are long halls and picture-galleries, all with shiny floors and stiffly
placed properties, and the royal suites are just a series of square,
fancily decorated and upholstered boxes strung together, with doors
between. But then palaces were not meant to be cozy. Pretty soon we
went back to the car and drove into a big forest for ten miles or more
to an old feudal castle,--such a magnificent old castle, all towers and
turrets and battlements,--the château of Pierrefonds, one of the finest
in France. It stands upon a rocky height overlooking a lake, and it
does not seem so old, though it had been there forty years when Joan of
Arc came, and it looks as if it might remain there about as long as the
hill it stands on. It was built by Louis of Orleans, brother of Charles
VI, and the storm of battle has often raged about its base. Here and
there it still shows the mark of bombardment, and two cannon-balls
stick fast in the wall of one of its solid towers. Pierrefonds was in
bad repair, had become well nigh a ruin, in fact, when Napoleon III at
his own expense engaged Viollet-le-Duc to restore it, in order that
France might have a perfect type of the feudal castle in its original
form. It stands to-day as complete in its structure and decoration as
it was when Louis of Orleans moved in, more than five hundred years
ago, and it conveys exactly the solid, home surroundings of the
mediæval lord. It is just a show place now, and its vast court and its
chapel and halls of state are all splendid enough, though nothing
inside can be quite as magnificent as its mighty assemblage of towers
and turrets rising above the trees and reflecting in the blue waters of
a placid lake.
It began raining before we got to Paris, so we did not stop at
Crepy-en-Valois or Senlis, or Chantilly, or St. Denis. In fact, neither
the Joy nor I hungered even for Paris, which we had once visited. The
others had already seen their fill, so, with only a day's delay, we all
took the road to Versailles.
It was at Rambouillet that we lodged, an ancient place with a château
and a vast park; also, an excellent inn--the Croix Blanche--one of
those that you enter by driving through to an inner court. Before
dinner we took a walk into the park, along the lakeside and past the
château, where Frances I died, in 1547.
We were off next morning, following the rich and lovely valley of the
Eure, to Chartres. We had already seen the towers from a long distance,
when we turned at last into the cathedral square, and remembered the
saying that "The choir of Beauvais and the nave of Amiens, the portal
of Rheims and the towers of Chartres would together make the finest
church in the world." To confess the truth, I did not think the towers
of Chartres as handsome as those of Rouen, but then I am not a purist
in cathedral architecture. Certainly, the cathedral itself is glorious.
I shall not attempt to describe it. Any number of men have written
books trying to do that, and most of them have failed. I only know that
the wonder of its architecture, the marvel of its relief carving, "lace
in stone," and the sublime glory of its windows somehow possessed us,
and we did not know when to go. I met a woman once who said she had
spent a month at Chartres and put in most of it sitting in the
cathedral, looking at those windows. When she told me of it I had been
inclined to be scornful. I was not so any more. Those windows, made by
some unknown artist, dead five hundred years, invite a lifetime of
contemplation.
We left Chartres by one of the old city gates, and through a heavenly
June afternoon followed the straight, level way to Châteaudun, an
ancient town perched upon the high cliff above the valley of the Loir,
which is a different river from the Loire--much smaller and more
picturesque.
The château itself hangs on the very verge of the cliffs, with starling
effect, and looks out over a picture valley as beautiful as any in
France. This was the home of Dunois, who left it to fight under Joan of
Arc. He was a great soldier, one of her most loved and trusted
generals. We spent an hour or more wandering through Dunois's ancient
seat, with an old guardian who clearly was in love with every stone of
it and who time and again reminded us that it was more interesting than
any of the great châteaux of the Loire, Blois especially, in that it
had been scarcely restored at all. About the latest addition to
Châteaudun was a beautiful open stairway of the sixteenth century, in
perfect condition to-day. On the other side is another fine façade and
stairway, which Dunois himself added. In a niche there stands a statue
of the famous old soldier, probably made from life. If only some
sculptor or painter might have preserved for us the features of Joan!
Through that golden land which lies between the Loir and the Loire we
drifted through a long summer afternoon, and came at evening to a noble
bridge that crossed a wide, tranquil river, beyond which rose the
towers of ancient Tours, capital of Touraine.
The Touraine was a favorite place for kings, who built their
magnificent country palaces in all directions. There are more than
fifty châteaux within easy driving distance of Tours.
We did not, by any means, intend to visit all of the châteaux, for
château visiting from a diversion may easily degenerate into labor. We
had planned especially, however, to see Chinon, where Joan of Arc went
to meet the king to ask for soldiers.
