the events of her early years that we are wont to forget the power and
influence that were hers in the eighteen months of her reign as Queen of
France. Adored by her young husband, who evidently admired her for her
learning as well as for her beauty and charm, she seems to have passed
through her years at court with no breath of suspicion attached to her
fair name, and this in an atmosphere of unbridled license and
debauchery of which Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre, wrote to her son,
"No one here but is tainted by it. If you were here yourself you would
only escape by some remarkable mercy of God."
In addition to her ascendency over the mind of her husband the young
Queen had always at her side her astute kinsmen, the Duke of Guise and
the Cardinal of Lorraine, who were as clever as they were unscrupulous.
With these powerful uncles near her, Mary was in a position to outwit
the wily Catherine, between whom and the Guise faction little love was
lost. Only when some scheme of deviltry joined them together in common
interests, as the massacre of the Huguenots at Amboise, were Catherine
and the Guise brothers at one, and this triumvirate even Queen Mary was
powerless to withstand.
We had wandered far afield with Mary Stuart in the joyous days of her
youth when we were suddenly brought back by the guide to her last sad
visit to Amboise. He pointed out to us the Isle St. Jean opposite the
balcony where we were standing, saying that the _conjure_ had met over
there. Whether or not any of the conspirators met on this island in the
Loire, the Conspiracy of 1560, which the Guise brothers were pleased to
call the tumult of Amboise, was formed at Nantes. Although the Huguenots
have had all the credit of this formidable uprising, a number of
Catholics had joined them with the object of breaking down the great and
growing powers of the Guise family. As one of the alleged plans of the
conspirators was to seize Francis and Mary and remove them from the
influence of the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine, the young
King and Queen were hurried from Blois to the stronghold of Amboise. If
this plot had succeeded, as would probably have been the case had it not
been for the treachery of a lawyer, named Des Avenelles, in whose house
one of the leaders lodged, what would it not have meant to the Huguenots
and to France? With the Guise brothers in their power and the King and
Queen no longer under their dominion, the Huguenots might have made
terms with the royal party, backed as they were at this time by some
Catholics of influence.
The ever vigilant Duke of Guise, having discovered the plot, met it with
the promptness, resolution, and relentless cruelty that belonged to his
character and his time, and in this case an element of revenge was added
to his wrath against the offenders, as his own capture and that of his
brother, the Cardinal of Lorraine, was one of the chief objects of the
conspirators. The life and liberty of the King and Queen were in no way
included in this plot, as appeared later; but it suited the purpose of
the Duke of Guise to shelter himself behind the young sovereigns and to
represent the conspiracy as an act of high treason against the throne of
France. Francis and Mary, only half believing the story told them, but
not strong enough to resist the power of the Duke, the Cardinal and the
Queen-mother, allowed themselves to be brought to Amboise.
We have been reading again Dumas's thrilling description of the "tumult
of Amboise," and his pathetic picture of the young King and Queen, who
shrank from witnessing the tortures and death to which their Huguenot
subjects were condemned. Catherine insisted that they should take their
places on the balcony overlooking the court of execution, chid her son
as a weakling because he shrank from the sight of blood, while the
Cardinal reminded poor, trembling, tender-hearted Francis that his
"grandsire of glorious memory, Francis I, had always assisted at the
burning of heretics."
"Other kings do as they please and so will I," Francis had the courage
to say but not to do, as he and Mary, "poor crowned slaves," as the
novelist calls them, were forced to appear upon the iron balcony and
witness the execution of some of the noblest of their subjects.
Standing on the Tour des Minimes on this fair September day, looking
down upon the balconies, terraces, and gardens of the chateau basking in
warm sunshine, it was difficult to realize the scenes of horror and
bloodshed that were enacted here on that sad day in March, 1560. The
Duke had his troops ambushed in the forest of Chateau Regnault, in
readiness to attack the conspirators as they approached in small
detachments, and over the peaceful plain spread before us, through which
the Loire winds its way, an army of Frenchmen was lured on to its
destruction by false promises of safety, and in yonder forest of Chateau
Regnault one of the prime movers in the uprising, the Seigneur de la
Renaudie, a gentleman of Perigord, was overtaken and slain. Such other
brave men and noble gentlemen as the Baron de Castelnau Chalosse and
the Baron de Raunay were spared for a sadder fate, while for the Prince
of Conde there was reserved the crowning horror of seeing his followers
beheaded one by one. It is said that as they were led into the courtyard
they turned to salute their "_chef muet_," a salute which he was brave
enough to return, while they went to the block singing Clement Marot's
adaptation of the Sixty-seventh Psalm:
Dieu nous soit doux et favorable
Nous benissant par sa bonte
Et de son visage adorable
Nous fasse luire la clarte.
