Chapter VII: Section V: Among the Châteaux of Touraine

ORLEANS TO TOURS, 103½ MILES

(166 KILOMETRES)

ORLEANS TO TOURS, DIRECT, 71¾ MILES

(115 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

Kil. Miles. =Orleans= to Meung-sur-Loire =18= 11¼ =Meung-sur-Loire= to Beaugency =7= 4¼ [=Beaugency= to Blois =31½= 19½] =Beaugency= to Chambord =24= 15 =Chambord= to Bracieux =8½= 5¼ =Bracieux= to Cheverny =10½= 6½ =Cheverny= to Blois =13= 8 =Blois= to Chaumont-sur-Loire (north bank) =12= 7½ =Chaumont-sur-Loire= to Amboise =24= 15 [=Amboise= to Tours (north bank) =25= 15½] [=Amboise= to Tours (south bank) =23= 14¼] =Amboise= to Chenonceaux =15= 9½ =Chenonceaux= to Bléré =8= 5 =Bléré= to Tours =26= 16

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

This section is practically level throughout, and the roads are
generally good.

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

=Meung.=--An old village on the Loire; church of eleventh century
with western tower joined to castle of the Bishops of Orleans.

=Beaugency.=--Keep of castle eleventh century, other portions
fifteenth century; Tour de l’Horloge, a picturesque gateway;
churches of Notre Dame, twelfth century, and St. Étienne (disused),
eleventh century or earlier; remains of town walls and a tower, and
some old houses.

=Chambord.=--The château, chiefly built by François I., is the
largest and most magnificent hunting-box in the world. Commenced in
1519.

=Bracieux.=--A little town in the marshy Sologne country with old
houses, but no other interest.

=Cheverny= has a château begun in 1634 by Philippe Hurault, a
descendant of whom now owns the place. The village has a quaint,
partially Romanesque church.

=Beauregard.=--A château built as a hunting-lodge by François I.
about 1520; almost entirely rebuilt in seventeenth century;
modernized in 1809, but lately restored to its earlier character.
(_Only to be seen with a permit from M. Lestang, notary of Blois._)

=Blois= is a large and very attractive town on the Loire, dominated
by its (1) historic Château, built at various periods from the
thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries; (2) Cathedral, chiefly
seventeenth century; (3) Church of St. Nicholas, an interesting
Transitional building; (4) St. Vincent-de-Paul Jesuit church of
seventeenth century; (5) St. Saturnin, fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries; (6) old houses of different periods, of stone and wood.

=Chaumont-sur-Loire.=--The château was built about 1473; it stands on
picturesque cliff above the village and river.

=Amboise.=--A town on the Loire, chiefly famous for its fine château,
perched on a rocky tongue that rises sheer from the level ground;
mainly built by Charles VIII.; sloping staircases in two towers;
lovely little Gothic chapel of St. Hubert; grave of Leonardo da
Vinci; in the town (1) a picturesque clock gateway; (2) Hôtel de
Ville, built 1500 to 1505; (3) Church of St. Florentin, built 1461
to 1483; (4) Church of St. Denis, a beautiful cruciform building of
the Transitional period of early Gothic.

=Chenonceaux.=--A pretty village near the famous and beautiful
château of that name, built in the River Cher in 1515; finished by
François I. and Catherine de Medici.

=Bléré.=--A small town on the Cher with a curious, partially
Romanesque church, and the Hôtel du Gouverneur, a Renaissance
building in the Rue J. J. Rousseau.

The simplest way to leave Orleans is to go to the bridge, and then turn to the right along the north bank of the Loire, which is followed as far as Beaugency.

For long distances the river seems so very little below the level of the surrounding country that there seems scarcely any reason why it should keep to the course it now follows. In wet seasons the flat, sandy shores are often covered by the river, which spreads out into broad lagoons and engulfs the grassy islands.

At Meung, where the road bends to the right, there is an interesting abbey church, founded in the sixth century by St. Liphard. It was burnt by Louis le Gros in the early part of the eleventh century, but before its close the church had been rebuilt with the exception of the tower. This western tower, with a pyramidal spire, is connected with a curtain wall to a thirteenth-century fortified tower, the oldest part of the castle of the Bishops of Orleans, which was chiefly built in the classic period of some 400 years later. The village has some old houses, and the Porte Amont, rebuilt in the seventeenth century.

BEAUGENCY

The first glimpse of this compact little town is very suggestive of antiquity. It is overshadowed by a huge Norman keep, about whose lichened parapets jackdaws circle and flutter, and across the river stands the oldest bridge on the Loire--some of its twenty-six arches going back to the thirteenth century.

