Sculpture from the Chapelle de St. HubertSculpture from the Chapelle de St. Hubert
Sculpture from the Chapelle de St. Hubert
In later times the history of the château and its dependencies has been more prosaic. The Emir Abd-el-Kader was imprisoned here in 1852, and Louis Napoleon stayed for a time within its walls upon his return from the south. To-day it belongs to the family of Orleans, to whom it was given by the National Assembly in 1872, and has become a house of retreat for military veterans. This is due to the generosity of the Duc d'Aumale into whose hands it has since passed. The restoration which has been carried on has made of Amboise an ideal reproduction of what it once was, and in every way it is one of the most splendid and famous châteaux of its kind, though by no means as lovable as the residential châteaux of Chenonceaux or Langeais.
The Chapelle de St. Hubert, which was restored by Louis Philippe, is the chief artistic attraction of Amboise; a bijou of full-blown Gothic. It is a veritable architectural joy of the period of Charles VIII., to whom its erection was due. Its portal has an adorable bas-relief, representing "La Chasse de St. Hubert," and showing St. Hubert, St. Christopher, and St. Anthony, while above, in the tympanum, are effigies of the Virgin, of Charles VIII., and of Anne de Bretagne. The sculpture is, however, comparatively modern, but it embellishes a shrine worthy in every way, for there repose the bones of Leonardo da Vinci. Formerly Da Vinci's remains had rested in the chapel of the château itself, dedicated to St. Florentin.
Often the Chapelle de St. Hubert has been confounded with that described by Scott in "Quentin Durward," but it is manifestly not the same, as that was located in Tours or near there, and his very words describe the architecture as "of the rudest and meanest kind," which this is not. Over the arched doorway of the chapel at Tours there was, however, a "statue of St. Hubert with a bugle-horn around his neck and a leash of greyhounds at his feet," which may have been an early suggestion of the later work which was undertaken at Amboise.
All vocations came to have their protecting saints in the middle ages, and, since "la chasse" was the great recreation of so many, distinction was bestowed upon Hubert as being one of the most devout. The legend is sufficiently familiar not to need recounting here, and, anyway, the story is plainly told in thissculptured panel over the portal of the chapel at Amboise.
In this Chapel of St. Hubert was formerly held "that which was called a hunting-mass. The office was only used before the noble and powerful, who, while assisting at the solemnity, were usually impatient to commence their favourite sport."
The ancient Salle des Gardes of the château, with the windows giving on the balcony overlooking the river, became later the Logis du Roi. From this great chamber one passes on to the terrace near the foot of the Grosse Tour, called the Tour des Minimes. It is this tower which contains the "escalier des voitures." The entrance is through an elegant portico leading to the upper stories. Above another portico, leading from the terrace to the garden, is to be seen the emblem of Louis XII., the porcupine, so common at Blois.
In the fosse, which still remains on the garden side, was the universally installedjeu-de-paume, a favourite amusement throughout the courts of Europe in the middle ages.
At the base of the château are clustered numerous old houses of the sixteenth century, but on the river-front these have been replacedwith pretentious houses, cafés, automobile garages, and other modern buildings.
Near the Quai des Violettes are a series of subterranean chambers known as the Greniers de César, dating from the sixteenth century.
Cipher of Anne de Bretagne, Hôtel de Ville, AmboiseCipher of Anne de Bretagne, Hôtel de Ville, Amboise
Cipher of Anne de Bretagne, Hôtel de Ville, Amboise
Even at this late day one can almost picture the great characters in the drama of other times who stalked majestically through the apartments, and over the very flagstones of the courts and terraces which one treads to-day; Catherine de Medici with her ruffs and velvets; Henri de Guise with all his wiles; Condé the proud; the second François, youthful but wise; his girl queen, loving and sad; and myriads more of all ranks and of all shades of morality,—all resplendent in the velvets and gold of the costume of their time.
Near the château is the Clos Luce, a Gothic habitation in whose oratory died Leonardo da Vinci, on May 2, 1519.
Immediately back of the château is the Forêt d'Amboise, the scene of many gay hunting parties when the court was here or at Chenonceaux, which one reaches by traversing the forest route. On the edge of this forest is Chanteloup, remembered by most folk on account of its atrocious Chinese-like pagoda, built of the débris of the Château de la Bourdaisière, by the Duc de Choiseul, in memory of the attentions he received from the nobles and bourgeois of the ville upon the fall of his ministry and his disgrace at the hands of Louis XV. and La Du Barry. It is a curious form to be chosen when one had such beautiful examples of architectural art near by, only equalled, perhaps, in atrociousness by the "Royal Pavilion" of England's George IV.
