Tours, _December 3_.
Three days since I wrote, blessed old Thing, but it seems three times
three, for all the hours have been as cramfull as you used to fill my
stocking at Christmas.
We couldn't get away from Amboise, as we expected, because the tyres
didn't arrive till late in the evening. I knew it must be a long,
tedious business fixing them on, so I never dreamed of starting next
morning; but when morning came, and with it the chambermaid and my bath,
there was a note from Brown, written in a hand a lot nicer than my poor
"fist," announcing that the car was ready, and if I would like a
surprise, might he "respectfully suggest" that I should come downstairs
as soon as possible. You can imagine that I didn't "stand on the order
of my going." My hair crinkled with surprise at being done so quickly,
and I was in such a hurry that I nearly--but not quite--slid down the
balusters.
Brown was at the front door, with the car all politely polished, and
seeming to stand upon tiptoe on its big new tyres. But smart as the car
was, it was nothing to the _chauffeur_. He looked like a sort of male
Cinderella just after the fairy godmother had waved her wand; only
instead of a ball dress she had given him, in place of his black
leather, a suit of grey clothes; one of those high, turnover collars I
love on a good-looking man; a dark necktie, and what _we_ call a "Derby"
hat and the English call a "bowler." He was nice! I don't know if I'm a
judge of a man's clothes, but to me they seemed as good form as any
tailor in the world could cut. Perhaps the Honourable John gave them to
him. Poor dear! he's far too fine a fellow really to have to wear
another man's cast-off garments; but I suppose Providence must know
best, and, anyhow, I'm sure the H. J. never looked half as nice in the
things.
Brown had on also a mysterious air, which seemed to go with the clothes,
and he asked if I'd mind taking a short run with him, without knowing
beforehand where I was going. I said that, on the contrary, I should
_like_ it. That seemed to please him. He helped me in (not that I needed
it), the car started with a touch, and we began to thread the streets of
the town behind the Chateau, I wondering _what_ was going to happen.
When I had been in this car before, it was to travel "on the rims," you
know. Now, on our four-plump new Michelins from Paris it was like being
in a balloon, so easy was the motion even over the badly paved streets.
We wound round under the high wall of the Chateau, and came in a few
minutes to a huge gateway. As we slowed down this gateway opened
mysteriously from within to show a dim corkscrew of a road winding
upward. I opened my mouth to ask an astonished question; then I thought
better of it and kept still, though I know my eyes must have been
snapping when Brown actually drove the car in. The gateway clanged
behind us, as if by enchantment, shutting us into a twilight region, and
behold, we were mounting the incline of the great tower, up which,
perhaps, nobody had ever driven since the days of Mary Stuart.
Wasn't it _kind_ of Brown to remember my wish (which even I had
forgotten!) to drive up the tower? I could hardly thank him enough for
such a new and thrilling sensation as it was, twisting up and up,
seeming to float in the vast hollow of the passage, the exquisite carved
and vaulted roof giving back a rhythmical reverberation of the throbbing
of our motor.
I couldn't even say "thank you," though, except in my thoughts, till we
got to the top (which we did much too soon), for somehow it would have
broken the charm to speak. But I think Brown understood that I
appreciated it all, and what he had done.
At the top a big doorway stood open, and by it one of the delightful,
grizzled, dignified old dears who must have been made guardians of the
Chateau, because they fit so well into the picture. I thought, though,
that this one looked different from before, for some reason quite
flurried and almost scared. I suppose it must have been the car and the
unusualness that upset him; but Brown drove out splendidly, stopping in
the terrace-garden.
"At that door," said the charming old fellow, "Francis the First of
France received Henry the Eighth of England, who with a train of a
hundred knights rode up the sloping way in the tower. To-day is the
first time that an automobile has ever been inside the doors; therefore,
mademoiselle, you have just been making history." And he bowed so
deliciously that I could have cried, because I hadn't my purse with me
to give him a "guerdon"; that would have been the only word, if I had
had it. Fortunately Brown had. Something yellow glittered as it passed
from hand to hand, and the old Frenchman (so dramatic, like most of his
countrymen) bowed again and took off his hat with a flourish. If the
something hadn't been yellow, but only white, I wonder if he would have
let us make that splendid, sweeping circle round the gardens before we
plunged back into the cool gloom of the tower?