This is not on the Loire, but on a tributary a little south of it, the
Vienne, with the castle crowning the long hill, or ridge, above the
town. Some time during the afternoon we came to the outskirts of the
ancient place, and looked up to the ruined battlements and towers where
occurred that meeting which meant the liberation of France.
The château to-day is the ruin of what originally was three châteaux,
built at different times, but closely strung together, so 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 château was built a hundred years later, 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 Château of St. George was built in the twelfth century, by
Henry II of England, who died there in 1189. Though built two hundred
years later than Coudray, nothing remains of it to-day but some
foundations.
Chinon is a much more extensive ruin than we had expected. Even what
remains must be nearly a quarter of a mile in length, and its vast
crumbling walls and crenelated 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, half-way 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 foot-bridge to the tower where Joan lived, and that
also is open to the sky and bare and desolate. While, beyond it, there
was a little chapel where she prayed, but that is gone. 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, and 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 Coudray.
The king was still unready to see Joan. She was only a stone's throw
away now, but the whisperings of his advisers kept her there. 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 this fireplace with its blazing logs. 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 knee and
gave him heartfelt salutation. She had never seen him, and was without
knowledge of his features. The protectors she had known in her visions
had not failed her. It was, perhaps, the greatest moment in French
history.
In the quest for outlying châteaux, one is likely to forget that Tours
itself is very much worth while. Tours has been a city ever since
France had a history, and it fought against Cæsar as far far back as 52
B.C. It took its name from the Gallic tribe of that section, the
Turoni, dwellers in the cliffs, I dare say, along the Loire.
Tours was beloved by French royalty. It was the capital of a province
as rich as it was beautiful. Among French provinces, Touraine was
always the aristocrat. Its language has been kept pure. To this day,
the purest French in the world is spoken at Tours. The mechanic who
made some repairs for me at the garage leaned on the mud-guard, during
a brief intermission of that hottest of days, and told me about the
purity of the French language at Tours; and if there was anything wrong
with his own locution, my ear was not fine enough to detect it. To me
it seemed as limpid as something distilled. Imagine such a thing
happening in--say Bridgeport. Tours is still proud, still the
aristocrat, still royal.
The Germans held Tours during the early months of 1871, but there is
now no trace of their occupation. It was a bad dream which Tours does
not care even to remember.
Tours contains a fine cathedral, and the remains of what must have been
a still finer one--two noble towers, so widely separated by streets and
buildings that it is hard to imagine them ever having belonged to one
structure. They are a part of the business of Tours now. Shops are
under them, lodgings in them. One of these old relics is called the
clock-tower, the other, the tower of Charlemagne, because Luitgard, his
third queen, was buried beneath it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
MOTORING THROUGH THE GOLDEN AGE--PART II
BY ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE
It was a July morning when we got away from Tours--one of those
sweltering mornings--and I had spent an hour or two at the garage
putting on all our repaired tires and one new one. It was not a good
morning for exercise; and by the time we were ready to start, I was a
rag. Narcissa photographed me, because she said she had never seen me
look so interesting before. She made me stand in the sun bareheaded and
hold a tube in my hand, as if I had not enough to bear, already.
But I was repaid the moment we were off. Oh, but it was cool and
delicious gliding along the smooth, shaded road! One can almost afford
to get as hot and sweltering and cross and gasping as I was for the
sake of sitting back and looking across the wheel down a leafy avenue
facing the breeze of your own making, a delicious nectar that bathes
you through and cools and rests and soothes--an anodyne of peace.
By and by, being really cool in mind and body, we drew up abreast of a
meadow which lay a little below the road, a place with a brook and
over-spreading shade, and with some men and women harvesting not far
away. We thought they would not mind if we lunched there, and I think
they must have been as kind-hearted as they were picturesque, for they
did not offer to disturb us. It was a lovely spot, and did not seem to
belong to the present-day world at all. How could it, with the homes of
the old French kings all about, and with these haymakers, whose
fashions have not minded the centuries, here in plain view to make us
seem a part of an ancient tale?
