CHINON, WHERE JOAN MET THE KING, AND AZAY
Chinon is not on the Loire, but on a tributary a little south of it, the
Vienne, its ruined castle crowning the long hill or ridge above the
town. Sometime during the afternoon we came to the outskirts of the
ancient place and looked up to the wreck of battlements and towers where
occurred that meeting which meant the liberation of France.
We left the car below and started to climb, then found there was a road,
a great blessing, for the heat was intense. There is a village just
above the castle, and we stopped there.
The chateau of Chinon to-day is the remains of what originally was three
chateaux, built at different times, but so closely strung together that
in ruin they are scarcely divided. The oldest, Coudray, was built in the
tenth century and still shows three towers standing, in one of which
Joan of Arc lived during her stay at Chinon. The middle chateau is not
as old by a hundred years. It was built on the site of a Roman fort, and
it was in one of its rooms, a fragment of which still remains, that
Charles VII received the shepherd girl from Domremy. The chateau of St.
George was built in the twelfth century by Henry II of England, who died
there in 1189. Though built two hundred years after Coudray, nothing of
it survives but some foundations.
Chinon is a much more extensive ruin than we had expected. Even what
remains to-day must be nearly a quarter of a mile in length, and its
vast crumbling walls and towers make it strikingly picturesque. But its
ruin is complete, none the less. Once through the entrance tower and you
are under nothing but the sky, with your feet on the grass; there is no
longer a shelter there, even for a fugitive king. You wander about,
viewing it scarcely more than as a ruin, at first, a place for painting,
for seclusion, for dreaming in the sun. Then all at once you are facing
a wall in which, halfway up where once was the second story, there is a
restored fireplace and a tablet which tells you that in this room
Charles VII received Joan of Arc. It is not a room now; it is just a
wall, a fragment, with vines matting its ruined edges.
You cross a stone footbridge to the tower where Joan lived, and that,
too, is open to the sky, and bare and desolate. Once, beyond it, there
was a little chapel where she prayed. There are other fragments and
other towers, but they merely serve as a setting for those which the
intimate presence of Joan made sacred.
The Maid did not go immediately to the castle on her arrival in Chinon.
She put up at an inn down in the town and waited the king's pleasure.
His paltering advisers kept him dallying, postponing his consent to see
her, but through the favor of his mother-in-law, Yolande, Queen of
Sicily, Joan and her suite were presently housed in the tower of
Coudray. One wonders if the walls were as bare as now. It was old even
then; it had been built five hundred years. But Queen Yolande would have
seen to it that there were comforts, no doubt; some tapestries, perhaps,
on the walls; a table, chairs, some covering for the stone floor.
Perhaps it was even luxurious.
The king was still unready to see Joan. She was only a stone's throw
away, but the whisperings of his advisers kept her there, while a
commission of priests went to Domremy to inquire as to her character.
When there were no further excuses for delay they contrived a trick--a
deception. They persuaded the king to put another on the throne, one
like him and in his royal dress, so that Joan might pay homage to this
make-believe king, thus proving that she had no divine power or
protection which would assist her in identifying the real one.
In the space where now is only green grass and sky and a broken wall
Charles VII and his court gathered to receive the shepherd girl who had
come to restore his kingdom. It was evening and the great hall was
lighted, and at one end of it was the throne with its imitation king,
and I suppose at the other the fireplace with a blazing fire. Down the
center of the room were the courtiers, formed in two ranks, facing so
that Joan might pass between them to the throne. The occasion was one of
great ceremony--Joan and her suite were welcomed with fine honors.
Banners waved, torches flared; trumpets blown at intervals marked the
stages of her progress down the great hall; every show was made of
paying her great honor--everything that would distract her and blind
her to their trick.
Charles VII, dressed as a simple courtier, stood a little distance from
the throne. Joan, advancing to within a few steps of the pretended king,
raised her eyes. Then for a moment she stood silent, puzzled. They
expected her to kneel and make obeisance, but a moment later she turned
and, hurrying to the rightful Charles, dropped on her knees and gave him
heartfelt salutation. She had never seen him and was without knowledge
of his features. Her protectors, or her gifts, had not failed. It was
perhaps the greatest moment in French history.
We drove down into Chinon, past the house where it is said that Rabelais
was born, and saw his statue, and one of Joan which was not very
pleasing. Then we threaded some of the older streets and saw houses
which I think cannot have changed much since Joan was there. It was
getting well toward evening now, and we set out for Tours, by way of
Azay.
The chateau of Azay-le-Rideau is all that Chinon is not. Perfect in
condition, of rare beauty in design and ornamentation, fresh, almost new
in appearance, Azay presents about the choicest flowering of the
Renaissance. Joan of Arc had been dead a hundred years when Azay was
built; France was no longer in dread of blighting invasion; a residence
no longer needed to be a fortress. The royal chateaux of the Loire are
the best remaining evidence of what Joan had done for the security of
her kings. Whether they deserved it or not is another matter.
Possibly Azay-le-Rideau might not have looked so fresh under the glare
of noonday, but in the mellow light of evening it could have been the
home of one of our modern millionaires (a millionaire of perfect taste,
I hasten to add), and located, let us say, in the vicinity of Newport.
It was difficult to believe that it had been standing for four
centuries.
Francis I did not build Azay-le-Rideau. But he liked it so much when he
saw it (he was probably on a visit to its owner, the French treasurer,
at the time) that he promptly confiscated it and added it to the
collection of other chateaux he had built, or confiscated, or had in
mind. Nothing very remarkable seems to have happened there--just the
usual things--plots, and liaisons, and intrigues of a general sort, with
now and then a chapter of real lovemaking, and certain marriages and
deaths--the latter hurried a little sometimes to accommodate the
impatient mourners.
But how beautiful it is! Its towers, its stately facades, its rich
ornamentation reflected in the water of the wide stream that sweeps
about its base, a natural moat, its background of rich foliage--these,
in the gathering twilight, completed a picture such as Hawthorne could
have conceived, or Edgar Poe.
I suppose it was too late to go inside, but we did not even apply. Like
Langeais, it belongs to France now, and I believe is something of a
museum, and rather modern. One could not risk carrying away anything
less than a perfect memory of Azay.