The keep is called the Tour de César, and it is all that now remains of the first Castle, built at the end of the eleventh century. The other portions were constructed in 1440 by Dunois, the Bastard of Orleans, who maintained the defence of Orleans against the English until relieved by Jeanne d’Arc. There is a most picturesque courtyard with open arcading and a tower, and the great hall, known as the Salle de Jeanne d’Arc, has a huge fireplace. The buildings are now a Depôt de Mendicité.

Close to the castle is the Transitional Church of the Benedictine Abbey of Notre Dame, finished at the end of the twelfth century, and lately restored. It was burnt by the Protestants in 1567, when they committed terrible excesses in the town. Besides the church, there is nothing left of the abbey buildings, except an old circular tower called the Tour du Diable and the Abbot’s house.

Adjoining the Hôtel St. Étienne[A] there is a picturesque wooden house with moulded beams and much carving, and along one side of the hotel courtyard is the disused Church of St. Étienne, a very interesting and perfect little cruciform building of the eleventh century or earlier. It has a central tower, and the windows are small and very deeply splayed. Being kept locked, the plain barrel vaulting of the interior can only be dimly seen through the unglazed windows.

The Hôtel de Ville might, at first sight, owing to restoration, be thought a modern building. It has a Renaissance façade built between 1520 and 1525, and the bas-reliefs with which it is covered show the arms of Dunois and Longueville, the Salamander of François I., and the fleur-de-lis. The seventeenth-century tapestries to be seen inside came from the choir of the abbey church.

Other features of the town are the Tour de l’Horloge, used as a prison before the sixteenth century; the Tour St. Firmin of the church destroyed during the Revolution; and the portions of the twelfth-century ramparts with the ruined Porte Travers.

In 1428 the English captured Beaugency, but Jeanne d’Arc recovered it in the following year.

Crossing the bridge, with its massive old buttresses, and turning at once to the right, one keeps near the river through the village of St. Laurent-des-Eaux, with a statue of Jeanne d’Arc, and houses with the mossiest of roofs and quaint little dormers. There is a quality in the air of this part of the Loire conducive to the growth of parasitic vegetation, for every roof and wall, and every tree, is enriched with luxuriant moss or splashes of silvery and orange lichen.

The road continues through the same flat country, with low, scrubby forest to the left, and touches the river again at Nouan-sur-Loire, another old village rich in soft greens and greys. A house on the left is conspicuous for its quaintness, and several of the cottages have heart-shaped holes cut in the shutters of the windows.

Just beyond Nouan the road to the Château de Chambord goes to the left at a fork, and in a few minutes one passes through a gate in the seven-league stone wall that surrounds the park, and a straight avenue through the low trees leads to the great castle.

CHÂTEAU DE CHAMBORD

There is no appearance of age in the immense pile of white stone that gleams in the sunshine under its astonishingly overweighted roofs, and by many who have come expecting something altogether different, the bitterest disappointment has been expressed.

Before the year 1519 there had been only the grim and gloomy feudal castle of Chambourg on the site, and the excellent hunting in the scrub and swamps of the Sologne (the name given to this marshy district) was the only reason for the visits of the Court. But in that year François I. began the construction of the existing château in place of the old one; and belonging to that era of magnificence when the Renaissance influence was being felt throughout Europe, he built the largest and most splendid hunting-box the world has ever seen. Although 1,800 workmen were employed year after year to carry out Pierre Nepveu’s designs, when the King died, in 1547, only the central portion and the east wing, which contained his own apartments, were completed. His successor, Henri II., added a wing, but liked Anet better, and Charles IX. and Catherine de Medici preferred Chenonceaux, Blois, and Chaumont.

Louis XIII. and Louis XIV. regarded it as a hunting-box, but the latter came to the amazing conclusion, after his first visit to the place with his Court, that it was too small, and plans were prepared for two additional wings, which, however, were never built, although the foundations of one were laid; on them were built, in the eighteenth century, the barracks still to be seen. They were for the accommodation of the regiment of Uhlan horse, with which the famous Marshal Maurice de Saxe, of Fontenoy fame, amused himself when in retirement at Chambord.

It is, however, the figure of the magnificent François I., the King who, at the death of his English neighbour, spoke of Henry VIII. as his old friend, to whom one’s thoughts turn in walking through the great Renaissance courtyard and the innumerable and vast apartments ornamented on every side with his fiery salamander. In spite of their rich coffered ceilings the apartments are cold and bare, and need the sumptuous furnishings of the sixteenth century and the King himself apparelled in his favourite pink or blue Italian velvet.

