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Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine
and the Loire Country
_WORKS OF FRANCIS MILTOUN_
_The following, each 1 vol., library 12mo, cloth, gilt top,
profusely illustrated, $2.50_
_Rambles on the Riviera_
_Rambles in Normandy_
_Rambles in Brittany_
_The Cathedrals and Churches of the Rhine_
_The Cathedrals of Northern France_
_The Cathedrals of Southern France_
_The Cathedrals of Italy_ (_In preparation_)
_The following, 1 vol., square octavo, cloth, gilt top, profusely
illustrated. $3.00_
_Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine and the Loire Country_
_L. C. PAGE & COMPANY New England Building, Boston, Mass._
[Illustration: A PEASANT GIRL OF TOURAINE]
Castles and Chateaux
OF
OLD TOURAINE
AND THE LOIRE COUNTRY
BY FRANCIS MILTOUN
Author of "Rambles in Normandy," "Rambles in Brittany,"
"Rambles on the Riviera," etc.
_With Many Illustrations
Reproduced from paintings made on the spot_
BY BLANCHE MCMANUS
[Illustration]
BOSTON
L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
1906
_Copyright, 1906_
BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
(Incorporated)
_All rights reserved_
First Impression, June, 1906
_COLONIAL PRESS_
_Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co._
_Boston, U. S. A._
[Illustration: Ed VELAY]
By Way of Introduction
This book is not the result of ordinary conventional rambles, of
sightseeing by day, and flying by night, but rather of leisurely
wanderings, for a somewhat extended period, along the banks of the Loire
and its tributaries and through the countryside dotted with those
splendid monuments of Renaissance architecture which have perhaps a more
appealing interest for strangers than any other similar edifices
wherever found.
Before this book was projected, the conventional tour of the chateau
country had been "done," Baedeker, Joanne and James's "Little Tour" in
hand. On another occasion Angers, with its almost inconceivably real
castellated fortress, and Nantes, with its memories of the "Edict" and
"La Duchesse Anne," had been tasted and digested _en route_ to a certain
little artist's village in Brittany.
On another occasion, when we were headed due south, we lingered for a
time in the upper valley, between "the little Italian city of Nevers"
and "the most picturesque spot in the world"--Le Puy.
But all this left certain ground to be covered, and certain gaps to be
filled, though the author's note-books were numerous and full to
overflowing with much comment, and the artist's portfolio was already
bulging with its contents.
So more note-books were bought, and, following the genial Mark Twain's
advice, another fountain pen and more crayons and sketch-books, and the
author and artist set out in the beginning of a warm September to fill
those gaps and to reduce, if possible, that series of rambles along the
now flat and now rolling banks of the broad blue Loire to something like
consecutiveness and uniformity; with what result the reader may judge.
Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION v
I. A GENERAL SURVEY 1
II. THE ORLEANNAIS 30
III. THE BLAISOIS AND THE SOLOGNE 56
IV. CHAMBORD 94
V. CHEVERNY, BEAUREGARD, AND CHAUMONT 110
VI. TOURAINE: THE GARDEN SPOT OF FRANCE 128
VII. AMBOISE 148
VIII. CHENONCEAUX 171
IX. LOCHES 188
X. TOURS AND ABOUT THERE 203
XI. LUYNES AND LANGEAIS 221
XII. AZAY-LE-RIDEAU, USSE, AND CHINON 241
XIII. ANJOU AND BRETAGNE 273
XIV. SOUTH OF THE LOIRE 301
XV. BERRY AND GEORGE SAND'S COUNTRY 313
XVI. THE UPPER LOIRE 330
INDEX 337
List of Illustrations
PAGE
A PEASANT GIRL OF TOURAINE _Frontispiece_
ITINERARY OF THE LOIRE (MAP) facing 1
