II
I saw it first upon an afternoon when no air was stirring, even in the poplars, when the green of Touraine was changing to gold: golden fruit, pears, and apples, where summer's fruit had been; golden leaves flickering down from high branches, or raked into golden heaps; while the faint, sweet smoke of burning twigs hovered in the autumn day. It was the moment and scene of the year when, just because other things have ceased to grow, memories blossom in the mind; and on every golden heap of leaves retrospect seemed to be sitting. We visitors were three. I can recall the first sight of the château's yellow façade, framed by the distant end of the high, formal avenue into which we turned to approach it. All sorts of feet had stepped where we were walking: almost four centuries of distinguished feet had gone in and out of that beautiful front door; but over its appealing associations the still more appealing aspect of the wonderful house triumphed. If I knew about Le Devin du Village then, the scene of its first performance interested me much more because that long and many-windowed gallery was built right over the water, right across the Cher, upon arches that the glassy surface of the stream reflected symmetrically. I was captured then and for ever by the beauty and the originality of this residence. Our best country houses take earth and air into partnership, but this abode of grace possessed, embraced, a little river. To go in at your front door on one green margin and come out of your back door on the other; to dwell in a masterpiece that was house and bridge in one—I can still recover my first sensations of delight at this triumph of French art. Only—the concierge didn't let us go out of the back door; and my disappointment was cherished through long years, until its sequel, which I shall presently reach. This first afternoon became a chapter in the most delightful of guide-books, from which I quote the following:—
'We took our way back to the Grand Monarque, and waited in the little inn parlor for a late train to Tours. We were not impatient, for we had an excellent dinner to occupy us; and even after we had dined we were still content to sit a while and exchange remarks upon the superior civilization of France. Where else, at a village inn, should we have fared so well?... At the little inn at Chenonceaux the cuisine was not only excellent, but the service was graceful. We were waited on by mademoiselle and her mamma; it was so that mademoiselle alluded to the elder lady, as she uncorked for us a bottle of Vouvray mousseux.'
On another page of this same guide-book you may read how, at the Hôtel de l'Univers in Tours, the château of Amboise was described to us by an English lady of a type that I sadly miss to-day. One met her everywhere then. She was a more fragile sister of that robust, brick-complexioned spinster who used to climb all the Alps in practical but awful garments. She didn't often venture to speak to you for fear you weren't respectable, or might think she wasn't. When she did, it was apt to be with explosive shyness, running all her words together, as she did about Amboise. 'It's-very-very-dirty-and-very-keeawrious!' Curious and furious she always pronounced to rhyme with glorious and victorious; and it invariably made me think of 'God Save the Queen.'
In my interest as to whether we should again have the excellent fare and graceful service which I so well remembered at the little inn, and whether now at last my long-cherished wish to step out of that back door on the river's farther side were to be gratified, Chenonceaux itself had so dropped out of my thoughts that it fairly burst upon my sight. Bursting is, of course, a thing which that delicate and restrained edifice could never really do, only I wasn't thinking about it as our party (we were four on this second visit, and it was spring-time) came into the avenue. There at the other end stood the fair, gay vision of the château, and its beauty and wonder so suddenly waked my admiration, that I exclaimed, 'How young it looks!'
Yes; it didn't look new, but it looked young: youth is the particular and essential note of this enchanted building. None of its neighbors have it, not even Azay-le-Rideau or Blois, which are its rivals, though never its equals. Chenonceaux was four hundred years old in January, 1915. Age makes one type of person decrepit, and so it is with houses. But Chenonceaux, if ever it come to show its years, will belong to the other type: it will look venerable. Did it, do you think, catch its secret from the ring of Charlemagne, by whose sorceries its mistress, Diane de Poitiers, was accused of preserving her youth? This lady's success with François Premier so disconcerted the amiability of the Duchesse d'Etampes, that she constantly reminded Diane she was born on the day Diane was married.—But I resist the temptation to dwell upon Diane and everybody else linked to Chenonceaux by history; it's all accessible to you in books; and I proceed with the visit our party of four made, this spring day.
Touraine was now all delicate in green; as lovely, as gracious, as discreet in its budding leaves as when the leaves had flickered down, spangling the air and grass and garden-walks with their gold. We had met at the little inn the same welcome, the same excellent cuisine, the same agreeable Vouvray mousseux. Mademoiselle was not there, but mamma was. Her premises and herself showed no ill effect from the prosperity brought to her through the guide-book I have already quoted. No guide-book in its author's plan, it was now become established as one, and he, petitioned in a letter from mamma, had corrected a certain error. In the first edition, page 60, you may read that we took our way back to the Grand Monarque; in later editions it is the Hôtel du Bon-Laboureur. The confusion to travelers, the injury to her custom, ensuing from the wrong name, madame had represented to the author; and now all was well. The inn wasn't any larger, but more and more each season were pilgrims with expectant appetites led to her door.
'Tenez, monsieur,' she said to me eagerly, when I narrated to her how I had been present at the germination of her renown, 'tenez. Voilà!' She showed me the precious guide-book. She treasured it, though she couldn't read it, because it was in English. And I came in for her smiles and cordiality, which really belonged to the author.
