Note: This is Volume 4 of a 10-volume series, the contents of which
are as follows:
Volume 1: Great Britain and Ireland, Part 1
Volume 2: Great Britain and Ireland, Part 2
Volume 3: France and the Netherlands, Part 1
Volume 4: France and the Netherlands, Part 2
Volume 5: Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, Part 1
Volume 6: Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, Part 2
Volume 7: Italy and Greece, Part 1
Volume 8: Italy and Greece, Part 2
Volume 9: Spain and Portugal
Volume 10: Russia, Scandanavia and the Southeast
SEEING EUROPE WITH FAMOUS AUTHORS
IN TEN VOLUMES
VOL IV: FRANCE AND THE NETHERLANDS, PART TWO
SELECTED AND EDITED WITH INTRODUCTIONS ETC
BY
FRANCIS W. HALSEY
Editor of Great Epochs in American History Associate Editor of "The
Worlds Famous Orations" and of "The Best of the World's Classics" etc
ILLUSTRATED
1914
CONTENTS OF VOLUME IV
France and the Netherlands--Part Two
IV--CATHEDRALS AND CHATEAUX--(_Continued_)
BAYEUX AND THE FAMOUS TAPESTRY--By Thomas Frognall Dibdin
THE CHATEAU OF HENRY IV. AT PAU--By H.A. Taine
CHATEAUX IN THE VALLEY OF THE LOIRE--By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
AMBOISE--By Theodore Andrea Cook
BLOIS--By Francis Miltoun
CHAMBORD--By Theodore Andrea Cook
CHENONCEAUX--By Francis Miltoun
FOIX--By Francis Miltoun
* * * * *
V--VARIOUS FRENCH SCENES
MONT ST. MICHEL--By Anna Bowman Dodd
CAEN--By Thomas Frognall Dibdin
DOWN THE RIVER TO BORDEAUX--By H.A. Taine
THE GRANDE CHARTREUSE--By Thomas Gray
CARCASSONNE--By Henry James
BIARRITZ--By Francis Miltoun
DOWN THE SAÔNE TO LYONS--By Nathaniel Parker Willis
LYONS--By Thomas Gray
MARSEILLES--By Charles Dickens
THE LITTLE REPUBLIC OF ANDORRA--By Francis Miltoun
GAVARNIE--By H.A. Taine
* * * * *
VI--BELGIUM
BRUGES--By Grant Allen
A PEN PICTURE OF BRUGES--By William Makepeace Thackeray
GHENT--By Grant Allen
BRUSSELS--By Clive Holland
WATERLOO--By Victor Hugo
WATERLOO: A VISIT TO THE FIELD--By the Editor
ANTWERP--By T. Francis Bumpus
* * * * *
VII--HOLLAND
HOW THE DUTCH OBTAINED THEIR LAND--By Edmondo de Amicis
ROTTERDAM AND THE HAGUE--By Edmondo de Amicis
HAARLEM--By Augustus J.C. Hare
SCHEVENINGEN--By George Wharton Edwards
DELFT--By Augustus J.C. Hare
LEYDEN--By Edmondo de Amicis
DORTRECHT--By Augustus J.C. Hare
THE ZUYDER ZEE--By Edmondo de Amicis
THE ART OF HOLLAND--By Edmondo de Amicis
THE TULIPS OF HOLLAND--By Edmondo de Amicis
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VOLUME IV
THE PEACE PALACE AT THE HAGUE
THE OLD PAPAL PALACE AT AVIGNON
THE WALLS OF AVIGNON, BUILT BY THE POPES
VAUCLUSE: THE "FOUNTAIN," OR THE SOURCE OF THE RIVER SORGUE
THE PONT DU GARD, NEAR AVIGNON
RHEIMS
AMIENS
THE FAÇADE OF RHEIMS CATHEDRAL
THE BAYEUX CATHEDRAL
ROUEN
THE ROUEN CATHEDRAL
THE CATHEDRAL OF CHARTRES
ORLEANS
THE CHATEAU OF BLOIS
THE CHATEAU OF AMBOISE
THE CHATEAU OF LOCHES
MOUNT ST. MICHAEL IN CORNWALL, ENGLAND
MONT ST. MICHEL IN NORMANDY, FRANCE
CARCASSONNE
THE LION'S MOUND AND OTHER MONUMENTS, WATERLOO
RUINS OF THE CHATEAU HUGOMONT, WATERLOO
THE HARBOR OF ROTTERDAM
THE MONTALBAANS TOWER, AMSTERDAM
CANAL AND HOUSES IN AMSTERDAM
SCHEVENINGEN, HOLLAND
ON THE PIER AT OSTEND
UTRECHT
THE EAST GATE OF DELFT
LAKE AT THE HAGUE
CANAL AT DORTRECHT
IV
CATHEDRALS AND CHATEAUX
(_Continued_)
BAYEUX AND ITS FAMOUS TAPESTRIES[A]
[Footnote A: From "A Bibliographical Tour in France and Germany."]
BY THOMAS FROGNALL DIBDIN
The diligence brought me here from Caen in about two hours and a
half. The country, during the whole route, is open, well cultivated,
occasionally gently undulating, but generally denuded of trees. Many
pretty little churches, with delicate spires, peeped out to the right
and left during the journey; but the first view of the cathedral of
Bayeux put all the others out of my recollection.