A LACE-MAKER OF THE UPPER LOIRE facing 4
THE LOIRE CHATEAUX (MAP) 9
THE ANCIENT PROVINCES OF THE LOIRE VALLEY
AND THEIR CAPITALS (MAP) 15
THE LOIRE NEAR LA CHARITE facing 18
COIFFES OF AMBOISE AND ORLEANS facing 20
THE CHATEAUX OF THE LOIRE (MAP) facing 30
ENVIRONS OF ORLEANS (MAP) 39
THE LOIRET facing 42
THE LOIRE AT MEUNG facing 46
BEAUGENCY facing 50
ARMS OF THE CITY OF BLOIS 58
THE RIVERSIDE AT BLOIS facing 58
SIGNATURE OF FRANCOIS PREMIER 60
CYPHER OF ANNE DE BRETAGNE, AT BLOIS 62
ARMS OF LOUIS XII. 65
CENTRAL DOORWAY, CHATEAU DE BLOIS facing 66
THE CHATEAUX OF BLOIS (DIAGRAM) 71
CYPHER OF FRANCOIS PREMIER AND CLAUDE OF
FRANCE, AT BLOIS 72
NATIVE TYPES IN THE SOLOGNE 89
DONJON OF MONTRICHARD facing 92
ARMS OF FRANCOIS PREMIER, AT CHAMBORD 99
PLAN OF CHATEAU DE CHAMBORD 103
CHATEAU DE CHAMBORD facing 104
CHATEAU DE CHEVERNY facing 110
CHEVERNY-SUR-LOIRE 113
CHAUMONT facing 116
SIGNATURE OF DIANE DE POITIERS 118
THE LOIRE IN TOURAINE facing 134
THE VINTAGE IN TOURAINE facing 142
CHATEAU D'AMBOISE facing 148
SCULPTURE FROM THE CHAPELLE DE ST. HUBERT facing 164
CYPHER OF ANNE DE BRETAGNE, HOTEL DE
VILLE, AMBOISE 168
CHATEAU DE CHENONCEAUX facing 178
CHATEAU DE CHENONCEAUX (DIAGRAM) 179
LOCHES 189
LOCHES AND ITS CHURCH facing 192
SKETCH PLAN OF LOCHES 198
ST. OURS, LOCHES facing 198
TOURS facing 202
ARMS OF THE PRINTERS, _AVOCATS_, AND INNKEEPERS,
TOURS 205
SCENE IN THE QUARTIER DE LA CATHEDRALE,
TOURS facing 208
PLESSIS-LES-TOURS IN THE TIME OF LOUIS XI. 213
ENVIRONS OF TOURS (MAP) 219
A VINEYARD OF VOUVRAY facing 222
MEDIAEVAL STAIRWAY AND THE CHATEAU DE
LUYNES facing 224
RUINS OF CINQ-MARS facing 228
CHATEAU DE LANGEAIS facing 232
ARMS OF LOUIS XII. AND ANNE DE BRETAGNE 237
CHATEAU D'AZAY-LE-RIDEAU facing 244
CHATEAU D'USSE facing 248
THE ROOF-TOPS OF CHINON facing 252
RABELAIS 255
CHATEAU DE CHINON facing 258
CUISINES, FONTEVRAULT 265
CHATEAU DE SAUMUR facing 276
THE PONTS DE CE facing 284
CHATEAU D'ANGERS facing 288
ENVIRONS OF NANTES (MAP) 297
DONJON OF THE CHATEAU DE CLISSON facing 306
BERRY (MAP) 313
LA TOUR, SANCERRE 317
CHATEAU DE GIEN facing 318
CHATEAU DE VALENCAY facing 322
GATEWAY OF MEHUN-SUR-YEVRE facing 324
LE CARRIOR DORE, ROMORANTIN 325
EGLISE S. AIGNAN, COSNE 331
POUILLY-SUR-LOIRE facing 332
PORTE DU CROUX, NEVERS facing 334
[Illustration: ITINERARY OF THE LOIRE (MAP)]
Castles and Chateaux
of Old Touraine
and the Loire Country
CHAPTER I.
A GENERAL SURVEY
Any account of the Loire and of the towns along its banks must naturally
have for its chief mention Touraine and the long line of splendid feudal
and Renaissance chateaux which reflect themselves so gloriously in its
current.
The Loire possesses a certain fascination and charm which many other
more commercially great rivers entirely lack, and, while the element of
absolute novelty cannot perforce be claimed for it, it has the merit of
appealing largely to the lover of the romantic and the picturesque.
A French writer of a hundred years ago dedicated his work on Touraine to
"Le Baron de Langeais, le Vicomte de Beaumont, le Marquis de Beauregard,
le Comte de Fontenailles, le Comte de Jouffroy-Gonsans, le Duc de
Luynes, le Comte de Vouvray, le Comte de Villeneuve, _et als._;" and he
might have continued with a directory of all the descendants of the
_noblesse_ of an earlier age, for he afterward grouped them under the
general category of "_Proprietaires des fortresses et chateaux les plus
remarquables--au point de vue historique ou architectural_."
He was fortunate in being able, as he said, to have had access to their
"_papiers de famille_," their souvenirs, and to have been able to
interrogate them in person.