La Bourdaisière, near Amboise, of which only the site remains, if not one of the chief tourist attractions of the château country, has at least a sentimental interest of abounding importance for all who recall the details of the life of "La Belle Gabrielle."
Here in Touraine Gabrielle d'Estrées was born in 1565. She was twenty-six years oldwhen Henri IV. first saw her in the château of her father at Cœuvres. So charmed was he with her graces that he made her hismaîtresseforthwith, though the old court-life chronicles of the day state that she already possessed something more than the admiration of Sebastian Zamet, the celebrated financier.
"The castle of Chenonceaux is a fine place on the river Cher, in a fine and pleasant country."François Premier.
"The castle of Chenonceaux is one of the best and most beautiful of our kingdom."Henri II.
The average visitor will come prepared to worship and admire a château so praised by two luxury-loving Kings of France.
Chenonceaux is noted chiefly for its château, but the little village itself is charming. The houses of the village are not very new, nor very old, but the one long street is most attractive throughout its length, and the whole atmosphere of the place, from September to December, is odorous with the perfume of red-purple grapes. The vintage is not the equal of that of the Bordeaux region, perhaps, nor of Chinon, nor Saumur; but thevin du paysof the Cher and the Loire, around Tours, is not to be despised.
Most tourists come to Chenonceaux by train from Tours; others drive over from Amboise, and yet others come by bicycle or automobile. They are not as yet so numerous as might be expected, and accordingly here, as elsewhere in Touraine, every facility is given for visiting the château and its park.
If you do not hurry off at once to worship at the abode of the fascinating Diane, one of the brightest ornaments of the court of François Premier and his son Henri, you will enjoy your dinner at the Hôtel du Bon Laboureur, though most likely it will be a solitary one, and you will be put to bed in a great chamber overlooking the park, through which peep, in the moonlight, the turrets of the château, and you may hear the purling of the waters of the Cher as it flows below the walls.
Jean Jacques Rousseau, like François I., called Chenonceaux a beautiful place, and he was right; it is all of that and more. Here one comes into direct contact with an atmosphere which, if not feudal, or even mediæval, is at least that of several hundred years ago.
Chenonceaux is moored like a ship in the middle of the rapidly running Cher, a dozen miles or more above where that stream entersthe Loire. As a matter of fact, the château practically bridges the river, which flows under its foundations and beneath its drawbridge on either side, besides filling the moat with water. The general effect is as if the building were set in the midst of the stream and formed a sort of island château. Round about is a gentle meadow and a great park, which give to this turreted architectural gem of Touraine a setting which is equalled by no other château.
What the château was in former days we can readily imagine, for nothing is changed as to the general disposition. Boats came to the water-gate, as they still might do if such boats still existed, in true, pictorial legendary fashion. To-day, the present occupant has placed a curiosity on the ornamental waters in the shape of a gondola. It is out of keeping with the grand fabric of the château, and it is a pity that it does not cast itself adrift some night. What has become of the gondolier, who was imported to keep the craft company, nobody seems to know. He is certainly not in evidence, or, if he is, has transformed himself into a groom or achauffeur.
The Château of Chenonceaux is not a very ample structure; not so ample as most photographs would make it appear. It is not tiny, but still it has not the magnificent proportions of Blois, of Chambord, or even of Langeais. It was more a habitation than it was a fortress, amaison de campagne, as indeed it virtually became when the Connétable de Montmorency took possession of the structure in the name of the king, when its builder, Thomas Bohier, the none too astute minister of finances in Normandy, came to grief in his affairs.
François I. came frequently here for "la chasse," and his memory is still kept alive by the Chambre François Premier. François held possession till his death, when his son made it over to the "admired of two generations," Diane de Poitiers.
Diane's memory will never leave Chenonceaux. To-day it is perpetuated in the Chambre de Diane de Poitiers; but the portrait by Leonardo da Vinci, which was supposed to best show her charms, has now disappeared from the "long gallery" at the château. This portrait was painted at the command of François, before Diane transferred her affections to his son.
No one knows when or how Diane de Poitiers first came to fascinate François, or how or why her power waned. At any rate, at thetime François pardoned her father, the witless Comte de St. Vallier, for the treacherous part he played in the Bourbon conspiracy, he really believed her to be the "brightest ornament of a beauty-loving court."
