her chariot ascended the inclined plane of a bridge, the flooring of which was of marble; the balustrade, also of marble, supported some sculptured dragons.

Beneath the arches, the waters of a lake glittered. The light of the sun, still near the horizon, barely touched the liquid surface but spread its brilliancy everywhere else. In certain spots, lotus flowers blossomed and made the lake look like a meadow floating upon the clear and sleeping waters. It was the “Golden Lake,” a dependency of the Imperial Palace, whose high walls and golden roofs could be seen in the background.

Light buildings, such as kiosks and temples, reached to the shore. The vast number of these roofs assumed rosy hues and the slightest details of their complicated architecture stood out clearly, looking in the liquid air that enveloped them, elegant, graceful and fresh amid the apricot trees and blossoming mimosas that covered the banks.

North China was, in fact, just emerging from her long winter’s mourning, and the impression given by that spring-tide picture of earth’s new awakening was exquisite.

The Tartar chariot continued to advance with the rapid steps of its mule: it was now passing at the foot of an artificial hill, planted with green trees, at the summit of which rose a Buddhist obelisk that stood out almost harshly against the blue of the sky.

But along the shore of the lake, the tints had already become deeper, and the lines less sharp. The kiosks, the pavilions, and the temples that rose upon the banks exhibited the original type of Chinese buildings, a canvas tent with turned up corners. The extreme profusion of ornamental details did not succeed in hiding the poverty of the original conception: dragons, chimeras, phœnixes, and tortoises, an entire fabulous and fantastic zoology of sculptured wood or terra cotta, surcharged the ridge-poles; figurines and painted flowers of clay weighed down the cornices, the larmiers, and the pediments; gaudy colors made a motley mixture upon the capitals of the columns and the architraves; but beneath this bristling and unrestrained decoration, you always found the absolute and invariable type that China has uniformly adopted at every epoch of her history and throughout her entire empire.

However, I had by this time arrived at the fortified enclosure of the palace. High above me a rampart reared itself, thirty feet high and surrounded by a wide moat. At regular intervals, towers with turned-up roofs jutted out over this line of stone which extended so far that it seemed to shut in an entire city. A few trees had crossed the sloping wall, and the shadows of their branches spread over the dark and stagnant waters of the moat.

A large gateway, surmounted by an enormous square tower, gave access to the interior of the palace, and three gigantic black letters engraved upon a golden panel at the summit of the tower seemed a mysterious inscription placed at the threshold of an unknown world.

And at the moment when the Tartar carriage became engulfed under the arch and was lost in the Imperial enclosure, I experienced still more powerfully the impression that I had received three years before in Morocco in front of the palace of the Sultan Moulay-Hassan. There also, in the old city of Islam shining in the sunlight, I had felt myself transported into the midst of a new world, but I saw the barriers broken down, I was able to pass through the great pointed doorways of Dar-el-Mechouar, and the Court of the Scherifs was opened before me, as a scene of fairy-land or dreamland unfolds in a dazzling brilliancy of light and colour.

Here, on the contrary, everything remained closed and impenetrable.

However, the topography of the palace was not entirely unknown to me; I had already studied the plan made by the Jesuit missionaries who visited it in the Eighteenth Century, and, indeed, from the heights of the ramparts of the Tartar village, I had been able to recognize the general arrangement and distinguish the regular succession of its rectangular courtyards and gardens containing forty-eight enormous palaces and about the same number of pavilions, kiosks, arches and gateways.

Only the tops of the principal buildings rose above the surrounding wall and into the clumps of verdure. Very far away, in the south, near the “Gate of Eternal Purity,” I perceived the temple of the ancestors of the dynasty of Ta-Thsing now reigning, where the Emperor comes at stated dates to accomplish the sacred rites of the official cult.

