CHENONCEAUX
"The castle of Chenonceaux is a fine place on the river Cher, in a fine
and pleasant country."
FRANCOIS PREMIER.
"The castle of Chenonceaux is one of the best and most beautiful of our
kingdom."
HENRI II.
The average visitor will come prepared to worship and admire a chateau
so praised by two luxury-loving Kings of France.
Chenonceaux is noted chiefly for its chateau, but the little village
itself is charming. The houses of the village are not very new, nor very
old, but the one long street is most attractive throughout its length,
and the whole atmosphere of the place, from September to December, is
odorous with the perfume of red-purple grapes. The vintage is not the
equal of that of the Bordeaux region, perhaps, nor of Chinon, nor
Saumur; but the _vin du pays_ of the Cher and the Loire, around Tours,
is not to be despised.
Most tourists come to Chenonceaux by train from Tours; others drive over
from Amboise, and yet others come by bicycle or automobile. They are not
as yet so numerous as might be expected, and accordingly here, as
elsewhere in Touraine, every facility is given for visiting the chateau
and its park.
If you do not hurry off at once to worship at the abode of the
fascinating Diane, one of the brightest ornaments of the court of
Francois Premier and his son Henri, you will enjoy your dinner at the
Hotel du Bon Laboureur, though most likely it will be a solitary one,
and you will be put to bed in a great chamber overlooking the park,
through which peep, in the moonlight, the turrets of the chateau, and
you may hear the purling of the waters of the Cher as it flows below the
walls.
Jean Jacques Rousseau, like Francois I., called Chenonceaux a beautiful
place, and he was right; it is all of that and more. Here one comes into
direct contact with an atmosphere which, if not feudal, or even
mediaeval, is at least that of several hundred years ago.
Chenonceaux is moored like a ship in the middle of the rapidly running
Cher, a dozen miles or more above where that stream enters the Loire.
As a matter of fact, the chateau practically bridges the river, which
flows under its foundations and beneath its drawbridge on either side,
besides filling the moat with water. The general effect is as if the
building were set in the midst of the stream and formed a sort of island
chateau. Round about is a gentle meadow and a great park, which give to
this turreted architectural gem of Touraine a setting which is equalled
by no other chateau.
What the chateau was in former days we can readily imagine, for nothing
is changed as to the general disposition. Boats came to the water-gate,
as they still might do if such boats still existed, in true, pictorial
legendary fashion. To-day, the present occupant has placed a curiosity
on the ornamental waters in the shape of a gondola. It is out of keeping
with the grand fabric of the chateau, and it is a pity that it does not
cast itself adrift some night. What has become of the gondolier, who was
imported to keep the craft company, nobody seems to know. He is
certainly not in evidence, or, if he is, has transformed himself into a
groom or a _chauffeur_.
The Chateau of Chenonceaux is not a very ample structure; not so ample
as most photographs would make it appear. It is not tiny, but still it
has not the magnificent proportions of Blois, of Chambord, or even of
Langeais. It was more a habitation than it was a fortress, a _maison de
campagne_, as indeed it virtually became when the Connetable de
Montmorency took possession of the structure in the name of the king,
when its builder, Thomas Bohier, the none too astute minister of
finances in Normandy, came to grief in his affairs.
Francois I. came frequently here for "_la chasse_," and his memory is
still kept alive by the Chambre Francois Premier. Francois held
possession till his death, when his son made it over to the "admired of
two generations," Diane de Poitiers.
Diane's memory will never leave Chenonceaux. To-day it is perpetuated in
the Chambre de Diane de Poitiers; but the portrait by Leonardo da Vinci,
which was supposed to best show her charms, has now disappeared from the
"long gallery" at the chateau. This portrait was painted at the command
of Francois, before Diane transferred her affections to his son.
No one knows when or how Diane de Poitiers first came to fascinate
Francois, or how or why her power waned. At any rate, at the time
Francois pardoned her father, the witless Comte de St. Vallier, for the
treacherous part he played in the Bourbon conspiracy, he really believed
her to be the "brightest ornament of a beauty-loving court."