Most of his facts and his gossip concerning the personalities of the
later generations of those who inhabited these magnificent
establishments have come down to us through later writers, and it is
fortunate that this should be the case, since the present-day aspect of
the chateaux is ever changing, and one who views them to-day is
chagrined when he discovers, for instance, that an iron-trussed,
red-tiled wash-house has been built on the banks of the Cosson before
the magnificent chateau of Chambord, and that somewhere within the
confines of the old castle at Loches a shopkeeper has hung out his
shingle, announcing a newly discovered dungeon in his own basement,
accidentally come upon when digging a well.
Balzac, Rabelais, and Descartes are the leading literary celebrities of
Tours, and Balzac's "Le Lys dans la Vallee" will give one a more
delightful insight into the old life of the Tourangeaux than whole
series of guide-books and shelves of dry histories.
Blois and its counts, Tours and its bishops, and Amboise and its kings,
to say nothing of Fontevrault, redolent of memories of the Plantagenets,
Nantes and its famous "Edict," and its equally infamous "Revocation,"
have left vivid impress upon all students of French history. Others will
perhaps remember Nantes for Dumas's brilliant descriptions of the
outcome of the Breton conspiracy.
All of us have a natural desire to know more of historic ground, and
whether we make a start by entering the valley of the Loire at the
luxurious midway city of Tours, and follow the river first to the sea
and then to the source, or make the journey from source to mouth, or
vice versa, it does not matter in the least. We traverse the same ground
and we meet the same varying conditions as we advance a hundred
kilometres in either direction.
Tours, for example, stands for all that is typical of the sunny south.
Prune and palm trees thrust themselves forward in strong contrast to the
cider-apples of the lower Seine. Below Tours one is almost at the coast,
and the _tables d'hote_ are abundantly supplied with sea-food of all
sorts. Above Tours the Orleannais is typical of a certain well-to-do,
matter-of-fact existence, neither very luxurious nor very difficult.
Nevers is another step and resembles somewhat the opulence of Burgundy
as to conditions of life, though the general aspect of the city, as well
as a great part of its history, is Italian through and through.
The last great step begins at Le Puy, in the great volcanic _Massif
Centrale_, where conditions of life, if prosperous, are at least harder
than elsewhere.
Such are the varying characteristics of the towns and cities through
which the Loire flows. They run the whole gamut from gay to earnest and
solemn; from the ease and comfort of the country around Tours, almost
sub-tropical in its softness, to the grime and smoke of busy St.
Etienne, and the chilliness and rigours of a mountain winter at Le Puy.
[Illustration: _A Lace-maker of the Upper Loire_]
These districts are all very full of memories of events which have
helped to build up the solidarity of France of to-day, though the
Nantois still proudly proclaims himself a Breton, and the Tourangeau
will tell you that his is the tongue, above all others, which speaks the
purest French,--and so on through the whole category, each and every
citizen of a _petit pays_ living up to his traditions to the fullest
extent possible.
In no other journey in France, of a similar length, will one see as many
varying contrasts in conditions of life as he will along the length of
the Loire, the broad, shallow river which St. Martin, Charles Martel,
and Louis XI., the typical figures of church, arms, and state, came to
know so well.
Du Bellay, a poet of the Renaissance, has sung the praises of the Loire
in a manner unapproached by any other topographical poet, if one may so
call him, for that is what he really was in this particular instance.
There is a great deal of patriotism in it all, too, and certainly no
sweet singer of the present day has even approached these lines, which
are eulogistic without being fulsome and fervent without being lurid.
The verses have frequently been rendered into English, but the following
is as good as any, and better than most translations, though it is one
of those fragments of "newspaper verse" whose authors are lost in
obscurity.
"Mightier to me the house my fathers made,
Than your audacious heads, O Halls of Rome!
More than immortal marbles undecayed,
The thin sad slates that cover up my home;
More than your Tiber is my Loire to me,
More Palatine my little Lyre there;
And more than all the winds of all the sea,
The quiet kindness of the Angevin air."
In history the Loire valley is rich indeed, from the days of the ancient
Counts of Touraine to those of Mazarin, who held forth at Nevers.
Touraine has well been called the heart of the old French monarchy.
Provincial France has a charm never known to Paris-dwellers. Balzac and
Flaubert were provincials, and Dumas was a city-dweller,--and there lies
the difference between them.