Oh, that descent! I feel breathless, just remembering it, but it was a
glorious kind of breathlessness, like you feel when you go
tobogganing--only more so. Brown took it at tremendous speed, but I
wasn't a bit afraid, for I trust him utterly as a driver. If he said he
could take me safely over Niagara Falls, and looked straight at me in a
way he has when he said it, I believe I'd go--unless, of course, you
objected!
I found myself thinking of Poe's descent of the Maelstrom, and when I
said so to Brown afterwards, it turned out that he'd read it. He had the
car perfectly in hand, and steered it to a hair's breadth. We were down
in a moment--or it seemed so; and coming out into the bright little
streets was like waking up after a strange dream. In three minutes more
we were at the door of our hotel, and I really _was_ asking myself if I
had dreamed it.
"Brown," said I, "I told you once before that you were a leather angel.
Now I believe you are a grey tweed Genie. This has been the nicest
morning of my life. But you really must tell me how much you paid that
custodian, and let me give you back the money at once."
He interrupted himself in the midst of a beaming smile to wrinkle his
eyebrows together. "It's been a nice morning for me, too, miss," said he
quite humbly; "but it will half spoil it if you won't let it stand as it
is. It was only a few francs, and as you pay me a good screw, I can well
afford it. You're always so good, that I know you'd be sorry to hurt my
feelings."
Well, of course I would; so I couldn't say any more, could I? Though
before all these motor-car wonders began it would have felt odd to take
a "treat" from one's servant.
Now, Dad, I'm getting conscience-stricken, and keep wondering with every
paragraph (especially what I call my "descriptive" paragraphs) if I'm
boring you. I won't give you our daily programme _en masse_. I'll just
sum things up by saying that we've simply lived, moved, and had our
being in, on, or at castles. This country of the Loire is a sort of
fairyland, where everybody had a castle, or at the very least a lordly
dwelling-place that was more fortress than private house. You can't look
up or down the river but that on every hill you see a chateau, with
enough history clustering about it to make up a fat volume. How they
all escaped the Revolution is a marvel. But they have; and if they've
been much restored, it is so cleverly done that the most critical eyes
are deceived.
If I could live in one of the "show" chateaux, I'd choose Chenonceaux.
We drove to it on the day of the Tower, as I've labelled it in my book
of memory, "taking it in" on our way to Tours. It's no use your making a
note of that wish of mine, though Dad, and trying to buy it, because
somebody else has done that already. But if you can find a river as
pretty as the Cher (an appropriate name for the little daughter of the
Loire, on which--_over_ which, literally, Chenonceaux stands), you might
build me one on the same pattern, so I'll give you a general idea of
what the castle is like.
Let me see, what _is_ it like? To make a comparison would be giving to
an airy nothing a local habitation and a name. Not that Chenonceaux is
_nothing_--quite the opposite; but it leaves in the mind an impression
of airiness and gaiety, sweet and elusive as one of those quaint French
_chansons_ you like me to sing you, with my guitar, on a summer evening.
I think, even if I hadn't been told, I should have felt instinctively
that it must have been built to please a pretty, capricious woman. If
such a woman could be turned into a house, she would look like
Chenonceaux, and wouldn't suffer by the change. Perhaps Diane de
Poitiers isn't a proper object of sympathy for a well-brought-up young
lady like Chauncy Randolph's daughter; but I can't help pitying her,
because that horrid old frump of a Catherine de Medici grabbed it away
from her before Henry the Second was hardly cold in his grave. Think how
Diane, who had loved the place, must have felt to fancy that stuffy
Catherine in her everlasting black dresses, squatting in her beautiful
rooms! We saw those rooms, by the way, for we came on one of the days
when people are allowed to go through the Chateau (Brown had planned
that), and the clever millionaires who own it have had the sense and the
grace to leave everything just as it was, at least in Catherine's time.
