height, which Philibert de l'Orme, at Queen Catherine's command, caused
to rise like a fairy palace from the waters of the Cher. This gallery of
two stories, decorated in the interior with elaborate designs in stucco,
and busts of royal and distinguished persons, is classic in style and
sufficiently substantial in structure, as it rests upon five arches
separated by abutments, on each of which is a semicircular turret rising
to the level of the first floor. Designed for a _salle des fetes_, this
part of the castle was never quite finished in consequence of the death
of Catherine, who intended that an elaborate pavilion, to match Bohier's
chateau on the opposite bank of the river, should mark the terminus of
the gallery. The new building was far enough advanced, however, to be
used for the elaborate festivities that had been planned for Francis II
and Queen Mary when they fled from the horrors of Amboise to the lovely
groves and forests of Chenonceaux.
Standing in the long gallery, which literally bridges the Cher, we
wondered whether the masques and revels held here in honor of the Scotch
Queen were able to dispel sad thoughts of that day at Amboise, of whose
miseries we heard so much yesterday. Mary Stuart, more than half
French, was gay, light-hearted and perhaps in those early days with a
short memory for the sorrows of life; but it seems as if the
recollection of that day of slaughter and misery could never have been
quite effaced from her mind. To Catherine, who revelled in blood and
murder, the day was one of triumph, but its horrors evidently left their
impress upon the delicate physique as well as upon the sensitive mind of
the frail, gentle Francis.
Since we have heard so much of the evil deeds of Catherine it has become
almost unsafe to take Miss Cassandra into any of the palaces where the
Medicean Queen is honored by statue or portrait. When we passed from the
spacious _salle des gardes_, later used as the dining hall of the
Briconnet family, into the room of Diane de Poitiers, it seemed the very
irony of fate that a large portrait of the arch enemy of the beautiful
Diane should adorn the richly carved chimney-place. I should not say
_adorn_, for Catherine's unattractive face could adorn nothing, and this
severe portrait in widow's weeds, with none of the pomp and circumstance
of royalty to light up the sombre garb, is singularly undecorative.
Although she had already announced that she had no great affection for
Diane, Catherine's portrait in this particular room excited Miss
Cassandra's wrath to such a degree that her words and gestures attracted
the attention of the guide. At first he looked perplexed and then
indignantly turned to us for an explanation: "What ailed the lady, and
why was she displeased? He was doing his best to show us the chateau."
We reassured him, smoothed down his ruffled feathers, and finally
explained to him that Miss Cassandra had a deep-rooted aversion to Queen
Catherine and especially resented having her honored by portrait or bust
in these beautiful French castles, above all in this room of her hated
rival.
"Diane was none too good herself," he replied with a grim smile; "but
she was beautiful and had wit enough to hold the hearts of two kings."
Then, entering into the spirit of the occasion, he turned to Miss
Cassandra and by dint of shrugs, and no end of indescribable and most
expressive French gestures, he made her understand that he had no love
for Catherine himself, and that if it lay within his _pouvoir_ he would
throw the unlovely portrait out of the window; no one cared for
her,--her own husband least of all. This last remark was accompanied
with what was intended for a wicked wink, exclusively for Walter's
benefit, but its wickedness was quite overcome by the irresistible and
contagious good humor and _bonhomie_ of the man. Finding that his
audience was _en rapport_ with him, he drew our attention to the wall
decoration, which consists of a series of monograms, and asked us how we
read the design.
"D and H intertwined" we answered in chorus.
At this the guide laughed merrily and explained that there were
different opinions about the monogram; some persons said that King Henry
had boldly undertaken to interlace the initial letters of Catherine and
Diane with his own, but he for his part believed that the letters were
two Cs with an H between them and, whether by accident or design, the
letter on the left, which looked more like a D than a C, gave the key to
the monogram, "and this," he added with the air of a philosopher, "made
it true to history; the beautiful favorite on the left hand was always
more powerful than the Queen on the right, not that the ways of King
Henry II were to be commended; but," with a frank smile, "one is always
pleased to think of that wicked woman getting what was owing her."
"Rousseau thought that both the initials were those of Diane; he says in
his _Confessions_: 'In 1747 we went to pass the autumn in Touraine, at
the castle of Chenonceaux, a royal mansion upon the Cher, built by Henry
II for Diane de Poitiers, of whom the ciphers are still seen.'"