Certainly, Diane was a powerful factor in the politics of her time, though François himself soon tired of her. Undaunted by this, she forthwith set her cap for his son Henri, the Duc d'Orleans, and won him, too. Of her beauty the present generation is able to judge for itself by reason of the three well-known and excellent portraits of contemporary times.
Diane's influence over the young Henri was absolute. At his death her power was, of course, at an end, and Chenonceaux, and all else possible, was taken from her by the orders of Catherine, the long-suffering wife, who had been put aside for the fascinations of the charming huntress.
It must have been some satisfaction, however, to Diane, to know that, in his fatal joust with Montgomery, Henri really broke his lance and met his death in her honour, for the records tell that he bore her colours on his lance, besides her initials set in gold and gems on his shield.
Catherine's eagerness to drive Diane from the court was so great, that no sooner had her spouse fallen—even though he did not actually die for some days—than she sent word to Diane, "who sat weeping alone," to instantly quit the court; to give up the crown jewels—which Henri had somewhat inconsiderately given her; and to "give up Chenonceaux in Touraine," Catherine's Naboth's vineyard, which she had so long admired and coveted. She had known it as a girl, when she often visited it in company with her father-in-law, the appreciative but dissolute François, and had ever longed to possess it for her own, before even her husband, now dead, had given it to "that old hag Diane de Poitiers, Duchesse de Valentinois."
Diane paid no heed to Catherine's command. She simply asked: "Is the king yet dead?"
"No, madame," said the messenger, "but his wound is mortal; he cannot live the day."
"Tell the queen, then," replied Diane, "that her reign is not yet come; that I am mistress still over her and the kingdom as long as the king breathes the breath of life."
Henri was more or less an equivocal character, devoted to Diane, and likewise fondone says it with caution—of his wife. He caused to be fashioned a monogram (seen at Chenonceaux) after this wise:
Monogram
supposedly indicating his attachment for Diane and his wife alike. The various initials of the cipher are in no way involved. Diane returned the compliment by decorating an apartment for the king, at her Château of Anet, with the black and white of the Medici arms.
The Château of Chenonceaux, so greatly coveted by Catherine when she first came to France, and when it was in the possession of Diane, still remains in all the regal splendour of its past. It lies in the lovely valley of the Cher, far from the rush and turmoil of cities and even the continuous traffic of great thoroughfares, for it is on the road to nowhere unless one is journeying cross-country from the lower to the upper Loire. This very isolation resulted in its being one of the few monuments spared from the furies of the Revolution, and, "half-palace and half-château," it glistenswith the purity of its former glory, as picturesque as ever, with turrets, spires, and roof-tops all mellowed with the ages in a most entrancing manner.
Even to-day one enters the precincts of the château proper over a drawbridge which spans an arm of the Loire, or rather, a moat which leads directly from the parent stream. On the opposite side are the bridge piers supporting five arches, the work of Diane when she was the fair chatelaine of the domain. This ingenious thought proved to be a most useful and artistic addition to the château. It formed a flagged promenade, lovely in itself, and led to the southern bank of the Cher, whence one got charming vistas of the turrets and roof-tops of the château through the trees and the leafy avenues which converged upon the structure.
Château de Chenonceaux
When Catherine came she did not disdain to make the best use of Diane's innovation that suggested itself to her, which was simply to build the "Long Gallery" over the arches of this lovely bridge, and so make of it a veritable house over the water. A covering was made quite as beautiful as the rest of the structure, and thus the bridge formed a spacious wing of two stories. The first floor—known as the"Long Gallery"—was intended as a banqueting-hall, and possessed four great full-length windows on either side looking up and down stream, from which was seen—and is to-day—an outlook as magnificently idyllic as is possible to conceive. Jean Goujon had designed for the ceiling one of those wonder-works for which he was famous, but if the complete plan was ever carried out, it has disappeared, for only a tiny sketch of the whole scheme remains to-day.
Château of Checonceaux (Diagram)
Catherine came in the early summer to take possession of her long-coveted domain. Being a skilful horsewoman, she came on horseback, accompanied by a "petite bande" of feminine charmers destined to wheedle political secrets from friends and enemies alike,—a real "escadron volant de la reine," as it was called by a contemporary.