In the middle of the central pile of buildings is a remarkable double staircase, so arranged that those ascending by one spiral cannot be seen by those coming down the other. This no doubt had its uses and advantages in the sixteenth century, when Court intrigue added a zest to life.

The custodian takes visitors on to the roofs, where the extraordinary detail of the chimneys, balustrades, turrets, and dormers can be seen closely. The uncarved surfaces of stone are generally adorned with slate cut into various patterns and fixed up with nails.

Nearly all the hundreds of rooms are vast, bare, and lifeless, and one feels in the echoing spaces that the tide of social progress has left such colossal buildings--the greatest that the final phase of feudalism produced--far away on a half-forgotten beach of history.

The moat was filled up and the terraces taken away when Stanislas Leczinska, the exiled King of Poland, received the castle from his father-in-law Louis XV., and lived there contentedly for eight years.

Madame Berthier, the widow of Napoleon’s Chief of Staff, cut down all the old trees in the twenty square miles of forest belonging to Chambord, thus robbing its surroundings of the dignity given by great trees, while perhaps giving the park the aspect which it bore in the days of François I.

The long straight roads bordered with Austrian pines go straight through the park southwards to the little town of Bracieux on the Beuvron. It has a quaint market-house on posts and a good deal of half-timber work with herring-bone brickwork, but otherwise the place is uninteresting, and need not delay one on the road to Cheverny.

The Sologne, through which the route goes, is a very peculiar strip of sandy marsh-land dotted over with innumerable lakelets and covered with a network of rivers. It was until recent times considered a hopelessly unprofitable waste, suitable for nothing at all but sport. Drainage and careful cultivation have shown, however, that the vine will produce good harvests, and strawberries and vegetables are also cultivated with such success that the peasant of the Sologne is now prosperous and contented.

That the sporting qualities of the district have not yet been destroyed is proved by the frequency with which one hears the sound of the horn across the watery levels, and sees the very excited hunting folk clattering through the village streets and along the highways and byways.

Turning to the left in the village of Cour Cheverny, and to the right at a fork just afterwards, one reaches the village of

CHEVERNY

Opposite the curious little church, with its Norman door and wide wooden verandah sheltering a few mendicants, is the entrance to the Château. _It is open to visitors from April 1 to October_, and not during the other months of the year, as it is the home of the present owner, the Marquis Henri Hurault de Vibraye, who is a descendant of that Philippe Hurault de Cheverny whose son built the present château in 1634. This Philippe Hurault had been Chancellor under Henri III. and Henri IV., and died in 1599 in the house destroyed when the existing one was built.

The corridor and dining-room are decorated with paintings on Cordova leather illustrating the life of Don Quixote. Jean Mosnier, of Blois, born in 1600, was the artist who painted all the pictures in the château. A beautifully carved stone staircase leads to the upper floor, where one can see the Salle des Gardes--a splendid room in perfect condition--decorated with armour, paintings, and rich tapestries, and the Chambre du Roi, with its old bed and more tapestry.

The tomb of Chancellor Hurault is in the chapel in the château, and others of the family are buried in the church (already mentioned) outside the gates of the park.

Returning to Cour Cheverny, where the church has a tall and slender spire, and an early Pointed doorway with a toothed moulding, one goes straight on through the village and the forest of Russy (passing on the left the Château Beauregard) to the picturesque and historic town of

BLOIS

On crossing the bridge over the Loire one looks upward at the great castle on its inaccessible rock, the centre of a vast feudal power in the Middle Ages, and the scene of callous intrigue and murder in the latter part of the sixteenth century.

It is not difficult to find the way up to the Château, which is a national monument, and is _open to the public at all reasonable hours_.

The _east wing_ and entrance-front of the château, of red brick and stone, was built by Louis XII., probably while he was Duke of Orleans, and finished before his death in 1501. His emblem--the porcupine--can be seen above the little door on the right of the archway, above which is an equestrian statue of Louis XII.--a modern work, taking the place of the old one destroyed in the Revolution. This wing now contains the Museum and Picture Gallery.

The _north wing_ was built by François I. between 1516-1525. François I., while transforming the exterior, kept one of the towers of the old fortress,

whose dungeons served as prisons; the west wing, later demolished by Gaston d’Orléans; and also the _Grande Salle de Justice_, known later as the Salle des États, from the États généraux held there in 1576 and 1588. This hall united the new wing to the old one of Louis XII. It is a thirteenth-century building, with its roof supported by eight

On the first floor are the rooms of Catherine de Medici, and above are those of Henri III., the scene of the historic murder of Henri, Duc de Guise.