There is, in fact, no proper approach to this interesting edifice. The
western end is suffocated with houses. Here stands the post-office;
and with the most unsuspecting frankness, on the part of the owner,
I had permission to examine, with my own hands, within doors, every
letter--under the expectation that there were some for myself. Nor was
I disappointed.
But you must come with me to the cathedral, and of course we must
enter together at the western front. There are five porticoes;
the central one being rather large, and the two, on either side,
comparatively small. Formerly, these were covered with sculptured
figures and ornaments, but the Calvinists in the sixteenth, and the
Revolutionists in the eighteenth century, have contrived to render
their present aspect mutilated and repulsive in the extreme. On
entering, I was struck with the two large transverse Norman arches
which bestride the area, or square, for the bases of the two towers.
It is the boldest and finest piece of masonry in the whole building.
The interior disappointed me. It is plain, solid, and divested of
ornament.
Hard by the cathedral stood formerly a magnificent episcopal palace.
Upon this palace the old writers dearly loved to expatiate. There is
now, however, nothing but a good large comfortable family mansion;
sufficient for the purposes of such hospitality and entertainment as
the episcopal revenues will afford.
It is high time that you should be introduced in proper form to the
famous Bayeux tapestry. Know then, in as few words as possible, that
this celebrated piece of tapestry represents chiefly the Invasion of
England by William the Conqueror, and the subsequent death of Harold
at the battle of Hastings. It measures about 214 English feet in
length, by about nineteen inches in width; and is supposed to have
been worked under the particular superintendence and direction of
Matilda, the wife of the Conqueror. It was formerly exclusively kept
and exhibited in the cathedral; but it is now justly retained in the
Town Hall, and treasured as the most precious relic among the archives
of the city.
There is indeed every reason to consider it as one of the most
valuable historical monuments which France possesses. It has also
given rise to a great deal of archeological discussion. Montfauçon,
Ducarel, and De La Rue, have come forward successively--but more
especially the first and last; and Montfauçon in particular has
favored the world with copper-plate representations of the whole.
Montfauçon's plates are generally much too small; and the more
enlarged ones are too ornamental.
It is right, first of all, that you should have an idea how this piece
of tapestry is preserved, or rolled up. You see it here, therefore,
precisely as it appears after the person who shows it, takes off the
cloth with which it is usually covered. The first portion of the
needle-work, representing the embassy of Harold from Edward the
Confessor to William Duke of Normandy, is comparatively much
defaced--that is to say, the stitches are worn away, and little more
than the ground, or fine close linen cloth remains. It is not far from
the beginning--and where the color is fresh, and the stitches are,
comparatively, preserved--that you observe the portrait of Harold.
You are to understand that the stitches, if they may be so called,
are threads laid side by side--and bound down at intervals by cross
stitches, or fastenings--upon rather a fine linen cloth; and that the
parts intended to represent flesh are left untouched by the needle.
I obtained a few straggling shreds of the worsted with which it is
worked. The colors are generally a faded or bluish green, crimson, and
pink. About the last five feet of this extraordinary roll are in a
yet more decayed and imperfect state than the first portion. But the
designer of the subject, whoever he was, had an eye throughout to
Roman art--as it appeared in its later stages. The folds of the
draperies, and the proportions of the figures, are executed with this
feeling.
I must observe that, both at top and at bottom of the principal
subject, there is a running allegorical ornament, of which I will not
incur the presumption to suppose myself a successful interpreter.
The constellations, and the symbols of agriculture and of a rural
occupation form the chief subjects of this running ornament. All the
inscriptions are executed in capital letters of about an inch in
length; and upon the whole, whether this extraordinary and invaluable
relic be of the latter end of the eleventh, or the beginning or middle
of the twelfth century seems to me a matter of rather a secondary
consideration. That it is at once unique and important, must be
considered as a position to be neither doubted nor denied.
I have learned even here, of what importance this tapestry roll was
considered in the time of Bonaparte's threatened invasion of our
country: and that, after displaying it at Paris for two or three
months, to awaken the curiosity and excite the love of conquest among
the citizens, it was conveyed to one or two sea-port towns, and
exhibited upon the stage as a most important material in dramatic
effect.
THE CHATEAU OF HENRI IV. AT PAU[A]
[Footnote A: From "A Tour Through the Pyrenees." By special
arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Henry Holt &
Co. Copyright, 1873.]
BY HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE
Pau is a pretty city, neat, of gay appearance; but the highway is
paved with little round stones, the side-walks with small sharp
pebbles: so the horses walk on the heads of nails and foot-passengers
on the points of them. From Bordeaux to Toulouse such is the usage,
such the pavement. At the end of five minutes, your feet tell you in
the most intelligible manner that you are two hundred leagues away
from Paris....
Here are the true countrymen of Henry IV. As to the pretty ladies in
gauzy hats, whose swelling and rustling robes graze the horns of the
motionless oxen as they pass, you must not look at them; they would
carry your imagination back to the Boulevard de Gand, and you would
have gone two hundred leagues only to remain in the same place. I am
here on purpose to visit the sixteenth century; one makes a journey
for the sake of changing, not place, but ideas.... It was eight
o'clock in the morning; not a visitor at the castle, no one in the
courts nor on the terrace; I should not have been too much astonished
at meeting the Béarnais, "that lusty gallant, that very devil," who
was sharp enough to get for himself the name of "the good king."