It was a gallant company that assembled here at this time,—the young King Charles IX., the Duc de Guise, and "two cardinals mounted on mules,"—Lorraine, a true Guise, and D'Este, newly arrived from Italy, and accompanied by the poet Tasso, wearing a "gabardine and a hood of satin." Catherine showed the Italian great favour, as was due a countryman, but there was another poet among them as well, Ronsard, the poet laureate of the time. The Duc de Guise had followed in the wake of Marguerite, unbeknownst to Catherine, who frowned down any possibility of an alliance between the houses of Valois and Lorraine.
A great fête and water-masque had been arranged by Catherine to take place on the Cher, with a banquet to follow in the Long Gallery in honour of her arrival at Chenonceaux.
When twilight had fallen, torches were ignited and myriads of lights blazed forth from the boats on the river and from the windows of the château. Music and song went forth into the night, and all was as gay and lovely as a Venetian night's entertainment. The hunting-horns echoed through the wooded banks, and through the arches above which the château was built passed great highly coloured barges, including a fleet of gondolas to remind the queen-mother of her Italian days,—the ancestors perhaps of the solitary gondola which to-day floats idly by the river-bank just before the grand entrance to the château. Fromparterreandbalustrade, and from the clipped yews of the ornamental garden, fairy lamps burned forth and dwindled away into dim infinity, as the long lines of soft light gradually lost themselves in the forest. It was a grand affair and idyllic in its unworldliness. One may not see its like to-day, for electric lights and "rag-time" music, which mostly comprise the attractions of suchal frescopleasures, will hardly produce the same effect.
Among the great fêtes at Chenonceaux will always be recalled that given by the court upon the coming of the youthful François II. and Mary Stuart, after the horrible massacres at Amboise.
All the Renaissance skill of the time was employed in the erection of pompous accessories, triumphal arches, columns, obelisks, and altars. There were innumerable tablets also, bearing inscriptions in Latin and Greek,—which nobody read,—and a fountain which bore the following:
"Au saint bal des dryades,A Phœbus, ce grand dieu,Aux humides nyades,J'ai consacré ce lieu."
"Au saint bal des dryades,A Phœbus, ce grand dieu,Aux humides nyades,J'ai consacré ce lieu."
Of Chenonceaux and its glories what more can be said than to quote the following lines of the middle ages, which in their quaint old French apply to-day as much as ever they did:
"Basti si magnifiquementII est debout, comme un géant,Dedans le lit de la rivière,C'est-à-dire dessus un pontQui porte cent toises de long."
"Basti si magnifiquementII est debout, comme un géant,Dedans le lit de la rivière,C'est-à-dire dessus un pontQui porte cent toises de long."
The part of the edifice which Bohier erected in 1515 is that through which the visitor makes his entrance, and is built upon the piers of an old mill which was destroyed at that time.
Catherine bequeathed Chenonceaux to the wife of Henri III., Louise de Vaudémont, who died here in 1601. For a hundred years it still belonged to royalty, but in 1730 it was sold toM. Dupin, who, with his wife, enriched and repaired the fabric. They gathered around them a company so famous as to be memorable in the annals of art and literature. This is best shown by the citing of such names as Fontenelle, Montesquieu, Buffon, Bolingbroke, Voltaire, and Rousseau, all of whom were frequenters of the establishment, the latter being charged with the education of the only son of M. and Madame Dupin.
Considering Rousseau's once proud position among his contemporaries, and the favour with which he was received by the nobility, it is somewhat surprising that his struggle for life was so hard. The Marquise de Créquy wrote in her "Souvenirs:" "Rousseau left behind him hisMémoires, which I think for the sake of his memory and fame ought to be much curtailed." And undoubtedly she was right. Rousseau wrote in his "Confessions:" "In 1747 we went to spend the autumn in Touraine, at the Château of Chenonceaux, a royal residence upon the Cher, built by Henri II. for Diane de Poitiers, whose initials are still to be seen there.... We amused ourselves greatly in this fine spot; the living was of the best, and I became fat as a monk. We made a great deal of music and acted comedies."
One might imagine, from a stroll through the magnificent halls and galleries of Chenonceaux, that Rousseau's experiences might be repeated to-day if one were fortunate enough to be asked to sojourn there for a time. The nearest that one can get, however, to becoming personally identified with the château and its life is to sign his name in the great vellum quarto which ultimately will rest in the archives of the château.
It is doubtless very wrong to be covetous; but Chenonceaux is such a beautiful place and comes so near the ideal habitation of our imagination that the desire to possess it for one's own is but human.