5 V, the Council-hall, and VI the fireplace at which Guise warmed himself. The dotted line shows the way Guise left the Council-hall for the Cabinet Vieux, where the King (Henry III.) awaited him. XVIII, the narrow passage in which Guise was stabbed.]

columns. The beautiful outside stone staircase is the most remarkable feature of this wing.

On the _first floor_ are the rooms of Catherine de Medici, containing the bedroom where she died in 1589 and the _Tour des Oubliettes_--the ruined tower where the Cardinal de Guise (brother of Henri, Duc de Guise) and the Archbishop of Lyons were imprisoned. The Cardinal was assassinated the day after his brother just in the entry. The Archbishop was sent into exile.

On the _second floor_ are the rooms of Henri III., including the King’s bedroom, where the Duke died; the oratory, where monks were praying for the success of the enterprise, not knowing what it was; and the Salle du Conseil, where Guise stood and warmed himself by the fire on the morning when he was assassinated--December 23, 1588. The Cabinet Vieux, where Henri waited during the murder, has been pulled down.

Henri III., owing to his vacillating policy, found himself in 1588 completely dominated by his powerful subject, Henri, Duc de Guise, who had founded the league to re-establish the Catholic religion and to extirpate all heresy. The King had been forced to proclaim Guise Lieutenant-General of the kingdom, and to pledge himself to suppress heresy, but, though outwardly reconciled, Henri was determined on vengeance. Miss Edith Sichel gives the following account of the murder in her brilliant work on Catherine de Medici.

‘The Duc de Guise and the Cardinal had been asked to attend the
Council early; but, although the rest had long been there, there
was as yet no sign of the Duke. The winter’s day was dark and
covered--it rained that Friday from morning till night--and no one
dared wake him till nearly eight. He rose and attired himself
carefully in a new grey satin suit, “too light for the season.”...
Outside the rough cobbles of the courtyard were shining and wet;
the stone passages through which he passed indoors were dank and
struck ominously chill. That very morning he had received nine more
letters bidding him beware. “This is the ninth to-day,” he had said
aloud, as he put it in his pocket.... As he neared the short flight
of steps leading down into the big hall, the Captain of the Guards
approached him, and bowing low, but with studied insolence, “in a
fashion very different from usual,” he held out the bill, as had
been arranged. Guise courteously stopped to hear him, and,
promising payment, moved on. The Captain and his train followed
him, their hats in their hands, and made it easier to blind him to
the fact that none of his own men were near him; they had been cut
off at the entrance, as had been planned. But the door of the
Council-hall once shut behind him, everything was changed. The
Guards cleared the stairs of pages and valets, and made all safe.
Crillon locked the outer doors of the Palace. As Guise seated
himself and looked round, he read dismay on all the faces about
him. The Council had got wind of what was on foot; there was doom
in the air. For the first time Guise showed signs of perturbation;
he changed colour; the eye next his scar began to water, as it did
whenever he was stirred, and he bled at the nose. He sent for a
handkerchief. “Monsieur,” he said to a gentleman near him, “will
you go to the staircase door? See if one of my pages or anyone else
is there, and ask him to bring me a handkerchief.” The gentleman
delivered his message, but was not allowed to go back to the hall.
The page meanwhile fetched the handkerchief from the Duke’s
secretary. Even at this eleventh hour there was an attempt to save
him. The secretary tied up a note in a corner of the handkerchief.
“Sauvez-vous, ou vous êtes mort,” it ran, but it did not reach
him.... Guise had seated himself in the Council. He suddenly turned
faint; his face assumed a deathly pallor. “I am cold; light the
fire!” he said; and, after a pause: “My heart is failing.” But he
quickly pulled himself together, and asked for “any trifle to
revive him--conserve of roses, or Damascus grapes from the King’s
cupboard.”... Nothing could be found but Brignoles plums. They
were brought, and he put some in the little sweetmeat-box that he
carried; it was gilt, and in the shape of a shell. The business of
the court proceeded.

