AMBOISE
As one approaches Amboise, he leaves the comparatively insalubrious
plain of the Sologne and the Blaisois and enters Touraine.
Amboise! What history has been made there; what a wealth of action its
memories recall, and what splendour, gaiety, and sadness its walls have
held! An entire book might be written about the scenes which took place
under its roof.
To-day most travellers are content to rush over its apartments, gaze at
its great round tower, view the Loire, which is here quite at its best,
from the battlements, and, after a brief admiration of the wonderfully
sculptured portal of its chapel, make their way to Chenonceaux, or to
the gay little metropolis of Tours.
[Illustration: _Chateau d'Amboise_]
No matter whither one turns his steps from Amboise, he will not soon
forget this great fortress-chateau and the memories of the _petite
bande_ of blondes and brunettes who followed in the wake of Francois
Premier.
Here, and at Blois, the recollections of this little band are strong in
the minds of students of romance and history. Some one has said that
along the corridors of Amboise one still may meet the wraiths of those
who in former days went airily from one pleasure to another, but this of
course depends upon the mood and sentiment of the visitor.
Amboise has a very good imitation of the climate of the south, and the
glitter of the Loire at midday in June is about as torrid a picture as
one can paint in a northern clime. It is not that it is so very hot in
degree, but that the lack of shade-trees along its quays gives Amboise a
shimmering resemblance to a much warmer place than it really is. The
Loire is none too ample here, and frets its way, as it does through most
of its lower course, through banks of sand and pebbles in a more or less
vain effort to look cool.
Amboise is old, for, under the name of Ambatia, it existed in the fourth
century, at which epoch St. Martin, the patron of Tours, threw down a
pagan pyramidal temple here and established Christianity; and Clovis and
Alaric held their celebrated meeting on the Ile St. Jean in 496. It was
not long after this, according to the ancient writers, that some sort
of a fortified chateau took form here. Louis-le-Begue gave Amboise to
the Counts of Anjou, and Hughes united the two independent seigneuries
of the chateau and the bourg. After the Counts of Anjou succeeded the
Counts of Berry, Charles VII., by appropriation, confiscation, seizure,
or whatever you please to call it,--history is vague as to the real
motive,--united Amboise to the possessions of the Crown in 1434. Louis
XI. lived for a time at this strong fortress-chateau, before he turned
his affections so devotedly to Plessis-les-Tours. Charles VIII. was born
and died here, and it was he who added the Renaissance details, or at
least the first of them, upon his return from Italy. Indeed, it is to
him and to the nobles who followed in his train during his Italian
travels that the introduction of the Renaissance into France is commonly
attributed.
It was at Amboise that Charles VIII., forgetful of the miseries of his
Italian campaign, set about affairs of state with a renewed will and
vigour. He was personally superintending some alterations in the old
castle walls, and instructing the workmen whom he brought from Italy
with him as to just how far they might introduce those details which the
world has come to know as Renaissance, when, in passing beneath a low
overhanging beam, he struck his head so violently that he expired almost
immediately (April 17, 1498).
Louis XII., the superstitious, lived here for some time, and here
occurred some of the most important events in the life of the great
Francois, the real popularizer of the new architectural Renaissance.
It was in the old castle of Amboise, the early home of Louis XII., that
his appointed successor, his son-in-law and second cousin, Francois, was
brought up. Here he was educated by his mother, Louise de Savoie,
Duchesse d'Angouleme, together with that bright and shining light, that
Marguerite who was known as the "Pearl of the Valois," poetess, artist,
and court intriguer. Here the household formed what in the early days
Francois himself was pleased to call a "trinity of love."
Throughout the structure may yet be seen the suggestions of Francois's
artistic instincts, traced in the window-framings of the facade, in the
interior decorations of the long gallery, and on the terrace hanging
high above the Loire.
In the park and in the surrounding forest Francois and his sister
Marguerite passed many happy days of their childhood. Marguerite, who
had already become known as the "tenth muse," had already thought out
her "Heptameron," whilst Francois tried his prentice hand at
love-rhyming, an expression of sentiment which at a later period took
the form of avowals in person to his favourites.
One recalls those stanzas to the memory of Agnes Sorel, beginning:
"Gentille Agnes plus de loz tu merite,
La cause etait de France recouvrir;
Que ce que peut dedans un cloitre ouvrir
Close nonnaine? ou bien devot hermite?"
Francois was more than a lover of the beautiful. His appreciation of
architectural art amounted almost to a passion, and one might well claim
him as a member of the architectural guild, although, in truth, he was
nothing more than a generous patron of the craftsmen of his day.