In the "Galerie Louis XIV." were given the first representations of many of Rousseau's pieces.
One gathers from these accounts of the happenings in the Long Gallery that it formed no bridge of sighs, and most certainly it did not. Its walls resounded almost continually with music and laughter. Here in these rooms Henri II. danced and made love and intrigued, while Catherine, his queen, was left at Blois with her astrologer and his poisons, to eat out her soul in comparative neglect.
Before the time of the dwelling built by Bohier for himself and family on the foundations of the old mill, there was yet a manorhouse belonging to the ancient family of Marques, from whom the Norman financier bought the site. The tower, seen to-day at the right of the entrance to the château proper,—an expressive relic of feudal times,—was a part of the earlier establishment. To-day it is turned into a sort ofkiosquefor the sale of photographs, post-cards, and an admirable illustrated guide to the château.
The interior of the château to-day presents the following remarkable features: The dining-room of to-day, formerly the Salle des Gardes, has a ceiling in which the cipher of Catherine de Medici is interwoven with an arabesque. To the left of this apartment is the entrance to the chapel, which to-day seems a bit incongruously placed, leading as it does from the dining-room. It is but a tiny chapel, but it is as gay and brilliant as if it were still the adjunct of a luxury-loving court, and it has some glass dating from 1521, which, if not remarkable for design or colouring, is quite choice enough to rank as an art treasure of real value.
According to Viollet-le-Duc each feudal seigneur had attached to his château a chapel, often served by a private chaplain, and in some instances by an entire chapter of prelates.These chapels were not simple oratories surrounded by the domestic apartments, but were architectural monuments in themselves, and either entirely isolated, as at Amboise, or semi-detached, as at Chenonceaux.
Below, in the sub-basement, at Chenonceaux, are the original foundations upon which Bohier laid his first stones. Here, too, are various chambers, known respectively as the prison, the Bains de la Reine, theboulangerie, etc.
Chenonceaux to-day is no whited sepulchre. It is a real living and livable thing, and, moreover, when one visits it, he observes that the family burn great logs in their fireplaces, have luxurious bouquets of flowers on their dining-table, and use great wax candles instead of the more prosaic oil-lamps, or worse—acetylene gas. Chenonceaux evidently has no thoughts of descending to steam heat and electricity.
All this is as it should be, for when one visits a shrine like this he prefers to find it with as much as possible of the old-time atmosphere remaining. Chambord is bare and suggestive of the tomb, in spite of the splendour of its outline and proportions; Pierrefonds, in the north, is more so, and so would be Blois except for its restored or imitation decorations; but here at Chenonceaux all is different, andbreathes the spirit of other days as well as that of to-day. It is, perhaps, not exactly as Diane left it, or as Rousseau knew it under the régime of the Dupins, since, after many changings of hands, it became the property of theCrédit Foncier, by whom it was sold in 1891 to Mr. Terry, an American.
Chenonceaux has two other architectural monuments which are often overlooked under the spell of the more magnificent château. In the village is a small Renaissance church—in which the Renaissance never rose to any very great heights—which is here far more effective and beautiful than usually are Renaissance churches of any magnitude. There is also a sixteenth-century stone house in the same style and even more successful as an expression of the art of the time. It is readily found by inquiry, and is known as the "Maison des Pages de François I."
Much may be written of Loches, of its storied past, of its present-day quaintness, and of its wealth of architectural monuments. Its church is certainly the most curious religious edifice in all France, judging from a cross-section of the vaults and walls. More than all else, however, Loches is associated in our minds with the memory of Agnes Sorel.
Within the walls of the old collegiate church the lovely mistress of Charles VII. was buried in 1450; but later her remains and tomb were removed to one of the towers of the ancient castle of Loches, where they now are. She had amply endowed the church, but they would no longer give shelter to her remains, so her bones were removed five hundred years later. The statue which surmounts her tomb, as seen to-day, represents the "gentille Agnes" in all her loveliness, with folded hands on breast, a kneeling angel at her head and a couchantlamb at her feet,—a reminder of her innocence, said Henry James, but surely he nodded when he said it. Lovely she was, and good in her way, but innocent she was not, as we have come to know the word.
LochesLoches
Loches
It is fitting to recall that Charles VII. was not the only monarch who sang her praises, for it was François I. who, many years later, wrote those lines beginning:
"Gentille Agnes, plus de loz tu mérites."
