In Château Land, Anne Hollingsworth Wharton [english reading book txt] 📗

breath, and then aloud, "Keep still, Miss Mott, the blacksmith will stay, I am sure, as he looks as if he had been built into that door."

I think we shall be able to send you a photograph of our little smithy, and perhaps one of the church across the road, which is quaint and interesting, with its timbered verandas (one cannot, by any stretch of courtesy, call them cloisters) and something like a lych-gate at the entrance. Within are some marbles and memorial tablets of the Hurault family. It seems that the Huraults owned the Seignory of Cheverny as long ago as the fourteenth century, "before we Americans were discovered," as Miss Cassandra says. Early in the sixteenth century, one Raoul Hurault built a chateau here, of which little or nothing is left. The present chateau was built by a later Hurault, in 1634, and, after passing through several hands, it was bought, in 1825, by the Marchioness Hurault de Vibraye, and being thus returned to the family of the original owners, is still in their possession. A wonderful tale was this for American ears!

Cheverny, with its well wooded park, and its avenue six kilometres in length, is a noble domain; but the outside of the chateau, although its architecture has been highly praised, did not impress us particularly. This may be because the mansion is situated on a level sweep of lawn, laid out after the English style, instead of crowning a great bluff like Blois, Amboise and Chaumont. The interior of Cheverny leaves nothing to be desired. It is elegant, aristocratic, and yet most delightfully homelike, with its spacious hall, richly decorated royal bedroom, and salon as livable as an English drawing room, with books, magazines and writing materials scattered over the centre table. On the panelled walls are gathered together a goodly and graceful company of noble lords and beautiful ladies, among them a fine full-length portrait of Philippe Hurault, Count de Cheverny, Chancellor of Finance under Henry IV, and opposite him his beautiful and stately wife, Anne de Thou, Dame de Cheverny, in a gown of black velvet garnished with rich lace. This noble lady was related, in some way, to the gallant young De Thou who perished on the scaffold with his friend Cinq Mars. Over the chimney-place is a charming portrait by Mignard of the daughter, or daughter-in-law, of Anne de Thou, Marie Johanne de Saumery, Marquise de Montglat, Countess de Cheverny. The subject of this lovely portrait bears with distinction her long array of cumbersome titles, while the airy grace of the figure and the innocent sweetness of the rounded girlish face are irresistibly attractive. Above the chimney-place, in which this portrait is set in the white wainscot, is the monogram (HV) which one finds all over the chateau, a proof that this ancient family is _legitimiste_ to the core, and devoutly loyal to whatever is left of the ancient line of the Bourbons. In the _salle a manger_, the monogram of the last Henry of this royal house is especially conspicuous. We were puzzling over the name of the pretender of to-day when the guide informed our ignorance, with a most superior manner of knowing it all and wondering that we did not know it also. From what he gave forth in rapid French with many gestures, we gathered that on the death of the Comte de Paris his eldest son, Philippe Robert, Duc d'Orleans, became heir to the house of Bourbon, founded in 886 by Robert le Fort, with the title Philippe VII. The Duc de Bourdeaux, always known as the Comte de Chambord after he became owner of the chateau of the same name, was heir to the throne, through the elder branch of the house, that is, as the grandson and eldest descendant of Charles X, the last of the elder branch that reigned in France. Some little time before his death, the Comte de Chambord was reconciled to the younger or Orleans branch, which had usurped the throne after the expulsion of Charles X. By this act the Comte de Paris was recognized as the legitimate successor to the throne. The present Duke of Orleans, should the monarchy be restored, would rule as Philippe VII. The Comte de Chambord took the title Henri V, as the next Henri after the king of Navarre, Henri IV. The Comte de Chambord bequeathed the Chateau of Chambord, which was his personal property, to his kinsman, the Duke de Parme, who was a Bourbon of the Spanish line, being the descendant of the grandson of Louis XIV, who was elected to the Spanish throne in 1700. From the pride with which this information was communicated we realized that this very superior _gardien_ was, like the noble master and mistress of Cheverny, legitimist to the ends of his fingers.

While listening to this genealogical disquisition our eyes turned to a most attractive looking tea table which was set forth with superb silver, and thin slices of bread and butter and cake. With appetites sharpened by our long ride through the fresh air, I fear that we all gazed longingly at that tempting regale, and for Miss Cassandra, Lydia and I positively trembled. With her strong feeling that the world was made for herself and those whom she loves, it would not have surprised us to see the good lady sit down at this hospitable looking table and invite the rest of the party to join her. Lydia adroitly led the conversation toward Chambord and the afternoon tea which our chauffeur had promised us there, adding, gracefully, "It is very kind of the Marquise to allow us to go through her beautiful chateau while the family is in residence." "Yes," assented Miss Cassandra, "but how much more hospitable if she would invite us to drink tea with her!" After admiring the beautifully decorated ceiling and the handsome leather hangings, we left the dining room and its temptations for what was a much greater attraction to the men of the party, the fine suits of armor in the Salle des Gardes.

