Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume IV | Page 9

is a picturesque assemblage of edifices belonging to many different epochs, and, as such, shows, as well as any other document of contemporary times, the varying ambitions and emotions of its builders, from the rude and rough manners of the earliest of feudal times through the highly refined Renaissance details of the imaginative brain of Fran?ois, down to the base concoction of the elder Mansart, produced at the commands of Gaston of Orleans.
In the earliest structure were to be seen all the attributes of a feudal fortress, towers and walls pierced with narrow loopholes, and damp, dark dungeons hidden away in the thick walls. Then came a structure which was less of a fortress and more habitable, but still a stronghold, tho having ample and decorative doorways and windows, with curious sculptures and rich framings. Then the pompous Renaissance with "escaliers" and "balcons �� jour," balustrades crowning the walls and elaborate cornices here, there, and everywhere--all bespeaking the gallantry and taste of the knightly king. Finally came the cold, classic features of the period of the brother of Louis XIII.
In plan the Chateau de Bois forms an irregular square situated at the apex of a promontory high above the surface of the Loire, and practically behind the town itself. The building has a most picturesque aspect, and, to those who know, gives practically a history of the chateau architecture of the time. Abandoned, mutilated and dishonored, from time to time, the structure gradually took on new forms until the thick walls underlying the apartment known to-day as the Salle des ��tats--probably the most ancient portion of all--were overshadowed by the great richness of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
From the platform one sees a magnificent panorama of the city and the far-reaching Loire, which unrolls itself southward and northward for many leagues, its banks covered by rich vineyards and crowned by thick forests.
The building of Louis XII. presents its brick-faced exterior in black and red lozenge shapes, with sculptured window-frames, squarely upon the little tree-bordered place of to-day, which in other times formed a part of that magnificent terrace which looked down upon the roof of the ��glise St. Nicholas, and the Jesuit church of the Immaculate Conception, and the silvery bell of the Loire itself.
The murders and other acts of violence and treason which took place here are interesting enough, but one can not but feel, when he views the chimney-piece before which the Due de Guise was standing when called to his death in the royal closet, that the men of whom the bloody tales of Blois are told quite deserved their fates.
One comes away with the impression of it all stamped only upon the mind, not graven upon the heart. Political intrigue to-day, if quite as vulgar, is less sordid. Bigotry and ambition in those days allowed few of the finer feelings to come to the surface, except with regard to the luxuriance of surroundings. Of this last there can be no question, and Blois is as characteristically luxurious as any of the magnificient edifices which lodged the royalty and nobility of other days throughout the valley of the Loire.
The interior court is partly surrounded by a colonnade, quite cloister-like in effect. At the right center of the Fran?ois I. wing is that wonderful spiral staircase, concerning the invention of which so much speculation has been launched.
The apartments of Catherine de Medici were directly beneath the guard-room where the Balafr�� was murdered, and that event, taking place at the very moment when the queen-mother was dying, can not be said to have been conducive to a peaceful demise.
Here, on the first floor of the Fran?ois I. wing, the queen-mother, held her court, as did the king his. The great gallery over-looked the town on the side of the present Place du Chateau. It was, and is, a truly grand apartment, with diamond-paned windows, and rich, dark wall decorations on which Catherine's device, a crowned C and her monogram in gold, frequently appears. There was, moreover, a great oval window, opposite which stood her altar, and a doorway led to her writing-closet, with its secret drawers and wall panels, which well served her purpose of intrigue and deceit.
A hidden stair-way led to the floor above, and there was a chambre-��-coucher, with a deep recess for the bed, the same to which she called her son Henri, as she lay dying, admonishing him to give up the thought of murdering Guise. "What," said Henri, on this embarrassing occasion, "spare Guise, when he, triumphant in Paris, dared lay his hand on the hilt of his sword. Spare him who drove me a fugitive from the capital. Spare them who never spared me. No, mother, I will not."
As the queen-mother drew near her end, and was lying ill at Blois, great events