‘Meanwhile, the King was waiting in his closet in the greatest
agitation. “Révol,” he said to one standing by, “go and tell
Monsieur de Guise to come and speak to me in my _vieux cabinet_.”
Révol obeyed, but was stopped by an usher in the antechamber. He
returned trembling. “_Mon Dieu_, Révol!” cried the King; “what is
the matter? How pale you are! You will spoil all--you will spoil
all for me! Rub your cheeks--rub your cheeks hard, Révol!” His
Majesty then gave orders that Révol was to be allowed to pass and
to return with Guise. When Révol entered the Council Chamber, a
député was speaking upon the _Gabelle_; Guise was eating Brignoles
plums. “Monsieur,” began Révol, “the King requests your presence;
he is in his _vieux cabinet_.”... Guise was leisurely. He put a
few plums back into his box, and threw the rest upon the ground.
“Messieurs,” he asked, “would anybody like some?” Then, rolling up
his cloak, and taking it, with his long gloves and his sweet-box,
under his left arm, he prepared to follow Révol. “Adieu,
messieurs,” he said, as he went off the stage. He knocked at the
King’s door; the usher opened it....

‘As Guise entered, one of the Guards tried to give him a last
chance, and trod upon his foot. Guise understood, but he knew
escape was impossible. The usher had come out from the King’s
closet, and had shut the door on the inside. Guise made two steps,
then took hold of his beard with his right hand, and half turned to
see who was following him. The Sieur de Montsérine, who was
standing by the mantel-piece, advanced and stabbed him swiftly in
the left breast. “Traitor, you will die of this!” he called out, as
he dealed the thrust. The Duke hit out with his sweet-box, the only
weapon in his hand. Three other men, concealed behind the tapestry,
fell on him at once. “_Eh, mes amis!_” he cried. When one among the
rest, called Periac, pierced him, his voice grew louder with a
prayer for pity. In his struggle his sword had got entangled in his
cloak, and his legs had been seized. But, with an almost superhuman
effort, he dragged himself from one end of the room to another, and
along the passage to Henri’s bedroom, leaving bloodstains in his
track. “My God, I am dead! Have mercy on me!” he groaned. The words
were his last; they were heard distinctly in the Council-hall, and
his brother, the Cardinal de Guise, was the first to catch them.

‘Before the breath was out of his body, the courtiers were
plundering it. One took the diamond heart from his ring, another
his purse full of gold coins.’

The _west wing_, dating from 1635, was built for Gaston d’Orléans by François Mansard. It contains the public library.

The _south wing_ contains some rooms built by Louis XII. or his father, Charles d’Orléans, and also the ornate Chapelle Saint Calais, in which Henri IV. married Marguerite de Valois. It has been restored so much that it has lost somewhat in interest, in spite of its profuse gilding on walls and ceiling.

THE CHURCHES OF BLOIS

_Cathedral of St. Louis_, sixteenth century, rebuilt in seventeenth century in the time of Louis XIV. in a debased ogee style. The upper parts of the tower and main entrance are Renaissance, while the base of the tower belongs to the twelfth century, when an earlier church was standing.

_St. Nicholas_, a cruciform church situated at the foot of the château, is the oldest in Blois, and is quite the most interesting. It formerly belonged to the Benedictine Abbey of St. Laumur, and was built between 1138 and 1210 in Transitional and Gothic periods. The upper parts of the two western towers are modern. The interior is very impressive, the style being strong and simple, with a beautiful vaulted ambulatory. Some of the capitals are very finely carved. The altar-screen dates from 1460, and there are epitaphs and inscriptions of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

_St. Vincent-de-Paul_, a church of the Jesuits, built 1626-1671, contains a monument to Gaston d’Orléans (to the right of the chief altar) erected by Mademoiselle de Montpensier, his daughter (known as La Grande Mademoiselle).

_St. Saturnin_, in the Faubourg de Vienne, south of the river, belongs to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It has a statue of Notre-Dame des Aides, the object of a pilgrimage for which Anne de Bretagne (wife of Louis XII.) had a great devotion.

Old Houses.--There are many Renaissance houses of stone, and also numerous wooden ones of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with curious carvings on brackets and corbels and moulded beams. Nos. 1 and 2, in the narrow old Rue St. Lubin, west of the market below the château, are particularly good.

_Tour d’Argent_ (Rue des Trois Clefs) is the fifteenth-century octagonal tower of the Hôtel des Monnaies, or Mint, under Charles d’Orléans and Louis XII.

_Hôtel d’Alluye_ (8, Rue St. Honoré) is a masterly example of Renaissance, built for Florimond Robertet, Baron d’Alluye, and Secretary of Finances under Louis XII. and François I. He also built the Château de Bury.

_Hôtel Sardini_ (17, Rue du Puits-Châtel) is of the time of Louis XII.

_Hôtel Denis-Dupont_ (Rue St. Honoré) is the sixteenth-century dwelling of Denis-Dupont, the celebrated lawyer of Blois.