Francois was the real father of the French Renaissance, the more
splendid flower which grew from the Italian stalk. He had no liking for
the Van Eycks and Holbeins of the Dutch school, reserving his favour for
the frankly languid masters from the south. He brought from Italy
Cellini, Primaticcio, and the great Leonardo, who it is said had a hand
in that wonderful shell-like spiral stairway in the chateau at Blois.
By just what means Da Vinci was inveigled from Italy will probably never
be known. The art-loving Francois visited Milan, and among its
curiosities was shown the even then celebrated "Last Supper" of
Leonardo. The next we know is that, "_Francois repasse les Alpes ayant
avec lui Mon Sieur Lyonard, son peintre_." Leonardo was given a pension
of seven _ecus de France_ per year and a residence near Amboise. Vasari
recounts very precisely how Leonardo expired in the arms of his kingly
patron at Amboise, but on the other hand, the court chronicles have said
that Francois was at St. Germain on that day. Be this as it may, the
intimacy was a close one, and we may be sure that Francois felt keenly
the demise of this most celebrated painter of his court.
It was during those early idyllic days at Amboise that the character of
Francois was formed, and the marvel is that the noble and endearing
qualities did not exceed the baser ones. To be sure his after lot was
hard, and his real and fancied troubles many, and they were not made the
less easy to bear because of his numerous female advisers.
In his youth at Amboise his passions still slumbered, but when they did
awaken, they burst forth with an unquenchable fury. Meantime he was
working off any excess of imagination by boar-hunts and falconry in the
neighbouring forest of Chanteloup, and had more than one hand-to-hand
affray with resentful citizens of the town, when he encroached upon what
they considered their traditional preserves. So he grew to man's estate,
but the life that he lived in his youth under the kingly roof of the
chateau at Amboise gave him the benefits of all the loyalty which his
fellows knew, and it helped him carry out the ideas which were
bequeathed to him by his uncle.
It was at a sitting of the court at Amboise, when Francois was still
under his mother's wing,--at the age of twenty only,--that the Bourbon
affair finally came to its head. Many notables were mixed up in it as
partisans of the ungrateful and ambitious Bourbon, Charles de
Montpensier, Connetable de France. It was an office only next in power
to that of the sovereign himself, and one which had been allowed to die
out in the reign of Louis XI. The final outcome of it all was that
Francois became a prisoner at Pavia, through the treachery of the
Connetable and his followers, who went over _en masse_ to Francois's
rival, Charles V., who, as Charles II., was King of Spain.
Of the subsequent meeting with the Emperor Charles on French soil,
Francois said to the Duchesse d'Etampes: "It is with regret that I leave
you to meet the emperor at Amboise on the Loire." And he added: "You
will follow me with the queen." His queen at this time was poor Eleanor
of Portugal, herself a Spanish princess, Claude of France, his first
wife, having died. "These two," says Brantome, "were the only virtuous
women of his household."
The Emperor Charles was visibly affected by the meeting, though, it is
true, he had no love for his old enemy, Francois. Perhaps it was on
account of the duchess, for whom Francois had put aside Diane. At any
rate, the emperor was gallant enough to say to her: "It is only in
France that I have seen such a perfection of elegance and beauty. My
brother, your king, should be the envy of all the sovereigns of Europe.
Had I such a captive at my palace in Madrid, there were no ransom that I
would accept for her."
Francois cared not for the lonely Spanish princess whom he had made his
queen; but he was somewhat susceptible to the charms of his
daughter-in-law, Catherine de Medici, the wife of his son Henri, who,
when at Amboise, was his ever ready companion in the chase.
Francois was inordinately fond of the hunt, and made of it a most
strenuous pastime, full of danger and of hard riding in search of the
boar and the wolf, which abounded in the thick underwood in the
neighbourhood. One wonders where they, or, rather, their descendants,
have disappeared, since nought in these days but a frightened hare, a
partridge, or perhaps a timid deer ever crosses one's path, as he makes
his way by the smooth roads which cross and recross the forest behind
Amboise.
When Francois II. was sixteen he became the nominal king of France. To
Amboise he and his young bride came, having been brought thither from
Blois, for fear of the Huguenot rising. The court settled itself
forthwith at Amboise, where the majestic feudal castle piled itself high
up above the broad, limpid Loire, feeling comparatively secure within
the protection of its walls. Here the Loire had widened to the
pretensions of a lake, the river being spanned by a bridge, which
crossed it by the help of the island, as it does to-day.