His château is very irregular; it is only when seen from the valley
that any graces and harmony can be found in it. Above two rows of
pointed roofs and old houses, it stands out alone against the sky and
gazes upon the valley in the distance; two bell-turrets project from
the front toward the west; the oblong body follows, and two massive
brick towers close the line with their esplanades and battlements. It
is connected with the city by a narrow old bridge, by a broad modern
one with the park, and the foot of its terrace is bathed by a dark but
lovely stream.
Near at hand, this arrangement disappears; a fifth tower upon the
north side deranges the symmetry. The great egg-shaped court is a
mosaic of incongruous masonry; above the porch, a wall of pebbles from
the Gave, and of red bricks crossed like a tapestry design; opposite,
fixt to the wall, a row of medallions in stone; upon the sides, doors
of every form and age; dormer windows, windows square, pointed,
embattled, with stone mullions garlanded with elaborate reliefs. This
masquerade of styles troubles the mind, yet not unpleasantly; it is
unpretending and artless; each century has built according to its own
fancy, without concerning itself about its neighbor.
On the first floor is shown a great tortoise-shell, which was the
cradle of Henry IV. Carved chests, dressing-tables, tapestries, clocks
of that day, the bed and arm-chair of Jeanne d'Albret, a complete set
of furniture in the taste of the Renaissance, striking and somber,
painfully labored yet magnificent in style, carrying the mind at once
back toward that age of force and effort, of boldness in invention, of
unbridled pleasures and terrible toil, of sensuality and of heroism.
Jeanne d'Albret, mother of Henry IV., crossed France in order that
she might, according to her promise, be confined in this castle. "A
princess," says D'Aubigné, "having nothing of the woman about her but
the sex, a soul entirely given to manly things, a mind mighty in great
affairs, a heart unconquerable by adversity."
She sang an old Bearnaise song when she brought him into the world.
They say that the aged grandfather rubbed the lips of the new-born
child with a clove of garlic, poured into his mouth a few drops of
Jurançon wine, and carried him away in his dressing-gown. The child
was born in the chamber which opens into the lower tower of Mazères,
on the southwest corner.
His mother, a warm and severe Calvinist, when he was fifteen years
old, led him through the Catholic army to La Rochelle, and gave him to
her followers as their general. At sixteen years old, at the combat of
Arnay-le-Duc, he led the first charge of cavalry. What an education
and what men! Their descendants were just now passing in the streets,
going to school to compose Latin verses and recite the pastorals of
Massillon.
Those old wars are the most poetic in French history; they were made
for pleasure rather than interest. It was a chase in which adventures,
dangers, emotions were found, in which men lived in the sunlight, on
horseback, amidst flashes of fire, and where the body, as well as
the soul, had its enjoyment and its exercise. Henry carries it on as
briskly as a dance, with a Gascon's fire and a soldier's ardor, with
abrupt sallies, and pursuing his point against the enemy as with the
ladies.
This is no spectacle of great masses of well-disciplined men, coming
heavily into collision and falling by thousands on the field,
according to the rules of good tactics. The king leaves Pau or Nérac
with a little troop, picks up the neighboring garrisons on his way,
scales a fortress, intercepts a body of arquebusiers as they pass,
extricates himself pistol in hand from the midst of a hostile troop,
and returns to the feet of Mlle. de Tignonville. They arrange their
plan from day to day; nothing is done unless unexpectedly and by
chance. Enterprises are strokes of fortune....
The park is a great wood on a hill, embedded among meadows and
harvests. You walk in long solitary alleys, under colonnades of superb
oaks, while to the left the lofty stems of the copses mount in close
ranks upon the back of the hill. The fog was not yet lifted; there was
no motion in the air; not a corner of the blue sky, not a sound in all
the country. The song of a bird came for an instant from the midst of
the ash-trees, then sadly ceased. Is that then the sky of the south,
and was it necessary to come to the happy country of the Béarnais to
find such melancholy impressions? A little by-way brought us to a bank
of the Gave: in a long pool of water was growing an army of reeds
twice the height of a man; their grayish spikes and their trembling
leaves bent and whispered under the wind; a wild flower near by shed a
vanilla perfume.
We gazed on the broad country, the ranges of rounded hills, the silent
plain under the dull dome of the sky. Three hundred paces away the
Gave rolls between marshaled banks, which it has covered with sand; in
the midst of the waters may be seen the moss-grown piles of a ruined
bridge. One is at ease here, and yet at the bottom of the heart
a vague unrest is felt; the soul is softened and loses itself in
melancholy and tender revery. Suddenly the clock strikes, and one
is forced to go and prepare himself to eat his soup between two
commercial travelers.
To-day the sun shines. On my way to the Place Nationale, I remarked a
poor, half-ruined church, which had been turned into a coach-house;
they have fastened upon it a carrier's sign. The arcades, in small
gray stones, still round themselves with an elegant boldness; beneath
are stowed away carts and casks and pieces of wood; here and there
workmen were handling wheels. A broad ray of light fell upon a pile of
straw, and made the somber corners seem yet darker; the pictures that
one meets with outweigh those one has come to seek.
