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

have chosen this sandy flat upon the border of what was then the sad and barren Solange. One reason given is that the country about Chambord was rich in game, and we know that Francis was an inveterate hunter; another theory is that a charming woman, the Comtesse de Thoury, one of the early loves of the King, had a manor in the neighborhood.

"Both excellent reasons!" exclaimed Archie, "Dame Quickly is evidently an apt student of human nature."

These various surmises and bits of information were poured into our ears by the guide, a plump and merry soul, whom Archie at once dubbed Dame Quickly. As she conducted us from room to room, she turned to me and, with a flash of her black eyes, exclaimed, "If these walls could speak, what tales they could tell!" adding that, for her part, she believed that the King came here for the hunting, the Comtesse de Thoury having been a love of his youth, and, with a knowing shake of her head, "You know, Mesdames, how short is the memory of man for an early love, especially a king's memory, when another is always to be found to take the vacant place." When we explained this philosophic reflection upon their sex to the men of the party, they declared that an unfair advantage was being taken by this facetious dame, simply because they were not able to answer back and vindicate the eternal fidelity of man. Then, as if divining what was being said, through her quick woman's instinct, she drew us toward a window in the study of Francis I and showed us these lines scratched upon one of the panes:

Souvent femme varie; Mal habile qui s'y fie.

Some discredit is thrown upon the authenticity of these lines, and if Francis wrote them in his old age, his point of view must have greatly changed since his earlier days, when he so gaily and gallantly said that a court without ladies was a year without spring and a spring without roses. Francis spent much of his time in his later years at Chambord, his chief solace being the companionship of his lovely sister, Marguerite, Queen of Navarre, the author of the Heptameron, whose beauty and intellect were the inspiration of many French poets.

One of the pleasing sides of the character of the King was his devoted affection for this sister, with whom he had spent a happy youth at Amboise, and she, loving him beyond any other being, wrote verses to express her grief when they were separated. A varied, many-sided, personality was Francis I, and with all his faults possessed of a charm of his own, and a taste in the fine arts that added much to the beauty of his kingdom. Something of this we said to Dame Quickly, who replied, with another wise shake of her head, "The history of Francis is a wonderful history, Mesdames, made up of many things. There is always state policy, and religion, _et un peu les femmes_," the knowing look and shrug with which this bit of wisdom was communicated is simply untranslatable.

Only a few of the 365 rooms of Chambord are furnished; we were shown the bedroom of the late Comte de Chambord, a ghostly apartment, it seemed to us in the fading daylight, the bed hung with elaborate tapestries, the work of the loyal hands of the ladies of Poitou. Miss Cassandra asked the guide if she would not be afraid to sleep in this dismal chamber. "No," she answered, "there are no _revenants_ here, the great people who lived here do not walk, they had such an active life with their hunting and fetes that they are content to rest quietly in their beds."

We passed through the council chamber of the chateau, where there are more tapestries, these presented by the loyal inhabitants of Blois and the Limousin districts, and here also is a quite useless throne donated by some devoted legitimists. In the chapel, we were shown some tapestry worked by Madame Royale, during her imprisonment in the Temple, that daughter of Marie Antoinette who alone survived her unfortunate family and as Duchesse d'Angouleme lived to quite an advanced age.

The fast-fading daylight made it impossible to see many of the portraits in the great reception room; among them we noticed two portraits of Anne of Austria, and a Van Loo of the beautiful unloved Queen of Louis XV, Marie Leczinska. In this picture she appears so graceful and charming that one wonders how the King could have been insensible to her attractions; but one need never be surprised at the vagaries of royalty, and it is not to be expected that diplomatic alliances should be happy.

What interested the men of the party especially, was the little light wagon in which, we were told, the owner of Chambord, the Duc de Parme, went a hunting with that good legitimist, the Master of Cheverny.

"I am glad," said Walter, "that the noble Duke has a neighbor of the same stripe to go a hunting with him, the grandeur of this great palace without a friendly neighbor to come in and take a hand at cards or crack a joke with him, would be simply appalling."

"The idea of jokes in this vast mausoleum of departed grandeur!" exclaimed Miss Cassandra. "It would be like dancing in a cemetery. Do ask that lively black-eyed dame how many there are in family when the owners are at home."

"Monsieur le Duc has twenty-two children," was the reply. "He lives in Italy, but comes here sometimes for the hunting."[B]

"And does he bring his family with him?"