Over this old stone bridge the court approached the castle, the retinue
brilliant with all the trappings of a luxurious age, archers, pages,
and men-at-arms. The king and his new-found bride, the winsome Mary
Stuart, rode well in the van. In their train were Catherine, the
"queen-mother" of three kings, the Cardinal de Lorraine, the Duc de
Guise, the Duc de Nemours, and a vast multitude of gay retainers, who
were moved about from place to place like pawns upon the chess-board,
and with about as much consideration.
The gentle Mary Stuart, born in 1542, at Linlithgow, in stern Caledonia,
of a French mother,--Marie de Lorraine,--was doomed to misfortune, for
her father, the noble James V., prophesied upon his death-bed that the
dynasty would end with his daughter.
At the tender age of five Mary was sent to France and placed in a
convent. Her education was afterward continued at court under the
direction of her uncle, the Cardinal de Lorraine. By ten she had become
well versed in French, Latin, and Italian, and at one time, according to
Brantome, she gave a discourse on literature and the liberal arts--so
flourishing at the time--before the king and his court. Ronsard was her
tutor in versification, which became one of her favourite pursuits.
Mary Stuart's charms were many. She was tall and finely formed, with
auburn hair shining like an aureole above her intellectual forehead, and
with a skin of such dazzling whiteness--a trite saying, but one which is
used by Brantome--"that it outrivalled the whiteness of her veil."
In the spring of 1558, when she was but sixteen, Mary Stuart was married
to the Dauphin, the weak, sickly Francois II., himself but a youth. He
was, however, sincerely and deeply fond of his young wife.
Unexpectedly, through the death of Henri II. at the hands of Montgomery
at that ever debatable tournament, Francois II. ascended the throne of
France, and Mary Stuart saw herself exalted to the dizzy height which
she had not so soon expected. She became the queen of two kingdoms, and,
had the future been more propitious, the whole map of Europe might have
been changed.
Disease had marked the unstable Francois for its own, and within a year
he passed from the throne to the grave, leaving his young queen a widow
and an orphan.
Shortly afterward "_la reine blanche_" returned to her native Scotland,
bidding France that long, last, sad adieu so often quoted:
"Farewell, beloved France, to thee!
Best native land,
The cherished strand
That nursed my tender infancy!
Farewell my childhood's happy day!
The bark, which bears me thus away,
Bears but the poorer moiety hence,
The nobler half remains with thee,
I leave it to thy confidence,
But to remind thee still of me!"
The young sovereigns had had a most stately suite of apartments prepared
for them at Amboise, the lofty windows reaching from floor to ceiling
and overlooking the river and the vast terrace where was so soon to be
enacted that bloody drama to which they were to be made unwilling
witnesses.
This gallery was wainscoted with old oak and hung with rich leathers,
and the lofty ceiling was emblazoned with heraldic emblems and
monograms, as was the fashion of the day. Brocades and tapestries, set
in great gold frames, lined the walls, and, in a boudoir or
retiring-room beyond, still definitely to be recognized, was a
remarkable series of embroidered wall decorations, a tapestry of flowers
and fruits with an arabesque border of white and gold, truly a queenly
apartment, and one that well became the luxurious and dainty Mary, who
came from Scotland to marry the youthful Francois.
Mary Stuart knew little at the time as to why they had so suddenly
removed from Blois, but Francois soon told her, something after this
wise: "Our mother," said he, "is deeply concerned with affairs of state.
There is some conspiracy against her and your uncles, the Guises."
"Tell me," she demanded, "concerning this dreadful conspiracy."
"Were you not suspicious," he asked, querulously, "when we left for
Amboise so suddenly?"
"_Ah, non, mon Francois_, methought that we came here to hold a jousting
tourney and to hunt in the forest...."
"Well, at any rate, we are secure here from Turk, or Jew, or Huguenot,
my queen," replied the king.
Within a short space a council was called in the great hall of Amboise,
which the Huguenot chiefs, Conde, Coligny, the Cardinal de
Chatillon,--who appears to have been a sort of a religious
renegade,--were requested to attend. A conciliatory edict was to be
prepared, and signed by the king, as a measure for gaining time and
learning further the plans of the conspirators.
This edict ultimately was signed, but it was in force but a short time
and was a subterfuge which the youthful king deep in his heart--and he
publicly avowed the fact--deeply resented. Furthermore it did
practically nothing toward quelling the conspiracy.