Certainly, Diane was a powerful factor in the politics of her time,
though Francois himself soon tired of her. Undaunted by this, she
forthwith set her cap for his son Henri, the Duc d'Orleans, and won him,
too. Of her beauty the present generation is able to judge for itself by
reason of the three well-known and excellent portraits of contemporary
times.
Diane's influence over the young Henri was absolute. At his death her
power was, of course, at an end, and Chenonceaux, and all else possible,
was taken from her by the orders of Catherine, the long-suffering wife,
who had been put aside for the fascinations of the charming huntress.
It must have been some satisfaction, however, to Diane, to know that, in
his fatal joust with Montgomery, Henri really broke his lance and met
his death in her honour, for the records tell that he bore her colours
on his lance, besides her initials set in gold and gems on his shield.
Catherine's eagerness to drive Diane from the court was so great, that
no sooner had her spouse fallen--even though he did not actually die for
some days--than she sent word to Diane, "who sat weeping alone," to
instantly quit the court; to give up the crown jewels--which Henri had
somewhat inconsiderately given her; and to "give up Chenonceaux in
Touraine," Catherine's Naboth's vineyard, which she had so long admired
and coveted. She had known it as a girl, when she often visited it in
company with her father-in-law, the appreciative but dissolute Francois,
and had ever longed to possess it for her own, before even her husband,
now dead, had given it to "that old hag Diane de Poitiers, Duchesse de
Valentinois."
Diane paid no heed to Catherine's command. She simply asked: "Is the
king yet dead?"
"No, madame," said the messenger, "but his wound is mortal; he cannot
live the day."
"Tell the queen, then," replied Diane, "that her reign is not yet come;
that I am mistress still over her and the kingdom as long as the king
breathes the breath of life."
Henri was more or less an equivocal character, devoted to Diane, and
likewise fondone says it with caution--of his wife. He caused to be
fashioned a monogram (seen at Chenonceaux) after this wise: [MONOGRAM
DEPICTING TWO CAPITAL LETTERS "D", THE SECOND OF WHICH IS INVERTED; THE
LETTERS ARE INTERWOVEN IN THEIR "(" AND ")" PARTS, AND THERE IS A
HORIZONTAL BAR CROSSING THEM IN THE MIDDLE] supposedly indicating his
attachment for Diane and his wife alike. The various initials of the
cipher are in no way involved. Diane returned the compliment by
decorating an apartment for the king, at her Chateau of Anet, with the
black and white of the Medici arms.
The Chateau of Chenonceaux, so greatly coveted by Catherine when she
first came to France, and when it was in the possession of Diane, still
remains in all the regal splendour of its past. It lies in the lovely
valley of the Cher, far from the rush and turmoil of cities and even the
continuous traffic of great thoroughfares, for it is on the road to
nowhere unless one is journeying cross-country from the lower to the
upper Loire. This very isolation resulted in its being one of the few
monuments spared from the furies of the Revolution, and, "half-palace
and half-chateau," it glistens with the purity of its former glory, as
picturesque as ever, with turrets, spires, and roof-tops all mellowed
with the ages in a most entrancing manner.
Even to-day one enters the precincts of the chateau proper over a
drawbridge which spans an arm of the Loire, or rather, a moat which
leads directly from the parent stream. On the opposite side are the
bridge piers supporting five arches, the work of Diane when she was the
fair chatelaine of the domain. This ingenious thought proved to be a
most useful and artistic addition to the chateau. It formed a flagged
promenade, lovely in itself, and led to the southern bank of the Cher,
whence one got charming vistas of the turrets and roof-tops of the
chateau through the trees and the leafy avenues which converged upon the
structure.
[Illustration: CHATEAU DE CHENONCEAUX]
When Catherine came she did not disdain to make the best use of Diane's
innovation that suggested itself to her, which was simply to build the
"Long Gallery" over the arches of this lovely bridge, and so make of it
a veritable house over the water. A covering was made quite as beautiful
as the rest of the structure, and thus the bridge formed a spacious wing
of two stories. The first floor--known as the "Long Gallery"--was
intended as a banqueting-hall, and possessed four great full-length
windows on either side looking up and down stream, from which was
seen--and is to-day--an outlook as magnificently idyllic as is possible
to conceive. Jean Goujon had designed for the ceiling one of those
wonder-works for which he was famous, but if the complete plan was ever
carried out, it has disappeared, for only a tiny sketch of the whole
scheme remains to-day.
