The south wing contains some rooms built by Louis XII. or his father, Charles d’Orléans, and also the ornate Chapelle Saint Calais, in which Henri IV. married Marguerite de Valois. It has been restored so much that it has lost somewhat in interest, in spite of its profuse gilding on walls and ceiling.
THE CHURCHES OF BLOIS
Cathedral of St. Louis, sixteenth century, rebuilt in seventeenth century in the time of Louis XIV. in a debased ogee style. The upper parts of the tower and main entrance are Renaissance, while the base of the tower belongs to the twelfth century, when an earlier church was standing.
St. Nicholas, a cruciform church situated at the foot of the château, is the oldest in Blois, and is quite the most interesting. It formerly belonged to the Benedictine Abbey of St. Laumur, and was built between 1138 and 1210 in Transitional and Gothic periods. The upper parts of the two western towers are modern. The interior is very impressive, the style being strong and simple, with a beautiful vaulted ambulatory. Some of the capitals are very finely carved. The altar-screen dates from 1460, and there are epitaphs and inscriptions of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
St. Vincent-de-Paul, a church of the Jesuits, built 1626-1671, contains a monument to Gaston d’Orléans (to the right of the chief altar) erected by Mademoiselle de Montpensier, his daughter (known as La Grande Mademoiselle).
St. Saturnin, in the Faubourg de Vienne, south of the river, belongs to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It has a statue of Notre-Dame des Aides, the object of a pilgrimage for which Anne de Bretagne (wife of Louis XII.) had a great devotion.
Old Houses.—There are many Renaissance houses of stone, and also numerous wooden ones of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with curious carvings on brackets and corbels and moulded beams. Nos. 1 and 2, in the narrow old Rue St. Lubin, west of the market below the château, are particularly good.
Tour d’Argent (Rue des Trois Clefs) is the fifteenth-century octagonal tower of the Hôtel des Monnaies, or Mint, under Charles d’Orléans and Louis XII.
Hôtel d’Alluye (8, Rue St. Honoré) is a masterly example of Renaissance, built for Florimond Robertet, Baron d’Alluye, and Secretary of Finances under Louis XII. and François I. He also built the Château de Bury.
Hôtel Sardini (17, Rue du Puits-Châtel) is of the time of Louis XII.