unprofitable to her, as she could not understand a word of it, the guide
led us back to the chateau and showed us the room in which Queen Anne
died. Whatever may have been her faults and irregularities of temper,
Anne seems to have had a strong sense of duty and was the first Queen
of France who invited to her court a group of young girls of noble
family, whom she educated and treated like her own daughters. She even
arranged the marriages of these girls entirely to suit herself, of
course, and without the slightest regard to their individual
preferences, which was more than she was able to do in the case of the
young princesses, her children. She lived and died adored by her
husband, who gave her a funeral of unprecedented magnificence, and
although Louis soon married again, for reasons of state, he never ceased
to mourn his _Bretonne_ whom he had loved, honored, and in many
instances obeyed.
Anne's insignia of the twisted rope and the ermine tails are to be found
in nearly every room in the chateau, and here also is the emblem of her
daughter, a cygnet pierced by an arrow, which seems symbolic of the life
of the gentle Claude of France, whose heart must often have been wounded
by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, as she was made to feel
keenly, from her wedding day, that the King, her husband, had no love
for her.
Matrimonial infelicities are so thickly dotted over the pages of French
history that it is impossible to pause in our excursions through these
palaces to weep over the sorrows of noble ladies. Indeed, for a French
king to have had any affection for his lawful wife seems to have been so
exceptional that it was much more commented upon than the unhappiness of
royal marriages. These reflections are Miss Cassandra's, not mine; and
she added, "I am sorry, though, that Anne's daughter was not happy in
her marriage," in very much the same tone that she would have commented
upon the marriage of a neighbor's daughter. "I hope the beautiful garden
that we have been hearing about was a comfort to her, and there must be
some satisfaction, after all, in being a queen and living in a palace as
handsome as this." With this extremely worldly remark on the part of our
Quaker lady, we passed into the picture gallery of the chateau, where we
saw a number of interesting portraits, among them those of Louis XIII
and of his son Louis XIV, in their childhood, quaint little figures with
rich gowns reaching to their feet, and with sweet, baby faces of
indescribable charm. Here also is a superb portrait of Gaston, the
brother of Louis XIII, and a portrait bust of Madame de Sevigne, whose
charming face seems to belong to Blois, although she has said little
about this chateau in her letters. Here also are portraits of Madame de
Pompadour, Vigee Lebrun, as beautiful as any of the court beauties whom
she painted, and a charming head of Mademoiselle de Blois, the daughter
of Louise de La Valliere, whom Madame de Sevigne called "the good little
princess who is so tender and so pretty that one could eat her." This
was at the time of her marriage, which Louis XIV arranged with the
Prince de Conti, having always some conscience with regard to his
numerous and somewhat heterogeneous progeny.
And in this far off gallery of France our patriotism was suddenly
aroused to Fourth of July temperature by seeing a portrait of
Washington. This portrait, by Peale or Trumbull, was doubtless presented
to one of the French officers who were with Washington in many of his
campaigns, and the strong calm face seemed, in a way, to dominate these
gay and gorgeously appareled French people, as in life he dominated
every circle that he entered.
We were especially interested in a bust of Ronsard with his emblem of
three fishes, which delighted Walter and Archie, who now propose a
fishing trip to his Chateau of La Poissonniere. We love Ronsard for many
of his verses, above all for the lines in which he reveals his feeling
for the beauties of nature, which was rare in those artificial days. Do
you remember what he said about having a tree planted over his grave?
"Give me no marble cold
When I am dead,
But o'er my lowly bed
May a tree its green leaves unfold."
XI
THE ROMANCE OF BLOIS
HOTEL DE FRANCE, Saturday afternoon.
WALTER and Archie have elected to spend a part of this afternoon in the
Daniel Dupuis Museum, over whose treasures, in the form of engraved
medals, they are quite enthusiastic. We women folk, left to our own
devices, wandered at will through the first floor rooms and halls of the
Chateau of Blois. The great Salle des Etats, with its blue ceiling
dotted over with fleur-de-lis, is said to be the most ancient of them
all. Beautiful as many of the rooms are, despite their somewhat too
pronounced and vividly colored decorations, and interesting as we found
the remains of the Tour de Foix upon which tradition placed the
observatory dedicated by Catherine and her pet demon, Ruggieri, to
Uranus, the crowning glory of the Chateau of Blois is the great Court of
Honor. We never pass through this impressive portal, surmounted by the
gilded equestrian figure of Louis XII, without a feeling of joy in the
spaciousness and beauty of this wide sunny court. At a first glance we
were bewildered by its varied and somewhat incongruous architecture, the
wing of Louis XII, with its fine, open gallery; that of Charles
d'Orleans, with its richly decorative sculpture; the Chapel of St.
