TOURS AND ABOUT THERE
Tours, above all other of the ancient capitals of the French provinces,
remains to-day a _ville de luxe_, the elegant capital of a land balmy
and delicious; a land of which Dante sung:
"Terra molle, e dolce e dilettosa...."
It is not a very grand town as the secondary cities of France go; not
like Rouen or Lyons, Bordeaux or Marseilles; but it is as typical a
reflection of the surrounding country as any, and therein lies its
charm.
One never comes within the influence of its luxurious, or, at least,
easy and comfortable appointments, its distinctly modern and up-to-date
railway station, its truly magnificent modern Hotel de Ville, its
well-appointed hotels and cafes and its luxurious shops, but that he
realizes all this to a far greater extent than in any other city of
France.
And again, referring to the material things of life, everything is most
comfortable, and the restaurants and hotels most attractive in their
fare. Tours is truly one provincial capital where the _cuisine
bourgeoise_ still lives.
Touraine, and Tours in particular, besides many other things, is noted
for its hotels. Their praises have been sung often and loudly, not
forgetting Henry James's praise of the Hotel de l'Univers, which is all
one expects to find it and more. The same may be said of the Hotel du
Croissant, with the added opinion that it serves the most bountiful and
excellent _dejeuner_ to be had in all provincial France. It is difficult
to say just what actually causes all this excellence and abundance,
except that the catering there is an easy and pleasurable occupation.
The Rue Nationale--"_toujours et vraiment royale_"--is the great artery
of Tours running riverwards. On it circulates all the life of the city.
To the right is the Quartier de la Cathedrale, where are assembled the
great houses of the nobility--or such of them as are left--and of the
old _bourgeoisie tourangelle_.
To the left are the streets of the workers, a silk-mill or two, and the
printing-offices. Tours is and always has been celebrated for the
number and size of its _imprimeries_, with which, in olden times, the
name of the great Christopher Plantin, the master printer of Antwerp,
was connected. To-day, Tours's greatest establishment is that of Alfred
Mame et Fils, known throughout the Roman Catholic world.
[Illustration: ARMS OF THE PRINTERS, _AVOCATS_, AND INNKEEPERS, TOURS]
The printers and booksellers of the middle ages were favoured persons,
and their rank was high. In the days of solemn processions the
booksellers led the way, followed by the paper-makers, the
parchment-makers, the scribes,--who had not wholly died out,--the
binders and the illuminators. In these days the printers were granted an
emblazoned arms, which was characteristic and distinguished. The same
was true of the _avocats_, who bore upon their escutcheon a gowned
figure, with something very like a halo surrounding its head. The
innkeepers went one better, and had a bishop with an undeniable halo.
This is curious and inexplicable in the light of our modern conception
of similar things, but it's better than a shield with quarterings
representing half a canal-boat and half a locomotive, which was recently
adopted by an enterprising watering-place which shall be nameless.
In the same ancient quarter are the old towers of Charlemagne and St.
Martin. This part of the town is the nucleus of the old foundation, the
site of the _oppidum_ of the _Turones_, the _Caesarodunum gallo-romain_,
and of the life which centred around the old abbey of St. Martin, so
venerated and so powerful in the middle ages.
To the inviolable refuge of this old abbey came multitudes of Christian
pilgrims from the world over; the Merovingians to undergo the penances
imposed upon them by the bishops and clerics in expiation of their
crimes. Under Charlemagne, the Abbe Alcuin founded great schools of
languages, history, astronomy, and music, from which founts of learning
went forth innumerable and illustrious religious teachers.
All but the two towers of this old religious foundation are gone. The
years of the Revolution saw the fall of the abbey; a street was cut
through the nave of its church, and the two dismembered parts stand
to-day as monuments to the sacrilege of modern times.
To-day a banal faubourg has sprung up around the site of the abbey, with
here and there old tumble-down houses either of wood and stone, such as
one reads of in the pages of Balzac, or sees in the designs of Dore, or
with their sides covered with overlapping slates.