Chenonceaux, the real heart of the royal district, is not on the Loire
itself, but on a small tributary, the Cher. I do not remember that I
noticed the river when we entered the grounds, but it is a very
important part of the château, which, indeed, is really a bridge over
it--a supremely beautiful bridge, to be sure, but a bridge none the
less, entirely crossing the pretty river by means of a series of high
foundation arches. Upon these arches rises the rare edifice which
Thomas Bohier, a receiver-general of taxes, began back in 1515. Bohier
did not extend Chenonceaux entirely across the river. The river to him,
merely served as a moat. The son who followed him did not have time to
make additions. Francis I came along, noticed that it was different
from the other châteaux he had confiscated, and added it to his
collection. Our present-day collectors cut a poor figure by the side of
Francis I. Think of getting together assortments of coins and
postage-stamps and ginger-jars when one could go out and pick up
châteaux! It was the famous Catherine de Medici, daughter-in-law of
Francis I, who finished the palace, extending it across the Cher,
making it one of the most beautiful places in the world.
We stopped a little to look at the beautiful façade of Chenonceaux,
then crossed the draw-bridge, or what is now the substitute for it, and
were welcomed at the door by just the proper person--a fine, dignified
woman, of gentle voice and perfect knowledge. She showed us through the
beautiful home, for it is still a home, having been bought by Mr.
Meunier, of chocolate fame and fortune. I cannot say how glad I am that
Mr. Meunier purchased Chenonceaux. He did nothing to the place to spoil
it, and it is not a museum. The lower rooms which we saw have many of
the original furnishings. The ornaments, the tapestries, the pictures,
are the same. There is hardly another place, I think, where one may
come so nearly stepping back through the centuries.
We went out into the long wing that is built on the arches above the
river, and looked down on the water flowing below. Our conductor told
us that the supporting arches had been built on the foundations of an
ancient mill. The beautiful gallery which the bridge supports must have
known much gaiety; much dancing and promenading up and down; many
gallant speeches and some heartache. The Joy wanted to see the
dungeons, but perhaps there never were any real dungeons at
Chenonceaux. Let us try to think so.
Orleans is on the Loire, and we drove to it in the early morning from
Meung, where we had spent the night. I do not know what could be more
lovely than that leisurely hour--the distance was fifteen miles--under
cool, outspreading branches, with glimpses of the bright river and
vistas of happy fields.
We did not even try to imagine, as we approached the outskirts, that
the Orleans of Joan's time presented anything of its appearance to-day.
Orleans is a modern, or modernized city, and, except the river, there
could hardly be anything in the prospect that Joan saw. But it was the
scene of her first military conquest, and added its name to the title
by which she belongs to history. That is enough to make it one of the
holy places of France.
It has been always a military city, a place of battles. Cæsar burned
it, Attila attacked it, Clovis captured it--there was often war of one
sort or another going on there. The English and Burgundians would have
had it in 1429 but for the arrival of Joan's army.
Joan was misled by her generals, whose faith in her was not complete.
Orleans lies on the north bank of the Loire; they brought her down on
the south bank, fearing the prowess of the enemy's forces. Discovering
the deception, the Maid promptly sent the main body of her troops back
some thirty-five miles to a safe crossing, and, taking a thousand men,
passed over the Loire and entered the city by a gate which was still
held by the French. That the city was not completely surrounded made it
possible to attack the enemy from within and without, while her
presence among the Orleanese would inspire them with new hope and
valor. Mark Twain, in his "Recollections," pictures the great moment of
her entry.
It was eight in the evening when she and the troops rode in at
the Burgundy gate.... She was riding a white horse, and she
carried in her hand the sacred sword of Fierbois. You should
have seen Orleans then. What a picture it was! Such black seas
of people, such a starry firmament of torches, such roaring
whirlwinds of welcome, such booming of bells and thundering of
cannon! It was as if the world was come to an end. Everywhere
in the glare of the torches one saw rank upon rank of upturned,
white faces, the mouths wide open, shouting, and the unchecked
tears running down; Joan forged her slow way through the solid
masses, her mailed form projecting above the pavement of heads
like a silver statue. The people about her struggled along,
gazing up at her through their tears with the rapt look of men
and women who believed they are seeing one who is divine; and
always her feet were being kissed by grateful folk, and such as
failed of that privilege touched her horse and then kissed
their fingers.
This was the twenty-ninth of April. Nine days later, May 8, 1429, after
some fierce fighting, during which Joan was severely wounded, the
besiegers were scattered. Orleans was free. Mark Twain writes:
No other girl in all history has ever reached such a summit of
glory as Joan of Arc reached that day.... Orleans will never
forget the eighth of May, nor ever fail to celebrate it. It is
Joan of Arc's day--and holy.
Two days, May seventh and eighth, are given each year to the
celebration, and Orleans in other ways has honored the memory of her
deliverer. A wide street bears her name, and there are noble statues,
and a museum, and church offerings. The Boucher home, which sheltered
Joan during her sojourn in Orleans, has been preserved--at least, a
house is still shown as the Boucher house, though how much of the
original structure remains no one of this day seems willing to decide.
