of Langeais the interior of Azay-le-Rideau seems a trifle bare, as only
two or three of the rooms are thoroughly furnished. As the property now
belongs to the State and is in the care of L'Ecole des Beaux Arts, which
is gradually collecting rare and beautiful articles of furniture, this
compact little chateau will soon be completely equipped as a Renaissance
museum.
The room of Francis I is shown, with handsome carved bed and rich
hangings of turquoise blue damask, adjoining it the room in which Louis
XIV slept, which is hung in crimson damask. These rooms, with some fine
tapestries, scattered articles of furniture and a number of portraits,
complete the present equipment of Azay-le-Rideau. Among the portraits
that interested us was one of Catherine de Medicis by Clouet, and
another by the same artist of Francis I, as he so often appears in his
portraits, "with the insufferable smile upon his lips that curl upward
satyr-like towards the narrow eyes, the crisp close-cut brownish beard
and the pink silken sleeves and doublet." Near by, in strong contrast to
the sensual face of Francis, hangs the clear-cut face of Calvin. Here
also are the portraits of Henry of Navarre and the wife for whom he
cared so little, the beautiful Marguerite of Valois, less beautiful in
her portrait than one would expect, and of the woman whom he loved so
deeply, Gabrielle d'Estrees, Duchess of Beaufort.
A charm of romance ever surrounds the graceful figure of Gabrielle
d'Estrees, whom the usually inconstant Henry seems to have loved
tenderly and faithfully to the end of her days. Many persons have
excused this connection of the King with _la belle Gabrielle_ because of
his loveless and enforced marriage with his cousin Marguerite, who was
faithful to her royal husband only when his life or his throne were in
danger. At such times she would fly to his aid like a good comrade. The
handsomest and the most brilliant and daring of the unfortunate and
ill-fated brood of the dreadful Catherine, Marguerite seems to have been
particularly happy when she was able to thwart the malicious designs of
her mother, from whose plots the King of Navarre so often escaped that
he was said to have borne a charmed life.
As we quitted the chateau to wander through its lovely gardens, gay with
many flowers, and over the lawn with its fine copper beeches, exquisite
mimosa trees, hemlocks, and delicate larches, we thought of the many
great lords and noble ladies who had walked over this fair demesne and,
like us, had stopped to enjoy the soft breezes by the side of the little
river where the birches spread their long branches over the gently
flowing stream. So near the great world and yet so retired from it, it
is not strange that Francis, and the kings who followed him, should have
often turned from the turmoil and unrest of the court to enjoy this
happy valley.
We were tempted to linger so long in the grounds that we had only a
short time to spend in the interesting eleventh century church which
adjoins the park and, like the chateau, belongs to the State. The
facade of the church is richly decorated with quaint statuettes and
carvings, and here also is a seigniorial chapel with inscriptions of the
Biencourt family who owned the chateau of Azay-le-Rideau before it
passed into the hands of the government.
Our appetite for chateaux has so increased with the seeing of them that
we regretted not having time to go to Usse this same afternoon, but we
shall have to make a separate trip to this palace, which is said to be a
superb example of Gothic architecture. Although the chateau is often
inhospitably closed to visitors, its exterior, with innumerable towers
and tourelles, and the terraces, gardens, and vast park, nearly seven
miles in circumference, are well worth a visit.
As usual, the afternoon was not long enough, and the shortening
September light warned us that we must take a train from the station at
Azay-le-Rideau about six in order to reach Tours in time for dinner.
VII
TWO QUEENS AT AMBOISE
PENSION B----, TOURS, September 5th.
THIS morning we spent at the Chateau of Amboise, which we reached by
crossing two bridges over the Loire, as the wide river is divided at
this point by the Isle St. Jean. None of all these beautiful royal
castles owes more to the Loire than Amboise, whose magnificent round
machiolated tower commands the approaches to the bridge, while the fine
pointed windows and arched balcony give a fairyland lightness and grace
to the adjoining facade which crowns a bluff high above the river.