Amid all these is an occasional treasure of architectural art, such as
the graceful Fountain of Beaune, the work of Michel Colombe, and some
remains of early Renaissance houses of somewhat more splendid
appointments than their fellows, particularly the Maison de Tristan
l'Hermite, the Hotel Xaincoings, and many exquisite fragments now made
over into an _auberge_ or a _cabaret_, which make one dream of Rabelais
and his Gargantua.
It is uncertain whether Michel Colombe, who designed this fountain and
also that masterwork, the tomb of the Duc Francois II. and Marguerite de
Foix, at Nantes, was a Tourangeau or a Breton, but Tours claims him for
her own, and settles once for all the spelling of his name by producing
a "_papier des affaires_" signed plainly "Colombe." The proof lies in
this document, signed in a notary's office at Tours, concerning payments
which were made to him on behalf of the magnificent sepulchre which he
executed for the church of St. Sauveur at La Rochelle. In his
time--fifteenth century--Colombe had no rivals in the art of monumental
sculpture in France, and with reason he has been called the Michel Ange
of France.
The cathedral quarter has for its chief attraction that gorgeously
florid St. Gatien, whose ornate facade was likened by a certain monarch
to a magnificently bejewelled casket. It is an interesting and lovable
Gothic-Renaissance church which, if not quite of the first rank among
the masterpieces of its kind, is a marvel of splendour, and an example
of the "_caprices d'une guipure d'art_," as the French call it.
Bordering the Loire at Tours is a series of tree-lined quays and
promenades which are the scenes, throughout the spring and summer
months, of fetes and fairs of many sorts. Here, too, at the extremity of
the Rue Nationale, are statues of Descartes and Balzac.
The Tour de Guise on the river-bank recalls the domination of the
Plantagenet kings of England, who were Counts of Anjou since it formed a
part of the twelfth-century chateau built here by Henry II. of England.
[Illustration: SCENE IN THE QUARTIER DE LA CATHEDRALE, TOURS]
At the opposite extremity of the city is another other tower, the Tour
de Foubert, which protected the feudal domain of the old abbey of St.
Martin. The history of days gone by at Tours was more churchly than
political.
Once only--during the reign of Louis XII.--did the States General meet
at Tours (in 1506). Then the deputies of the _bourgeoisie_ met alone for
their deliberations, the chief outcome of which was to bestow upon the
king the eminently fitting title of "Pere du Peuple." One may question
the righteousness of Louis XII. in throwing over his wife, Jeanne de
France, in order to serve political ends by acquiring the estates of
Anne of Brittany for the Crown of France for ever, but there is no doubt
but that he did it for the "_good of his people_."
The principal literary shrine at Tours is the house, in the Rue
Nationale, where was born Honore de Balzac.
One could not do better than to visit Tours during the "_ete de St.
Martin_," since it was the soldier-priest of Tours who gave his name to
that warm, bright prolongation of summer which in France (and in
England) is known as "St. Martin's summer," and which finds its
counterpart in America's "Indian summer."
The legend tells us that somewhere in the dark ages lived a soldier
named Martin. He was always of a charitable disposition, and none asked
alms of him in vain. One November day, when the wind blew briskly and
the snow fell fast, a beggar asked for food and clothing. Martin had but
his own cloak, and this he forthwith tore in half and gave one portion
to the beggar. Later on the same night there came a knocking at Martin's
door; the snow had ceased falling and the stars shone brightly, and one
of goodly presence stood with the cloak on his arm, saying, "I was naked
and ye clothed me." Martin straightway became a priest of the church,
and died an honoured bishop of Tours, and for ever after the anniversary
of his conversion is celebrated by sunny skies.
We owe a double debt to St. Martin. We have to thank him for the saying,
"_All my eye_" and the words "_chapel_" and "_chaplain_." The full form
of the phrase, "_All my eye and Betty Martin_," which we all of us have
often heard, is an obvious corruption of "_O mihi beate Martine_," the
beginning of an invocation to the saint. The cloak he divided with a
naked beggar, which, by the way, took place at Amiens, not at Tours, was
treasured as a relic by the Frankish kings, borne before them in battle,
and brought forth when solemn oaths were to be taken. The guardians of
this cloak or cape were known as "_cappellani_," whence "_chaplain_,"
while its sanctuary or "_cappella_" has become "_chapel_."