_The College_ (Place Louis XII.) is installed in the ancient Abbaye de Bourg-Moyen, rebuilt in the eighteenth century, with the exception of the fourteenth-century gable.

_Hôtel Dieu_ (between the castle and the river) occupies buildings of the Abbey of St. Laumur; rebuilt under Louis XIV., and recently enlarged.

_Fontaine Louis XII._, in the Place Louis XII., where markets are held, is a picturesque fifteenth-century work.

_The Bridge_ was built between 1717-1724, from plans of Gabriel, father of the celebrated architect, the obelisk in the middle showing the arms of France.

_History._--The name Blois is derived from the Celtic word _bleiz_, meaning wolf, possibly because the Celtic fort on the site of the château was in a wolf-infested country, and perhaps the name may have some totem significance. The Counts of Blois ruled over a vast district during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, including Chartres, Dunois, Vendômois, and even Champagne. Thibaut le Tricheur (or the Cheat) was the most celebrated of the first Counts. He built a keep on the site of the present château before his death in 978.

1135. Stephen, Count of Blois, became King of England.

1241. The Châtillons succeeded the first Counts.

1397. Louis d’Orléans, second son of Charles V., became possessor,
began rebuilding the castle but his work remained unfinished. His
illegitimate son Dunois, the Bastard of Orleans, guarded the
château during the Hundred Years’ War. His own son Charles was
taken prisoner at Agincourt, and was captive in England twenty-five
years.

1440. Charles d’Orléans, on his release, returned to Blois, where
his son Louis was born; afterwards King, as Louis XII., in 1498.
From this time to the sixteenth century the history of Blois is
the history of France. Louis XII. resided there in preference to
Paris.

1514. Anne de Bretagne, his wife, died at Blois. François I. lived
there during early part of his reign, leaving it later for Chambord
and Fontainebleau.

1588. Duc de Guise assassinated on December 23.

1589. Catherine de Medici died a few days after the murder.

After these tragic events the Kings of France disliked the château, and only one Duc d’Orléans, Gaston, brother of Louis XIII., resided there. He formed a sort of provincial court round him, and employed Mansard to build the west wing. After Gaston’s death in 1660 only two Princesses used it--Marie Casimire, widow of Sobieski, King of Poland, and the mother of Stanislas, King of Poland, who died at Blois in 1722. After this the château was abandoned, and even partly mutilated, and the Revolution continued the destruction.

1841. The château was classed as an historical monument, and its
restoration has been carried out since that year.

An exceedingly picturesque town on the Loire, with its famous château conspicuous above the river.]

THE ROAD TO AMBOISE

There is a peculiar charm in the riparian scenery of the Loire when seen from the raised road that follows the broad river closely all the way to Tours. In the late afternoon the soft colours of the sunset sky reflected in the oily and swirling surface of the river are singularly beautiful, and looking backwards, as one leaves the town of Blois, the buildings beneath the château, the towers, and the bridge, are all transformed with a soft gold, which subdues all that is crude, and heightens every charm, in just the fashion that memory gilds the past. To the south, beyond the river, is the forest of Blois, a remnant of the medieval forests that surrounded the town, and near at hand all the trees are tufted with mistletoe, which shows up against the burnished gold of the sky as the sun drops lower and lower in the west.

A suspension bridge of six spans crosses the river opposite.

CHAUMONT-SUR-LOIRE

The little brown-roofed village nestles by the water-side under an orange-red cliff crowned with the picturesque castle built in 1473 by Charles de Chaumont. He was a brother of the great Cardinal Georges d’Amboise, Archbishop of Rouen, who was born in the castle in 1460, and whose Cardinal’s hat can be seen in the chapel.

_Visitors are allowed to see the castle every day in the absence of the owner (the Princesse de Broglie), and on Thursdays when the family is in residence._ When first built, in the tenth century, the fortress belonged to the Counts of Blois, and came afterwards to the family of Amboise. It was burnt by Louis XI. because Pierre d’Amboise (his tomb in Rouen Cathedral has been mentioned) had rebelled against him, and rebuilt in quadrangular form by his son Charles. The side towards the river was pulled down in 1739 to open up the beautiful view.

Catherine de Medici appears not to have lived at Chaumont, but she obliged Diane de Poitiers to accept it in exchange for Chenonceaux.

The entrance gateway between machicolated towers shows the initials of Louis XII. and Anne de Bretagne, and the arms of Charles and Georges d’Amboise. Certain apartments are _called_ those of Catherine de Medici and of her astrologer Ruggieri. The Salles des Gardes are hung with Beauvais tapestry. A big cedar holds out beneficent arms in the courtyard, and the steep ravine on the west side of the castle eminence is clothed with trees.