We reached the chateau by many hillside steps, and through a garden
which stands so high upon its terrace above the street that it seems,
like the famous gardens of Babylon, to hang in the air. Upon a nearer
view we found that the garden rests upon a solid foundation of rock and
earth, and is surrounded by strong walls and parapets of masonry. From
these walls the light buttresses of the little Chapel of St. Hubert
spring. This lovely chapel, which with its fine delicate spire and
chiselled pinnacles, standing out against the blue sky, gives an effect
of indescribable beauty, was built by Charles VIII after his return from
Italy. The wonderful carvings above the doorway, representing St.
Hubert's miraculous encounter with a stag, were doubtless executed by
Italian workmen whom he brought with him, as only skilled hands could
have produced a result so rich and decorative and yet so exquisitely
fine and delicate. Other beautiful carvings ornament the facade and the
interior of the chapel, which in form is a miniature Sainte Chapel, less
brilliant in color and richer in carving than the ancient Chapel of St.
Louis, in Paris.
A cheerful chateau, perched upon a rock and bathed in sunshine, Amboise
appeared to us to-day, whether we looked at it from the bridge or from
the garden, with nothing to remind us of the sad and tragic events in
its history. This we are told reaches back to the time of Julius Caesar,
who, recognizing the strategic value of this high bluff above the Loire,
built a strong tower here. Upon the well-wooded Isle St. Jean, directly
opposite the chateau, Clovis and Alaric are said to have held an
important conference, and our own good King Arthur is credited with
owning the Castle of Amboise at one time, and of graciously returning it
to the Franks before he sailed away to conquer Mordred and to meet his
own death upon the Isle of Avalon. All of these tales we may believe or
not as we please, for Touraine is full of ancient legends, more or less
credible, and especially rich in those pertaining to Caesar and his
conquests, and of the beloved St. Martin's miraculous success in
destroying the conqueror's towns, landmarks, and images of the gods.
While Lydia was gloating over the very ancient history of Amboise,
Walter and I were glad to connect it with a later time when Louis VII
met Thomas a Becket here with a view to bringing about a reconciliation
between the proud prelate and his lord and master, Henry II of England.
This meeting seemed comparatively recent, after the shadowy traditions
of Caesar and St. Martin that were poured into our ears, and we began to
feel quite at home in the castle when we learned that our old friend of
Langeais, Charles VIII, was born at Amboise and spent his childhood here
under the care of his good and clever mother, Charlotte of Savoy. She
taught him all that he was permitted to learn, his father, the crafty
Louis XI, for some reason only known to himself, desiring his son and
heir to grow up in ignorance of books as well as of the world of men.
[Illustration: CHATEAU OF LANGEAIS, FROM THE LOIRE]
After her marriage at Langeais, Anne de Bretagne made a right royal
progress to St. Denis, where she was anointed and crowned with great
state and ceremony, the crown, which was far too heavy for the head of
the little Queen of fourteen, being held over her by the Duke of
Orleans. The new Queen, after making a solemn entrance into Paris and
receiving the homage of all the civil and military officers of the
Chatelet, the Provost of Paris, and of many other dignitaries, returned
with her husband to Amboise, where most of their married life was spent.
Additions were made to the chateau at this time and its interior was
fitted up with great splendor; thousands of yards of cloth of gold,
silk, tapestries from Flanders, and other precious stuffs were used as
hangings, to the amount of ten thousand pounds, says one chronicler.
"Past and contemporary events were portrayed on the tapestries. Andre
Denisot and Guillaume Menagier, workers of Tours, had charge of the
furnishing; one room by Menagier was hung with silk tapestry on which
the history of Moses was represented, and the floor was covered with a
large, fine silk Moorish carpet." All this, and much more in the way of
rich furnishings and handsome silver, was brought to the old castle to
do honor to the Bretonne bride, who was destined to know little
happiness in her new home. Her eldest son, the Dauphin Charles, who was
described by Philippe de Commines as "a fine child, bold in speech, and
fearing not the things other children are frightened at," a child whose
birth was hailed with rejoicing as an heir to the Duchy of Brittany and
the Kingdom of France, fell ill and died at Amboise while his mother was
near the frontier of Italy celebrating the King's recent victories. A
curious story is told by Brantome about the mourning of the King and
Queen for this beloved son.