For their descriptions of Plessis-les-Tours modern English travellers
have invariably turned to the pages of Sir Walter Scott. This is all
very well in its way, but it is also well to remember that Scott drew
his picture from definite information, and it is not merely the product
of his imaginary architectural skill. In this respect Scott was
certainly far ahead of Carlyle in his estimates of French matters.
"Even in those days" (writing of "Quentin Durward"), said Scott, "when
the great found themselves obliged to reside in places of fortified
strength, it" (Plessis-les-Tours) "was distinguished for the extreme and
jealous care with which it was watched and defended." All this is
substantiated and corroborated by authorities, and, while it may have
been chosen by Scott merely as a suitable accessory for the details of
his story, Plessis-les-Tours unquestionably was a royal stronghold of
such proportions as to be but meanly suggested by the scanty remains of
the present day.
Louis XI. dreamed fondly of Plessis-les-Tours (Plessis being from the
Latin _Plexitium_, a name borne by many suburban villages of France),
and he sought to make it a royal residence where he should be safe from
every outward harm. It had four great towers, crenelated and
machicolated, after the best Gothic fortresses of the time. At the four
angles of the protecting walls were the principal logis, and between the
lines of its ramparts or fosses was an advance-guard of buildings
presumably intended for the vassals in time of danger.
This was the castle as Louis first knew it, when it was the property of
the chamberlain of the Duchy of Luynes, from whom the king bought it for
five thousand and five hundred _ecus d'or_,--the value of fifty thousand
francs of to-day.
Its former appellation, Montilz-les-Tours, was changed (1463) to
Plessis. All the chief features have disappeared, and to-day it is but a
scrappy collection of tumble-down buildings devoted to all manner of
purposes. A few fragmentary low-roofed vaults are left, and a brick and
stone building, flanked by an octagonal tower, containing a stairway;
but this is about all of the former edifice, which, if not as splendid
as some other royal residences, was quite as effectively defended and as
suitable to its purposes as any.
[Illustration: _PLESSIS-Les-TOURS. In the time of Louis XI_]
It had, too, within its walls a tiny chapel dedicated to Our Lady of
Clery, before whose altar the superstitious Louis made his inconstant
devotions.
Once a great forest surrounded the chateau, and was, as Scott says,
"rendered dangerous and well-nigh impracticable by snares and traps
armed with scythe-blades, which shred off the unwary traveller's limbs
... and calthrops that would pierce your foot through, and pitfalls deep
enough to bury you in them for ever." To-day the forest has disappeared,
"lost in the night of time," as a French historian has it.
The detailed description in "Quentin Durward" is, however, as good as
any, and, if one has no reference works in French by him, he may well
read the dozen or more pages which Sir Walter devotes to the further
description of the castle.
Perhaps, after all, it is fitting that a Scot should have written so
enthusiastically of it, for the castle itself was guarded by the
Scottish archers, "to the number of three hundred gentlemen of the best
blood of Scotland."
An anonymous poet has written of the ancient glory of this retreat of
Louis's as follows:
"Un imposant chateau se presente a la vue,
Par des portes de fer l'entree est defendue;
Les murs en sont epais et les fosses profonds;
On y voit des creneaux, des tours, des bastions,
Et des soldats armes veillent sur ses murailles."
Frame this with such details as the surrounding country supplies, the
Cher on one side, the Loire on the other, and the fertile hills of St.
Cyr, of Ballon, and of Joue, and one has a picture worthy of the
greatest painter of any time.
Louis XI. died at Plessis, after having lived there many years. Louis
XII. made of it a _rendezvous de chasse_, but Francois II. confided its
care to a governor and would never live in it. Louis XIV. gave the
governorship as a hereditary perquisite to the widow of the Seigneur de
Sausac.