[Illustration: _Chateau of CHENONCEAUX_ (DIAGRAM)]
Catherine came in the early summer to take possession of her
long-coveted domain. Being a skilful horsewoman, she came on horseback,
accompanied by a "_petite bande_" of feminine charmers destined to
wheedle political secrets from friends and enemies alike,--a real
"_escadron volant de la reine_," as it was called by a contemporary.
It was a gallant company that assembled here at this time,--the young
King Charles IX., the Duc de Guise, and "two cardinals mounted on
mules,"--Lorraine, a true Guise, and D'Este, newly arrived from Italy,
and accompanied by the poet Tasso, wearing a "gabardine and a hood of
satin." Catherine showed the Italian great favour, as was due a
countryman, but there was another poet among them as well, Ronsard, the
poet laureate of the time. The Duc de Guise had followed in the wake of
Marguerite, unbeknownst to Catherine, who frowned down any possibility
of an alliance between the houses of Valois and Lorraine.
A great fete and water-masque had been arranged by Catherine to take
place on the Cher, with a banquet to follow in the Long Gallery in
honour of her arrival at Chenonceaux.
When twilight had fallen, torches were ignited and myriads of lights
blazed forth from the boats on the river and from the windows of the
chateau. Music and song went forth into the night, and all was as gay
and lovely as a Venetian night's entertainment. The hunting-horns echoed
through the wooded banks, and through the arches above which the chateau
was built passed great highly coloured barges, including a fleet of
gondolas to remind the queen-mother of her Italian days,--the ancestors
perhaps of the solitary gondola which to-day floats idly by the
river-bank just before the grand entrance to the chateau. From
_parterre_ and _balustrade_, and from the clipped yews of the ornamental
garden, fairy lamps burned forth and dwindled away into dim infinity, as
the long lines of soft light gradually lost themselves in the forest. It
was a grand affair and idyllic in its unworldliness. One may not see its
like to-day, for electric lights and "rag-time" music, which mostly
comprise the attractions of such _al fresco_ pleasures, will hardly
produce the same effect.
Among the great fetes at Chenonceaux will always be recalled that given
by the court upon the coming of the youthful Francois II. and Mary
Stuart, after the horrible massacres at Amboise.
All the Renaissance skill of the time was employed in the erection of
pompous accessories, triumphal arches, columns, obelisks, and altars.
There were innumerable tablets also, bearing inscriptions in Latin and
Greek,--which nobody read,--and a fountain which bore the following:
"Au saint bal des dryades,
A Phoebus, ce grand dieu,
Aux humides nyades,
J'ai consacre ce lieu."
Of Chenonceaux and its glories what more can be said than to quote the
following lines of the middle ages, which in their quaint old French
apply to-day as much as ever they did:
"Basti si magnifiquement
II est debout, comme un geant,
Dedans le lit de la riviere,
C'est-a-dire dessus un pont
Qui porte cent toises de long."
The part of the edifice which Bohier erected in 1515 is that through
which the visitor makes his entrance, and is built upon the piers of an
old mill which was destroyed at that time.
Catherine bequeathed Chenonceaux to the wife of Henri III., Louise de
Vaudemont, who died here in 1601. For a hundred years it still belonged
to royalty, but in 1730 it was sold to M. Dupin, who, with his wife,
enriched and repaired the fabric. They gathered around them a company so
famous as to be memorable in the annals of art and literature. This is
best shown by the citing of such names as Fontenelle, Montesquieu,
Buffon, Bolingbroke, Voltaire, and Rousseau, all of whom were
frequenters of the establishment, the latter being charged with the
education of the only son of M. and Madame Dupin.
Considering Rousseau's once proud position among his contemporaries, and
the favour with which he was received by the nobility, it is somewhat
surprising that his struggle for life was so hard. The Marquise de
Crequy wrote in her "Souvenirs:" "Rousseau left behind him his
_Memoires_, which I think for the sake of his memory and fame ought to
be much curtailed." And undoubtedly she was right. Rousseau wrote in his
"Confessions:" "In 1747 we went to spend the autumn in Touraine, at the
Chateau of Chenonceaux, a royal residence upon the Cher, built by Henri
II. for Diane de Poitiers, whose initials are still to be seen there....
We amused ourselves greatly in this fine spot; the living was of the
best, and I became fat as a monk. We made a great deal of music and
acted comedies."