You will have perceived, our party this time took their déjeuner, not their dinner, at the Bon-Laboureur. The good omelette and cheese and fruit and wine, mamma's prosperity and her well-preserved state,—for now she was really an elderly woman,—all this had brought us in peaceful and pleased spirits to the château. When we had seen the rooms downstairs and the concierge was conducting the other sightseers—some ten or twelve—to the second story, our party under my guidance stole away to the back door.
'Back door' implies no dishonorable passage through pantry and kitchen; we simply didn't go up the staircase in the wake of the concierge, but independently along the hall instead, and thus across the Cher through Catherine's celebrated gallery. Le Devin du Village came into my mind, and I wondered which figure was the more diverting, Jean-Jacques Rousseau composing opera, or Richard Wagner dabbling in philosophy.
The door was open. I emerged, the happy leader of my party, upon stone steps, crossed a little draw-bridge, and our triumphant feet trod the grass beneath the trees which shaded the river's bank. I had my wish; and as my obedient band followed me, I fear my complacent back and Anabasis manner expressed some sentiment like this: 'Only observe how it pays to see France with a person who knows the ropes!' We sauntered, we expatiated, we paused before what I'll call by metonymy the tocsin—a great bell and chain suspended from strong framework; from this point the château, with its fine, detached, cylindrical donjon tower of the fifteenth century, looked, in the afternoon light, particularly well: those poor sheep with the concierge weren't getting this view. We must have lingered by the tocsin a quarter of an hour, enjoying ourselves, before returning to the back door.
It was shut. It was locked. Rattling made no impression upon it, nor shaking, nor kicking. We knocked then, fancying this to be an accident. Next we called, or rather, I, the party's personal conductor and competent guide, began to call. Nothing happened. I augmented my efforts. Catherine's gallery, famous scene of the first performance of Rousseau's Devin du Village, responded with cavernous echoes. Between these reigned silence, and a gentle breeze rustled the young leaves of the chestnuts. We abandoned the door and went a few steps down the river to where our gesticulations could be seen from the windows of Chenonceaux. We made these gesticulations with our four umbrellas, whilst I shouted continually. Not a window blinked. It might have been a sorcerer's palace, and we his four new victims, presently to be roasted, boiled, or changed into cats. We looked down the river—no escape; up the river half-a-mile was a bridge; but what impediment mightn't lie between? And even if the way were clear, to go round by the bridge would lose us our train to Tours. One of us, in her deep voice, said that she hoped the robin-red-breasts would find her body and cover it with leaves. Again we flourished our four umbrellas, during vociferations from me, at the imperturbable château. Then, quite suddenly, something did happen. Out of a window in the donjon tower of the fifteenth century was thrust a head, and from across the river it wagged at us malevolently.
It was the concierge. The shock of discovering he had locked us out purposely in punishment of our independent excursion, threw me into extreme rage. My Anabasis manner had already dropped from me; but Xenophon got his party successfully back, and this same task was now searchingly, compellingly, 'up to me.' More malevolent wagging from the tower was all that resulted from my next demonstrations. In these I was now alone; my party, at the apparition of the concierge, had become abruptly quiet, thinking doubtless that loud calls and wavings would diminish my dignity less than theirs, whose years and discretion were more than mine. Therefore my companions brandished their umbrellas no more, but stood upon the banks of the Cher decorously, in a reserved attitude, patient yet stately, as if awaiting the tumbril; I, meanwhile, hurled international threats across the river. These wrought no change. In repose my French halts, but when roused it acquires both speed and point; yet none of my idioms disturbed the concierge at his window. And now I was visited by inspiration. I seized the chain and rang the tocsin. It sounded as if Attila were coming at once. Somebody would have come, undoubtedly,—the whole arrondissement I should think,—but after a few moments of that din, the head disappeared; in a few more the door was unlocked, and my companions preceded me with restraint yet with celerity across Catherine's gallery and out of Chenonceaux's front door and away, down the avenue to the railway, whilst I delivered some final idioms to the concierge. I am happy to record that these made him livid, and in the presence of a highly attentive audience. But—we had in truth small idea with whom we were dealing. Some time later we got final news of him. He had committed a murder, been caught, tried, convicted, sentenced, and executed.
You will remember the British lady at the Hôtel de l'Univers in Tours, who, in her description of Amboise, pronounced curious to rhyme with glorious. Her kind was still pervading the quieter hotels of the continent (the Hôtel de l'Univers was still quiet) while her more muscular sister was still climbing all the Alps in valiant weeds. This time, another of the identical type sat next me at the table d'hôte, and from the corner of my eye I perceived her to be making endless and surreptitious dives with her head at my bottle of Vouvray mousseux. Becoming sure that this was neither St. Vitus's dance nor kleptomania, but a desire to learn the name of my wine, I made her a slight bow, turning my bottle so that she could more easily read its label; at which she squeaked skittishly, 'I-didn't-think-you'd-see-me!'