And one can take the bad, Catherine taste out of one's mouth by thinking
of lovely little Mary Stuart singing like a lark through the rooms, and
living there and in the garden the happiest days that she was ever to
know.
One wouldn't suppose that a gloomy, plotting mind like Catherine's would
have had a place in it for creating beauty; but it had its one
ornamental corner, or she couldn't have thought out the bridge-gallery
thrown across the Cher, springing from the original building and
spanning the river to the farther shore.
There are two storeys over the bridge, long corridors, all windows, and
lovely green and gold river lights, netted over the floors and
walls--the most exquisite effect. I walked there, calling up the spirits
of vanished queens and princesses--the "dear, dead women," seeing "all
the gold that used to fall and hang about their shoulders." Oh, I've got
the quotation wrong, but it's Aunt Mary's fault, for at this very minute
she's reading aloud to herself in a guide-book about Rousseau and a lot
of other shining lights who used to visit Chenonceaux when it belonged
to Monsieur and Madame Dupin; but those days were comparatively modern,
so I don't take much interest. Nothing at Chenonceaux seems worth while
unless it happened before the days of Charles the Ninth.
Tours looked at first sight very sedate and grey, after Chenonceaux, for
the airy picture of the castle had kept floating before my eyes during
our run. It seems to me we are always on the other side of the river
from things, and have to get to them by crossing long bridges. We did it
again at Tours, and it was particularly long, and very fine. But it was
evening, and dim and bitterly cold; and I'm afraid I shouldn't have paid
as much attention to it as I did if Brown hadn't said that Balzac called
it "one of the finest monuments of France." And then in a minute, at the
entrance to the town, we saw two ghostly white statues glimmering in a
wide, green _place_. "There, miss, are the two tutelary geniuses of this
part of France," said Brown; "Rabelais and Descartes." By that time we
had flashed past, but I screwed my neck round to look back at them till
I got a "crick" in it. Have you ever noticed that most of the things
people tell you to look at, or that you particularly want to see in
life, are always behind your back or on one side, as if to give you the
greatest possible trouble? It seems as if there must be a "moral in it,"
as Alice's Duchess would have said.
Tours appeared _that_ evening (I have a motive for the emphasis) to
consist of one long, straight street; and turning to the left at the
end, we pulled up at the door of a hotel. Just an ordinary-looking hotel
it was on the outside, and I little thought what my impressions of it
would be by-and-by.
I was tired, not so much physically from what we had done, but with the
feeling that my capacity for admiring and enjoying things had been
filled up and brimmed over, so that a drop more in would actually hurt.
Do you know that sensation? It was just the mood to appreciate warmth
and cosiness. We got both. Aunt Mary and I had two bedrooms opening off
a sitting-room; dear, old-fashioned rooms, and, above all, _French_
old-fashioned, which to me is fascinating. We made ourselves as pretty
as Nature ordained us severally to be, and went downstairs. The
dining-room was our first big surprise. It was almost worthy of one of
the chateaux, with its dignified tapestried and wainscotted walls, and
its big, branching candelabra. I'm sure if we'd been dining at a chateau
we shouldn't have got a better dinner. I don't think anything ever
tasted so good to me in my life, and I couldn't help wondering how poor,
tired Brown was faring while we lazy ones feasted in state in the _salle
a manger_. I thought of you, too, for you would have loved the things to
eat. They were rich and Southern, and tasted in one's mouth just the way
the word "Provence" sounds in one's ear. Aunt Mary had read in one of
her ubiquitous guide-books that Touraine as well as Provence is famous
for its "succulent cooking," and for once a guide-book seems to be
right. They had all sorts of tricky, rich little dishes for
dinner--_rillettes_ and other things which would have made your mouth
water (though if it did, and I were by, I'd shut my eyes), and the head
waiter told me when I asked, that they were specialties of Tours and of
the hotel. I think _he_ must be a specialty of Tours and the hotel too.