One might imagine, from a stroll through the magnificent halls and
galleries of Chenonceaux, that Rousseau's experiences might be repeated
to-day if one were fortunate enough to be asked to sojourn there for a
time. The nearest that one can get, however, to becoming personally
identified with the chateau and its life is to sign his name in the
great vellum quarto which ultimately will rest in the archives of the
chateau.
It is doubtless very wrong to be covetous; but Chenonceaux is such a
beautiful place and comes so near the ideal habitation of our
imagination that the desire to possess it for one's own is but human.
In the "Galerie Louis XIV." were given the first representations of many
of Rousseau's pieces.
One gathers from these accounts of the happenings in the Long Gallery
that it formed no bridge of sighs, and most certainly it did not. Its
walls resounded almost continually with music and laughter. Here in
these rooms Henri II. danced and made love and intrigued, while
Catherine, his queen, was left at Blois with her astrologer and his
poisons, to eat out her soul in comparative neglect.
Before the time of the dwelling built by Bohier for himself and family
on the foundations of the old mill, there was yet a manorhouse
belonging to the ancient family of Marques, from whom the Norman
financier bought the site. The tower, seen to-day at the right of the
entrance to the chateau proper,--an expressive relic of feudal
times,--was a part of the earlier establishment. To-day it is turned
into a sort of _kiosque_ for the sale of photographs, post-cards, and an
admirable illustrated guide to the chateau.
The interior of the chateau to-day presents the following remarkable
features: The dining-room of to-day, formerly the Salle des Gardes, has
a ceiling in which the cipher of Catherine de Medici is interwoven with
an arabesque. To the left of this apartment is the entrance to the
chapel, which to-day seems a bit incongruously placed, leading as it
does from the dining-room. It is but a tiny chapel, but it is as gay and
brilliant as if it were still the adjunct of a luxury-loving court, and
it has some glass dating from 1521, which, if not remarkable for design
or colouring, is quite choice enough to rank as an art treasure of real
value.
According to Viollet-le-Duc each feudal seigneur had attached to his
chateau a chapel, often served by a private chaplain, and in some
instances by an entire chapter of prelates. These chapels were not
simple oratories surrounded by the domestic apartments, but were
architectural monuments in themselves, and either entirely isolated, as
at Amboise, or semi-detached, as at Chenonceaux.
Below, in the sub-basement, at Chenonceaux, are the original foundations
upon which Bohier laid his first stones. Here, too, are various
chambers, known respectively as the prison, the Bains de la Reine, the
_boulangerie_, etc.
Chenonceaux to-day is no whited sepulchre. It is a real living and
livable thing, and, moreover, when one visits it, he observes that the
family burn great logs in their fireplaces, have luxurious bouquets of
flowers on their dining-table, and use great wax candles instead of the
more prosaic oil-lamps, or worse--acetylene gas. Chenonceaux evidently
has no thoughts of descending to steam heat and electricity.
All this is as it should be, for when one visits a shrine like this he
prefers to find it with as much as possible of the old-time atmosphere
remaining. Chambord is bare and suggestive of the tomb, in spite of the
splendour of its outline and proportions; Pierrefonds, in the north, is
more so, and so would be Blois except for its restored or imitation
decorations; but here at Chenonceaux all is different, and breathes the
spirit of other days as well as that of to-day. It is, perhaps, not
exactly as Diane left it, or as Rousseau knew it under the regime of the
Dupins, since, after many changings of hands, it became the property of
the _Credit Foncier_, by whom it was sold in 1891 to Mr. Terry, an
American.
Chenonceaux has two other architectural monuments which are often
overlooked under the spell of the more magnificent chateau. In the
village is a small Renaissance church--in which the Renaissance never
rose to any very great heights--which is here far more effective and
beautiful than usually are Renaissance churches of any magnitude. There
is also a sixteenth-century stone house in the same style and even more
successful as an expression of the art of the time. It is readily found
by inquiry, and is known as the "Maison des Pages de Francois I."