Calais, and the modern and less beautiful wing of Gaston, the work of
Francis Mansard, but after all, and above all, what one carries away
from the court of Blois is that one perfect jewel of Renaissance skill
and taste, the great staircase of Francis I. An open octagonal tower is
this staircase, with great rampant bays, delicately carved galleries and
exquisite sculptured decorations. Indeed, no words can fully describe
the richness and dignity of this unique structure, for which Francis I
has the credit, although much of its beauty is said to have been
inspired by Queen Claude.
We all agreed that this staircase alone would be worth while coming to
Blois to see, with its balustrades and lovely pilasters surmounted by
Jean Goujon's adorable figures representing Faith, Hope, Abundance, and
other blessings of heaven and earth. The charming faces of these
statues are said to have been modeled after Diane de Poitiers and other
famous beauties of the time. While wandering through the court, we came
suddenly upon traces of Charles of Orleans, who was taken prisoner at
the battle of Agincourt, and was a captive for twenty-five years in
English prisons. A gallery running at right angles to the wing of Louis
XII is named after the Duke of Orleans, probably by his son Louis. This
gallery, much simpler than the buildings surrounding it, is also rich in
sculpture and still richer in associations with the poet-prince, who is
said to have solaced the weary hours of his imprisonment by writing
verses, chansons, rondeaux, and ballades, some of which were doubtless
composed in this gallery after his return from exile. The lines of that
exquisite poem, "The fairest thing in mortal eyes," occurred to Lydia's
mind and mine at the same moment. We were standing near the ruins of an
old fountain, looking up at the gallery of Charles of Orleans and
repeating the verses in concert like two school girls, when Miss
Cassandra, who had been lingering by the staircase, joined us, evidently
not without some anxiety lest we had suddenly taken leave of our
senses. Finding that we were only reciting poetry, she expressed great
satisfaction that we did not have it in the original, as she is so tired
of trying to guess at what people are talking about.
[Illustration: COURT OF BLOIS WITH STAIRCASE OF FRANCIS I]
Indeed, Henry Cary's translation is so beautiful that we scarcely miss
the charm of the old French. We wondered, as we lingered over the lines,
which one of the several wives of the Duke of Orleans was "the fairest
thing in mortal eyes,"--his first wife, Isabelle of France, or Bonne
d'Armagnac, his second spouse? His third wife, Marie de Cleves, probably
survived him, and so it could not have been for her that there was
spread a tomb
"Of gold and sapphires blue:
The gold doth show her blessedness,
The sapphires mark her true;
For blessedness and truth in her
Were livelily portrayed,
When gracious God with both his hands
Her goodly substance made.
He framed her in such wondrous wise,
She was, to speak without disguise,
The fairest thing in mortal eyes."
It was pleasant to think of the poet-prince spending the last days of
his life in this beautiful chateau with his wife, Marie de Cleves, and
to know that he had the pleasure of holding in his arms his little son
and heir, Louis of Orleans, afterwards the good King Louis, our old
friend, and the bone of Walter's contention with Miss Cassandra.
By the way, I do not at all agree with that usually wise and just lady
in her estimate of Louis XII. As M. La Tour says, he was far in advance
of his age in his breadth of mind and his sense of the duty owed by a
king to his people. Perhaps something of his father's poet vision
entered into the more practical nature of Louis, and in nothing did he
show more plainly the generosity and breadth of his character than in
his forgiveness of those who had slighted and injured him,--when he
said, upon ascending the throne, "The King of France does not avenge the
wrongs of the Duke of Orleans," Louis placed himself many centuries in
advance of the revengeful and rapacious age in which he lived.
Another poet whose name is associated with Blois is Francois Villon. A
loafer and a vagabond he was, and a thief he may have been, yet by
reason of his genius and for the beauty of his song this troubadour was
welcomed to the literary court of Charles d'Orleans. That Villon
received substantial assistance and protection from his royal brother
poet appears from his poems. Among them we find one upon the birth of
the Duke's daughter Mary: _Le Dit de la Naissance Marie_, which, like
his patron's verses, is part in French and part in Latin.