He has the softest, most engaging, yet dignified manner; and the way he
has of setting down a dish before you seems to season it and give you a
double appetite. There's another man in the hotel, too, who adds to the
"aroma"; he's like a "bush to wine," or something I've heard you say. By
day he's _valet de chambre_, in a scarlet waistcoat no brighter than his
cheeks and eyes; at dinner he's a waiter in correct "dress" clothes, and
then he goes back to valeting again till midnight. He would put me in a
good temper if I had started out to murder someone, and when he brought
us the wine list, waiting with a cherry-cheeked smile to see what we
would choose, nothing seemed worthy of him except champagne; but
champagne looked so dissipated for two lone females. However, I had
decided to have some, to drink the health of the new car, and perhaps--a
little--to shock Aunt Mary, when the diamond-eyed one respectfully
inquired, in nice Southern French, how we would like to try a "little
wine of the country, sparkling Vouvray; quite a ladies' wine." So we
compromised with Vouvray. It was too ridiculously cheap, but it had a
delicious flavour, and Aunt Mary and I, being merely females, agreed
that it was more delicate than any champagne we had ever tasted. We
drank your health and the car's, and then I had a sudden inspiration.
"To the 'Lightning Conductor'!" said I, raising my glass.
"What lightning conductor? And what do you mean?" inquired Aunt Mary.
"The one and only Lightning Conductor--Brown," I explained. "I have just
thought of that as a good name for him, now that he has a chance to spin
us across the world at such a pace with a new car."
"I do hope, my dear Molly," severely remarked Aunt Mary, setting down
her glass with an indignant little thud, "you will not call that young
man any such thing to his face. He has already been allowed far too many
liberties, and though I must say he has not to any great extent taken
undue advantage of them so far, he may _break out_ at any moment."
I'm sorry to tell you, Dad, that I said "Pooh!" and asked her if she
thought Brown were an active volcano. Anyway, whether I call him so "to
his face" or not, the "Lightning Conductor" he is, and will remain for
me, though perhaps he wouldn't be flattered at being "launched and
christened" with mere Vouvray.
I didn't expect to like Tours half as much as I do. But we have been
here for three days, and though I thought at first there was only one
long street, we've found something interesting to see every hour of
daylight--so I write in the evenings in our cosy sitting-room. Or if I
don't write, I read Balzac. I never appreciated him as I do here, on his
"native heath." I have begged Brown to name his master's car "Balzac,"
because it, too, is a "violent and complicated genius." I've gazed at
the house where Balzac was born; I've photographed the Balzac
medallion; I've stuffed my trunks with illustrated editions of Balzac's
books; and I've gone to see everything I could find, which he ever spoke
about. His _Cure de Tours_ is the most harrowing story I ever read; and
the strange little house in the shadow of the cathedral, with one of the
great buttresses planting its enormous foot in the wee garden,
fascinates me. There lived the horrible Mademoiselle Gamard, and there,
with her, lodged the wicked Cure, and the poor, good little Cure, over
whose childlike, gentle stupidity and agony I half cried my eyes out
last night. But Balzac's French discourages me. He must have had a
wonderful vocabulary. I am always finding words on every page which I
never saw before.
I don't like cathedrals much as a rule, unless there's something really
extraordinary about them; but I love the big, grey, Gothic cathedral of
Tours. It seems a different grey from any other, not cold and
forbidding, but warm and very soft, as if it were made of sealskin. I
suppose that is partly the effect of the beautiful carvings of the tall,
tall front. I feel as if I should like to smooth and caress it with my
hand. And it is beautiful inside. Somehow it is so individual that it
gives you a welcome, as if it meant to be your friend.