From the esplanade which is opposite, the whole valley and the
mountains beyond may be seen; this first sight of a southern sun, as
it breaks from the rainy mists, is admirable; a sheet of white light
stretches from one horizon to another without meeting a single cloud.
The heart expands in this immense space; the very air is festal; the
dazzled eyes close beneath the brightness which deluges them and which
runs over, radiated from the burning dome of heaven. The current of
the river sparkles like a girdle of jewels; the chains of hills,
yesterday veiled and damp, extend at their own sweet will beneath the
warming, penetrating rays, and mount range upon range to spread out
their green robe to the sun.
In the distance, the blue Pyrenees look like a bank of clouds; the air
that bathes them shapes them into aërial forms, vapory phantoms, the
farthest of which vanish in the canescent horizon--dim contours, that
might be taken for a fugitive sketch from the lightest of pencils. In
the midst of the serrate chain the peak Midi d' Ossau lifts its abrupt
cone; at this distance, forms are softened, colors are blended, the
Pyrenees are only the graceful bordering of a smiling landscape and of
the magnificent sky. There is nothing imposing about them nor severe;
the beauty here is serene, and the pleasure pure.
The statue of Henry IV., with an inscription in Latin and in patois,
is on the esplanade; the armor is finished so perfectly that it might
make an armorer jealous. But why does the king wear so sad an air? His
neck is ill at ease on his shoulders; his features are small and full
of care; he has lost his gayety, his spirit, his confidence in his
fortune, his proud bearing. His air is neither that of a great nor a
good man, nor of a man of intellect; his face is discontented, and one
would say that he was bored with Pau. I am not sure that he was wrong:
and yet the city passes for agreeable, the climate is very mild, and
invalids who fear the cold pass the winter in it.
CHATEAUX IN THE VALLEY OF THE LOIRE[A]
[Footnote A: From "Outre-Mer." Published by Houghton, Mifflin Co.]
BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
In the beautiful month of October I made a foot excursion along the
banks of the Loire, from Orléans to Tours. This luxuriant region is
justly called the garden of France. From Orléans to Blois, the whole
valley of the Loire is one continued vineyard. The bright green
foliage of the vine spreads, like the undulations of the sea, over
the landscape, with here and there a silver flash of the river, a
sequestered hamlet, or the towers of an old chateau, to enliven and
variegate the scene.
The vintage had already commenced. The peasantry were busy in the
fields--the song that cheered their labor was on the breeze, and
the heavy wagon tottered by, laden with the clusters of the vine.
Everything around me wore that happy look which makes the heart glad.
In the morning I arose with the lark; and at night I slept where the
sunset overtook me.... My first day's journey brought me at evening to
a village, whose name I have forgotten, situated about eight leagues
from Orléans. It is a small, obscure hamlet, not mentioned in the
guide-book, and stands upon the precipitous banks of a deep ravine,
through which a noisy brook leaps to turn the ponderous wheel of a
thatch-roofed mill. The village inn stands upon the highway; but the
village itself is not visible to the traveler as he passes. It is
completely hidden in the lap of a wooded valley, and so embowered
in trees that not a roof nor a chimney peeps out to betray its
hiding-place.
When I awoke in the morning, a brilliant autumnal sun was shining in
at my window. The merry song of birds mingled sweetly with the sound
of rustling leaves and the gurgle of the brook. The vintagers were
going forth to their toil; the wine-press was busy in the shade, and
the clatter of the mill kept time to the miller's song. I loitered
about the village with a feeling of calm delight. I was unwilling to
leave the seclusion of this sequestered hamlet; but at length, with
reluctant step, I took the cross-road through the vineyard, and in a
moment the little village had sunk again, as if by enchantment, into
the bosom of the earth.
I breakfasted at the town of Mer; and, leaving the high-road to Blois
on the right, passed down to the banks of the Loire, through a long,
broad avenue of poplars and sycamores. I crossed the river in a boat,
and in the after part of the day I found myself before the high and
massive walls of the château of Chambord. This château is one of the
finest specimens of the ancient Gothic castle to be found in Europe.
The little river Cosson fills its deep and ample moat, and above
it the huge towers and heavy battlements rise in stern and solemn
grandeur, moss-grown with age, and blackened by the storms of three
centuries. Within, all is mournful and deserted. The grass has
overgrown the pavement of the courtyard, and the rude sculpture upon
the walls is broken and defaced....
My third day's journey brought me to the ancient city of Blois, the
chief town of the department of Loire-et-Cher. This city is celebrated
for the purity with which even the lower classes of its inhabitants
speak their native tongue. It rises precipitously from the northern
bank of the Loire; and many of its streets are so steep as to be
almost impassable for carriages. On the brow of the hill, overlooking
the roofs of the city, and commanding a fine view of the Loire and its
noble bridge, and the surrounding country, sprinkled with cottages and
châteaux, runs an ample terrace, planted with trees, and laid out as a
public walk. The view from this terrace is one of the most beautiful
in France. But what most strikes the eye of the traveler at Blois is
an old, tho still unfinished, castle. Its huge parapets of hewn stone
stand upon either side of the street; but they have walled up the wide
gateway, from which the colossal drawbridge was to have sprung high in
air, connecting together the main towers of the building, and the two
hills upon whose slope its foundations stand. The aspect of this vast
pile is gloomy and desolate. It seems as if the strong hand of the
builder had been arrested in the midst of his task by the stronger
hand of death; and the unfinished fabric stands a lasting monument
both of the power and weakness of man--of his vast desires, his
sanguine hopes, his ambitious purposes--and of the unlooked-for
conclusion, where all these desires, and hopes, and purposes are so
often arrested. There is also at Blois another ancient château, to
which some historic interest is attached as being the scene of the
massacre of the Duke of Guise.