"Gentille Agnes, plus de loz tu mérites."
Whether one comes to Loches by road or by rail, the first impression is the same; he enters at once into a sleepy, old-world town which has practically nothing of modernity about it except the electric lights.
There is but one way to realize the immense wealth of architectural monuments centred at Loches, and that is to see the city for the first time, as, perhaps, François Premier saw it when he journeyed from Amboise, and came upon it from the heights of the forest of Loches. The city has not grown much since that day. Then it had three thousand eight hundred souls, and now it has five thousand.
Here, in the Forêt de Loches, Henry II. of England built a monastery,—yet to be seen,—known as the Chartreuse du Liget, in repentance, or, perhaps, as a penance for the murder of Becket. Over the doorway of this monastery was graven:
ANGLORUM HENRICUS REXTHOMÆ CŒDE CRUENTUS,LIGETICOS FUNDAT CARTUSIA MONAKOS.
To-day the monastery is the property of a M. de Marsay, and therefore not open to the public; but the Chapelle du Liget, near by, is a fine contemporary church of the thirteenth century, well worth the admiration too infrequently bestowed upon it.
The first view of Loches must really be much as it was in François's time, except, perhaps, that the roadway down from the forest has improved, as roads have all over France, andfruit-trees and vineyards planted out, which, however, in no way change the aspect when the town is first seen in the dim haze of an early November morning.
It is the sky-lineensembleof the châteaux of the Renaissance period which is their most varied feature. No two are alike, and yet they are all wonderfully similar in that they cut the sky with turret, tower, and chimney in a way which suggests nothing as much as the architecture of fairy-land.
The artists who illustrated the old fairy-tale books and drew castles wherein dwelt beautiful maidens could nowhere have found more real inspiration than among the châteaux of the Loire, the Cher, and the Indre.
Loches is a veritable mediæval town, and it is even more than that, for its history dates back into the earliest years of feudal times. Loches is one of thosesoi-disantFrench towns not great enough to be a metropolis, and yet quite indifferent to the affairs of the outside world.
The only false notes are those sounded by the various hawkers and cadgers for the visitor's money, who have hired various old mediæval structures, within the walls, and assure one that in the basement of their establishmentthere are fragments "recently discovered,"—this in English,—quite worth the price of admission which they charge you to peer about in a gloomy hole of a cellar, littered with empty wine-bottles and rubbish of all sorts.
All this is delightful enough to the simon-pure antiquarian; but even he likes to dig things out for himself, and the householders can't all expect to findcachotsin their sub-cellars or iron cages in their garrets unless they manufacture them.
The old town, in spite of its lack of modernity, is full of surprises and contrasts that must make it very livable to one who cares to spend a winter within its walls. He may walk about on the ramparts on sunny days; may fish in the Indre, below the mill; and, if he is an artist, he will find, within a comparatively small area, much more that is exceedingly "paintable" than is usually found in the fishing-villages of Brittany or on the sand-dunes of the Pas de Calais, "artist's sketching-grounds" which have been pretty well worked of late.
Loches and Its ChurchLoches and Its Church
Loches and Its Church
The history of Loches is so varied and vivid that it is easy to account for the many remains of feudal and Renaissance days now existing. The derivation of its name is in some doubt. Loches was unquestionably the Luccæ of theRomans, but the Armorican Celts had the wordloc'h, meaning much the same thing,—un marais,—which is also wonderfully like thelochknown to-day in the place-names of Scotland and theloughof Ireland. Partisans may take their choice.
In the fifth century a monastery was founded here by St. Ours, which ultimately gave its name to the collegiate church which exists to-day. A château, or more probably a fortress, appeared in the sixth century. The city was occupied by the Franks in the seventh century, but by 630 it had become united with Aquitaine. Pepin sacked it in 742, and Charles le Chauve made it a seat of a hereditary government which, by alliance, passed to the house of Anjou in 886, to whom it belonged up to 1205. Jean-sans-Terre gave it to France in 1193. Richard Cœur de Lion apparently resented this, for he retook it in the year following. In 1204, Philippe-Auguste besieged Chinon and Loches simultaneously, and took the latter after a year, when he made it a fief, and gave it to Dreux de Mello, Constable of France, who in turn sold it to St. Louis.
The château of Loches became first a fortress, guarding the ancient Roman highway from the Blaisois to Aquitaine, then a prison,and then a royal residence, to which Charles VII. frequently repaired with Agnes Sorel, which calls up again the strangely contrasting influences of the two women whose names have gone down in history linked with that of Charles VII.