Then nearer, three buildings, taller than the rest, stood in a row, and the sculptured dragons on the ridge-poles and the glazed tiles on the roofs were resplendent in the sunlight: these were the three palaces of the “Sovereign Concord, Medium Concord, and Protective Concord,” where the Sovereign attends to the affairs of state and traces with his vermilion-steeped pencil the characters that express his decisions and that are laws venerated as the figured and material form of the Imperial will. There, every morning at two o’clock, the Emperor presides at the Grand Council of the Middle Kingdom; five ministers only have access to it. There, no matter what their age or fatigue, they must remain standing the whole time, or bow their foreheads to the ground when, from his throne, a stage of gilded wood raised six feet above the floor, the Son of Heaven addresses them. During the minority of the sovereigns, as is the case with the present Emperor, the Empress Regent is present also in the council, but she is not considered as there, and a screen of yellow silk hides her from all eyes.

Then I saw a confused mass of houses of imperial princes, Manchus, chamberlains, daughters of Emperors married to Mongol princes and immured in the palace until their death, wives of the second degree and concubines of the deceased sovereigns, ladies of honour, mistresses of ceremonies, and eunuchs, an entire population, a wisely arranged hierarchy amounting to more than eight thousand persons. Towards the east, in the dazzling sunlight, appeared also the barracks of the three banners of the guard, the treasury, the shops of porcelain, silver, and silk, ornaments, garments, tea, religious objects destined for the Son of Heaven, and manufactories where things are prepared for his exclusive use; the armoury, the stables, the Imperial library where the oldest annals of the world are kept, the “Pavilion of the Literary Flowers,” whither the Emperor repairs in the second moon of the year to interpret the sacred books; and the temple of the Tchouan-sin-tien where the sacrifices to the memory of Confucius and the great philosophers are performed.

Finally, very near me, behind the gardens that ran along the length of the wall of the enclosure, I caught a glimpse of the “Palace of the Superior Terrestrial Element,” which recalled the memory of that unfortunate Empress Aluteh, who died in 1875 at the age of eighteen. She was the daughter of a Manchu prince. When very young, barely fifteen years, a decree proclaiming her for the Emperor tossed her brusquely into the Court of Pekin from her province in Tartary, and shut her up in the palace which she was to leave only with her life. On November 16, 1872, at midnight, she entered in bridal toilette through the “Gate of Celestial Purity”: she wore a robe of red silk embroidered with dragon and phœnix, a large scarlet veil enveloped her from head to foot. Three years later she went out dead through the “Flowered Gate of the East”: she had killed herself on learning of the death of her husband, the Emperor Tong-Tche: an unusual luxury was lavished upon her funeral procession, and embroideries of pale blue silk upon white satin embossed with gold covered her coffin.

However, the hour was advancing; the meeting of the Council was over; the couriers of state were departing for the provinces; the great mandarins came out of the palace, and after making interminable bows, got into their chariots, and I returned to the French Legation.

BERKELEY CASTLE

ARTHUR SHADWELL MARTIN

For sylvan beauty and pastoral loveliness there is no fairer countryside in all England than the broad domains of which the old feudal stronghold of the Berkeleys is the centre. A mile to the westward, the Severn’s broad flood sweeps slowly to the Bristol Channel, only twenty miles away. Five miles or so to the eastward, the last spurs of the Cotswold Hills sink to the level of the plain. There is Stinchcomb Hill with its flat bare top dotted with the white tents of its summer camp. Beautiful Dursley lies in a neighbouring hollow. Nibley Knoll, where begin the beeches of Westridge Woods, amid which are the earthworks of a Roman or Saxon fort, can be easily distinguished by the column by Teulon that rises about one hundred feet to commemorate the part William Tyndale took in the Reformation. The little valleys running into these hills (locally called _bottoms_) hear the call of spring long before the uplands, and along the margins of their streams the snowdrops wake to nod graciously at their reflected beauty; and then, before the Westridge Woods are clothed in green, among the shielding trunks the primrose spreads a cloth of gold above the last year’s leaves.