We turned, at the sound of a strange voice, to find the Frenchman of the
Bon Laboureur standing quite near us.
"These guides have a large supply of more or less correct history at
hand, and this one, being a philosopher, adds his own theories to
further obscure the truth." This in the most perfect English,
accompanied by a shrug of the shoulders entirely French. "Chenonceaux
being Diane's chateau and this her own room, what more natural than that
her cipher should be here, as Rousseau says? And yet, as Honore de
Balzac points out, this same cipher is to be found in the palace of the
Louvre; upon the columns of _la Halle au Ble_, built by Catherine
herself; and above her own tomb at Saint Denis which she had constructed
during her lifetime. All the same, it must have pleased Henry immensely
to have the royal cipher look much more like D H than like C H, and
there is still room for conjecture which, after all, is one of the
charms of history, so, Monsieur et Mesdames, it is quite _a votre
choix_," with a graceful bow in our direction.
Evidently Monsieur Crapaud does not consider us savages, despite
Walter's unsavory remarks about the _cuisine_ of his country, and
noticing our interest he added with French exactness: "Of course, the
chateau was not built for Diane, although much enlarged and beautified
by her, and when Catherine came into possession she had the good sense
to carry out some of Diane's plans. Francis I came here to hunt
sometimes, and it was upon one of these parties of pleasure, when his
son Henry and Diane de Poitiers were with him, that she fell in love
with this castle on the Cher, and longed to make it her own. Having a
lively sense of the instability of all things mortal, kings in
particular, she took good care to make friends with the rising star, and
when Francis was gathered to his fathers and his uncles and his
cousins,--you may remember that his predecessor was an uncle or a
cousin,--Henry promptly turned over Chenonceaux to Diane."
"There is a curious old story," said Monsieur Crapaud, "about
Chenonceaux having been given to Diane to soothe her vanity, which had
been wounded by the publication of some scurrilous verses, said to have
been instigated by her enemy, Madame d'Etampes. Naturally, the petted
beauty, whose charms were already on the wane, resented satirical
allusion to her painted face, false teeth and hair, especially as she
was warned, in very plain language, that a painted bait would not long
attract her prey. These verses were attributed to one of the Bohiers, a
nephew or a son of the old councillor who had built the chateau, and, to
save his neck, he offered Chenonceaux to Henry, who begged Diane to
accept it and forget her woes."
"Which she did, of course," said Walter, "as she always seemed to have
had an eye to the main chance."
"I cannot vouch for the truth of the story; I give it to you as it came
to me. There is no doubt, however, that certain satirical verses were
written about the Duchesse de Valentinois, in which she and the King
also are spoken of with a freedom not to be expected under the old
regime. Perhaps you are not familiar with the quatrain:
"'Sire, si vous laissez, comme Charles desire,
Comme Diane veut, par trop vous gouverner,
Foudre, petrir, mollir, refondre, retourner,
Sire vous n'etes plus, vous n'etes plus que cire.'"
"Rather bold language to use in speaking of a king, to be told that he
is but wax in the hands of Diane and the Cardinal of Lorraine," said
Lydia; "that was at the time of the disaster of St. Quentin, was it
not?"
"Yes, Mademoiselle; you seem to be quite up on our history, which was
really deeply involved in cabals at this juncture. I shall be afraid of
you in future, as you probably know more about it all than I do."
The French gentleman's natural use of Americanisms in speech was as
surprising to us as was Lydia's knowledge of French history to him, and
the ice being now fairly broken, we chatted away gaily as we passed
through the handsome dining room, the ancient _salle des gardes_ of
Queen Catherine, where our new _cicerone_ pointed out to us in the
painted ceiling her own personal cipher interwoven with an arabesque.
From the great dining room a door, on which are carved the arms of the
Bohiers, leads directly, one might say abruptly, into a chapel, "as if,"
said Monsieur Crapaud, "to remind those who sit at meat here that the
things of the spirit are near at hand."