"Louis XI. aggrandized the château," says a French authority, "and perfected the prisons," whatever that may mean. He did, we know, build those terrible dungeons far down below the surface of the ground, where daylight never penetrated. They were perfect enough in all conscience as originally built, at least as perfect as the celebrated iron cage in which he imprisoned Cardinal Balue. The cage is not in its wonted place to-day, and only a ring in the wall indicates where it was once made fast.
Charles VIII. added the great round tower; but it was not completed until the reign of Louis XII. François I., in a not too friendly meeting, received Charles Quint here in 1539, just previous to his visit to Amboise. Marie de Medici, on escaping from Blois, stopped at the château at the invitation of the governor, the Duc d'Epernon, who sped her on her way, as joyfully as possible, to Angoulême.
The château itself is the chief attraction of interest, just as it is the chief feature of thelandscape when viewed from afar. Of course it is understood that, when one speaks of the château at Loches, he refers to the collective châteaux which, in more or less fragmentary form, go to make up the edifice as it is to-day.
Whether we admire most the structure of Geoffrey Grise-Gonelle, the elegant edifice of the fifteenth century, or the additions of Charles VII., Louis XI., Charles VIII., Louis XII., or Henri III., we must conclude that to know this conglomerate structure intimately one must actually live with it. Nowhere in France—perhaps in no country—is there a château that suggests so stupendously the story of its past.
The chief and most remarkable features are undoubtedly the great rectangular keep or donjon, and the Tour Neuf or Tour Ronde. The first, in its immensity, quite rivals the best examples of the kind elsewhere, if it does not actually excel them in dimensions. It is, moreover, according to De Caumont, the most beautiful of all the donjons of France. As a state prison it confined Jean, Duc d'Alençon, Pierre de Brézé, and Philippe de Savoie.
The Tour Ronde is a great cylinder flanked with dependencies which give it a more or less irregular form. It encloses the prison wherewere formerly kept the famous cages, the invention of Cardinal Balue, who himself became their first victim. The Tour Ronde is reminiscent of two great female figures in the mediæval portrait gallery,—Agnes Sorel and Anne de Bretagne. The tomb of Agnes Sorel is here, and the Duchesse Anne made an oratory in this grim tower, from which she sent up her prayer for the success and unity of the political plans which inspired her marriage into the royal family of France. It is a daintily decorated chamber, with the queen's family device, the ermine with its twisted necklet, prominently displayed.
In the passage which conducts to the dungeons of this great round tower, one reads this ironical invitation: "Entrés, messieurs, ches le Roy Nostre Mestre" (O.F.).
That portion of the collective châteaux facing to the north is now occupied by the Sous-Préfecture, and is more after the manner of the residential châteaux of the Loire than of a fortress-stronghold or prison. Before this portion stands the famous chestnut-tree, planted, it is said, by François I., "and large enough to shelter the whole population of Loches beneath its foliage," says the same doubtful authority.
Under a fifteenth-century structure, called the Martelet, are the true dungeons of Loches. Here one is shown the cell occupied for nine years by the poor Ludovic Sforza, who died in 1510, from the mere joy of being liberated. More deeply hidden still is the famous Prison des Évêques of the era of François I. and the dungeon of Comte de St. Vallier, the father of the fascinating Diane, who herself was the means of securing his liberation by "fascinating the king," as one French writer puts it. This may be so. St. Vallierwasliberated, we know, and the susceptible Françoiswasfascinated, though he soon tired of Diane and her charms. She had the perspicacity, however, to transfer her affections to his son, and so kept up a sort of family relationship.
Like the historic "prisoner of Gisors," the occupants of the dungeons at Loches whiled away their lonely hours by inscribing their sentiments upon the walls. Only one remains to-day, though fragmentary stone-carved letters and characters are to be seen here and there. He who wrote the following was certainly as cheerful as circumstances would allow:
"Malgré les ennuis d'une longue souffrance,Et le cruel destin dont je subis la loy,Il est encort des biens pour moy,Le tendre amour et la douce espérance."
"Malgré les ennuis d'une longue souffrance,Et le cruel destin dont je subis la loy,Il est encort des biens pour moy,Le tendre amour et la douce espérance."
Most of these formidable dungeons of Loches were prisons of state until well into the sixteenth century.