It is not strange that, in the face of such sublime faith and dauntless
courage, the young Queen should have pleaded for the life of these
noblemen, or that the Duke de Nemours, who had pledged his faith as a
prince, "on his honor and on the damnation of his soul," that the
Huguenot deputies should be fairly dealt with, should have added his
entreaties to those of Mary.
The Duke of Nemours appealed to Catherine, who answered with feigned
indifference that she could do nothing, then to the King who, pale and
ill at the sight before him, would have stopped the massacre long
before. The Queen, on bended knee, begged her husband for the life of
the last victim, the Baron de Castelnau. The King made a sign that he
should be spared; but the Cardinal of Lorraine chose to misunderstand,
gave the fatal signal, and Castelnau's head fell with the rest.
In view of this wholesale slaughter, for it is said that over twelve
hundred perished in and around Amboise, we do not wonder that the Prince
de Conde exclaimed:
"Ah, what an easy task for foreigners to seize on France after the death
of so many honorable men!" a speech for which the Guises never quite
forgave him. Nor did we wonder, as we made our way to the garden through
the bare unfurnished rooms of the chateau, that it ceased to be a royal
residence after this carnival of blood, and later became a State prison,
and place of exile for persons of high degree. The Cardinal de Bourbon
was confined here, and it is said that Amboise opened its doors to the
Superintendent Fouquet after his capture by D'Artagnan, for you must
know that there was a real D'Artagnan from whom Dumas constructed his
somewhat glorified hero.
We wondered why so many feeble, old people were sitting about in the
house and grounds, until the _gardienne_ told us, that, the chateau
having been restored to the Orleans family in 1872, they had established
here a retreat and home for their old retainers.
"Well, I am thankful that some good deeds are done here to help to wash
away the dark stains from the history of the chateau!" exclaimed Miss
Cassandra. "But how do they manage to sleep with the ghosts of all these
good men who have been murdered here haunting the place at night?"
Walter reminded her that the just were supposed to rest quietly in their
graves, and that it was those of uneasy conscience who walked o' nights.
"Then Catherine must be walking most of the time. We certainly should
see her if we could wait here until after dark."
When I translated our Quaker lady's remarks to the guide she laughed and
rejoined, with a merry twinkle in her eye, that if "Her Majesty had to
walk in all the palaces that had known her evil deeds she would be kept
busy and would only have a night now and again for Amboise; beside which
this chateau was blessed, having been dedicated to good works, and after
all were not the Guises more involved in the massacre of the Huguenots
here than Catherine?"
Miss Cassandra reluctantly acknowledged that perhaps they were, but for
her part she makes no excuses for Catherine, and refuses to believe that
she was ever an innocent baby. She declares that this insatiable
daughter of the Medici, like Minerva, sprang full grown into being,
equipped for wickedness as the goddess was with knowledge.
With a clink of silver and a cheerful "_Au revoir, Mesdames et
Monsieur_," we parted from our pleasant little guide. As we turned to
look back at Amboise from the bridge, some heavy clouds hung over the
castle, making it look grim and gray, more like the fortress-prison that
it had proved to so many hundreds of brave, unfortunate Frenchmen than
the cheerful chateau, basking in the sunshine, that we had seen this
morning.
We motored home, in a fine drizzle of rain, through a gray landscape;
and surely no landscape can be more perfectly gray than that of France
when it is pleased to put on sombre tints, and no other could have been
as well suited to the shade of our thoughts.