In this chateau, which is so filled with history and romance, our
thoughts turned from the times of Charles of Orleans to a later period
when Catherine sought to dazzle the eyes of Jeanne d'Albret by a series
of fetes and pageants at Blois that would have been quite impossible in
her simpler court of Navarre. The Huguenot Queen, as it happened, was
not at all bedazzled by the splendors of the French court, but with the
keen vision that belonged to her saw, through the powder, paint, tinsel,
and false flattery, the depravity and corruption of the life that
surrounded her. To her son she wrote that his fiancee was beautiful,
witty, and graceful, with a fine figure which was much too tightly laced
and a good complexion which was in danger of being ruined by the paint
and powder spread over it. With regard to the marriage contract which
she had come to sign, the Queen said that she was shamefully used and
that her patience was taxed beyond that of Griselda. After many delays
the marriage contract was finally signed, and a few days later the good
Queen of Navarre was dead, whether from natural causes or from some of
the products of Queen Catherine's secret cupboards the world will never
know, as Ruggieri and Le Maitre were both at hand to do the will of
their royal mistress with consummate skill, and to cover over their
tracks with equal adroitness.
It was to a still later and less tragic period in the history of the
chateau that our thoughts turned most persistently, when Gaston, Duke of
Orleans and his wife, Marguerite of Lorraine, held their court here and
a bevy of young girls brought charm and grace to these great bare rooms.
Gaston's eldest daughter, the Grande Mademoiselle, was often here in
those days, acting in amateur theatricals with her stepsisters, one of
whom, the little Princess Marguerite d'Orleans, cherished vain hopes of
becoming Queen of France by marrying her own cousin, Louis XIV.
There is an amusing passage in the diary of Mademoiselle de
Montpensier, in which she describes the visit of the King at Blois. "My
sister," she said, "came to the foot of the stairs to receive his
Majesty," this was of course the beautiful stairway of Francis I, which
bears the lovely sculptured figures of Diane de Poitiers and other
beauties of the time; but alas, the little Princess Marguerite had been
stung by certain flies called gnats which quite spoiled her beautiful
complexion, and, adds the frank sister, "made her look quite an object."
This circumstance added greatly to Marguerite's chagrin when she learned
that Louis was on his way to wed the Spanish Infanta, she herself having
been flattered with the hope of marrying her cousin, having been
frequently addressed as the "little queen." Louis, never insensible to
his own charms, confided to Mademoiselle on his way to Blois that he had
not changed his coat or dressed his love-locks; in fact had made himself
"_le plus vilain possible_," in order to spare the regrets of his cousin
Marguerite and her parents that he had slipped through their fingers.
Other young girls in the family group were Mademoiselle de Saint-Remi,
whose father, Jacques de Courtarval, Marquis of Saint-Remi, was first
steward to Gaston, Duke of Orleans, and Mademoiselle Montelais, whose
name occurs in one of the court rhymes of the day in company with that
of another young girl, whose history is closely associated with the
chateau,
"Guiche of love the ally
The maids of honor did supply,
He has caged a pretty pair,
Montelais and La Valliere."
This other girl, who was destined to be a companion to Mademoiselle
Montelais at court, was Louise de La Valliere, the stepdaughter of
Saint-Remi and the daughter of the Marquis de la Baume-Le Blanc, Sieur
de la Gasserie, who took the title of La Valliere after the death of an
elder brother. These high-sounding titles of the La Vallieres did not
stand for much in gold or gear at this time, although there are still
ruins to be seen in Bourbonnais of a very ancient castle of the La
Baumes. An heroic record was theirs, however, as one of the name, Pierre
le Blanc, served under Joan of Arc, and the father of Louise
successfully bore the brunt of the enemies' attack at the passage of
Brai, in 1634, and secured the retreat of the Spanish.