This whole district is thronged with historic memories; many a Norman cross and church lies within a circuit of twelve miles’ radius. Tortworth Court is close at hand. A few miles down across the river, stands mighty Chepstow with the Wye washing her ruined walls; but Berkeley is still intact and inhabited after seven centuries’ assault by Time and civil strife. This is what renders Berkeley so remarkable among English castles: it retains its ancient shell, and it has always been owned and inhabited by a lineal descendant of the original owner and builder.

The “Faire Vale of Berkeley” was always famous for its beauty and fertility. William of Malmesbury describes it as “rich in corn, productive in fruits ... enticing even the lazy to industry by the prospect of a hundredfold return.... Neither has any county in England more numerous or richer vineyards ... the wine is but little inferior to that of France in sweetness.” The vineyards have long disappeared, and the only vines now seen are those that beautify the walls and frame the latticed casements of the cottages.

In Domesday Book, Berkeley appears as a royal demesne and borough: one of the trees mentioned as a boundary of the hundred is still pointed out in the Deer Park, and known as King William’s Oak. The Conqueror gave the manor to Roger de Berkeley who erected the Keep about 1093. At first this was only a military hold to keep the neighbourhood in check, but buildings were gradually added till the castle assumed its present form and the lord took up his residence here under Cœur de Lion, a century later.

Situated on a little rise, its strong battlements and towers look across the tops of the beautiful trees that now shade its useless moat, and the visitor enjoys a lovely view in every direction. Situated midway between Gloucester and Bristol, the baron, predatory doubtless as was the custom of the age, was in a fine position to levy toll on merchant caravans that must pass through the vale. The form of the castle is that of an irregular circle. The drawbridge leads to a portcullised gateway in massive walls between two hexagonal towers. The donjon is a square tower with turrets at the angles, built on higher ground than the other constructions to dominate the rest of the castle. It was erected in 1342. It is called Thorpe’s tower after the family who held lands in tenure from the lord in return for acting as its warders. The strong keep also still stands and shows the warder’s walk fifty-eight feet in length, in perfect preservation. The dimensions of the great hall are forty-eight by thirty-three feet. Its great chimney is adorned with mediæval armour and antlers. The ancient kitchen and other offices still exist, and so does the chapel with its Decorated style of architecture. The sacrarium is of special interest since it is divided into two floors, each with a separate entrance and fireplace, the lower for the use of the retainers and the upper, or Oriel, for the family and guests. The living-rooms contain many pictures by famous masters, and some historic furniture. Among the latter, are some ebony chairs and a table that Drake brought home from the Spanish Main.