The streets of _old_ Tours are so intricate that Aunt Mary and I would
never have known where to go, but Brown, who has been here before, has
guided us everywhere. He took us to see the house of Tristan the Hermit,
and an adorable little convent, which is called the Petit St. Martin,
with lovely Renaissance carving, and actually a _tilleul_. He showed us
the oldest house in Tours, the quaintest building you could imagine,
standing on a corner, with lots of other very old houses on the same
street. And the Charlemagne Tower--I'm not sure, but I liked that the
best of all--and a marvellous fourteenth-century house, a perfect
lacework of carving, which has been restored, and is called the Maison
Gouin, after the rich man who lives in it. Oh, I forgot to tell you,
I have bought your favourite _Quentin Durward_, and am sandwiching
him with Balzac. Reading him over again in this country was Brown's
idea for me, and I'm obliged to him for the "tip." Speaking of tips
reminds me I really ought to give _him_ one--a very large one, I'm sure.
And yet it will be awkward offering it, I'm afraid. I know I shall
stammer and be an idiot generally; but I shall prop my courage with the
reflection that, after all, he _is_ a _chauffeur_, and perhaps has, in
his heart, been wondering why I haven't given him anything before.
Yesterday I saw palm trees, growing in the _place_, and kissed my hand
to them, because they told me that we were on the threshold of the
South. Another thing in Tours which suggests the South, I think, is the
_patisserie_. Aunt Mary and I have discovered a confectioner's to
conjure with; but Tours seems to have discovered him long ago, for all
the "beauty and fashion" of the town go there for coffee and cakes in
the afternoon. We do likewise--when we have time; and yesterday Aunt
Mary ate twelve little cakes, each one different from the other. You
see, they are so good, and she said, as a conscientious tourist, she
thought she ought to try every kind in the shop, so as to know which was
nicest. But she felt odd afterwards, and refused one or two of the best
courses at dinner.
The way that we have used our time at Tours is very much to our credit,
I think--or rather to the Lightning Conductor's. In the mornings Brown
has taken us on excursions outside the town, and in the afternoons,
before dark, we have "done" the town itself, as Aunt Mary would say,
though I hate the expression myself. But one whole day out of our three
we spent in running with the car to Langeais and Azay-le-Rideau.
That new car is a treasure, and Brown drives as if there were a sort of
_sympathy_ between him and it. We go at a thrilling pace sometimes, but
that is only when we have a long, straight road, empty as far as the eye
can see. He is very considerate to "horse drivers," as he calls them,
and he says "for the sake of the sport" everyone driving an automobile
should be careful of the rights of other persons on the road. He slows
down at once, or even stops the car altogether, if we meet a restive
horse. Once he got out and pacified a silly beast that was nervous,
leading it past the car, and when it was quite quiet the old peasant who
was driving exclaimed that if all automobilists were like us there would
never be complaints. We managed to make up for lost time, though; and
when Brown "lets her out," as he calls it, until we are going as fast as
a quick train, I can tell you it is something worth living for. When
the country is very beautiful we drive slowly, and save our "spurts"
for the uninteresting parts.
I know you've read Balzac's _Duchesse de Langeais_, in English, for it
was I who gave it to you. I don't suppose she ever lived, really, at the
Chateau de Langeais or anywhere else; but the thought of her made
Langeais even more interesting to me than it would have been if she'd
been erased from the picture.
It's a great, grey, frowning, turreted and crenelated fortress-house,
and I felt so much obliged to it for having kept its practicable
drawbridge. We drove almost up to the door, through a clean, very old
little town, and just opposite the entrance was a quaint house where
Brown said Rabelais had lived. I don't believe Aunt Mary knew anything
about Rabelais. However, she eagerly Kodaked the house, and later, when
I gravely mentioned to her that Rabelais was the kind you wouldn't allow
_me_ to read, but of course _she_ might, if she liked, she gave a squeak
of dismay, and threatened to waste all her films rather than let a
photographer see that one when they went to be developed. I do hope _I_
shan't be an old maid!