We had seen the house at Tours where Louise was born, but it was at
Amboise that the La Vallieres lived during her childhood, and here she
may have seen the fourteen-year-old Louis, who came with the Queen
Mother and Mazarin to this town, which was so gallantly held for him,
its rightful lord, against Gaston and his bellicose daughter, by the
honest soldier, Laurent de La Valliere. Whether or not little Louise de
La Valliere saw the young King at Amboise during the war of the Fronde
she certainly saw him when he stopped at Blois, some years later, on his
way to Saint-Jean de Luz and the Spanish marriage. Louis and his court
were the guests of Gaston in 1660, although they had been openly arrayed
against each other at Amboise in 1651. Mademoiselle de Montpensier, in
her frank and amusing chronicles, tells us that the King evidently found
her father's chateau a dull place to stop in over night. The customs and
costumes of the household failed to please the fastidious young monarch;
the meal was served in "old-fashioned style, and the ladies were dressed
like the dishes--all out of fashion."
Dumas makes Louis remark facetiously to Madame Gaston, that his teacher
in geography had not told him that Blois was so far from Paris that the
fashions could not reach the provincial town for several years. Only one
figure in the group, which had gathered in the vast _salle_ to do honor
to the monarch, appeared to him worthy of royal regard. This was a
slight, girlish form, in white muslin, a costume so simple that it could
never be quite out of date.
Standing this afternoon in the Salle de Reception, we pictured to
ourselves the first meeting of the King and Louise de La Valliere on the
night of the arrival of the court at Blois. The fast-fading light lent a
semblance of reality to the scene, as the torches and candles used in
those early days could not have brilliantly lighted the vast hall. We
fancied the chairs placed in half circle for the accommodation of the
royal guests, the King's not a half-inch higher than that of Mazarin or
of the Queen, Anne of Austria. The astute Italian Prime Minister is
seated, his body is bent, his face pallid, the hand of Death is already
laid upon him, but his mind is as keen and alert as in youth, his eyes
as penetrating. The courtiers are grouped around Mazarin, the real
king; Gaston, the indolent father of the energetic and courageous
Mademoiselle de Montpensier, is talking to Mazarin, and chronicles of
the day tell us that the Duke was an admirable _raconteur_. The Grande
Mademoiselle, now over thirty, and in the full flower of a beauty which,
according to Petitot's miniature and her own rose-colored description,
was not inconsiderable, is in another group at one side of the hall,
with her half-sisters and the other young girls of the house. Called
forth from her modest station behind the princesses of the House of
Orleans by the command of her hostess, Louise de La Valliere stepped
forward, confused and blushing, to make her deep courtesy before the
King, while the Duchess presented her in due form as Mademoiselle de la
Baume-Le Blanc, daughter of the Marquis de La Valliere and stepdaughter
of the Marquis de Saint-Remi.
As Madame de Motteville described her at seventeen, we see the slight
girlish form of La Valliere making her reverence before royalty, owing
her charm, as the court lady relates, more to a certain grace, modesty
and tenderness in bearing and expression than to the dazzling whiteness
and rosiness of her skin, the exquisite blueness of her eyes and the
brilliancy of her blonde hair of the shade which the French call
_cheveux argentes_.
[Illustration: LOUISE DE LA VALLIERE]
Although Madame de la Motte's description of Louise de La Valliere is
charming and sympathetic, we long for the graceful and vivifying pen of
Madame de Sevigne to picture for us the young girl as she appeared at
her home in Blois, before the equally baneful breath of court favor or
court scandal had brushed the bloom from her innocent loveliness.
Dear Madame de Sevigne, with her graceful fancy, her _joie de vivre_,
and her inimitable skill in presenting a situation and making her
characters live before us, should have been immortal as well as
universal. We wish for a letter from her in every chateau of the Loire,
most of all here at Blois, of which she has written so little. When
Madame de Sevigne saw Louise de La Valliere some months later at court,
she likened her to a modest violet, hiding beneath its leaves; but not
so completely as to evade the eyes of royalty. And if Louise was lovely
in her gown of virginal white, the King was a no less pleasing object to
gaze upon. At all times courteous and graceful, at twenty-three Louis is
described as handsome, well-formed, with deep blue eyes, and a
profusion of curling hair which fell over his shoulders. Although
somewhat under the middle height, he bore himself with an air of majesty
and dignity, inherited from his royal mother, and would have been "every
inch a King," said Saint-Simon, "even if he had been born under the roof
of a beggar." It was this grace and personal charm, which Louis
possessed in no small degree, that appealed to the girl's imagination,
rather than the grandeur of his station. If Louise had not seen him
again the image of this young prince from fairyland might in time have
faded from her mind, especially as an incipient love affair with a
neighbor's son already existed. Some notes and occasional shy glances
had been exchanged between Mademoiselle de La Valliere and young
Bragelongne, who lived next door to the Saint-Remis at Blois, and had
she not been suddenly carried off to court this nebulous romance might
have materialized into a happy marriage, and a career more honorable, if
less brilliant and exciting, than that which lay before her.