On the following day, I left Blois for Amboise; and, after walking
several leagues along the dusty highway, crossed the river in a boat
to the little village of Moines, which lies amid luxuriant vineyards
upon the southern bank of the Loire. From Moines to Amboise the road
is truly delightful. The rich lowland scenery, by the margin of the
river, is verdant even in October; and occasionally the landscape is
diversified with the picturesque cottages of the vintagers, cut in the
rock along the road-side, and overhung by the thick foliage of the
vines above them.
At Amboise I took a cross-road, which led me to the romantic borders
of the Cher and the château of Chenonceau. This beautiful château, as
well as that of Chambord, was built by the gay and munificent Francis
the First. One is a specimen of strong and massive architecture--a
dwelling for a warrior; but the other is of a lighter and more
graceful construction, and was designed for those soft languishments
of passion with which the fascinating Diane de Poitiers had filled the
bosom of that voluptuous monarch.
The château of Chenonceau is built upon arches across the river Cher,
whose waters are made to supply the deep moat at each extremity. There
is a spacious courtyard in front, from which a drawbridge conducts to
the outer hall of the castle. There the armor of Francis the First
still hangs upon the wall--his shield, and helm, and lance--as if the
chivalrous but dissolute prince had just exchanged them for the silken
robes of the drawing-room.... Doubtless the naked walls and the vast
solitary chambers of an old and desolate château inspire a feeling of
greater solemnity and awe; but when the antique furniture of the olden
time remains--the faded tapestry on the walls, and the arm-chair
by the fire-side--the effect upon the mind is more magical and
delightful. The old inhabitants of the place, long gathered to their
fathers, tho living still in history, seem to have left their halls
for the chase or the tournament; and as the heavy door swings upon its
reluctant hinge, one almost expects to see the gallant princes and
courtly dames enter those halls again, and sweep in stately procession
along the silent corridors....
A short time after candle-lighting, I reached the little tavern of the
Boule d'Or, a few leagues from Tours, where I passed the night. The
following morning was lowering and sad. A veil of mist hung over
the landscape, and ever and anon a heavy shower burst from the
overburdened clouds, that were driving by before a high and piercing
wind. This unpropitious state of the weather detained me until noon,
when a cabriolet for Tours drove up, and taking a seat within it, I
left the hostess of the Boule d'Or in the middle of a long story about
a rich countess, who always alighted there when she passed that way.
We drove leisurely along through a beautiful country, till at length
we came to the brow of a steep hill, which commands a fine view of the
city of Tours and its delightful environs. But the scene was
shrouded by the heavy drifting mist, through which I could trace but
indistinctly the graceful sweep of the Loire, and the spires and roofs
of the city far below me.
The city of Tours and the delicious plain in which it lies have been
too often described by other travelers to render a new description,
from so listless a pen as mine, either necessary or desirable. After a
sojourn of two cloudy and melancholy days, I set out on my return to
Paris, by the way of Vendôme and Chartres. I stopt a few hours at
the former place, to examine the ruins of a château built by Jeanne
d'Albret, mother of Henry the Fourth. It stands upon the summit of a
high and precipitous hill, and almost overhangs the town beneath. The
French Revolution has completed the ruin that time had already begun;
and nothing now remains, but a broken and crumbling bastion, and here
and there a solitary tower dropping slowly to decay. In one of these
is the grave of Jeanne d'Albret. A marble entablature in the wall
above contains the inscription, which is nearly effaced, tho enough
still remains to tell the curious traveler that there lies buried the
mother of the "Bon Henri." To this is added a prayer that the repose
of the dead may be respected.
Here ended my foot excursion. The object of my journey was
accomplished; and, delighted with this short ramble through the valley
of the Loire, I took my seat in the diligence for Paris, and on the
following day was again swallowed up in the crowds of the metropolis,
like a drop in the bosom of the sea.
AMBOISE[A]
[Footnote A: From "Old Touraine." Published by James Pott & Co.]
BY THEODORE ANDREA COOK
The Castle of Amboise stands high above the town, like another
Acropolis above a smaller Athens; it rises upon the only height
visible for some distance, and is in a commanding position for holding
the level fields of Touraine around it, and securing the passage of
the Loire between Tours and Chaumont, which is the next link in the
chain that ends at Blois.
The river at this point is divided in two by an island, as is so often
the case where the first bridge-builders sought to join the wide banks
of the Loire, and on this little spot between the waters Clovis is
said to have met Alaric before he overthrew the power of the Visigoths
in Aquitaine.
Amboise gains even more from the river than the other châteaux of
the Loire. The magnificent round tower that springs from the end of
Charles VIII.'s façade completely commands the approaches of the
bridge, and the extraordinary effect of lofty masonry, produced by
building on the summit of an elevation and carrying the stone courses
upward from the lower ground, is here seen at its best....