Through the plains of Touraine and over the hills from Anjou the
conspirators came in straggling bands, to rendezvous for a great _coup
de main_ at Amboise. They halted at farms and hid in vineyards, but the
royalists were on the watch and one after another the wandering bands
were captured and held for a bloody public massacre when the time should
become ripe. In all, two thousand or more were captured, including Jean
Barri de la Renaudie. This man was the leader, but he was merely a bold
adventurer, seeking his own advantage, and caring little what cause
employed his peculiar talents. This was his last affair, however, for
his corpse soon hung in chains from Amboise's bridge. Conde, Coligny,
and the other Calvinists soon learned that the edict was not worth the
paper on which it was written.
After the two thousand had been dispersed or captured the
"queen-mother" threw off the mask. She led the trembling child-king and
queen toward the southern terrace, where, close beneath the windows of
the chateau, was built a scaffold, covered with black cloth, before
which stood the executioner clothed in scarlet. The prisoners were
ranged by hundreds along the outer rampart, guarded by archers and
musketeers. The windows of the royal apartment were open and here the
company placed themselves to witness the butchery to follow.
Speechless with horror sat the young king and queen, until finally, as
another batch of mutilated corpses were thrown into the river below, the
young queen swooned.
"My mother," said Francois, "I, too, am overcome by this horrible sight.
I crave your Highness's permission to retire; the blood of my subjects,
even of my enemies, is too horrible to contemplate."
"My son," said the bloodthirsty Catherine, "I command you to stay. Duc
de Guise, support your niece, the Queen of France. Teach her her duty as
a sovereign. She must learn how to govern those hardy Scots of hers."
It was on the very terraced platform on which one walks to-day that,
between two ranks of _hallebardiers_ and arquebusiers, moved that long
line of bareheaded and bowed men whose prayers went up to heaven while
they awaited the fate of the gallows.
Either the cord or the sword-blade quickly accounted for the lives of
this multitude, and their blood flowed in rivulets, while above in the
gallery the willing and unwilling onlookers were gay with laughter or
dumb with sadness.
When all this horrible murdering was over the Loire was literally a
reeking mass of corpses, if we are to believe the records of the time.
The chief conspirators were hung in chains from the castle walls, or
from the bridge, and the balustrades which overhang the street, which
to-day flanks the Loire beneath the castle walls, were filled with a
ribald crew of jeering partisans who knew little and cared less for
religion of any sort.
Some days after the execution of the Calvinists the "Protestant poet"
and historian passed through the royal city with his _precepteur_ and
his father, and was shown the rows of heads planted upon pikes, which
decorated the castle walls, and thereupon vowed, if not to avenge, at
least to perpetuate the infamy in prose and verse, and this he did most
effectually.
An odorous garden of roses, lilacs, honeysuckle, and hawthorn framed the
joyous architecture of the chateau, then as now, in adorable fashion;
but it could not purify the malodorous reputation which it had received
until the domain was ceded by Louis XIV. to the Duc de Penthievre and
made a _duche-pairie_.
It would be possible to say much more, but this should suffice to stamp
indelibly the fact that Touraine, in general, and the chateau of
Amboise, in particular, cradled as much of the thought and action of the
monarchy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as did the capital
itself. At any rate the memory of it all is so vivid, and the tangible
monuments of the splendour and intrigue of the court of those days are
so very numerous and magnificent, that one could not forget the parts
they played--once having seen them--if he would.
After the assassination of the Duc de Guise at Blois, Amboise became a
prison of state, where were confined the Cardinal de Bourbon and Cesar
de Vendome (the sons of Henri IV. and Gabrielle d'Estrees), also Fouquet
and Lauzun. In 1762 the chateau was given by Louis XV. to the Duc de
Choiseul, and the great Napoleon turned it over to his ancient
colleague, Roger Ducos, who apparently cared little for its beauties
or associations, for he mutilated it outrageously.
[Illustration: _Sculpture from the Chapelle de St. Hubert_]
In later times the history of the chateau and its dependencies has been
more prosaic. The Emir Abd-el-Kader was imprisoned here in 1852, and
Louis Napoleon stayed for a time within its walls upon his return from
the south. To-day it belongs to the family of Orleans, to whom it was
given by the National Assembly in 1872, and has become a house of
retreat for military veterans. This is due to the generosity of the Duc
d'Aumale into whose hands it has since passed. The restoration which has
been carried on has made of Amboise an ideal reproduction of what it
once was, and in every way it is one of the most splendid and famous
chateaux of its kind, though by no means as lovable as the residential
chateaux of Chenonceaux or Langeais.