Although Cheverny cherishes its Bourbon traditions, like the proverbially happy nation and happy woman it has no history to speak of, having even escaped the rigors of the French Revolution. In the past, as to-day, this chateau seems to have been a homelike and peaceful abode, its long facade and pavilions having looked down through many centuries upon a smiling garden and a vast lawn, which shut it in from the world beyond even more effectually than its great gates.

From Cheverny our way lay across a stretch of open, level country and then through the forest of Chambord, which includes 11,000 acres of woodland. By the time we reached the chateau, we were, as Miss Cassandra expresses it in classic phrase, "faint yet pursuing" for lack of the refreshment to which we were not made welcome at Cheverny. Our chauffeur, being accustomed to famished pilgrims, conducted us at once to a garden cafe quite near the chateau, from whence we could study its long facade while enjoying our tea and _patisserie_. And what a huge monument is this chateau of Chambord to the effete monarchy of France, built up from the life-blood and toil of thousands! It impressed us as more brutally rich and splendid than any of the palaces that we had seen, rising as it does in its great bulk so unexpectedly from the dead level of the sandy plain, with no especial reason for its existence except the will of a powerful sovereign. It is not strange that the salamander of Francis I appears upon so many of the chateaux of France, for to this art-loving, luxurious, and _debonnaire_ King she owes Chambord, Fontainebleau, St. Germain and the smaller chateaux of Azay-le-Rideau, Anet and Villers-Cotterets. Although Francis I brought from Italy, to beautify his palaces, Leonardo Da Vinci, Primaticcio, Benvenuto Cellini, Florentin Rosso and other foreign artists, it has been decided by those who know more about the matter than we do, that Chambord owes more to its first architect, Maitre Pierre le Nepvue, dit Trinqueau, than to anyone else. It seemed to us that this master hand was happier in the construction of Chenonceaux, Blois and some of the other chateaux of France, than here at Chambord, but this is a matter of individual taste. Vast, palatial, magnificent Chambord certainly is, and much more attractive on the north facade, where the chateau is reflected in the waters of the Cosson, than from the cafe where we were seated. The long line of buildings in the south front is somewhat monotonous, even broken as it is by the several towers, and the great central lantern, which appears to the best advantage from this side. Rich as is all the ornamentation of Chambord, it is skyward that it breaks forth into the greatest exuberance of Renaissance decoration. We reached the central lantern, with the single fleur-de-lis atop, by one of the remarkable staircases for which the palaces of Francis I are so famous. This staircase, which is formed by two spirals starting from different points, and winding about the same hollow shaft in the centre, is so constructed that persons can go up and down without meeting. Mr. Henry James considered this double staircase "a truly majestic joke," but in days when courts lived and moved and had their being in intrigues, schemes and plots, it doubtless had its uses.

Mademoiselle de Montpensier gives in her diary an amusing account of her first acquaintance with this double stairway. She came, when a child, to Chambord to visit her father, Gaston, Duke of Orleans, who stood at the top of the stairs to receive her, and called to her to come to him. As she flew up one flight her agile parent ran down the other; upon which the little girl gave chase, only to find that when she had gained the bottom he was at the top. "Monsieur," she said, "laughed heartily to see me run so fast in the hope of catching him, and I was glad to see Monsieur so well amused."

Having reached the central lantern we found ourselves upon a flat roof, surrounded by a perfectly bewildering maze of peaks, pinnacles, lanterns, chimneys and spires, which constitute what our guide is pleased to call the _ensemble de la toiture_. This vast terrace, which covers the main building of the palace, is one of the architectural marvels of France. Here it seems as if the architect had allowed himself unlimited freedom in decoration, in which he was aided by such artists as Jean Goujon and Cousin, who zealously worked upon the ornamentation of these bell turrets, balconies and towers, as if to prove the sincerity and beauty of French art. This luxuriant flowing forth, in stone carving, of foliage, flower, boss and emblem, has resulted in an ensemble of indescribable charm, the dazzling light stone of Bourre, of which the chateau is built, lending itself harmoniously to the elaborate Renaissance decoration.

It was of Jean Goujon, whose exquisite work we see now and again in these chateaux, that some writer has said, that the muse of Ronsard whispered in the ear of the French sculptor, and thus Goujon's masterpieces were poems of Ronsard translated in marble. It is a rather pretty fancy, but Lydia and I cannot remember its author. Walter says that he can understand why the Counts of Blois built their castle here, as this place seems to have formed part of a system of fortresses which guarded the Loire, making it possible, in the time of Charles VII, for Joan of Arc to move her army up the river to Orleans; but why Francis should have transformed this old castle into a palace is not so easy to understand. When so many more attractive sites were to be found, it seems strange that he should