In the park of the château, near the banks of the Loire, great ragged
trees reach out across the sky, cutting off the faint light of the
stars. It is midnight. Indistinctly from the direction of the château
comes a baying of deerhounds. It passes overhead through the middle
air, with trampling and the sound of horns, then dies away into the
distance. The ghost of Tibault de Champagne, first hereditary Count
Blois, a black hunter followed by black dogs, is chasing the stag. Each
midnight, so the people of that country say, the grim old baron rides
by with a full pack.
Count Tibault had a castle there by the Loire, and for centuries his
descendants used it as a hunting resort. In 1397 it passed into the
hands of Louis d'Orléans. Francis I, a king of the house of Orléans,
who knew the abandoned structure in his boyhood, developed in the
country round this castle his well known passion for the chase, and
that is why he chose the ruined feudal stronghold in the heart of a
great forest for the site of his royal palace, when he might have built
on any one of a hundred lovely spots not far away along the Loire.
The king's taste did not please his courtiers, who were less found
of hunting and solitude. They would have preferred a large city, or
at least some fertile valley nearby. Chambord was a palace in the
wilderness. It could not be seen from a distance, and the view from its
windows was only a dreary wood. The building has been described as a
dream from the Arabian Nights come true.
Louis XIV made many alterations in the château. He ordered Mansart to
construct rooms enough for the accommodation of a large court, and the
architect, after racking his brains over the problem, cut up the roof
for projecting windows in that style which has since become known as
the Mansard roof. The principal door of the court is also Mansart's
work.
In 1793 the revolutionists sold everything of value that could be moved
from the château, and Chambord was stripped of its glory in a few days.
It has never been completely restored. Though by no means a ruin today,
the château suffers for lack of the magnificent furnishings for which
it was originally designed.
[Illustration: CITY HALL, NEW YORK]
_City Hall, New York_