Balzac has written most charmingly of Touraine in many of his books, in
"Le Lys dans la Vallee" and "Le Cure de Tours" in particular; not always
in complimentary terms, either, for he has said that the Tourangeaux
will not even inconvenience themselves to go in search of pleasure. This
does not bespeak indolence so much as philosophy, so most of us will not
cavil. George Sand's country lies a little to the southward of Touraine,
and Berry, too, as the authoress herself has said, has a climate
"_souple et chaud, avec pluie abondant et courte_."
The architectural remains in the Loire valley are exceedingly rich and
varied. The feudal system is illustrated at its best in the great walled
chateau at Angers, the still inhabited and less grand chateau at
Langeais, the ruins at Cinq-Mars, and the very scanty remains of
Plessis-les-Tours.
The ecclesiastical remains are quite as great. The churches are, many of
them, of the first rank, and the great cathedrals at Nantes, Angers,
Tours, and Orleans are magnificent examples of the church-builders' art
in the middle ages, and are entitled to rank among the great cathedrals,
if not actually of the first class.
With modern civic and other public buildings, the case is not far
different. Tours has a gorgeous Hotel de Ville, its architecture being
of the most luxuriant of modern French Renaissance, while the railway
stations, even, at both Tours and Orleans, are models of what railway
stations should be, and in addition are decoratively beautiful in their
appointments and arrangements,--which most railway stations are not.
Altogether, throughout the Loire valley there is an air of prosperity
which in a more vigorous climate is often lacking. This in spite of the
alleged tendency in what is commonly known as a relaxing climate toward
_laisser-aller_.
Finally, the picturesque landscape of the Loire is something quite
different from the harder, grayer outlines of the north. All is of the
south, warm and ruddy, and the wooded banks not only refine the
crudities of a flat shore-line, but form a screen or barrier to the
flowering charms of the examples of Renaissance architecture which, in
Touraine, at least, are as thick as leaves in Vallambrosa.
Starting at Gien, the valley of the Loire begins to offer those
monumental chateaux which have made its fame as the land of castles.
From the old fortress-chateau of Gien to the Chateau de Clisson, or the
Logis de la Duchesse Anne at Nantes, is one long succession of florid
masterpieces, not to be equalled elsewhere.
The true chateau region of Touraine--by which most people usually
comprehend the Loire chateaux--commences only at Blois. Here the
edifices, to a great extent, take on these superfine residential
attributes which were the glory of the Renaissance period of French
architecture.
[Illustration: THE LOIRE CHATEAUX (MAP)]
Both above and below Touraine, at Montrichard, at Loches, and Beaugency,
are still to be found scattering examples of feudal fortresses and
donjons which are as representative of their class as are the best
Norman structures of the same era, the great fortresses of Arques,
Falaise, Domfront, and Les Andelys being usually accounted as the types
which gave the stimulus to similar edifices elsewhere.
In this same versatile region also, beginning perhaps with the
Orleannais, are a vast number of religious monuments equally celebrated.
For instance, the church of St. Benoit-sur-Loire is one of the most
important Romanesque churches in all France, and the cathedral of St.
Gatien, with its "bejewelled facade," at Tours, the twin-spired St.
Maurice at Angers, and even the pompous, and not very good Gothic,
edifice at Orleans (especially noteworthy because its crypt is an
ancient work anterior to the Capetian dynasty) are all wonderfully
interesting and imposing examples of mediaeval ecclesiastical
architecture.
Three great tributaries enter the Loire below Tours, the Cher, the
Indre, and the Vienne. The first has for its chief attractions the
Renaissance chateaux St. Aignan and Chenonceaux, the Roman remains of
Chabris, Thezee, and Larcay, the Romanesque churches of Selles and St.
Aignan, and the feudal donjon of Montrichard. The Indre possesses the
chateau of Azay-le-Rideau and the sombre fortresses of Montbazon and
Loches; while the Vienne depends for its chief interest upon the galaxy
of fortress-chateaux at Chinon.
The Loire is a mighty river and is navigable for nearly nine hundred
kilometres of its length, almost to Le Puy, or, to be exact, to the
little town of Vorey in the Department of the Haute Loire.
At Orleans, Blois, or Tours one hardly realizes this, much less at
Nevers. The river appears to be a great, tranquil, docile stream, with
scarce enough water in its bed to make a respectable current, leaving
its beds and bars of _sable_ and _cailloux_ bare to the sky.
The scarcity of water, except at occasional flood, is the principal and
obvious reason for the absence of water-borne traffic, even though a
paternal ministerial department of the government calls the river
navigable.
At the times of the _grandes crues_ there are four metres or more
registered on the big scale at the Pont d'Ancenis, while at other times
it falls to less than a metre, and when it does there is a mere rivulet
of water which trickles through the broad river-bottom at Chaumont, or
Blois, or Orleans. Below Ancenis navigation is not so difficult, but the
current is more strong.