"_Pas tout le monde_ at the same time, Madame, although we have enough rooms for them all."

Laughing over this ready rejoinder, we parted from our merry cicerone with exchanges of compliments and a clink of silver. I am quite sure that Walter and Archie gave her the fee twice over because of her _beaux yeux_ and her merry wit.

It is late, and I am tired after the _grande tournee_, as they call our afternoon trip here, and Walter reminds me

"That the best of all ways
To lengthen our days
Is _not_ to steal a few hours from the night, my dear."

FOOTNOTE:

[B] Since Mrs. Leonard wrote of this conversation at Chambord, the chateau has passed into the possession of Prince Sixtus de Bourbon, son and heir of the late Duke of Parma. The present owner of Chambord in making good his title to the chateau testified that not a penny of its revenue has ever been applied to any other purposes than the restoration and upkeep of the domain.


XIII

CHINON AND FONTEVRAULT

LE CHEVAL BLANC, ANGERS, September 12th.

FATE certainly seemed to be against my seeing Chinon to-day, as we awoke this morning to hear the rain pattering against our windows. A rather disconsolate party, we gathered around the table for the breakfast, which we had ordered an hour earlier, in order to make the day as long as possible. Miss Cassandra, who was the only really cheerful member of the party, reminded us of the many days of sunshine that we have had in Touraine, adding with her usual practical optimism, "And thee must remember, my dear, that constant sunshine makes the desert," this to Lydia, but we all took the wise saying to heart and were quite cheerful by the time we had finished our breakfast, perhaps also for the more material reason that Walter, through various gratuities and persuasions, had succeeded in making it of better cheer than the ordinary light _dejeuner_. Another pleasing circumstance was the assurance of the chauffeur, who arrived while we were still in the breakfast room, that the clouds were breaking away and that we should have sunshine by noon. By the time we had reached Villandry the sun was struggling through the clouds, and as we approached Chinon, its long line of ancient ruins and the little town clustered beneath were bathed in sunshine.

Although from several points the old chateau on the crest of the hill, dominated by the lofty Tour de l'Horloge, is beautiful and impressive, the best general view of it is from the middle of the lower bridge, from which we could see the three distinct foundations, the Chateau of St. George at the upper or right side, the bridge which connects it with the Tour de l'Horloge, the Chateau du Milieu, and finally the Chateau de Coudray at the extreme lower or left end of the plateau. The whole is far more ruinous than the other famous castles of Touraine and requires as much imagination to make it whole and habitable as some of the ruins along the Rhine. Of the Chateau of St. George, built by the Plantagenet Kings to protect the one vulnerable point in a position almost impregnable in its day, nothing is left but parts of the lower wall. So ruinous, indeed, is this chateau, that one is almost ready to accept Pantagruel's derivation of the name of Chinon, or Caino, from Cain, the son of Adam its founder.

We climbed up the hill and rang the bell at the Tour de l'Horloge, which is the only part of the buildings still boasting a roof, and here the concierge and his family tuck themselves away somewhere within its high, narrow walls. The bell that we rang is on the outer side of the tower, and in the course of time a girl, about as big as the old key she carried, unlocked a door in the archway through which we entered. The level spaces inside between the different buildings have been laid out as a sort of promenade which is open to the public on Sundays and holidays. The view up and down the slow, shallow river with its yellow sand-flats, little green islands, and the softly wooded country beyond seemed to us one of the most charming in Touraine. The concierge, who was attempting to act as guide to two separate parties at once, hurried us around in such a bewildering fashion that it would be almost impossible for me to give the exact locations of the different buildings. What we all remember distinctly is the bare, roofless hall, of which only a western gable and a vast chimney-piece remain, in which Joan had her audience with the King. This hall was the throne room, in 1429, when the fearless Maid appeared at Chinon, having journeyed one hundred and fifty leagues through a country occupied, in many places, by English and Burgundian troops, in order to deliver her message to the King. Although the meeting between Charles VII and Joan was by candlelight, even in the garish light of day it seemed strangely real here in this great ruinous hall. Nearly three hundred knights were present, and the King is said to have stood a little apart amidst a group of warriors and courtiers, many of them more richly dressed than himself, with the idea, perhaps, of testing Joan.

There are various accounts of this audience, but the one that we like best because it seems the most probable is that Joan knew the King at once, although she had never seen