The Parisian millionaire who owns the Chateau, and lives in it part of
the year, must be a wonderfully generous, public-spirited man. Only
think, he has spent thousands and thousands in restoring the castle, in
keeping up the lovely garden, and in having all the rooms exquisitely
furnished and decorated exactly in the period of wicked Louis the
Eleventh and Charles the Eighth. But instead of keeping these beautiful
things for himself and his family and friends, he lets everybody have
the benefit, not even making an exception of his own private rooms. Here
Anne of Brittany was very much to the fore again, for she was married to
Charles at Langeais, and we went into the room of the wedding. I should
have liked to take the splendid, dignified, old major-domo, who showed
us about, home with me; but I'm sure he'd pine away and die if torn from
his beloved Chateau.
We bought quaint painted iron brooches, with Anne of Brittany's crest on
them, in the town; and then we drove away through pretty, undulating
country, which must be lovely in summer, to Azay-le-Rideau. Francis the
First built it; and he certainly had as good taste in castles as in
ladies, which is saying a great deal.
This is a fairy house. It doesn't look as if it had ever been _built_ in
the ordinary sense, but as if somebody had dropped a huge, glimmering
pearl down on the green meadow, and it had rolled near enough to the
water to see its own reflection. Then the same somebody had carved
exquisite designs all over the pearl, and finally hollowed it out and
turned it into a king's house.
As usual, we came to it across a bridge, not spanning the Loire this
time, but a branch of the river Indre; and it's in the Indre that the
pearly Chateau bathes its pearly feet. Almost I wished that I hadn't
gone inside the pearl. Not that the inside was worthless; there was a
mantel or two, and a great show staircase, with a carved, vaulted roof;
but it was an anti-climax after the outside and after Langeais. When we
came out from "viewing the interior," as the guide-books say, I walked
all round the Chateau again, looking up at the carved chimneys and the
sculptured windows, the charming turrets, and the sloping roof of blue
grey slate; all so light and elegant, seeming to say, "Come and live
here. You will be happy." Oh, they have some lovely things in Europe,
that we can never have in our new country! We've a good excuse for
wanting to come over here. But it's so good to feel that the things are
for us, and for everybody--not just for England, or France, or Italy, as
the case may be.
To-morrow we are going to try and see three chateaux--Usse, and Luynes,
and Chinon. We'll come back to Tours and our dear Hotel de l'Univers;
but the day after--good-bye to both, and how-do-you-do Loches! I'll
leave this open, and put in a postscript. I haven't given you a real,
characteristic postscript for a long time.
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
_Evening_; and Loches.
"Here I am again!" as Jack-in-the-Box says. And we've done all the
things I said we were going to. But I'm too full of Loches and too
excited about Loches to tell you anything of yesterday's three castles,
except to fling them an adjective or two, and pass on. Let me see, what
adjective, since I've confined myself to one, shall I give Usse?
"Splendid," I think. "Interesting" is all I can afford for Luynes,
though it deserves a lot more, if only for its history. And
well--"magnificent" must do for Chinon. Perhaps it has the most
beautiful view of all. But Loches--Loches! I had forgotten its existence
till I dug it up for myself in _Quentin Durward_, and the guide-books,
to which Aunt Mary is so faithful, don't do it any sort of justice. They
don't tell you to go to see it, _whatever_ else you must make up your
mind to miss. Why, Aunt M.'s particular pet devoted almost as much space
to the queer little rock village of Rochecorbon, whose lighted windows
glared at us like cat's eyes away high up above the road, one dark
evening (when we'd been belated after an excursion) getting back to
Tours.
Luckily the Lightning Conductor appreciated Loches at its true value,
and told me it was well worth making a short detour--as we must--to see.
We had to go out of our way as far as a place called Cormery, but that
was nothing, and yesterday morning early we started. It was the first
sparkling blue-and-gold day we have had for a while; it seemed as if it
must have come across to us from Provence, as a sample, to show what we
might expect if we hurried on there. The air was like champagne--or
Vouvray--and we spun along at our very best on the smooth, wide Route
Nationale, our faces turned towards Provence as a graceful compliment
for the gift of the weather.