Returning to the north side of the river, one passes the mossy-roofed hamlet of Veuves, built close up to the-raised road, and in a short time the strikingly picturesque town of Amboise appears on the south bank of the river.

AMBOISE.

The first bridge takes one on to the Île St. Jean, where in 496 Clovis held a conference with Alaric, King of the Visigoths, and the second bridge brings one to the town built under the shadow of the castle commenced by Charles VIII., continued by Louis XII., and finished by François I. _Entrance tree every day; gratuity to custodian._

Amboise was the _Ambatia_ of the Romans, and in the fourth century tradition reveals the presence of St. Martin of Tours causing the destruction of a pagan temple. In the Middle Ages there was a castle on the site of the existing one, which belonged to the Counts of Anjou, and afterwards to those of Berri. It came to the Crown in 1434; Louis XI. abode there before he went to Plessis-les-Tours.

Charles VIII. was born in the feudal castle which has now vanished, and it was here he began the reconstruction, and died in the unfinished Gothic pile in which he had taken such delight. He brought artists, sculptors, and workmen from Italy and wherever he saw beautiful things, and what the château might have been can be judged by the exquisite little Chapel of St. Hubert, with its exterior _alto-relievo_ representing the conversion of the canonized huntsman. While watching a game of tennis, however, on April 7, 1498, Charles was seized with apoplexy and died. The excellent guide shows a low doorway, against the lintel of which he describes how the King struck his head when going after a tennis-ball. This picturesque story is, nevertheless, untrue.

Leonardo da Vinci, who died at Amboise in 1519, left instructions for his burial in the Chapel of St. Florentin, formerly in the castle, but now destroyed. In 1869 some bones were discovered on the site, and were deposited in St. Hubert’s Chapel in the belief that they were those of the painter, and a bust of the great Italian has been placed above the spot where the remains were unearthed.

The interior of the castle has been so mutilated and destroyed that its interest centres very largely in the two great cylindrical towers, which contain spiral roadways paved with red brick, up which the Emperor Charles V. rode on horseback when he paid a visit to François I. in 1539. The ascent is so easy that to drive up in a carriage is no great feat, and an automobile can accomplish it with comparative ease.

The year 1560 witnessed a terrible scene in the now peaceful and flower-scented courtyard of the castle. An abortive Huguenot conspiracy to capture the young King François II. and remove the government from the Guises met with a frightful retribution. A series of horrible executions and hangings were carried out in the presence of the Court, and Mary Stuart was forced to witness the spectacle by her fierce mother-in-law Catherine de Medici. The dead bodies were hung from the galleries.

In 1872 the National Assembly gave back the castle to the Comte de Paris, and at the present time the Duc d’Orléans uses it as a _maison de retraite_ for old servants.

The view from the ramparts over the blue river with its sandy banks is very beautiful. Down below are the old roofs of the town, standing where, at one time, the river washed the base of the castle rock.

A picturesque _gateway_ in the town, with a pointed arch, a clock, and a lantern turret above its high-pitched roof, is passed through on the way to the fine cruciform _Church of St. Denis_. It is a Transitional building with a Romanesque north door, richly sculptured capitals, an interesting St. Sépulchre, and a massive central tower.

The Hôtel de Ville near the bridge (built 1500-1505 by Pierre Morin, Treasurer of France) has been carefully over-restored, and can be entered without any charge beyond a small gratuity. Near by is the Church of St. Florentin, built by order of Louis XI. (1461-1483).

To reach Tours from Amboise one only has to follow the road westward on either bank of the river, but by doing so one misses the fascinating castle of Chenonceaux, which lies a few miles to the south-east.

The best road to take is the one going due south through the forest of Amboise towards Bléré, and at the first important cross-road (see map) one goes to the left parallel with the River Cher.

Just before reaching the village of Chenonceaux a turning to the right leads across the railway to the entrance-gates of the château of

CHENONCEAUX

_Admission is given every day except when the family is in residence, when the public can enter on Sundays and Thursdays only between 2 and 4. The charge is 1 franc for each person._

An avenue leads down to a formal garden enclosed by low walls and brilliant with flowers, which make a fitting foreground to this castle of pleasant memories, for there are no records or traditions of any treachery or murder here; instead, one finds accounts of brilliant fêtes and receptions, when the picturesque little château must have been a pageant of colour and beauty.