From Blois to Angers, on the right bank, extends a long dike which
carries the roadway beside the river for a couple of hundred kilometres.
This is one of the charms of travel by the Loire. The only thing usually
seen on the bosom of the river, save an occasional fishing punt, is one
of those great flat-bottomed ferry-boats, with a square sail hung on a
yard amidships, such as Turner always made an accompaniment to his Loire
pictures, for conditions of traffic on the river have not greatly
changed.
Whenever one sees a barge or a boat worthy of classification with those
one finds on the rivers of the east or north, or on the great canals, it
is only about a quarter of the usual size; so, in spite of its great
navigable length, the waterway of the Loire is to be considered more as
a picturesque and healthful element of the landscape than as a
commercial proposition.
Where the great canals join the river at Orleans, and from Chatillon to
Roanne, the traffic increases, though more is carried by the canal-boats
on the _Canal Lateral_ than by the barges on the Loire.
It is only on the Loire between Angers and Nantes that there is any
semblance of river traffic such as one sees on most of the other great
waterways of Europe. There is a considerable traffic, too, which
descends the Maine, particularly from Angers downward, for Angers with
its Italian skies is usually thought of, and really is to be considered,
as a Loire town, though it is actually on the banks of the Maine some
miles from the Loire itself.
One thousand or more bateaux make the ascent to Angers from the Loire at
La Pointe each year, all laden with a miscellaneous cargo of
merchandise. The Sarthe and the Loir also bring a notable agricultural
traffic to the greater Loire, and the smaller confluents, the Dive, the
Thouet, the Authion, and the Layon, all go to swell the parent stream
until, when it reaches Nantes, the Loire has at last taken on something
of the aspect of a well-ordered and useful stream, characteristics which
above Nantes are painfully lacking. Because of its lack of commerce the
Loire is in a certain way the most noble, magnificent, and aristocratic
river of France; and so, too, it is also in respect to its associations
of the past.
It has not the grandeur of the Rhone when the spring freshets from the
Jura and the Swiss lakes have filled it to its banks; it has not the
burning activity of the Seine as it bears its thousands of boat-loads of
produce and merchandise to and from the Paris market; it has not the
prettiness of the Thames, nor the legendary aspect of the Rhine; but in
a way it combines something of the features of all, and has, in
addition, a tone that is all its own, as it sweeps along through its
countless miles of ample curves, and holds within its embrace all that
is best of mediaeval and Renaissance France, the period which built up
the later monarchy and, who shall not say, the present prosperous
republic.
Throughout most of the river's course, one sees, stretching to the
horizon, row upon row of staked vineyards with fruit and leaves in
luxuriant abundance and of all rainbow colours. The peasant here, the
worker in the vineyards, is a picturesque element. He is not
particularly brilliant in colouring, but he is usually joyous, and he
invariably lives in a well-kept and brilliantly environed habitation and
has an air of content and prosperity amid the well-beloved treasures of
his household.
The Loire is essentially a river of other days. Truly, as Mr. James has
said, "It is the very model of a generous, beneficent stream ... a wide
river which you may follow by a wide road is excellent company."
The Frenchman himself is more flowery: "_C'est la plus noble riviere de
France. Son domaine est immense et magnifique._"
[Illustration: THE ANCIENT PROVINCES OF THE LOIRE VALLEY AND THEIR
CAPITALS (MAP)]
THE ANCIENT
PROVINCES OF THE
LOIRE VALLEY
AND THEIR
CAPITALS
Bretagne Rennes
Anjou Angers
Touraine Tours
Orleannais Orleans
Berry Bourges
Nivernais Nevers
Bourbonnais Moulins
Lyonnais Lyon
Bourgogne Dijon
Auvergne Clermont-Ferrand
Languedoc Toulouse
The Loire is the longest river in France, and the only one of the four
great rivers whose basin or watershed lies wholly within French
territory. It moreover traverses eleven provinces. It rises in a fissure
of granite rock at the foot of the Gerbier-de-Jonc, a volcanic cone in
the mountains of the Vivarais, a hundred kilometres or more south of
Lyons. In three kilometres, approximately two miles, the little torrent
drops a thousand feet, after receiving to its arms a tiny affluent
coming from the Croix de Monteuse.
For twelve kilometres the river twists and turns around the base of the
Vivarais mountains, and finally enters a gorge between the rocks, and
mingles with the waters of the little Lac d'Issarles, entering for the
first time a flat lowland plain like that through which its course
mostly runs.