But Amboise has a history before the days of Charles VIII. There was
without doubt a Roman camp here, but the traditions of the ubiquitous
Caesar must be received with caution. The so-called "Greniers de
Caesar," strange, unexplained constructions caverned in the soft rock,
are proved to be the work of a later age by that same indefatigable
Abbé Chevalier to whom we have been already indebted for so much
archeological research. A possible explanation of them is contained in
an old Latin history of the castle, which goes down to the death of
Stephen of England. According to this, the Romans had held Amboise
from the days of Caesar till the reign of Diocletian; the Baugaredi or
Bagaudee then put them to flight, but let the rest of the inhabitants
remain who, "being afraid to live above ground, tunnelled beneath it,
and made a great colony of subterranean dwellings in the holes they
had dug out," a custom apparently common in Touraine from the earliest
times. The Romans at any rate left unmistakable traces of their
presence; many of their architectural remains still exist, and their
fort is spoken of by Sulpicius Severus; but they can have built no
bridge of alone, for in St. Gregory's time there were only boats
available for crossing the river.
Not till the fifteenth century did the castle become royal property,
when it was confiscated by Charles VII. as a punishment for
treacherous dealings with the invading English very similar to
the treason discovered at Chenonceaux just before. But beyond
strengthening the fortification of the place this king did little for
his new possession.
In a few years the castle is overshadowed by the cruel specter of
Louis XI., whose memory has already spoiled several charming views
for us. It was to Amboise that the father of this unfilial prince
was carried from Chinon on his way north, when wearied out by the
annoyance caused by the Dauphin's plots. The castle had become a royal
residence, and soon after the whole town turns out to meet the new
king with a "morality-play made by Master Étienne for the joyous
occasion of his arrival," for Amboise was already famous for those
dramatic performances always so dear to the French, and particularly
to these citizens, in the old days at any rate. There is no trace of
such frivolities now in the sleepy little town....
The two great towers of Amboise with the inclined planes of brickwork,
which wind upward in the midst instead of staircases, were the result
of the work which Charles set on foot as a distraction of his grief.
These strange ascents had been partially restored by the Comte de
Paris, the present owner of Amboise, before his exile stopt the work
of repairing the chateau, and it is still possible to imagine the
"charrettes, mullets, et litières," of which Du Bellay speaks,
mounting from the low ground to the chambers above, or the Emperor
Charles V., in later years, riding up with his royal host Francis I.,
always fond of display, amid such a blaze of flambeaux "that a man
might see as clearly as at mid-day."
These great towers and the exquisite little chapel were the work of
the "excellent sculptors and artists from Naples" who, as Commines
tells us, were brought back with the spoils of the Italian wars; for
the young king "never thought of death" but only of collecting round
him "all the beautiful things which he had seen and which had given
him pleasure, from France or Italy or Flanders;" but death came upon
him suddenly. At the end of a garden walk, fringed with a mossy grove
of limes that rises from the river bank, is the little doorway through
which Charles VIII. was passing when he hit his head, never a
very strong one, against the low stone arch, and died a few hours
afterward. The castle had been fortified before his time; he left it
beautiful as well, and the traces of his work are those which are most
striking at the present day....
Within the shadow of the lime trees on the terraced garden of Amboise
is a small bust of Leonardo da Vinci, for it was near here he died.
His remains are laid in the beautiful chapel at the corner of
the castle court, and the romantic story of his last moments at
Fontainebleau becomes the sad reality of a tombstone covering ashes
mostly unknown and certainly indistinguishable; "among which" as the
epitaph painfully records, "are supposed to be the remains of Leonardo
da Vinci." He had been brought to Paris a weak old man, by Francis,
in pursuance of a certain fixt artistic policy, to which it may be
noticed this forgotten and uncertain grave does but little credit.
To Francis I., rightly or wrongly, is given the glory of having
naturalized in France the arts of Italy; to him is due the
architecture built for ease and charm which turned the fortress into a
beautiful habitation, which changed Chambord from a feudal stronghold
to a country seat, and which left its traces at Amboise, as it did
at Chaumont and at Blois. He found in France the highest and most
beautiful expression of the work of "the great unnamed race of
master-masons," he found the traditions of a national school of
painting, the work of Fouquet and the Clouets, but for these he cared
not; for him the only schools were those of Rome and Florence, and
tho by encouraging their imitation he weakened the vital sincerity of
French art, yet from his first exercise of royal power the consistency
always somewhat lacking in his politics was shown clearly and firmly
in his taste for art.
BLOIS[A]
[Footnote A: From "Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine." By special
arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, L.C. Page &
Co. Copyright, 1908.]
BY FRANCIS MILTOUN
Blois, among all the other cities of the Loire, is the favorite with
the tourist. Here one first meets a great château of state; and
certainly the Château de Blois lives in one's memory more than any
other château in France.
Much has been written of Blois, its counts, its château, and its many
and famous hôtels of the nobility, by writers of all opinions and
abilities, from those old chroniclers who wrote of the plots and
intrigues of other days to those critics of art and architecture who
have discovered--or think they have discovered--that Da Vinci designed
the famous spiral staircase.
From this one may well gather that Blois is the foremost château of
all the Loire in popularity and theatrical effect. Truly this is so,
but it is by no manner of means the most lovable; indeed, it is the
least lovable of all that great galaxy which begins at Blois and ends
at Nantes. It is a show-place and not much more, and partakes in
every form and feature--as one sees it to-day--of the attributes of a
museum, and such it really is.