Rich as the castle is in antiquarian remains, however, the interest of these walls is multiplied a hundredfold by their historical associations. When we take our stand on the summit of the Donjon and look around and below us, what memories are evoked! When we recall the history of the family, we cannot but marvel that the ancient line is still in possession; for a turbulent race were the Berkeleys, and often arrayed against the Crown. Roger de Berkeley joined Stephen against the granddaughter of his father’s benefactor, and therefore Henry Fitz-Empress confiscated his fief, and conferred it upon Robert Fitz-Harding, Governor of Bristol, of royal Danish descent, at the same time making him a baron. The latter’s son, however, married Roger’s heiress, and thus the Berkeleys were restored in their son Maurice. Robert, the son of the latter, joined the barons against John, who seized the castle, and was there in the last year of his reign. However, Robert’s brother Thomas managed to get it restored, in 1233, by Henry III. Maurice, the son of Thomas, was in rebellion with Simon de Montfort twenty-five years later, and, as a result, Berkeley was again confiscated. His son Thomas served Edward I., the “Hammer of the Scots,” so well in the North that he got back his ancestral honours and domains and was summoned to Parliament as Baron Berkeley in 1295. This lord and his son and grandson were rich and powerful, and all the beautiful “Edwardian” stone-work is of this period. Much of the older work was cleared away for the new buildings of the loveliest style of English Gothic. But what a deed of violence was perpetrated in the narrow chamber in the adjoining building below us! We have reached the dark memory that above all else enshrouds Berkeley. The effeminate king who lost Bannockburn and handed over the reins of government to the unworthy Gaveston and De Spencers, decimating the English baronage at their behests, and revelling in Oriental vice and ferocity, finally succumbed to his wife and her paramour at Kenilworth early in 1327. The Lord of Berkeley now was Thomas, the grandson of the favourite of Edward I. To him and to two knights named John Maltravers and Thomas de Gournay was entrusted the custody of the dethroned Edward II. The two latter removed their captive secretly and treated him with every indignity: they crowned him with a crown of hay and shaved him with ditch-water along the way. A circumstantial account tells how he said therefore he would supply his own hot water with tears! On Palm Sunday, Baron Thomas received him kindly and treated him with consideration, whereupon he received a reprimand from Queen Isabel, bidding him “use no familiarity with Edward, the late king;” and so, fearing for himself, he “departed with heavy cheere, perceiving what violence was intended.” Lovely as was the view from his window, the long summer from April to September brought no joy to the prisoner. The _Berkeley MS._ says that “this poor, foolish king did nothing but lament for his wife, singing love-songs in a low voice and grieving that she would neither see him nor permit his son or any of his relatives to come near him. The Queen was afraid that the Church would compel her to live with him again, and therefore urged his death.” At first, his keepers tried to ruin his health by piling putrid carcases in the pit below his chamber; then they kept him half-starved and half-clad. Yet the Queen reproved them for excessive clemency! Marlowe quotes the historian in noble verse when Edward complains:

“In mire and puddle I have stood
This ten days’ space; and, lest that I should sleep,
One plays continually upon a drum.
They give me bread and water, being a king,
So that, for want of sleep and sustenance,
My mind’s distempered and my body’s numbed....
O, would my blood dropped out from every vein,
As doth this water from my tattered robes.
Tell Isabel, the queen, I looked not thus,
When for her sake I ran at tilt in France,
And there unhorsed the Duke of Cleremont!”

The night of September 22nd heard the shrieks of the tortured king: that they reached the ears of people in the town, who crossed themselves and prayed for the passing soul, is doubtless a statement due to the historian’s sympathy, for the walls are thick. In the morning, the citizens of Bristol were called to gaze upon the distorted features of their dead king, who otherwise bore no sign of violence. All were afraid to bury Isabel’s victim, till the Abbot of Gloucester bravely undertook the task. The next year Isabel and Mortimer actually visited Berkeley, and were entertained by its wealthy lord. The latter kept twelve knights to wait upon him, each of whom was served by two servants and a page. He also had twenty-four esquires, each of whom had a horse and an attendant. There were about three hundred in his household who fed at his board. The Lord of Berkeley was a mighty baron in those days. The blame had to be shifted, however, and so he was brought to an irregular trial before twelve knights, instead of his peers: he was finally acquitted of complicity in the crime in 1330. In that year, his son and successor, Maurice, was born. He fought in Granada and Gascony, and was so desperately wounded at Poictiers in 1366 that he died at Berkeley two years later. His son Thomas was also a warrior who unfurled his banner in Spain, France and Scotland. He entertained Richard II. at Berkeley in 1386, but this did not prevent his voting for Richard’s deposition in favour of Bolingbroke in 1399.