It was this early affair with a neighbor's son which gave Dumas some
historic foundation for his captivating and pathetic story of the
Vicomte de Bragelonne. Whether or not the young lover wore his heart
upon his sleeve to the end of his days, it is quite evident that M. de
Bragelongne was speedily forgotten by Louise amid the pleasures and
distractions of the gayest court in Europe. As maid of honor to the
English princess, Henriette, Louise was plunged into all the festivities
of Fontainebleau, Versailles, and the Palais Royal, of which the King
was always the soul and centre.
You will think that my pen has run away with me in following the
fortunes of Louise de La Valliere from Blois to Paris and from Paris to
Versailles; but Lydia and I have been reading a book about Blois which
M. La Tour had sent to us from Paris. This book, which dwells
particularly upon the story of Louise de La Valliere and her association
with the Chateau of Blois, has brought the life of that time before us
so vividly that we feel as if we had some part and lot in the pathetic
tale. The festivities and intrigues of Fontainebleau and Versailles may
seem a far cry from the old Chateau of Blois, and yet the court life of
that older time, dramatic and picturesque as it was, was curiously
limited. The characters were always the same, the pageant alone shifted
from palace to chateau, and from one chateau of the Loire to another.
Now the court is at Amboise, again at Chenonceaux, and again at the
stately palace of Chambord. The King is always surrounded by the same
courtiers and the same favorites, whether he is riding through the
forest of Fontainebleau or hunting at Chambord, in which princely domain
Louis boasted that he had shot fourteen of his Uncle Gaston's cherished
pheasants in one afternoon. The distances are short, and even in the
days of slow-going coaches the court could breakfast at Chambord and sup
at Blois.
Through the influence of a distant relative Louise de La Valliere was
given a place at court in the service of the English princess, the
beautiful, captivating and capricious Henriette, daughter of Charles I
and wife of the King's young brother, Philippe d'Orleans. Chroniclers of
the time all agree in attributing to her rare charm of manner, a lively
wit and a keen intellect. A patron of the great writers of the day, she
encouraged Corneille and the older poets and emboldened the younger by
her appreciation. Henriette wept over the _Andromaque_ when Racine read
it to her, until the happy youth's head was well-nigh turned by what he
considered the most fortunate beginning of its destiny. This combination
of beauty, charm, and intellect, found more frequently, perhaps, in
France than in any other country, rendered Madame the most irresistible
of women, and as Saint-Beuve says, the most touching of princesses. The
King, who at sixteen had refused to dance with the thin and not
especially attractive child of eleven, because, as he explained to his
mamma, he did not care for little girls, took himself to task later for
not realizing before she became his brother's fiancee that Henriette was
the most beautiful woman in the world.
At the time that Louise de La Valliere entered her household Madame
Henriette was enjoying her hour of triumph. The King, who had been slow
in discovering her charms, was at her feet. The death of Mazarin, the
miserly, had given Louis a freedom in his own kingdom that he had never
before known. Entertainment followed entertainment, all given in honor
of the English bride, his own Spanish bride having been relegated to
the background of this gay court, from which she was never destined to
emerge. "It seemed," wrote Madame de Lafayette, "as if the King had no
interest in these _fetes_ except through the gratifications they gave to
Madame." It was in the summer time, and the royalties were at
Fontainebleau, which delightful palace of pleasure, with its extensive
grounds, made a charming background for the succession of _fetes_ and
dances that Louis planned for his sister-in-law. There were expeditions
on land by day, water parties on the lake by the light of the moon, and
promenades in the woods by night. Madame delighted to bathe in the
Seine; accordingly parties were arranged for her pleasure, the ladies
driving to the river and returning on horseback, in elaborate costumes
with wonderful plumes in their hats, to an _al fresco_ breakfast in the
park.