The chapel is a little gem, with rich glass dating back to 1521. Another
door in the dining room leads to Queen Catherine's superbly decorated
salon, and still another to the apartments of Louise de Vaudemont. In
these rooms, which she had hung in black, the saintly widow of Henry III
spent many years mourning for a husband who had shown himself quite
unworthy of her devotion. The more that we saw of this lovely palace,
the better we understood Catherine's wrath when she saw the coveted
possession thrown into the lap of her rival. She had come here with her
father-in-law, Francis, as a bride, and naturally looked upon the
chateau as her own.
"But Diane held on to it," said Walter. "We have just been reading that
remarkable scene when, after Henry had been mortally wounded in the
tournament with Montgomery, Catherine sent messages to her, demanding
possession of the castle. You remember that her only reply was, 'Is the
King yet dead?' and hearing that he still lived, Diane stoutly refused
to surrender her chateau while breath was in his body. We have our Dumas
with us, you see."
"Yes, and here, I believe, he was true to history. That was a battle
royal of dames, and I, for my part, have always regretted that Diane had
to give up her palace. Have you seen Chaumont, which she so unwillingly
received in exchange? No! Then you will see something fine in its way,
but far less beautiful than Chenonceaux, which for charm of situation
stands alone."
And after all, Diane still possesses her chateau; for it is of her that
we think as we wander from room to room. In the apartment of Francis I
her portrait by Primaticcio looks down from the wall. As in life,
Diane's beauty and wit triumphed over her rivals; over the withering
hand of age and the schemes of the unscrupulous and astute daughter of
the Medici, so in death she still dominates the castle that she loved.
Pray do not think that I am in love with Diane; she was doubtless wicked
and vindictive, even if not as black as Dumas paints her; but bad as she
may have been, it is a satisfaction to think of her having for years
outwitted Catherine, or as Miss Cassandra said, in language more
expressive if less elegant than that of Monsieur Crapaud, "It is worth
much to know that that terrible woman for once _did_ get her _come
uppings_."
If it was of Diane de Poitiers we thought within the walls of the
chateau, it was to Mary Stuart that our thoughts turned as we wandered
through the lovely forest glades of the park, under the overarching
trees through whose branches the sun flashed upon the green turf and
varied growth of shrubbery. We could readily fancy the young Queen and
her brilliant train riding gaily through these shaded paths, their hawks
upon their wrists, these, according to all writers of the time, being
the conventional accompaniments of royalty at play.
Ronsard was doubtless with the court at Chenonceaux, as he was often in
the train of the young Queen, whom he had instructed in the art of verse
making. Like all the other French poets of his time, he laid some of
his most charming verses at the feet of Mary Stuart, whose short stay in
France he likened to the life of the flowers.
"Les roses et les lis ne regnent qu'un printemps,
Ansi vostre beaute seulment apparrue
Quinze ou seize ans en France est soudain disparue."
I think Ronsard, as well as Chastelard, accompanied Mary upon her sad
return to Scotland after the death of Francis, and how cold and barren
that north country must have seemed after the rich fertility and beauty
of Touraine! Do you remember our own impressions of Holyrood on a rainy
August morning, and the chill gloom of poor Mary's bedroom, and the
adjoining dismal little boudoir where she supped with Rizzio,--the room
in which he was murdered as he clung to her garments for protection? I
thought of it to-day as we stood in the warm sunshine of the court, with
the blooming parterres spread before us, realizing, as never before, the
sharp contrast between such palaces of pleasure as this and Mary's rude
northern castles. An appropriate setting was this chateau for the gay,
spirited young creature, who seems to have been a queen every inch from
her childhood, with a full appreciation of her own importance. It seems
that she mortally offended Catherine, when a mere child, by saying that
the Queen belonged to a family of merchants while she herself was the
daughter of a long line of kings. In some way, Mary's words were
repeated to Catherine, who never forgave the bitter speech, all the more
bitter for its truth.
Finding that we had not yet seen the Galerie Louis XIV, which, for some
reason, is not generally shown to visitors, our friendly _cicerone_ who,
as he expressed it, knows Chenonceaux as he knows the palm of his hand,
conducted us again to the chateau. For him all doors were opened, as by
magic, and we afterwards learned that he had some acquaintance with
Monsieur Terry, the present owner of this fair domain.