"After the death of the Dauphin," says this chronicler, "King Charles
and his Queen were full of such desolate grief that the doctors,
fearing the weakness and feeble constitution of the King, were of
opinion that excess of sorrow might be prejudicial to his health; they
therefore advised as many distractions as possible, and suggested that
the princes at court should invent new pastimes, dances, and mummeries
to give pleasure to the King and Queen, which being done, the
Monseigneur d'Orleans devised a masquerade with dances, in which he
danced with such gaiety and so played the fool that the Queen thought he
was making merry because he was nearer the throne of France, seeing that
the Dauphin was dead. She was extremely displeased, and looked on him
with such aversion that he was obliged to leave Amboise, where the court
then was, and go to his Castle of Blois."
This was, as Walter remarks, rather shabby treatment of a royal prince
and a former suitor; but the little Queen was hot tempered, strong in
her likes and aversions, and never unmindful of the fact that she was
Duchess of Brittany in her own right, as well as Queen of France by her
marriage.
Lydia reminds us that the unappreciated Duke of Orleans had his innings
later when he became King, after the death of Charles, and the second
husband of Anne. You may notice that we are quite up on the history of
Anne of Brittany, as we came across a charming biography of her at
Brentano's in Paris, _A Twice Crowned Queen_, by the Countess de la
Warr, in addition to which we have been looking over an old copy of
Brantome that we found at a book store here.
In the three years following the death of the Dauphin two sons and a
daughter were born to Charles and Anne. These children all died in
infancy. "In vain," says the Countess de la Warr, "did Anne take every
precaution to save the lives of these little creatures whom death
snatched from her so ruthlessly. She summoned nurses from Brittany, and
the superstitious beliefs of her own country came back to her mind. She
presented them with amulets, a Guienne crown piece wrapped up in paper,
a piece of black wax in a bag of cloth of gold, six serpents'
tongues,--a large one, two of medium size, and three little ones,--and
rosaries of chalcedony and jasper; she not only sent votive offerings to
the venerated shrines of the saints in Brittany, and presented rich
gifts every year to the Holy Virgin of Auray, but she went herself on a
pilgrimage. Alas! it was all to no purpose; a relentless fate followed
the poor Queen."
A still heavier blow was destined to fall upon Anne, a few years later,
in the death of her husband, to whom she seems to have been devotedly
attached. In the midst of his work of beautifying Amboise with the
spoils of his Italian wars, Charles was suddenly struck down with
apoplexy, induced it is thought by a blow. He hit his head, never a very
strong one, according to all accounts, against the stone arch of a
little doorway and died a few hours after. We were shown the entrance to
the Galerie Hacquelebac where the King met with his fatal accident as he
was on his way to the tennis court with the Queen and his confessor, the
Bishop of Angers. The door, which was very low at that time, was later
raised and decorated with the porcupine of Louis XII.
The little widow, not yet twenty-one, was so overcome with grief at the
death of her husband that she spent her days and nights in tears and
lamentations. The only comfort that she found was in ordering a
magnificent funeral for Charles, to every detail of which Louis
d'Orleans, the new King, attended with scrupulous care, defraying
himself the whole cost, not only of the ceremony itself, but of that
incurred in conveying the body from Amboise to St. Denis. Even this
devotion on the part of her husband's successor did not satisfy the
Queen, as she redoubled her lamentations upon seeing him, and although
he did everything in his power to comfort her in the most winning way,
she still refused to eat or sleep and insisted between her sobs: "_Je
dois suivre le chemin de mon mari!_" which for some reason sounds
infinitely more pathetic than the plain English, "I must follow the way
of my husband."
The way of the beloved Charles Anne was not destined to follow, as we
find her, in less than a year, following in the way of his successor,
Louis XII. The enforced and altogether unhappy marriage between Louis
and his cousin, Jeanne of France, having been annulled by Alexander VI,
in return for certain honors conferred upon his son, Caesar Borgia, and
the decree of separation having been pronounced by him at Chinon, Louis
d'Orleans was free to offer his heart and his hand to the lady of his
choice. This he did with all despatch, and was as promptly accepted by
the widowed Queen.
