Over Strand and Field | Page 2

view extends on the whole
surrounding country. It was of a delicate green; poplar trees lined the
banks of the river; the meadows advanced to its edge, mingling their
grey border with the bluish and vapourous horizon, vaguely enclosed
by indistinct hills. The Loire flowed in the middle, bathing its islands,
wetting the edge of the meadows, turning the wheels of the mills and
letting the big boats glide peacefully, two by two, over its silvery
surface, lulled to sleep by the creaking of the heavy rudders; and in the
distance two big white sails gleamed in the sun.
Birds flew from the tops of the towers and the edge of the
machicolations to some other spot, described circles in the air, chirped,
and soon passed out of sight. About a hundred feet below us were the
pointed roofs of the city, the empty courtyards of the old mansions, and
the black holes of the smoky chimneys. Leaning in the niche of a
battlement, we gazed and listened, and breathed it all in, enjoying the
beautiful sunshine and balmy air impregnated with the pungent odour
of the ruins. And there, without thinking of anything in particular,
without even phrasing inwardly about something, I dreamed of coats of
mail as pliable as gloves, of shields of buffalo hide soaked with sweat,
of closed visors through which shot bloodthirsty glances, of wild and
desperate night attacks with torches that set fire to the walls, and
hatchets that mutilated the bodies; and of Louis XI, of the lover's war,
of D'Aubigné and of the charlocks, the birds, the polished ivy, the
denuded brambles, tasting in my pensive and idle occupation--what is
greatest in men, their memory;--and what is most beautiful in nature,
her ironical encroachments and eternal youth.
In the garden, among the lilac-bushes and the shrubs that droop over
the alleys, rises the chapel, a work of the sixteenth century, chiselled at
every angle, a perfect jewel, even more intricately decorated inside than
out, cut out like the paper covering of a bonbonnière, and cunningly
sculptured like the handle of a Chinese parasol. On the door is a

bas-relief which is very amusing and ingenuous. It represents the
meeting of Saint Hubert with the mystic stag, which bears a cross
between its antlers. The saint is on his knees; above him hovers an
angel who is about to place a crown on his cap; near them stands the
saint's horse, watching the scene with a surprised expression; the dogs
are barking and on the mountain, the sides and facets of which are cut
to represent crystals, creeps the serpent. You can see its flat head
advancing toward some leafless trees that look like cauliflowers. They
are the sort of trees one comes upon in old Bibles, spare of foliage,
thick and clumsy, bearing blossoms and fruit but no leaves; the
symbolical, theological, and devout trees that are almost fantastical on
account of their impossible ugliness. A little further, Saint Christopher
is carrying Jesus on his shoulders; Saint Antony is in his cell, which is
built on a rock; a pig is retiring into its hole and shows only its
hind-quarters and its corkscrew tail, while a rabbit is sticking its head
out of its house.
Of course, it is all a little clumsy and the moulding is not faultless. But
there is so much life and movement about the figure and the animals, so
much charm in the details, that one would give a great deal to be able to
carry it away and take it home.
Inside of the Château, the insipid Empire style is reproduced in every
apartment. Almost every room is adorned with busts of Louis-Philippe
and Madame Adélaïde. The present reigning family has a craze for
being portrayed on canvas. It is the bad taste of a parvenu, the mania of
a grocer who has accumulated money and who enjoys seeing himself in
red, white, and yellow, with his watch-charms dangling over his
stomach, his bewhiskered chin and his children gathered around him.
On one of the towers, and in spite of the most ordinary common sense,
they have built a glass rotunda which is used for a dining-room. True,
the view from it is magnificent. But the building presents so shocking
an appearance from the outside, that one would, I should think, prefer
to see nothing of the environs, or else to eat in the kitchen.
In order to go back to the city, we came down by a tower that was used
by carriages to approach the Château. The sloping gravelled walk turns

around a stone axle like the steps of a staircase. The arch is dark and
lighted only by the rays that creep through the loop-holes. The columns
on which the interior end of the vault