The Chapelle de St. Hubert, which was restored by Louis Philippe, is the
chief artistic attraction of Amboise; a bijou of full-blown Gothic. It
is a veritable architectural joy of the period of Charles VIII., to whom
its erection was due. Its portal has an adorable bas-relief,
representing "La Chasse de St. Hubert," and showing St. Hubert, St.
Christopher, and St. Anthony, while above, in the tympanum, are
effigies of the Virgin, of Charles VIII., and of Anne de Bretagne. The
sculpture is, however, comparatively modern, but it embellishes a shrine
worthy in every way, for there repose the bones of Leonardo da Vinci.
Formerly Da Vinci's remains had rested in the chapel of the chateau
itself, dedicated to St. Florentin.
Often the Chapelle de St. Hubert has been confounded with that described
by Scott in "Quentin Durward," but it is manifestly not the same, as
that was located in Tours or near there, and his very words describe the
architecture as "of the rudest and meanest kind," which this is not.
Over the arched doorway of the chapel at Tours there was, however, a
"statue of St. Hubert with a bugle-horn around his neck and a leash of
greyhounds at his feet," which may have been an early suggestion of the
later work which was undertaken at Amboise.
All vocations came to have their protecting saints in the middle ages,
and, since "_la chasse_" was the great recreation of so many,
distinction was bestowed upon Hubert as being one of the most devout.
The legend is sufficiently familiar not to need recounting here, and,
anyway, the story is plainly told in this sculptured panel over the
portal of the chapel at Amboise.
In this Chapel of St. Hubert was formerly held "that which was called a
hunting-mass. The office was only used before the noble and powerful,
who, while assisting at the solemnity, were usually impatient to
commence their favourite sport."
The ancient Salle des Gardes of the chateau, with the windows giving on
the balcony overlooking the river, became later the Logis du Roi. From
this great chamber one passes on to the terrace near the foot of the
Grosse Tour, called the Tour des Minimes. It is this tower which
contains the "_escalier des voitures_." The entrance is through an
elegant portico leading to the upper stories. Above another portico,
leading from the terrace to the garden, is to be seen the emblem of
Louis XII., the porcupine, so common at Blois.
In the fosse, which still remains on the garden side, was the
universally installed _jeu-de-paume_, a favourite amusement throughout
the courts of Europe in the middle ages.
At the base of the chateau are clustered numerous old houses of the
sixteenth century, but on the river-front these have been replaced with
pretentious houses, cafes, automobile garages, and other modern
buildings.
Near the Quai des Violettes are a series of subterranean chambers known
as the Greniers de Cesar, dating from the sixteenth century.
[Illustration: _Cipher of Anne de Bretagne, Hotel de Ville, Amboise_]
Even at this late day one can almost picture the great characters in the
drama of other times who stalked majestically through the apartments,
and over the very flagstones of the courts and terraces which one treads
to-day; Catherine de Medici with her ruffs and velvets; Henri de Guise
with all his wiles; Conde the proud; the second Francois, youthful but
wise; his girl queen, loving and sad; and myriads more of all ranks and
of all shades of morality,--all resplendent in the velvets and gold of
the costume of their time.
Near the chateau is the Clos Luce, a Gothic habitation in whose oratory
died Leonardo da Vinci, on May 2, 1519.
Immediately back of the chateau is the Foret d'Amboise, the scene of
many gay hunting parties when the court was here or at Chenonceaux,
which one reaches by traversing the forest route. On the edge of this
forest is Chanteloup, remembered by most folk on account of its
atrocious Chinese-like pagoda, built of the debris of the Chateau de la
Bourdaisiere, by the Duc de Choiseul, in memory of the attentions he
received from the nobles and bourgeois of the ville upon the fall of his
ministry and his disgrace at the hands of Louis XV. and La Du Barry. It
is a curious form to be chosen when one had such beautiful examples of
architectural art near by, only equalled, perhaps, in atrociousness by
the "Royal Pavilion" of England's George IV.
La Bourdaisiere, near Amboise, of which only the site remains, if not
one of the chief tourist attractions of the chateau country, has at
least a sentimental interest of abounding importance for all who recall
the details of the life of "La Belle Gabrielle."
Here in Touraine Gabrielle d'Estrees was born in 1565. She was
twenty-six years old when Henri IV. first saw her in the chateau of her
father at Coeuvres. So charmed was he with her graces that he made her
his _maitresse_ forthwith, though the old court-life chronicles of the
day state that she already possessed something more than the admiration
of Sebastian Zamet, the celebrated financier.