In 1778 it was used as a sort of retreat for the indigent, though
happily enough Touraine was never overburdened with this class of
humanity. Under Louis XV. a Mademoiselle Deneux, a momentary rival of La
Pompadour and Du Barry, found a retreat here. Later it became a _maison
de correction_, and finally a _depot militaire_. At the time of the
Revolution it was declared to be national property, and on the
_nineteenth Nivoise, Year IV._, Citizen Cormeri, justice of the peace at
Tours, fixed its value at one hundred and thirty-one thousand francs.
To-day it is as bare and uncouth as a mere barracks or as a disused
flour-mill, and its ruins are visited partly because of their former
historical glories, as recalled by students of French history, and
partly because of the glamour which was shed over it, for English
readers, by Scott.
Sixty years ago a French writer deplored the fact that, on leaving these
scanty remains of a so long gone past, he observed a notice nailed to a
pillar of the _porte-cochere_ reading:
LA FERME DU PLESSIS
O LOUER OU A VENDRE
To-day some sort of a division and rearrangement of the property has
been made, but the result is no less mournful and sad, and thus a
glorious page of the annals of France has become blurred.
It is interesting to recall what manner of persons composed the
household of Louis XI. when he resided at Plessis-les-Tours. Commines,
his historian, has said that habitually it consisted of a chancellor, a
_juge de l'hotel_, a private secretary, and a treasurer, each having
under him various employees. In addition there was a master of the
pantry, a cupbearer, a _chef de bouche_ and a _chef de cuisine_, a
_fruitier_, a master of the horse, a quartermaster or master-at-arms,
and, in immediate control of these domestic servants, a _seneschal_ or
_grand maitre_. In many respects the household was not luxuriously
conducted, for the parsimonious Louis lived fully up to the false maxim:
"_Qui peu donne, beaucoup recueille._"
Louis himself was fond of doing what the modern housewife would call
"messing about in the kitchen." He did not dabble at cookery as a
pastime, or that sort of thing; but rather he kept an eagle eye on the
whole conduct of the affairs of the household.
One day, coming to the kitchen _en neglige_, he saw a small boy turning
a spit before the fire.
"And what might you be called?" said he, patting the lad on the
shoulder.
"Etienne," replied the _marmiton_.
"Thy _pays_, my lad?"
"Le Berry."
"Thy age?"
"Fifteen, come St. Martin's."
"Thy wish?"
"To be as great as the king" (he had not recognized his royal master).
"And what wishes the king?"
"His expenses to become less."
The reply brought good fortune for the lad, for Louis made him his
_valet de chambre_, and took him afterward into his most intimate
confidence.
Louis was fond of _la chasse_, and Scott does not overlook this fact in
"Quentin Durward." When affairs of state did not press, it was the
king's greatest pleasure. For the royal hunt no pains or expense were
spared. The carriages were without an equal elsewhere in the courts of
Europe, and the hunting establishment was equipped with _chiens
courants_ from Spain, _levriers_ from Bretagne, _bassets_ from Valence,
mules from Sicily, and horses from Naples.
The attractions of the environs of Tours are many and interesting: St.
Symphorien, Varennes, the Grottoes of Ste. Radegonde, and the site of
that most famous abbey of Marmoutier, also a foundation of St. Martin.
Here, under the name Martinus Monasterium, grew up an immense and superb
establishment. From an old seventeenth-century print one quotes the
following couplet:
"De quel cote que le vent vente
Marmoutier a cens et rente."
From this one infers that the abbey's original functions are performed
no more.
[Illustration: _ENVIRONS OF TOURS_]
In the middle ages (thirteenth century) it was one of the most powerful
institutions of its class, and its church one of the most beautiful in
Touraine. The tower and donjon are the only substantial remains of this
early edifice.
A curious chapel, called the "Chapelle des Sept Dormants," is here cut
in the form of a cross into the rock of the hillside, where are buried
the remains of the Seven Sleepers, the disciples of St. Martin, who, as
the holy man had predicted, all died on the same day.
Beyond Marmoutier, a stairway of 122 steps, cut also in the rock, leads
to the plateau on which stands the gaunt and ugly Lanterne de
Rochecorbon, a fourteenth-century construction with a crenelated summit,
an unlovely companion of that even more enigmatic erection known as "La
Pile," a few miles down the Loire at Cinq-Mars.