Although the Galerie Louis XIV, on the upper floor of the long gallery,
is not particularly beautiful or well decorated, it is interesting
because here were first presented some of the plays of Jean Jacques
Rousseau, _L'Engagement Temeraire_ and _Le Devin du Village_. Such later
associations as this under the _regime_ of the _Fermier General_ and
Madame Dupin are those of an altogether peaceful and homelike abode. In
his _Confessions_ Rousseau says: "We amused ourselves greatly in this
fine spot. We made a great deal of music and acted comedies. I wrote a
comedy, in fifteen days, entitled _L'Engagement Temeraire_, which will
be found amongst my papers; it has not other merit than that of being
lively. I composed several other little things: amongst others a poem
entitled, _L'Allee de Sylvie_, from the name of an alley in the park
upon the banks of the Cher; and this without discontinuing my chemical
studies or interrupting what I had to do for Madame D----n." Rousseau
was at this time acting as secretary to Madame Dupin and her son-in-law,
Monsieur Francueil. Elsewhere he complains that these two _dilettanti_
were so occupied with their own productions that they were disposed to
belittle the genius of their brilliant secretary, which, after all, was
not unnatural, as the "New Eloisa" and his other famous works had not
then been given to the world.
Monsieur Crapaud explained to us that Madame Dupin was not only a beauty
and a _precieuse_, but an excellent business woman, so clever, indeed,
that she managed to prove, by hook or by crook, that Chenonceaux had
never been absolutely crown property and so did not fall under the _coup
de decret_. She retained this beautiful chateau during the Revolution,
and lived here in heroic possession, during all the upheavals and
changes of that tumultuous period.
Thanks to Monsieur Crapaud, we missed no part of the chateau, even to
the kitchens, which are spacious and fitted out with an abundant supply
of the shining, well-polished coffee pots, pans, and _casseroles_ that
always make French cookery appear so dainty and appetizing. He
accompanied us, with charming amiability, through this most important
department of the chateau, and never once, amid the evidences of
luxurious living, did he even look supercilious or, as Lydia expressed
it afterwards, "As if he were saying to himself, 'I wonder what these
benighted Americans think of French cookery now!'" Not even when Miss
Cassandra asked her favorite question in royal palaces, "How many in
family?" was there a ghost of a smile upon his face, and yet he must
have understood her, as he turned to a guide and asked how many persons
constituted the family of Monsieur Terry. This Cuban gentleman who now
owns the chateau is certainly to be congratulated upon his excellent
taste; the restoration of the building and the laying out of the grounds
are all so well done, the whole is so harmonious, instinct with the
spirit of the past, and yet so livable that the impression left upon us
was that of a happy home. In the past, Chenonceaux witnessed no such
horrors as are associated with Amboise and so many of the beautiful
castles of Touraine. Small wonder that Henry II wrote of this fair
palace, as we read in a little book lying on one of the tables: "Le
Chasteau de Chenonceau est assis en un des meillures, et plus beaulx
pays de nostre royaume."
"I must confess that I feel sorry for poor Diana," said Miss Cassandra,
as we lingered among the flowers and shrubbery of the lovely gardens.
"What became of her after Catherine turned her out of her chateau?"
"You remember, Madame, that Chaumont was given her in exchange, although
Catherine gave her to understand that she considered the smaller chateau
of Anet a more suitable place for her to retire to, her sun having set.
For this reason, or because she preferred Anet, Madame Diane retired to
this chateau, which she had beautified in her early years, and in whose
grounds Jean Goujon had placed a charming figure of herself as Diane
Chaseresse. This marble, destroyed during the Revolution, has been
carefully restored, and so Diane now reigns in beauty at the Louvre,
where this statue has found a place."
Monsieur Crapaud, whose name, it transpires, is La Tour, an appropriate
one and one easily remembered in this part of the world, returned to
Tours in the same train with us, and to our surprise we found that he
also was stopping at the Pension B----. The manner in which he said "My
family always stop at the Pension B----" seemed to confer an enviable
distinction upon the little hostel, and in a way to dim the ancient
glories of the Hotel de l'Univers.
IX
A FAIR PRISON
PENSION B----, TOURS, Wednesday, September 7th.