All of its former gorgeousness is still there, and all the banalities
of the later period when Gaston of Orleans built his ugly wing, for
the "personally conducted" to marvel at, and honeymoon couples to
envy. The French are quite fond of visiting this shrine themselves,
but usually it is the young people and their mammas, and detached
couples of American and English birth that one most sees strolling
about the courts and apartments where formerly lords and ladies and
cavaliers moved and plotted.
The great château of the Counts of Blois is built upon an inclined
rock which rises above the roof-tops of the lower town quite in
fairy-book fashion. Commonly referred to as the Château de Blois, it
is really composed of four separate and distinct foundations; the
original château of the counts; the later addition of Louis XII.; the
palace of Francis I., and the most unsympathetically and dismally
disposed pavilion of Gaston of Orleans.
The artistic qualities of the greater part of the distinct edifice
which go to make up the château as it stands to-day are superb, with
the exception of that great wing of Gaston's, before mentioned, which
is as cold and unfeeling as the overrated palace at Versailles.
The Comtes de Chatillon built that portion just to the right of the
present entrance; Louis XII., the edifice through which one enters
the inner court and which extends far to the left, including also
the chapel immediately to the rear; while François I., who here as
elsewhere let his unbounded Italian proclivities have full sway, built
the extended wing to the left of the inner court and fronting on the
present Place du Château, formerly the Place Royale....
As an architectural monument the château is a picturesque assemblage
of edifices belonging to many different epochs, and, as such, shows,
as well as any other document of contemporary times, the varying
ambitions and emotions of its builders, from the rude and rough
manners of the earliest of feudal times through the highly refined
Renaissance details of the imaginative brain of François, down to the
base concoction of the elder Mansart, produced at the commands of
Gaston of Orleans.
In the earliest structure were to be seen all the attributes of a
feudal fortress, towers and walls pierced with narrow loopholes,
and damp, dark dungeons hidden away in the thick walls. Then came a
structure which was less of a fortress and more habitable, but still a
stronghold, tho having ample and decorative doorways and windows, with
curious sculptures and rich framings. Then the pompous Renaissance
with "escaliers" and "balcons á jour," balustrades crowning the walls
and elaborate cornices here, there, and everywhere--all bespeaking
the gallantry and taste of the knightly king. Finally came the cold,
classic features of the period of the brother of Louis XIII.
In plan the Château de Bois forms an irregular square situated at
the apex of a promontory high above the surface of the Loire,
and practically behind the town itself. The building has a most
picturesque aspect, and, to those who know, gives practically a
history of the château architecture of the time. Abandoned, mutilated
and dishonored, from time to time, the structure gradually took on new
forms until the thick walls underlying the apartment known to-day as
the Salle des États--probably the most ancient portion of all--were
overshadowed by the great richness of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries.
From the platform one sees a magnificent panorama of the city and the
far-reaching Loire, which unrolls itself southward and northward for
many leagues, its banks covered by rich vineyards and crowned by thick
forests.
The building of Louis XII. presents its brick-faced exterior in black
and red lozenge shapes, with sculptured window-frames, squarely upon
the little tree-bordered place of to-day, which in other times formed
a part of that magnificent terrace which looked down upon the roof
of the Église St. Nicholas, and the Jesuit church of the Immaculate
Conception, and the silvery bell of the Loire itself.
The murders and other acts of violence and treason which took place
here are interesting enough, but one can not but feel, when he views
the chimney-piece before which the Due de Guise was standing when
called to his death in the royal closet, that the men of whom the
bloody tales of Blois are told quite deserved their fates.
One comes away with the impression of it all stamped only upon the
mind, not graven upon the heart. Political intrigue to-day, if quite
as vulgar, is less sordid. Bigotry and ambition in those days allowed
few of the finer feelings to come to the surface, except with regard
to the luxuriance of surroundings. Of this last there can be no
question, and Blois is as characteristically luxurious as any of the
magnificient edifices which lodged the royalty and nobility of other
days throughout the valley of the Loire.
The interior court is partly surrounded by a colonnade, quite
cloister-like in effect. At the right center of the François I. wing
is that wonderful spiral staircase, concerning the invention of which
so much speculation has been launched.
The apartments of Catherine de Medici were directly beneath the
guard-room where the Balafré was murdered, and that event, taking
place at the very moment when the queen-mother was dying, can not be
said to have been conducive to a peaceful demise.
Here, on the first floor of the François I. wing, the queen-mother,
held her court, as did the king his. The great gallery over-looked the
town on the side of the present Place du Château. It was, and is, a
truly grand apartment, with diamond-paned windows, and rich, dark wall
decorations on which Catherine's device, a crowned C and her monogram
in gold, frequently appears. There was, moreover, a great oval
window, opposite which stood her altar, and a doorway led to her
writing-closet, with its secret drawers and wall panels, which well
served her purpose of intrigue and deceit.
A hidden stair-way led to the floor above, and there was a
chambre-à-coucher, with a deep recess for the bed, the same to which
she called her son Henri, as she lay dying, admonishing him to give
up the thought of murdering Guise. "What," said Henri, on this
embarrassing occasion, "spare Guise, when he, triumphant in Paris,
dared lay his hand on the hilt of his sword. Spare him who drove me a
fugitive from the capital. Spare them who never spared me. No, mother,
I will not."