The monument-crowned pinnacles of Le Puy and the inverted bowl of
Puy-de-Dome rise high above the plain and point the way to Roanne, where
such activity as does actually take place upon the Loire begins.
Navigation, classed officially as "_flottable_," merely, has already
begun at Vorey, just below Le Puy, but the traffic is insignificant.
Meantime the streams coming from the direction of St. Etienne and Lyons
have been added to the Loire, but they do not much increase its bulk.
St. Galmier, the _source_ dear to patrons of _tables d'hote_ on account
of its palatable mineral water, which is about the only decent
drinking-water one can buy at a reasonable price, lies but a short
distance away to the right.
At St. Rambert the plain of Forez is entered, and here the stream is
enriched by numberless rivulets which make their way from various
sources through a thickly wooded country.
From Roanne onward, the _Canal Lateral_ keeps company with the Loire to
Chatillon, not far from Orleans.
Before reaching Nevers, the _Canal du Nivernais_ branches off to the
left and joins the Loire with the Yonne at Auxerre. Daudet tells of the
life of the _Canal du Nivernais_, in "La Belle Nivernaise," in a manner
too convincingly graphic for any one else to attempt the task, in
fiction or out of it. Like the Tartarin books, "La Belle Nivernaise" is
distinctly local, and forms of itself an excellent guide to a little
known and little visited region.
At Nevers the topography changes, or rather, the characteristics of the
life of the country round about change, for the topography, so far as
its profile is concerned, remains much the same for three-fourths the
length of this great river. Nevers, La Charite, Sancerre, Gien, and
Cosne follow in quick succession, all reminders of a historic past as
vivid as it was varied.
From the heights of Sancerre one sees a wonderful history-making
panorama before him. Caesar crossed the Loire at Gien, the Franks forded
the river at La Charite, when they first went against Aquitaine, and
Charles the Bald came sadly to grief on a certain occasion at Pouilly.
It is here that the Loire rises to its greatest flood, and hundreds of
times, so history tells, from 490 to 1866, the fickle river has caused a
devastation so great and terrible that the memory of it is not yet dead.
This hardly seems possible of this usually tranquil stream, and there
have always been scoffers.
Madame de Sevigne wrote in 1675 to M. de Coulanges (but in her case
perhaps it was mere well-wishing), "_La belle Loire, elle est un peu
sujette a se deborder, mais elle en est plus douce_."
Ancient writers were wont to consider the inundations of the Loire as a
punishment from Heaven, and even in later times the superstition--if it
was a superstition--still remained.
[Illustration: _The Loire near La Charite_]
In 1825, when thousands of charcoal-burners (_charbonniers_) were all
but ruined, they petitioned the government for assistance. The official
who had the matter in charge, and whose name--fortunately for his
fame--does not appear to have been recorded, replied simply that the
flood was a periodical condition of affairs which the Almighty brought
about as occasion demanded, with good cause, and for this reason he
refused all assistance.
Important public works have done much to prevent repetitions of these
inundations, but the danger still exists, and always, in a wet season,
there are those dwellers along the river's banks who fear the rising
flood as they would the plague.
Chatillon, with its towers; Gien, a busy hive of industry, though with a
historic past; Sully; and St. Benoit-sur-Loire, with its unique double
transepted church; all pass in rapid review, and one enters the ancient
capital of the Orleannais quite ready for the new chapter which, in
colouring, is to be so different from that devoted to the upper valley.
From Orleans, south, one passes through a veritable wonderland of
fascinating charms. Chateaux, monasteries, and great civic and
ecclesiastical monuments pass quickly in turn.
Then comes Touraine which all love, the river meantime having grown no
more swift or ample, nor any more sluggish or attenuated. It is simply
the same characteristic flow which one has known before.
The landscape only is changing, while the fruits and flowers, and the
trees and foliage are more luxuriant, and the great chateaux are more
numerous, splendid, and imposing.
Of his well-beloved Touraine, Balzac wrote: "Do not ask me _why_ I love
Touraine; I love it not merely as one loves the cradle of his birth, nor
as one loves an oasis in a desert, but as an artist loves his art."
Blois, with its bloody memories; Chaumont, splendid and retired;
Chambord, magnificent, pompous, and bare; Amboise, with its great tower
high above the river, follow in turn till the Loire makes its regal
entree into Tours. "What a spectacle it is," wrote Sterne in "Tristram
Shandy," "for a traveller who journeys through Touraine at the time of
the vintage."