The direct male line fails soon after this and the Berkeley heiress marries a Talbot. A collateral branch comes in and the descendants have rival claims and start what is usually called the longest law-suit on record: it is not finally settled till 1609. In the course of this suit, occurs the last battle that was fought between independent noblemen in England. Lord Lisle of Wotton, the grandson of the great Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, claims Berkeley which is held by William, a fiery youth of nineteen. (Wotton-under-Edge lies under the edge of the hills three miles beyond Nibley Knoll.) On March 22nd, 1470, the Viscount sends a challenge to Berkeley to settle all differences by combat: it is eagerly accepted. There was bustle in the castle that night. The meeting was at Nibley Green. Long Lane still preserves memories of how the men of Berkeley chased the men of Wotton into the churchyard till the grass was heavy with crimson dew. Berkeley far outnumbered Lisle; moreover the latter were taken as they were marching unawares, and an arrow entered their leader’s open visor and a dagger afterwards finished him. The victors proceed to Wotton and sacked Lisle’s house. His widow gave premature birth to a dead son amid the carnage, and the Lisle claims were ended. The Wars of the Roses were still raging and a little affair of that kind passed unnoticed.

Margaret of Anjon rested once at Berkeley in her campaigning. Richard III. created Viscount Berkeley an Earl, but, true to his race, he went over. When Henry of Richmond landed at Milford Haven, Berkeley joined him and, to spite his heir, made over to him his castle and domains. After Bosworth, Henry created him a Marquess, but his avarice induced him to keep the property. In default of heirs male, however, on the death of Edward II., it lapsed to the Berkeley heirs again. The new lord of Berkeley was a mighty hunter and delighted in his beautiful deer park. On one of her progresses, Good Queen Bess paid him a visit. He happened to be absent, but his venison proved useful in victualling the courtly following. Everybody knows what it cost to entertain that locust-swarm! When Lord Henry returned, he was greatly enraged at the havoc, and ordered his park to be disparked rather than let it be a future temptation. Elizabeth heard of this and sent him a quiet hint to “beware of his words and actions, for the Earl of Leicester greatly desired the castle for himself!” One of the rooms in this “Naboth’s vineyard” is still called Queen Elizabeth’s room. Other royal guests who have visited the castle are George IV. and William IV.

The Earls of Berkeley no longer own their ancestral home, in fact they maintain that the title is not rightfully theirs. This celebrated romance of the peerage started with the fifth Earl. Some of his children were born before the only marriage he could prove to the satisfaction of the House of Lords, though he maintained that he and the lady had previously gone through a secret marriage ceremony. The Earl left the castle and estates to his eldest son, and the Crown created him Baron Fitzhardinge. The late Earl of Berkeley never took his seat in the House of Lords nor assumed his title in any way since the decision that set the baton sinister in the escutcheon of the elder sons of the fifth Earl.

THE CASTLE OF CHILLON

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Further onward we saw a white, ancient-looking group of towers, beneath a mountain, which was so high, and rushed so precipitately down upon this pile of building as quite to dwarf it; besides which, its dingy whiteness had not a very picturesque effect. Nevertheless, this was the Castle of Chillon. It appears to sit right upon the water, and does not rise very loftily above it. I was disappointed in its aspect, having imagined this famous castle as situated upon a rock, a hundred, or for aught I know, a thousand feet above the surface of the lake; but it is quite as impressive a fact--supposing it to be true--that the water is eight hundred feet deep at its base. By this time, the mountains had taken the beautiful lake into their deepest heart; they girdled it quite round with their grandeur and beauty, and, being able to do no more for it, they here withheld it from extending any farther; and here our voyage came to an end. I have never beheld any scene so exquisite; nor do I ask of Heaven to show me any lovelier or nobler one, but only to give me such depth and breadth of sympathy with nature, that I may worthily enjoy this. It is beauty more than enough for poor, perishable mortals. If this be earth, what must Heaven be!

It was nearly eight o’clock when we arrived; and then we had a walk of at least a mile to the Hotel Byron. I had forgot to mention that in the latter part of our voyage there was a shower in some part of the sky, and though none of it fell upon us, we had the benefit of those gentle tears in a rainbow, which arched itself across the lake from mountain to mountain, so that our track lay directly under this triumphal arch. We took it as a good omen, nor were we discouraged, though, after the rainbow had vanished, a few sprinkles of the shower came down.