Sketch Plan of Loches
Beneath, or rather beside, the very walls of the château is the bizarre collegiate church of St. Ours. One says bizarre, simply because it is curious, and not because it is unchurchly in any sense of the word, for it is not. Its low nave is surmounted by an enormous tower with a stone spire, while there are two other pyramidal erections over the roof of the choir which make the whole look, not like an elephant, as a cynical Frenchman once wrote, but ratherlike a camel with two humps. This strange architectural anomaly is, in parts, almost pagan; certainly its font, a fragment of an ancient altar on which once burned a sacred fire,ispagan.
St. Ours, LochesSt. Ours, Loches
St. Ours, Loches
There is a Romanesque porch of vast dimensions which is the real artistic expression of the fabric, dressed with extraordinary primitive sculptures of saints, demons, stryges, gnomes, and all manner of outré things. All these details, however, are chiselled with a masterly conception.
Behind this exterior vestibule the first bays of the nave form another, a sort of an inner vestibule, which carries out still further the unique arrangement of the whole edifice. This portion of the structure dates from a consecration of the year 965, which therefore classes it as of very early date,—indeed, few are earlier. Most of the church, however, is of the twelfth century, including another great pyramid which rises above the nave and the two smaller ones just behind the spire. The side-aisles of the nave were added between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, while only the stalls and the tabernacle are as recent as the sixteenth. The eastern end is triapsed, an unusual feature in France. From this one realizes, quite to thefullest extent possible, the antiquity and individuality of the Église de St. Ours at Loches.
The quaint Renaissance Hôtel-de-Ville was built by the architect Jean Beaudoin (1535-1543), from sums raised, under letters patent from François I., by certainoctroitaxes. From the fact that through its lower story passes one of the old city entrances, it has come to be known also as the Porte Picoys. In every way it is a worthy example of Renaissance civic architecture.
In the Rue de Château is a remarkable Renaissance house, known as the Chancellerie, which dates from the reign of Henri II. It has most curious sculptures on its façade interspersed with the devices of royalty and the inscription:
IVSTITIA REGNO, PRUDENTIA NUTRISCO.
The Tour St. Antoine serves to-day as the city's belfry. It is all that remains of a church, demolished long since, which was built in 1519-30, in imitation of St. Gatien's of Tours. Doubtless it was base in many of its details, as is its more famous compeer at Tours; but, if the old tower which remains is any indication, it must have been an elaborate and imposing work of the late Gothic and early Renaissance era.
As a literary note, lovers of Dumas's romances will be interested in the fact that in the Hôtel de la Couroirie at Loches a body of Protestants captured the celebrated Chicot, the jester of Henri III. and Henri IV.
Loches has a near neighbour in Beaulieu, which formerly possessed an ardent hatred for its more progressive and successful contemporary, Loches. Its very name has been perverted by local historians as coming from Bellilocus, "the place of war," and not "le lieu d'un bel aspect."
The abbey church at Beaulieu was built by the warlike Foulques Nerra (in 1008-12), who usually built fortresses and left church-building to monks and bishops. It is a remarkable Romanesque example, though, since the fifteenth century, it has been mostly in ruins. Foulques Nerra himself, whose countenance had "la majesté de celui d'un ange," found his last resting-place within its walls, which also sheltered much rich ornament, to-day greatly defaced, though that of the nave, which is still intact, is an evidence of its former worth.
The abbatial residence, still existent, has a curious exterior pulpit built into the wall, examples of which are not too frequent in France.
Agnes Sorel, the belle of belles, lived here fora time in a house near the Porte de Guigné, which bears a great stonepanonceau, from which the armorial bearings have to-day disappeared. It is another notable monument to "the most graceful woman of her times," and without doubt has as much historic value as many another more popular shrine of history.
In connection with Agnes Sorel, who was so closely identified with Loches and Beaulieu, it is to be recalled that she was known to the chroniclers of her time as "la dame de Beauté-sur-Marne,"—a place which does not appear in the books of the modern geographers. It may be noted, too, that it was the encouragement of the "belle des belles" of Charles VII. that, in a way, contributed to that monarch's success in politics and arms, for her sway only began with Jeanne d'Arc's supplication at Gien and Chinon. Tradition has it, indeed, that it was the "gentille Agnes" who put the sword of victory in his hands when he set out on his campaign of reconquest. Thus does the Jeanne d'Arc legend receive a damaging blow.
The château of Sausac, an elegant edifice of the sixteenth century, completely restored in later days, is near by.