WALTER has been triumphing over me because, even after his unseemly
behavior yesterday, M. La Tour has formed a sudden attachment for him
which is so strong that he insisted upon staying over to go with us to
Loches this afternoon. He says that we may miss some of the most
interesting points there if left to the tender mercies of the guides,
who often dwell upon the least important things. Our new acquaintance
proved to be so altogether delightful as a _cicerone_, when he conducted
us through the old streets of Tours this morning, that we are looking
forward with pleasure to an afternoon in his good company.
The old part of the town, M. La Tour tells us, was once a quite distinct
ecclesiastical foundation, called Chateauneuf, of which every building,
in a way, depended upon the Basilica of St. Martin. When the dreadful
Fulk, the Black, set fire to it, in the tenth century, twenty-two
churches and chapels are said to have been destroyed. Among those that
have been restored are Notre Dame la Riche, once Notre Dame la Pauvre,
and St. Saturnin, which formerly contained, among other handsome tombs,
that of Thomas Bohier and his wife Katherine Briconnet, the couple who
did so much for Chenonceaux. This ancient Chateauneuf, like the court
end of so many old cities, has narrow, winding streets overtopped by
high buildings. These twisting streets are so infinitely picturesque
with their sudden turns and elbows that we are quite ready to overlook
their inconvenience for the uses of our day, and trust that no modern
vandalism, under the name of progress, may change and despoil these
byways of their ancient charm. Wandering through the narrow, quaint
streets of the old city, with their steep gabled and timbered houses,
through whose grilled or half-opened gates we catch glimpses of tiled
courtyards and irregular bits of stone carving, over which flowers throw
a veil of rich bloom, we feel that we are living in an old world. Yet M.
La Tour reminds us that beneath our feet lies a still older world, for
as we follow what is evidently a wall of defence we come upon the
remains of an ancient gateway and suddenly realize that beneath this
Martinopolis, Chateauneuf and Tours of the fifth century, lie the
temples, amphitheatres, and baths of the more ancient Urbs Turonum of
the Romans.
In the midst of our excursion into the past, Miss Cassandra suddenly
brought us back to the present by exclaiming that she would like to go
to some place where the Romans had never been. She has had quite enough
of them in their own city and country, and now being in Touraine she
says that she prefers to live among the French.
M. La Tour laughed heartily, as he does at everything our Quaker lady
says, and answered, with French literalness, that it would be hard to
find any land in the known world that the Romans had not occupied,
"Except your own America, Madame." Then, as if to humor her fancy, he
conducted us by way of little streets with charming names of flowers,
angels, and the like, to the Place du Grand Marche, where he showed Miss
Cassandra something quite French, the beautiful Renaissance fountain
presented to Tours by the unfortunate Jacques de Beaune, Baron de
Semblancay. This fountain was made from the designs of Michel Colombe by
his nephew, Bastian Francois. It was broken in pieces and thrown aside
when the Rue Royale was created, but was later put together by one of
the good mayors of Tours and now stands on the Place du Grand Marche, a
lasting monument to the Baron de Semblancay, treasurer under Francis I,
who was accused of malversation, hanged at Montfaucon and his estates,
Azay-le-Rideau with the rest, confiscated by the crown. M. La Tour
considers the treatment of the Baron de Semblancay quite unjust, and
says that he was only found to have been guilty of corruption when he
failed to supply the enormous sums of money required by Francis I and
his mother, who, like the proverbial horseleach's daughters, cried ever
"Give! give!" It seems one of the reprisals of time that the name of the
donor should still be preserved upon this beautiful Fountain de Beaune
of Tours, as well as upon the old treasurer's house in the Rue St.
Francois, a fine Renaissance building.
[Illustration: Neurdein Freres, Photo.
HOUSE OF TRISTAN L'HERMITE]
From the Rue du Grand Marche we turned into the Rue du Commerce, where
on the Place de Beaune is the Hotel de la Crouzille, once the Hotel de
la Valliere, with its double gables and the graceful, shell-like
ornamentation which the restaurateur who occupies the house has wisely
allowed to remain above his commonplace sign of to-day. In the same
street is the famous Hotel Gouin, now a bank. This house, which dates
back to the fifteenth century, has been carefully restored, and its
whole stone facade, covered with charming arabesques, is a fine example
of early French Renaissance style.