Lydia, by way of reviving our drooping spirits, I fancy, as she is not
usually given to conundrums or puzzles, suddenly propounded a series of
brain-racking questions. "Who first said, 'Let us fly and save our
bacon;' and 'He would make three bites of a cherry;' and 'Appetite comes
with eating;' and 'It is meat, drink, and cloth to us;' and----"
"Stop!" cried Miss Cassandra, "and give us time to think, but I am quite
sure that it was Beau Brummel who made three bites of a cherry, or a
strawberry, or some other small fruit."
Walter and I were inclined to give Shakespeare and Pope the credit of
these familiar sayings; but we were all wrong, as Lydia, after puzzling
us for some time, exclaimed triumphantly:
"No, further back than either Shakespeare or Pope; these wise sayings,
and many more like them, were written by a Tourangeau, one Monsieur
Rabelais."
"And where did you come across them?" we asked, quite put out with
Lydia for knowing so much more than the rest of us.
Then Lydia, who appears upon the surface to be a guileless and
undesigning young person, confessed that she had extracted this
information from a Frenchman with whom we all had some pleasant
conversation on the way to Langeais, and she has been treasuring it up
ever since to spring it upon us in an unguarded moment when we were far
from the haunts of Rabelais. This gentleman, whose name is one of the
things we shall probably never know, with the cheerfully appropriating
spirit of the French, was ready to claim most of Shakespeare's aphorisms
for Rabelais. We are willing to forgive him, however, because he
introduced us to a phrase coined by the creator of Pantagruel, in
slow-going sixteenth century days, which so exactly fits the situation
to-day that it seems to have been made for such travellers as ourselves:
"Nothing is so dear and precious as time," wrote M. Rabelais, long
before tourists from all over the world were trying to live here on
twenty-four hours a day and yet see all the chateaux and castles upon
their lists.
My brother Archie has been talking of coming over to join us either here
or in Paris. As he is a rather sudden person in his movements, it would
not surprise me to have him appear any day. I only hope that he may come
while we are in Touraine. He is so fond of everything in the
agricultural line that he would delight in this fertile, well-cultivated
country.
VIII
A BATTLE ROYAL OF DAMES
PENSION B----, TOURS, September 6th.
THIS being a beautiful day, and the sunshine more brilliant than is
usual on a September morning in this region, we unanimously agreed to
dedicate its hours to one of the most interesting of the neighboring
chateaux. The really most important question upon which we were not
unanimous was whether Chenonceaux or Chinon should be the goal of our
pilgrimage. Miss Cassandra unhesitatingly voted for Chenonceaux, which
she emphatically announced to be the chateau of all others that she had
crossed the ocean to see. "It was not a ruin like Chinon," she urged,
"the buildings were in perfect condition and the park and gardens of
surpassing loveliness."
"Of course we expect to go to Chinon, dear Miss Cassandra," said I; "it
is only a question of which we are to see to-day."
"Yes, my dear, but I have great faith in the bird in the hand, or as
the Portuguese gentleman expressed it, 'One I have is worth two I shall
haves.' The finger of fate seems to point to Chenonceaux to-day, for I
dreamed about it last night and Diana (Miss Cassandra always gives the
name of the fair huntress its most uncompromising English pronunciation)
was standing on the bridge looking just like a portrait that we saw the
other day, and in a gorgeous dress of black and silver. Now don't think,
my dears, that I approve of Diana; she was decidedly light, and Lydia
knows very well that the overseers of the meeting would have had to deal
with her more than once; but when it comes to a choice between Diana and
Catherine, I would always choose Diana, whatever her faults may have
been."
"Diane," corrected a shrill voice above our heads.
We happened to be standing on the little portico by the garden, and I
looked around to see who was listening to our conversation, when again
"Diane" rang forth, followed by "_Bon jour, Madame_," all in the
exquisite accent of Touraine.
"It is Polly, who is correcting my pronunciation," exclaimed Miss
Cassandra, "and I really don't blame her." Looking up at the cage, with
a nod and a smile, she cried, "_Bon jour, joli Marie!_"
"Good-by, Madame," rejoined the parrot, proudly cocking her head on one
side and winking at Miss Cassandra in the most knowing fashion, as if to
say, "Two can play at that game."
Polly has learned some English phrases from the numerous guests of the
house, and cordially greets us with "Good-by" when we enter and "How do
you do?" when we are leaving, which, you may remember, was just what Mr.