As the queen-mother drew near her end, and was lying ill at Blois,
great events for France were culminating at the château. Henry III.
had become King of France, and the Balafré, supported by Rome and
Spain, was in open rebellion against the reigning house, and the word
had gone forth that the Duc de Guise must die.
The States-General were to be immediately assembled, and De Guise,
once the poetic lover of Marguerite, through his emissaries canvassed
all France to ensure the triumph of the party of the church against
Henri de Navarre and his queen--the Marguerite whom De Guise once
profest to love--who soon were to come to the throne of France.
The uncomfortable Henri III. had been told that he would never be king
in reality until De Guise had been made away with.
The final act of the drama between the rival houses of Guise and
Valois came when the king and his council came to Blois for the
assembly. The sunny city of Blois was indeed to be the scene of a
momentous affair, and a truly sumptuous setting it was, the roof-tops
of its houses sloping downward gently to the Loire, with its chief
accessory, the coiffed and turreted chateau itself, high above all
else.
Details had been arranged with infinite pains, the guard doubled, and
a company of Swiss posted around the courtyard and up and down
the gorgeous staircase. Every nook and corner has its history in
connection with this greatest event in the history of the château of
Blois.
As Guise entered the council chamber he was told that the king would
see him in his closet, to reach which one had to pass through the
guard-room below. The door was barred behind him that he might not
return, when the trusty guards of the Forty-fifth, under Dalahaide,
already hidden behind the wall-tapestry, sprang upon the Balafré and
forced him back upon the closed door through which he had just passed.
Guise fell stabbed in the breast by Malines, and "lay long uncovered
until an old carpet was found in which to wrap his corpse."
Below, in her own apartments, lay the queen-mother, dying, but
listening eagerly for the rush of footsteps overhead, hoping and
praying that Henri--the hitherto effeminate Henri who played with his
sword as he would with a battledore, and who painted himself like a
woman, and put rings in his ears--would not prejudice himself at this
time in the eyes of Rome by slaying the leader of the church party....
It was under the régime of Gaston d'Orléans that the gardens of the
Château de Blois came to their greatest excellence and beauty. In
1653, Abel Brunyer, the first physician of Gaston's suite, published a
catalog of the fruit and flowers to be found here in these gardens,
of which he was also director. More than five hundred varieties were
included, three-quarters of which belonged to the flora of France.
Among the delicacies and novelties of the time to be found here was
the Prunier de Reine Claude, from which those delicious green plums
known to all the world to-day as "Reine Claudes" were propagated, also
another variety which came from the Prunier de Monsieur, somewhat
similar in taste, but of a deep purple color. The potato was tenderly
cared for and grown as a great novelty and delicacy long before its
introduction to general cultivation by Parmentier. The tomato was
imported from Mexico, and even tobacco was grown....
In 1793 all the symbols and emblems of royalty were removed from
the château and destroyed. The celebrated bust of Gaston, the chief
artistic attribute of that part of the edifice built by him, was
decapitated, and the statue of Louis XII. over the entrance gateway
was overturned and broken up. Afterward the château became the
property of the "domaine" and was turned into a mere barracks. The
pavilion of Queen Anne became a military magazine, the Tour de
l'Observatoire, a powder-magazine, and all the indignities imaginable
were heaped upon the château.
In 1814 Blois became the last capital of Napoleon's empire, and the
château walls sheltered the prisoners captured by the imperial army.
CHAMBORD[A]
[Footnote A: From "Old Touraine." Published by James Pott & Co.]
BY THEODORE ANDREA COOK
The road that leads from Blois to Chambord crosses the Loire by a fine
stone bridge, which the inscription sets forth to be the first public
work of Louis Philippe.
For some distance the rails of a small tramway followed the road by
which our carriage was slowly rolling toward the level plains of the
Cologne, but we gradually left such uncompromising signs of activity,
and came into a flat country of endless vineyards, with here and there
a small plaster tower showing its slated roof above the low green
clusters of the vines. We passed through several villages, whose
inhabitants that day seemed to have but one care upon their minds,
like the famous Scilly Islanders, to gain a precarious livelihood by
taking each other's washing. On every bush and briar fluttered the
household linen and the family apparel, of various textures and in
different states of despair; and with that strict observance of
utility which is the chief characteristic of the French peasant, the
inevitable blouses, of faded blue were blown into shapeless bundles
even along the railings of the churchyard tombs.
At last we came to an old moss-grown wall, and through a broken
gateway entered what is called the Park of Chambord. There is very
little of it to be seen now, the trees have been ruthlessly cut down
and mutilated, and of the wild boars, which Francis I. was so fond
of hunting there is left only the ghostly quarry that Thibault of
Champagne chases through the air, while the sound of his ghostly
horn echoes down the autumn night as the fantom pack sweeps by to
Montfrault.
It is impossible for the uninstructed mind to grasp the plan or method
of this mass of architecture; yet it is unsatisfactory to give it up,
with Mr. Henry James, "as an irresponsible, insoluble labyrinth."
M. Viollet-le-Duc, with a sympathetic denial of any extreme and
over-technical admiration, gives just that intelligible account of the
château which is a compromise between the unmeaning adulation of its
contemporary critics and the ignorance of the casual traveler.