The marriage of Louis XII and Anne was solemnized in her own castle, at
Nantes, January 8, 1499, less than nine months after the death of her
husband. The Queen bestowed rich gifts upon the churches of Brittany,
the King having already conferred upon the Pope's representative, Caesar
Borgia, a pension of twenty thousand gold crowns, besides which he
created him Duke of Valentinois.
"All this goes to prove," as Miss Cassandra says, "that bribery and
corruption in high places are not strictly modern methods, since this
good King Louis, called the Father of his people, resorted to them."
With this exception, Louis seems to have been quite a respectable person
for a royal prince of that time, as he did everything in his power to
make up to the discarded Jeanne for her disappointment at not being
invited to share the throne of France with him. He conferred upon her
the Duchy of Berry and other domains, and with them a handsome income
which enabled the pious princess to do many good works and to found the
religious order of the Annonciade, of which she became Superior.
Although Louis and Anne established their residence at the King's
birthplace, the Chateau of Blois, the Queen was at Amboise during the
spring after her marriage, where her return was celebrated with
rejoicings and festivities which were as original as they were
picturesque, and well calculated to please a wine-drinking populace.
Anne's biographer says: "The boulevard between the River Loire and the
castle was transformed into a huge pavilion, in the middle of which were
erected two columns bearing the devices of Louis and Anne,--a porcupine
and an ermine,--and from the mouth of each, wine poured. A dais of red
damask had been prepared for the King and one of white for the Queen;
but Anne alone took part in this ceremony, either because Louis was
prevented from being present or because he did not wish by his presence
to recall sad memories."
Despite her wilfulness and obstinacy, Louis was very fond of _ma
Bretonne_, as he playfully called his wife, and yielded to her in many
instances. It is recorded, however, that when Anne wished to marry their
daughter Claude to the Archduke Charles of Austria, the King stood out
stoutly against the persuasions of his spouse and insisted upon her
betrothal to his cousin and heir, Francis d'Angouleme, telling his
wife, after his own humorous, homely fashion, that he had resolved "to
marry his mice to none but the rats of his own barn."
Even with occasional differences of opinion, which the King seems to
have met with charming good humor, the union of Anne and Louis was far
happier than most royal marriages. The little Bretonne, who had begun by
disliking Louis d'Orleans, ended by loving him even more devotedly than
her first husband, which does not seem strange to us, as he was a brave
and accomplished gentleman, altogether a far more lovable character than
Charles.
With all her devotion to her husband, the Duchess Queen was a thrifty
lady, with an eye to the main chance, and when poor Louis was ill and
thought to be dying at Blois, she attempted to provide against the
chances and changes of sudden widowhood by sending down the river to
Nantes several boats loaded with handsome furniture, jewels, silver, and
the like. These boats were stopped between Saumur and Nantes by the
Marechal de Gie, his excuse being that as the King was still alive Anne
had no right to remove her possessions from the castle. Although
Marechal de Gie was a favorite minister of Louis, Anne had him arrested
and treated with great indignity. Not only was the unfortunate Marechal
punished for his recent sins, but by means of researches into his past
life it was found that he had committed various offences against the
State. Indignities and miseries were heaped upon him, and so hot was the
wrath of the royal lady that when it was proposed that the Marechal de
Gie should be sentenced to death, she promptly replied that death was
far too good for him, as that ended the sorrows of life, and that for
one of high estate to sink to a low estate and to be overwhelmed with
misfortunes was to die daily, which was quite good enough for him. All
of which shows that even if Anne was something of a philosopher she was
also possessed of a most vindictive spirit, and quite lacking in the
sweetness and charity with which her partial biographer has endowed her.
Fortunately the King, recovering, "through the good prayers of his
people," intervened on behalf of his late favorite and mitigated the
rigor of his sentence, which was even then more severe than was
warranted by his offence.
[Illustration: CHATEAU OF AMBOISE, FROM OPPOSITE BANK OF THE LOIRE]
I tell you this little tale because it is characteristic of the time, as
well as of the imperious little Duchess Queen, and makes us realize that
Louis was well named the good, and had need of all the generosity and
amiability that has been attributed to him as an offset to the fiery
temper of his Breton wife.
Among the many interesting additions that Charles VIII made to Amboise
was the great double Tours des Minimes, adjoining the royal apartments.