Monard, who had the little French church in Philadelphia, used to do
until some person without any sense of humor undertook to set him
straight. We trust that no misguided person may ever undertake to
correct Polly's English or Miss Cassandra's French, for as Walter says,
"To hear those two exchanging linguistic courtesies is one of the
experiences that make life and travel worth while, and the most amusing
part of it is that the Quaker lady is as unconscious of the humor of the
situation as the parrot."
"And, after all," said Miss Cassandra, returning to her argument after
Polly's interruption, "when a woman is so beautiful at fifty that a
young king is at her feet, giving her jewels from morning until night,
it is not strange that her head should be turned. And you must remember,
Zelphine," added Miss Cassandra in her most engaging manner, "that your
favorite Henry James said that he would rather have missed Chinon than
Chenonceaux, and that he counted as exceedingly fortunate the few hours
that he passed at this exquisite residence."
After this Parthian shaft Miss Cassandra left us to put on her hat for
Chenonceaux, for to Chenonceaux we decided to go, of course. Miss
Cassandra's arguments were irresistible, as usual, and as Walter added
philosophically, "Her choice is generally a wise one, and where
everything is so well worth seeing one cannot go far astray." We took a
train that leaves, what our local guidebook is pleased to call the
monumental railway station of Tours, between ten and eleven o'clock and
reached the town of Chenonceaux in less than an hour. All of these
jaunts by rail are short and so conveniently arranged that one always
seems to have ample time for the inspection of whatever chateau and
grounds one happens to be visiting.
At the station we found an omnibus which conveyed us to the Hotel du Bon
Laboureur, the Mecca of all hungry pilgrims, where a substantial
luncheon was soon spread before us, enlivened, as Walter puts it, by a
generous supply of the light wine of the country. Looking over my
shoulder, as I write, he declares that I am gilding that luncheon at the
Bon Laboureur with all the romance and glamour of Chenonceaux, and that
it was not substantial at all; but on the contrary pitifully light.
Perhaps I am idealizing the luncheon, as Walter says, but as part and
parcel of a day of unallayed happiness it stands out in my mind as a
feast of the gods, despite all adverse criticism. Being a mere man, as
Lydia expresses it, Walter feels the discomforts of travel more than we
women folk. He says that he is heartily tired of luncheons made up of
flimflams, omelettes, entrees, and the like, and when the inevitable
salad and fowl appeared he quite shocked us by saying that he would like
to see some real chicken, the sort that we have at home broiled by
Mandy, who knows how to cook chicken far and away better than these
Johnny Crapauds with all their boasted culinary skill.
Lydia and I were congratulating ourselves that no one could understand
this rude diatribe when we noticed, at the next table, our acquaintance
of Langeais, Lydia's aphoristic Frenchman, if I may coin a word. This
did not seem a good time to renew civilities, especially as he was
evidently laughing behind his napkin. I motioned to Walter to keep quiet
and gave him a look that was intended to be very severe, and then Miss
Cassandra, with her usual friendly desire to pour oil upon the troubled
waters, stirred them up more effectually by adding: "Yes, Walter, but in
travelling one must take the bad with the good; we have no buildings
like these at home and I for one am quite willing to give up American
social pleasures and luxuries for the sake of all that we see here and
all that we learn."
Can you imagine anything more bewildering to a Frenchman than Miss
Cassandra's philosophy, especially her allusion to American social
pleasures and luxuries, which to the average and untravelled French mind
would be represented, I fancy, by a native Indian picnic with a menu of
wild turkey and quail? It was a very good luncheon, I insisted, even if
not quite according to American ideas, and variety is one of the
pleasures of foreign travel,--this last in my most instructive manner
and to Lydia's great amusement. She alone grasped the situation, as
Walter and Miss Cassandra were seated with their backs to the stranger.
In order to prevent further criticisms upon French living I changed the
subject by asking Walter for our Joanne guidebook, and succeeded in
silencing the party, after Artemus Ward's plan with his daughter's
suitors, by reading aloud to them, during which the stranger finished
his luncheon and after the manner of the suitors quietly took his
departure.
"We shall never see him again," I exclaimed, "and he will always
remember us as those rude and unappreciative Americans!"