And then comes the final step which brings the traveller to where the
limpid waters of the Loire mingle with the salty ocean, and what a
triumphant meeting it is!
[Illustration: _Coiffes of Amboise and Orleans_]
Most of the cities of the Loire possess but one bridge, but Tours has
three, and, as becomes a great provincial capital, sits enthroned
upon the river-bank in mighty splendour.
The feudal towers of the Chateau de Luynes are almost opposite, and
Cinq-Mars, with its pagan "_pile_" and the ruins of its feudal castle
high upon a hill, points the way down-stream like a mariner's beacon.
Langeais follows, and the Indre, the Cher, and the Vienne, all ample and
historic rivers, go to swell the flood which passes under the bridges of
Saumur, Ancenis, and Ponts de Ce.
From Tours to the ocean, the Loire comes to its greatest amplitude,
though even then, in spite of its breadth, it is, for the greater part
of the year, impotent as to the functions of a great river.
Below Angers the Loire receives its first great affluent coming from the
country lying back of the right bank: the Maine itself is a considerable
river. It rises far up in the Breton peninsula, and before it empties
itself into the Loire, it has been aggrandized by three great
tributaries, the Loir, the Sarthe, and the Mayenne.
Here in this backwater of the Loire, as one might call it, is as
wonderful a collection of natural beauties and historical chateaux as on
the Loire itself. Chateaudun, Mayenne, and Vendome are historic ground
of superlative interest, and the great castle at Chateaudun is as
magnificent in its way as any of the monuments of the Loire. Vendome has
a Hotel de Ville which is an admirable relic of a feudal edifice, and
the _clocher_ of its church, which dominates many square leagues of
country, is counted as one of the most perfectly disposed church spires
in existence, as lovely, almost, as Texier's masterwork at Chartres, or
the needle-like _fleches_ at Strasburg or Freiburg in Breisgau.
The Maine joins the Loire just below Angers, at a little village
significantly called La Pointe. Below La Pointe are St.
Georges-sur-Loire, and three _chateaux de commerce_ which give their
names to the three principal Angevin vineyards: Chateau Serrand,
l'Epinay, and Chevigne.
Vineyard after vineyard, and chateau after chateau follow rapidly, until
one reaches the Ponts de Ce with their _petite ville_,--all very
delightful. Not so the bridge at Ancenis, where the flow of water is
marked daily on a huge black and white scale. The bridge is quite the
ugliest wire-rope affair to be seen on the Loire, and one is only too
glad to leave it behind, though it is with a real regret that he parts
from Ancenis itself.
Some years ago one could go from Angers to St. Nazaire by boat. It must
have been a magnificent trip, extraordinarily calm and serene, amid an
abundance of picturesque details; old chateaux and bridges in strong
contrast to the prairies of Touraine and the Orleannais. One embarked at
the foot of the stupendously towered chateau of King Rene, and for a
_petite heure_ navigated the Maine in the midst of great _chalands_,
fussy little _remorqueurs_ and _barques_ until La Pointe was reached,
when the Loire was followed to Nantes and St. Nazaire.
To-day this fine trip is denied one, the boats going only so far as La
Pointe.
Below Angers the Loire flows around and about a veritable archipelago of
islands and islets, cultivated with all the luxuriance of a back-yard
garden, and dotted with tiny hamlets of folk who are supremely happy and
content with their lot.
Some currents which run behind the islands are swift flowing and
impetuous, while others are practically elongated lakes, as dead as
those _lomes_ which in certain places flank the Saone and the Rhone.
All these various branches are united as the Loire flows between the
piers of the ungainly bridge of the Chemin-de-fer de Niort as it crosses
the river at Chalonnes.
Champtoce and Montjean follow, each with an individuality all its own.
Here the commerce takes on an increased activity, thanks to the great
national waterway known as the "Canal de Brest a Nantes." Here at the
busy port of Montjean--which the Angevins still spell and pronounce
_Montejean_--the Loire takes on a breadth and grandeur similar to the
great rivers in the western part of America. Montjean is dominated by a
fine ogival church, with a battery of arcs-boutants which are a joy in
themselves.
On the other bank, lying back of a great plain, which stretches away
from the river itself, is Champtoce, pleasantly situated on the flank of
a hill and dominated by the ruins of a thirteenth-century chateau which
belonged to the cruel Gilles de Retz, somewhat apocryphally known to
history as "Barbe-bleu"--not the Bluebeard of the nursery tale, who was
of Eastern origin, but a sort of Occidental successor who was equally
cruel and bloodthirsty in his attitude toward his whilom wives.