This tower was used as an approach to the chateau by means of inclined
planes of brick work, which wound around a central newel, graded so
gently that horses and light vehicles could ascend without difficulty.
These curious ascents were doubtless suggested to the King by the low
broad steps in the Vatican over which the old Popes were wont to ride on
their white mules. Lydia reminds us that it was upon this dim corkscrew
of a road winding upward that Brown performed his remarkable feat in
_The Lightning Conductor_. Brown might have made this dizzy ascent and
perilous descent in his Napier; but it could be done by no other
chauffeur, "live or dead or fashioned by my fancy," although kings
and princes once rode their horses up these inclines, which answered
the purpose of _porte cochere_ and stairway. By this way Francis I and
his guest Charles V rode up to the royal apartments when the Emperor
made his visit here in 1539, amid general rejoicings and such a blaze of
flambeaux that, as the ancient chronicler tells us, even in this dim
passage one might see as clearly as at midday.
In the terraced garden of Amboise, near a quincunx of lime trees, is a
bust of Leonardo da Vinci. We wondered why it was placed here until we
learned from our invaluable _Joanne_ that the Italian artist had lived
and died at Amboise, inhabiting a little manor house near the chateau.
It was Francis I, the beauty loving as well as the pleasure seeking
King, who brought Leonardo to France and to Amboise, the home of his
childhood. The Italian artist was over sixty when he came to France and
only lived about three years here, dying, it is said, in the arms of
Francis. Among his last requests were minute directions for his burial
in the royal church of St. Florentin, which once stood in the grounds of
the castle. When this church was destroyed, in the last century, a
skull and some bones were found among the ruins which were supposed to
be those of Leonardo. A bust was erected on the spot where the remains
were found. Whether or not the bones are those of Leonardo, a fitting
memorial to the great artist is this bust near the lovely quincunx,
whose overshadowing branches form a roof of delicate green above it like
the pergolas of his native Italy. We afterwards visited the little
Chateau de Cloux, where Leonardo had once lived.
A long stretch of years and several reigns lie between Anne of Brittany
and Mary of Scotland, yet it is of these two twice-crowned queens that
we think as we wander through the gardens and halls of the Chateau of
Amboise. Both of these royal ladies came here as brides and both were
received with joyful acclamations at Amboise. Mary's first visit to the
chateau was in the heyday of her beauty and happiness, when as _la
reine-dauphine_ she won all hearts.
Do you remember a charming full-length portrait, that we once saw, of
Mary and Francis standing in the embrasure of a window of one of the
royal palaces? Although a year younger than Mary, Francis had been
devoted to her little serene highness of Scotland ever since her early
childhood, and she seems to have been equally attached to her boyish
lover, as chroniclers of the time tell us that they delighted to retire
from the gayety and confusion of the court to whisper their little
secrets to each other, with no one to hear, and that they were well
content when according to the etiquette of the period they established
their separate court and _menage_ at Villers Cotterets as _roi et
reine-dauphine_.
As the province of Touraine was one of the dower possessions of the
young Queen, she entered into her own when she visited these royal
castles. We think of her at Amboise, riding up the broad inclines to the
royal apartments, her husband by her side, followed by a gay cavalcade,
and what would we not give for a momentary glimpse of Mary Stuart in the
bright beauty of her youth, before sorrow and crime had cast a shadow
over her girlish loveliness! No portrait seems to give any adequate
representation of Mary, probably because her grace and animation added
so much to the beauty of her auburn tinted hair, the dazzling whiteness
of her complexion and the bright, quick glance of her brown eyes.
"Others there were," says one of Mary's biographers, "in that gay,
licentious court, with faces as fair and forms more perfect; what raised
Mary of Scotland above all others was her animation. When she spoke her
whole being seemed to become inspired. A ready wit called to its aid a
well-stored mind." In fact, Mary was witty enough to afford to be plain,
and beautiful enough to afford to be dull; and early and late she
captured hearts, from the days when the poets, Ronsard, De Maison Fleur,
and the hapless Chastelard, celebrated her charms in verse to a later
and sadder time when, during her captivity in England her young page,
Anthony Babington, was so fascinated by her wit and grace that he made a
valiant and desperate effort to save her to his own undoing.