"And what have we done to deserve such an opinion?" asked Walter.
"Attacked them on their most sensitive point. A Frenchman prides
himself, above everything else, upon the _cuisine_ of his country, and
considers American living altogether crude and uncivilized."
"And is _that_ all, Zelphine, and don't you think it about time that
they should learn better; and who is the _he_ in question, anyhow?"
When I explained about the Frenchman, who was seated behind him and
understood every invidious word, Walter, instead of being contrite, said
airily that he regretted that he had not spoken French as that would
probably have been beyond Mr. Crapaud's comprehension.
A number of coaches were standing in front of the little inn, one of
which Miss Cassandra and Lydia engaged in order to save their strength
for the many steps to be taken in and around the chateau; but they did
not save much, after all, as the coaches all stop at the end of the
first avenue of plane trees at a railroad crossing and after this
another long avenue leads to the grounds. Walter and I thought that we
decidedly had the best of it, as we strolled through the picturesque
little village, and having our kodaks with us we were able to get some
pretty bits by the way, among other things a photograph of a sixteenth
century house in which the pages of Francis I are said to have been
lodged.
[Illustration: CHENONCEAUX, MARQUES TOWER AND GALLERY ACROSS THE CHER]
Passing up the long avenue we made a _detour_ to the left, attracted by
some rich carvings at the end of the tennis court,--and what a tennis
court it is!--smooth, green, beautifully made, with a background of
forest trees skirting it on two sides.
The approach to the chateau is in keeping with its stately beauty. After
traversing the second avenue of plane trees, we passed between two great
sphinxes which guard the entrance to the court, with the ancient
dungeon-keep on the right and on the left the Domes buildings, which
seem to include the servants' quarters and stables. Beyond this is the
drawbridge which spans the wide moat and gives access to a spacious
rectangular court. This moat of clear, running water, its solid stone
walls draped with vines and topped with blooming plants, defines the
ancient limits of the domain of the Marques family who owned this estate
as far back in history as the thirteenth century. Where the beautiful
chateau now stands there was once a fortified mill. The property passed
into the hands of Thomas Bohier, in the fifteenth century, who conceived
the bold idea of turning the old mill into a chateau, its solid
foundations, sunk into the Cher, affording a substantial support for
the noble superstructure; or, as Balzac says, "Messire de Bohier, the
Minister of Finances, as a novelty placed his house astride the River
Cher." A chateau built over a river! Can you imagine anything more
picturesque, or, as Miss Cassandra says, anything more unhealthy? The
sun shone gaily to-day, and the rooms felt fairly dry, but during the
long weeks of rain that come to France in the spring and late autumn
these spacious _salles_ must be as damp as a cellar. Miss Cassandra says
that the bare thought of sleeping in them gives her rheumatic twinges.
There are handsome, richly decorated mantels and chimney-places in all
of the great rooms, but they look as if they had not often known the
delights of a cheerful fire of blazing logs.
The old building is in the form of a vast square pavilion, flanked on
each corner by a bracketed turret upon which there is a wealth of
Renaissance ornamentation. On the east side are the chapel and a small
outbuilding, which form a double projection and enclose a little terrace
on the ground floor. Over the great entrance door are carvings and
heraldic devices, and over the whole facade of the chateau there is a
rich luxuriance of ornamentation which, with the wide moat surrounding
it, and the blooming parterres spread before it, give the entire castle
the air of being _en fete_, not relegated to the past like Langeais,
Amboise, and some of the other chateaux that we have seen.
However Diane de Poitiers and Catherine de Medici may have beautified
this lovely palace on the Cher, its inception seems to have been due to
Bohier, the Norman _general des finances_ of Charles VIII, or perhaps to
his wife Katherine Briconnet, a true lover of art, who like her husband
spent vast sums upon Chenonceaux. The fact that Bohier died before the
chateau was anywhere near completion makes the old French inscription on
the tower, and elsewhere on the walls, especially pathetic, "_S'il vient
a point, m'en souviendra_" (If completed, remember me). Even unfinished
as the Norman financier left Chenonceaux, one cannot fail to remember
him and his dreams of beauty which others were destined to carry out.