An isolated tower on the right of the garden belongs to an earlier castle than that which exists now, and its walls have the mellowed tones which restoration has stolen from the beautiful building just beyond.

The approach is by a bridge, for the whole of the castle stands in the River Cher on the site of a mill owned by the predecessors of the builder. Although erected in the sixteenth century, there are two drawbridges which isolate the castle from the banks, but its peaceful story does not suggest that they were ever needed.

The elaborately ornamented roofs, the circular corner turrets, and the galleried bridge reflected in patches in the eddying water, make a most attractive picture, and one feels surprise that no one has imitated such an idea.

It was in 1515 that Thomas Bohier is supposed to have begun the castle. He was Chancellor of the Exchequer of Normandy, and spent large sums of money on the building. The style was not altogether of the Renaissance, as one may see from the Gothic chapel he built. In 1524 he died in Italy, the country from whence he had drawn his ideas for his exquisite house in the Cher, which was still unfinished. Antoine, his eldest son, found himself in such a predicament through his father’s methods of finance that in 1535 he sold Chenonceaux to François I.

Although the King seems to have only twice visited the castle, he went on with the buildings, and his high opinion of the place is on record.

In 1546 he held a great hunting-party at the castle, and with him were Diane de Poitiers and the future Henri II., in whose affections the King’s mistress soon had the highest place. In 1547 Henri II. succeeded his father, and at once gave Chenonceaux to his lovely Diane, and it was she who built the bridge connecting the castle with the south bank of the river.

One of the most attractive of the castles of Touraine. It is built in the River Cher, and was never the scene of any fighting.]

Twelve years later Henri received a mortal wound in the lists when tilting with Montgomery, Captain of the Scottish Guards, and his embittered widow, Catherine de Medici, at once forced Diane de Poitiers to exchange Chenonceaux for Chaumont. In 1559 Catherine received the boy-King, François II., with his Queen, Mary Stuart, at the château in the river. Mary came there from Amboise with the bloody scenes of the castle courtyard fresh in her memory.

While she had Chenonceaux, Catherine built upon the bridge erected by her rival Diane the gallery with a long banqueting-hall above, which makes so attractive a feature from the water-side. She died in 1601, and left the castle to her niece, the beautiful Françoise de Lorraine, Duchesse de Mercœur.

Having been a possession of the Bourbons, Chenonceaux was sold, in 1733, to Fermier Général Dupin, whose widow, Madame Dupin, entertained there most sumptuously for many years, and even survived the Revolution, dying in 1799, at the age of ninety-three. The Revolutionaries did no damage to the buildings, but required Madame Dupin to bring out all her securities, and the priceless pictures and portraits which had been accumulating in the château for three centuries, and all were burnt in a great bonfire.

The castle is now owned by M. Terry, a Cuban gentleman, who has spent large sums of money on its restoration.

Much of the beautiful furniture has always been in the castle, and the decorations bear the monogram of Henri II. and Diane de Poitiers. The blue-and-orange enamelled tiles on the floors of some of the rooms add to the feast of colour and detail.

BLÉRÉ,

to which one returns after seeing the castle, is an old but disappointing little town, for the bridge built by Henry II. of England in 1160, and in use until quite lately, has been replaced by a modern stone structure of no interest. The Church of St. Croix has a Romanesque apse with grotesque corbels. There are three parallel naves; the central one is fifteenth-century work, those north and south of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

From Bléré to Tours the road keeps near the Cher, and the scenery is pretty.

ALTERNATIVE ROUTE DIRECT TO THE RHONE AND THE RIVIERA--ORLEANS TO
BRIARE, 43½ MILES

(70 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

(Along the north bank of the Loire)

Kil. Miles. =Orleans= to Chécy =9= 5½ =Chécy= to Châteauneuf-sur-Loire =15= 9½ =Châteauneuf= to Ouzouer-sur-Loire =22= 13½ =Ouzouer= to Gien =15= 9½ =Gien= to Briare =9= 5½

For the route from Briare to Cannes, see Sections XXIII., XXII., XXI., XX., XIX., and XVII.

CHARTRES TO TOURS DIRECT, 87½ MILES

(141 KILOMETRES)

Kil. Miles. =Chartres= to Bonneval =31= 19¼ =Bonneval= to Châteaudun =14= 8¾ =Châteaudun= to Cloyes =12= 7½ =Cloyes= to Vendôme =28= 17½ =Vendôme= to Château-Renault =26= 16 =Château-Renault= to Tours =30= 18½

By this road, which is on the whole level, one can shorten the distance to Biarritz by 61 miles, but it means omitting the fascinating Château Country.