The way that we have used our time at Tours is very much to our credit, I think-or rather to the Lightning Conductor's. In the mornings Brown has taken us on excursions outside the town, and in the afternoons, before dark, we have "done" the town itself, as Aunt Mary would say, though I hate the expression myself. But one whole day out of our three we spent in running with the car to Langeais and Azay-le-Rideau.
That new car is a treasure, and Brown drives as if there were a sort of sympathy between him and it. We go at a thrilling pace sometimes, but that is only when we have a long, straight road, empty as far as the eye can see. He is very considerate to "horse drivers," as he calls them, and he says "for the sake of the sport" everyone driving an automobile should be careful of the rights of other persons on the road. He slows down at once, or even stops the car altogether, if we meet a restive horse. Once he got out and pacified a silly beast that was nervous, leading it past the car, and when it was quite quiet the old peasant who was driving exclaimed that if all automobilists were like us there would never be complaints. We managed to make up for lost time, though; and when Brown "lets her out," as he calls it, until we are going as fast as a quick train, I can tell you it is something worth living for. When the country is very beautiful we drive slowly, and save our "spurts" for the uninteresting parts.
I know you've read Balzac's Duchesse de Langeais, in English, for it was I who gave it to you. I don't suppose she ever lived, really, at the Château de Langeais or anywhere else; but the thought of her made Langeais even more interesting to me than it would have been if she'd been erased from the picture.
It's a great, grey, frowning, turreted and crenelated fortress-house, and I felt so much obliged to it for having kept its practicable drawbridge. We drove almost up to the door, through a clean, very old little town, and just opposite the entrance was a quaint house where Brown said Rabelais had lived. I don't believe Aunt Mary knew anything about Rabelais. However, she eagerly Kodaked the house, and later, when I gravely mentioned to her that Rabelais was the kind you wouldn't allow me to read, but of course she might, if she liked, she gave a squeak of dismay, and threatened to waste all her films rather than let a photographer see that one when they went to be developed. I do hope I shan't be an old maid!
The Parisian millionaire who owns the Château, and lives in it part of the year, must be a wonderfully generous, public-spirited man. Only think, he has spent thousands and thousands in restoring the castle, in keeping up the lovely garden, and in having all the rooms exquisitely furnished and decorated exactly in the period of wicked Louis the Eleventh and Charles the Eighth. But instead of keeping these beautiful things for himself and his family and friends, he lets everybody have the benefit, not even making an exception of his own private rooms. Here Anne of Brittany was very much to the fore again, for she was married to Charles at Langeais, and we went into the room of the wedding. I should have liked to take the splendid, dignified, old major-domo, who showed us about, home with me; but I'm sure he'd pine away and die if torn from his beloved Château.
We bought quaint painted iron brooches, with Anne of Brittany's crest on them, in the town; and then we drove away through pretty, undulating country, which must be lovely in summer, to Azay-le-Rideau. Francis the First built it; and he certainly had as good taste in castles as in ladies, which is saying a great deal.
This is a fairy house. It doesn't look as if it had ever been built in the ordinary sense, but as if somebody had dropped a huge, glimmering pearl down on the green meadow, and it had rolled near enough to the water to see its own reflection. Then the same somebody had carved exquisite designs all over the pearl, and finally hollowed it out and turned it into a king's house.
As usual, we came to it across a bridge, not spanning the Loire this time, but a branch of the river Indre; and it's in the Indre that the pearly Château bathes its pearly feet. Almost I wished that I hadn't gone inside the pearl. Not that the inside was worthless; there was a mantel or two, and a great show staircase, with a carved, vaulted roof; but it was an anti-climax after the outside and after Langeais. When we came out from "viewing the interior," as the guide-books say, I walked all round the Château again, looking up at the carved chimneys and the sculptured windows, the charming turrets, and the sloping roof of blue grey slate; all so light and elegant, seeming to say, "Come and live here. You will be happy." Oh, they have some lovely things in Europe, that we can never have in our new country! We've a good excuse for wanting to come over here. But it's so good to feel that the things are for us, and for everybody-not just for England, or France, or Italy, as the case may be.
To-morrow we are going to try and see three châteaux-Ussé, and Luynes, and Chinon. We'll come back to Tours and our dear Hotel de l'Univers; but the day after-good-bye to both, and how-do-you-do Loches! I'll leave this open, and put in a postscript. I haven't given you a real, characteristic postscript for a long time.