We have a neat little trick of getting to places just in time for lunch,
and we managed it at Loches, as usual. We'd hardly driven into the town
before I fell in love with its quaintness; but I didn't fall in love
with the hotel until I'd been surprised with a perfectly delicious
_dejeuner_. Then I let myself go; and when I'd seen how pretty the
old-fashioned bedrooms were, I begged to stay all night instead of going
on. Brown seems to regard my requests as if they were those of
royalty--commands; and he rearranged our programme accordingly. I'm
writing in a green-and-pink damask bedroom now, but when I shut my eyes
I can see the castle and the dungeons and--Madame Cesar. Yes, I think I
can find my way back for your benefit, and return on our own tracks.
First, like a promising preface to the ruined stronghold of the terrible
Louis, we went through a massive gateway, flanked with towers, and
climbed up a winding street of ancient, but not decrepit houses, to come
out at last upon a plateau with the gigantic walls of the castle on our
left. When I remembered _who_ caused those outworks and walls to be put
up, so high and grim and strong, and _why_, I felt a little "creep" run
up my spine at sight of the enormous mass of stonework. "Who enters here
leaves hope behind" might have been written over the gateway in the
dreadful days when Loches was in its wicked prime. Those walls are
colossal, like perpendicular cliffs. At a door in one of them we tinkled
a bell, and presently, with loud unlocking of double doors, quite a
pretty young girl appeared and invited us in. She was the daughter of
the _gardien_, she told us. It was almost a shock to see something so
fresh and young living in such a forbidding, torture-haunted den as
Louis' Chateau of Loches. She was like one of the little bright-coloured
winter blossoms springing out from a cranny of the grey walls. When she
had lighted rather a smelly lantern, we prepared to follow into the
"fastnesses" of the castle. If ever that good old double-dyed word could
be appropriate, it is to Loches. I never thoroughly realised before the
awful might of kings in feudal and mediaeval days. To think that Louis
XI. had the power to build such a place, and to hustle his enemies away
for ever out of the sunshine, behind those tremendous walls, and bury
them in the yard-square cells hollowed in the thickness of the stone! I
used to wish I'd lived in those stirring times, but I changed my mind
to-day--temporarily.
In the middle of the fortress is an enormous square, white keep, so
heavy, solid, and imposing that it seems more like the slow work of
Nature than of man. Down steep, winding steps in a tower, we followed
our guide into the dungeons where that unspeakable Louis shut up the
people he was afraid to leave in the world. Waving her lantern in the
dusk, the girl showed us where the wretched prisoners had tried to keep
themselves from madness by painting on the roof and walls. In one cell a
bishop had cut into the solid wall a little altar, just where a slanting
ray of sunshine stole through a grating and occasionally laid a small
patch of light for a few minutes, only to snatch it away again. Several
of the cells were just black holes scooped out of the rock, and there it
seemed to have been Louis' delight to put some of the most important
prisoners--men who had lived like princes, and had power over life and
death in their own countries.
Oh, do you remember wily Cardinal Balue? I've been refreshing my memory
of him in _Quentin Durward_, hating him dreadfully; but I did have a
spasm of pity when I saw the big, well-like place where he was suspended
for so many years, like an imprisoned canary, in a wooden cage, because
he betrayed Louis' secrets to the Duke of Burgundy. Henry James says, in
a fascinating Tauchnitz volume I bought in Tours (_A Little Tour in
France_), that Cardinal Balue "survived much longer than might have been
expected this extraordinary mixture of seclusion and exposure." Isn't
that just the _cunningest_ way of expressing it?