From this point on one comes within the sphere of influence of Nantes,
and there is more or less of a suburban traffic on the railway, and the
plodders cityward by road are more numerous than the mere vagabonds of
the countryside.
The peasant women whom one meets wear a curious bonnet, set on the head
well to the fore, with wings at the side folded back quite like the
pictures that one sees of the mediaeval dames of these parts, a survival
indeed of the middle ages.
The Loire becomes more and more animated and occasionally there is a
great tow of boats like those that one sees continually passing on the
lower Seine. Here the course of the Loire takes on a singular aspect. It
is filled with long flat islands, sometimes in archipelagos, but often
only a great flat prairie surrounded by a tranquil canal, wide and deep,
and with little resemblance to the mistress Loire of a hundred or two
kilometres up-stream. All these isles are in a high state of
cultivation, though wholly worked with the hoe and the spade, both of
them of a primitiveness that might have come down from Bible times; rare
it is to see a horse or a harrow on these "bouquets of verdure
surrounded by waves."
Near Oudon is one of those monumental follies which one comes across
now and then in most foreign countries: a great edifice which serves no
useful purpose, and which, were it not for certain redeeming features,
would be a sorry thing indeed. The "Folie-Siffait," a citadel which
perches itself high upon the summit of a hill, was--and is--an
_amusette_ built by a public-spirited man of Nantes in order that his
workmen might have something to do in a time of a scarcity of work. It
is a bizarre, incredible thing, but the motive which inspired its
erection was most worthy, and the roadway running beneath, piercing its
foundation walls, gives a theatrical effect which, in a way, makes it
the picturesque rival of many a more famous Rhine castle.
The river valley widens out here at Oudon, practically the frontier of
Bretagne and Anjou. The railroad pierces the rock walls of the river
with numerous tunnels along the right bank, and the Vendean country
stretches far to the southward in long rolling hills quite unlike any of
the characteristics of other parts of the valley. Finally, the vast
plain of Mauves comes into sight, beautifully coloured with a white and
iron-stained rocky background which is startlingly picturesque in its
way, if not wholly beautiful according to the majority of standards.
Next comes what a Frenchman has called a "tumultuous vision of Nantes."
To-day the very ancient and historic city which grew up from the Portus
Namnetum and the Condivicnum of the Romans is indeed a veritable tumult
of chimneys, masts, and locomotives. But all this will not detract one
jot from its reputation of being one of the most delightful of
provincial capitals, and the smoke and activity of its port only tend to
accentuate a note of colour that in the whole itinerary of the Loire has
been but pale.
Below Nantes the Loire estuary has turned the surrounding country into a
little Holland, where fisherfolk and their boats, with sails of red and
blue, form charming symphonies of pale colour. In the _cabarets_ along
its shores there is a strange medley of peasants, sea-farers, and fisher
men and women. Not so cosmopolitan a crew as one sees in the harbourside
_cabarets_ at Marseilles, or even Le Havre, but sufficiently strange to
be a fascination to one who has just come down from the headwaters.
The "Section Maritime," from Nantes to the sea, is a matter of some
sixty kilometres. Here the boats increase in number and size. They are
known as _gabares_, _chalands_, and _alleges_, and go down with the
river-current and return on the incoming ebb, for here the river is
tidal.
Gray and green is the aspect at the Loire's source, and green and gray
it still is, though of a decidedly different colour-value, at St.
Nazaire, below Nantes, the real deep-water port of the Loire.
By this time the river has amplified into a broad estuary which is lost
in the incoming and outgoing tides of the Bay of Biscay.
For nearly a thousand kilometres the Loire has wound its way gently and
broadly through rocky escarpments, fertile plains, populous and
luxurious towns,--all of it historic ground,--by stately chateaux and
through vineyards and fruit orchards, with a placid grandeur.
Now it becomes more or less prosaic and matter-of-fact, though in a way
no less interesting, as it takes on some of the attributes of the
outside world.
This outline, then, approximates somewhat a portrait of the Loire. It is
the result of many pilgrimages enthusiastically undertaken; a long
contemplation of the charms of perhaps the most beautiful river in
France, from its source to its mouth, at all seasons of the year.
The riches and curios of the cities along its banks have been
contemplated with pleasure, intermingled with a memory of many stirring
scenes of the past, but it is its chateaux that make it famous.
The story of the chateaux has been told before in hundreds of volumes,
but only a personal view of them will bring home to one the manners and
customs of one of the most luxurious periods of life in the France of
other days.