We drove there first, for it is the only spot in Orleans that can claim
even a possibility of having known Joan's actual presence. It is a
house of the old half-timbered architecture, and if these are not the
veritable walls that Joan saw, they must, at least, bear a close
resemblance to those of the house of Jacques Boucher, treasurer of the
Duke of Orleans, where Joan was made welcome. A few doors away is a
fine old mansion, now a museum, and fairly overflowing with objects of
every conceivable sort relating to Joan of Arc. Books, statuary,
paintings, armor, banners, offerings, coins, medals, ornaments,
engravings, letters--thousands upon thousands of articles gathered here
in the Maid's memory. I think there is not one of them that her hand
ever touched, or that she ever saw, but in their entirety they convey,
as nothing else could, the reverence that Joan's memory inspired during
the centuries that have gone since her presence made this ground
sacred. Until the revolution, Orleans preserved Joan's banner, some of
her clothing, and other genuine relics; but then the mob burned them,
probably because Joan delivered France to royalty. We were shown an
ancient copy of the banner, still borne, I believe, in the annual
festivities. Baedeker speaks of arms and armor worn at the siege of
Orleans, but the guardian of the place was not willing to guarantee
their genuineness. I think Narcissa, who worships the memory of Joan,
was almost sorry that he thought it necessary to be so honest. He did
show us a photograph of Joan's signature. She wrote it "Jehanne," and
her pen must have been guided by her secretary, for Joan could neither
read nor write.
We drove to the Place Martroi to see the large equestrian statue of
Joan by Foyatier, with reliefs by Vital Dubray. It is very imposing,
and the reliefs, showing the great moments in Joan's career, are really
fine. We did not care to hunt for other memorials. It was enough to
drive about the city, trying to pick out a house here and there that
looked as if it might have been standing five hundred years, but if
there were any of that age--any that had looked upon the wild joy of
Joan's entrance and upon her triumphal departure, they were very few
indeed.
---------------------
It is a grand, straight road from Orleans to Fontainebleau, and it
passes through Pithiviers, which did not look especially interesting,
though we discovered, when it was too late, that it is noted for its
almond-cakes and lark-pies. I wanted to go back, then, but the majority
decided against me, and in the late afternoon we entered the majestic
royal forest, and by and by came to the palace and the little town and
to a pretty hotel on a side street, that was really a village inn for
comfort and welcome. There was still plenty of daylight, mellow, waning
daylight, and the palace was not far away. We would not wait for it
until morning.
I think we most enjoyed seeing palaces about the closing-hour. There
are seldom any other visitors then, and the fading afternoon sunlight
in the vacant rooms softens their garish emptiness and seems, somehow,
to bring nearer the rich pageant of life and love and death that flowed
through them so long, and then one day came to an end, and now it is
not passing any more. It was really closing-time when we arrived at the
palace, but the custodian was lenient, and for an hour we wandered
through gorgeous galleries, and salons, and suites of private
apartments, where kings and queens lived gladly, loved madly, died
sadly for about three hundred years. Francis I built Fontainebleau, on
the site of a mediæval castle. He was a hunter, and the forests of
Fontainebleau were always famous hunting-grounds. Louis XIII, who was
born in Fontainebleau, built the grand entrance staircase, from which,
a hundred years later, Napoleon Bonaparte bade good-by to his generals
before starting for Elba. Other kings have added to the place and
embellished it; the last being Napoleon III, who built for Eugénie the
bijou theater across the court.
It may have been our mood, it may have been the tranquil evening light,
it may have been reality that Fontainebleau was more friendly, more
alive, more a place for living men and women to inhabit than any other
palace we have seen. It was hard to imagine Versailles as having ever
been a home for anybody. At Fontainebleau I felt that we were
intruding--that Marie Antoinette, Marie Louise, or Eugénie might enter
at any moment and find us there.
The apartments of the first Napoleon and Marie Louise tell something,
too, but the story seems less intimate. Yet the table is there on which
Napoleon signed his abdication, while an escort waited to take him to
Elba, and in his study is his writing-table; and there is a bust by
Canova; but that is marble, and does not encourage the thought of life.
For size and magnificence the library is the most impressive room in
Fontainebleau. It is very lofty, very splendid, and it is two hundred
and sixty-four feet long. Napoleon III gave great hunting-banquets
there. Since then it has always been empty, except for visitors.