Last of all we went up to the top of a high tower in the midst of the
Chateau, and there, as if we'd been on the mast-head of a ship, we had a
bird's-eye view of the pretty white town, with the Indre murmuring by in
sedgy meadows outside. There were some wonderful old cuttings in the
stone, made by the soldiers who acted as sentinels and prisoners'
guards; and Aunt Mary Kodaked me as I sat studying them. We could spy,
across the plateau of the castle, the tomb of Agnes Sorel, and decided
to go to it; but we left the poor girl till so late, finally, that we
could only see her glimmering white in effigy of marble, with a sweetly
resigned face, modest, folded hands, and a dear little soft sitting-down
lamb to rest her pretty feet on. She had, besides, two very pretty young
angels to watch over her and wake her up when it should be time.
I'm sure it would have taken at least three such angels to wake me up,
until I had "slept out," after our long afternoon in the castle, and
later in the town. I went to bed early and slept ten hours. We hadn't
to start immediately, as our drive for the day wasn't long, so I
proposed to Aunt Mary that we should breakfast in our rooms and then go
out for a morning walk. The breakfast idea appealed to her; not so the
walk, and accordingly I had to go alone. I had no plan except perhaps to
buy a souvenir or two; but in the crooked street leading up to the
castle I met Brown. He was reading a notice on the great gateway,
directing strangers to some excavations lately made. He took off his cap
at sight of me, and I asked him if he thought the excavations would be
worth seeing. He had heard that they were, and I said that I should be
glad if he would show me how to go to the place. I didn't like wandering
about by myself. Everything is so horrid that one does by oneself in a
strange country, and then if Brown isn't useful in one way he always
proves to be in another. So he obeyed, of course, walking not too close,
as if to let me see that he recognized the distance between us. I've
often noticed him do that if we have to go anywhere together on foot,
and I think it's rather nice of him, don't you? Just a little pathetic
too, maybe. Anyhow, it seems that way to me, for he really _ought_ to
have been a gentleman. It's such a waste of good material, the Lord
using him up for a _chauffeur_ when any common stuff would have done for
that.
Well, we went on a short distance until we saw a tiny cottage in a
wild-looking garden at the foot of the huge fortress walls. We rang a
gate-bell, when another notice told us we'd got to the right place, and
a little, smiling woman came out to welcome us. "Oh, yes!" said she
volubly. She would show us the excavations, and we would find them as
interesting as anything we could see in Loches. Already it was easy to
see that in _her_, at least, we had found something interesting. She had
the nicest, brightest old face, and she poured out upon us a kind of
benign dew of conversation. She introduced herself as Madame Cesar;
always talking and explaining, she lighted a candle, led us to the mouth
of an egg-shaped subterranean path, and bowed us down. She went, too,
down the steep steps, telling how this passage and many ramifications of
it had been discovered only recently, most of the excavations having
been the work of her husband. It was supposed that an underground
gallery led a long way from Loches to some distant spot, so that people
could come and go to the castle unseen, and so that the fortress could
secretly receive provisions if it were besieged. All sorts of things had
been found in the passages--rosaries, and old, old books, and coins, and
queer playing-cards; and some of the best of the relics she had in her
own cottage. We stopped to see them afterwards, and she reeled forth
yards of history in the most fascinating and vivacious manner,
accompanied by dramatic gestures, almost worthy of Sara Bernhardt. I
suppose she must have been down in the excavations oftener than she
could remember, but you would have thought it was perfectly new to her,
and she was seeing it for the first time. She gave us a rose each to
remember her by, and oh!--wasn't it comic, or tragic? which you
will--she quite misunderstood things, and suggested that _I_ should put
Brown's rose in his leathery buttonhole. He and I both pretended not to
hear, but I felt embarrassed for a minute. Nevertheless, I wouldn't have
missed Madame Cesar and her excavations for a good deal.
There, _dejeuner_ is ready, and you'll be glad, maybe, dear, faraway
Dad, because it will spare you further descriptions. After _dejeuner_ we
shall proceed to be lightning-conducted again, and I shall duly collect
a few more adventures to recount. Good-bye, dear. How I wish you were
with me instead of Aunt Mary!
Your everlasting
Molly.