[CHAP. XV.]
Houses in Chalk Hills—Magnificent Castle at Chambord—Return
from Chambord by Moon-light—St. Laurence on the
Waters.
On the following morning we resumed our journey. The country continued very similar to that through which we had previously past, except that it was more populous, and there were a greater number of chateaus. On some parts of the road, the chalk hills on the side of the river presented a very curious spectacle: smoke issued out of an hundred vents on the sides and summits, and gave them the appearance of so many volcanoes. The fact was, that the descent fronting the river was scooped into houses or rather caves for the peasantry, and the roof was cut upwards for the chimney. I was informed by Mr. Younge, that the other circumstances of these houses and their inhabitants did not correspond with the implied poverty in their construction. "The fronts of these cottages," said he, "are very picturesque; they have casements, and the walls are deeply shaded and embossed with vines. These caverns are in some places in rows one above another. They are not all of them the property of those who live in them: some of them are constructed at the expence of the farmers, and are let out at a yearly hire of four or five livres. The fronts are masonry: the small gardens which you see above, belong to these cottagers; many of them have moreover a cow, which they feed in the lanes and woods. Altogether, their condition is more comfortable than you would imagine."
As the distance between Blois and Orleans was too much for one day, we had divided it into two, and arranged it so as to comprehend Chambord in the first. This route indeed was considerably out of our direct way, but Mr. and Mrs. Younge resolved that I should see Chambord, and would hear of no excuses.
In pursuance of this plan we turned out of the main road, and entered a narrow one, which by its recluseness and solitude seemed to lead us into the recesses of the country. Nothing can be more beautiful than these bye-roads both in France and England. On the highways, and in the vicinity or route of central and populous towns, the spirit of improvement, and the caprice of wealth, too frequently destroy the scenes of nature: the artist in fashion is set at work, and the field and the meadow is supplanted by the park, the lawn, and the measured avenue. In the bye-lanes, on the contrary, the country is generally left in its natural rudeness, and therefore in its natural beauty: no one thinks of improving the house, orchard, and fields of his tenant; no one cares whether his gates are painted, or his hedges are trim and even. The bye-road, therefore, has always been my favourite haunt; and if ever I should make a pedestrian tour through Europe, I should go in a track very different from any who have gone before.
The scenery in this cross-road to Chambord, as to its general character, was exactly what I had anticipated; recluse and romantic to the most extreme degree. The fields were small, and thickly enclosed; nothing could be more beautiful than the shocks of corn as seen through the thick foliage of the hedges. "How pleasant," said Mademoiselle to me, "would be a walk by sunset under those hedge-rows." I agreed in the observation, and repeat it as conveying an idea of the character of the scenery. The gates and stiles to these several fields seemed as if they had been made by Robinson Crusoe: there is nothing in America more rough and aukward. We passed several cottages very delightfully situated, and without a single exception covered with grapes. The gradual approach to them had something which spoke both to the imagination and the feelings. Imagine the carriage driving very slowly onwards, when you suddenly hear a sweet female voice carrolling away in all the wildness of nature, and this without knowing whence it comes. On a sudden, coming nearer the bottom of the hill, you see on one side of the road a cottage chimney, peeping as it were from a tuft of trees in a dell, and immediately afterwards, coming in front, behold a girl picking grapes for the press, and chearfully singing over her toil. There are few of these cottages but what have a garden fronting the road, and some of these gardens, in the season of fruit and flowers, are inimitably beautiful. Where is it that I have read, that a Frenchman has no idea of gardening? Nothing can be more false: the French peasants infinitely excell the English of the same order in the knowledge and practice of this embellishment.
Nothing can be more obscure, more melancholy, than the situation of Chambord; it is literally buried in woods, and the building, immense as it is, is not visible till you are within some hundred yards of it. The woods are not merely on one side, but entirely surround it, leaving only a park in front, through the midst of which slowly flows a narrow river. The day was overclouded, and I think I never beheld a more melancholy scene.
The style of building is strictly Gothic, and the architecture, considering the order, is very good. It was built by Francis the First, who, on his return from Spain, commanded the ancient chateau of the Counts of Blois to be destroyed, and built this in its place. He is said to have employed eighteen hundred workmen for twelve years, and even then it was left unfinished. It is moated and walled round, and has every appendage of the Gothic castle, innumerable towers and turrets, drawbridges and portals. If seated upon an hill, it would be impossible to conceive a finer object.
The apartments correspond with its external magnitude; they are large and spacious, but the effect of them is destroyed by what is very common in old Gothic buildings; cross-beams from one side of the room to the other. There is a silly story, that Catherine of Medicis had them so placed by the advice of an astrologer, who having cast her nativity discovered that she was in danger of perishing by the fall of an house. The great Marshal Saxe lived and died in this chateau: the room in which he breathed his last, is still shewn with great veneration. There is a tradition that he was killed in a duel by the Prince of Conti, and that his death was concealed. The Marshal lived here in great state; he had a regiment of 1500 horse, the barracks of which are in the immediate vicinity of the castle. The apartments which he occupied are in very good taste; the ceilings are arched, and the proportions are excellent. In one of the rooms is an admirable picture of Louis the Fourteenth on horseback. The spiral staircase is a contrivance which it is impossible to explain; it is so managed, as to contain two distinct staircases in one, so that people may go up and down at the same time, without seeing each other. The apartments are said to exceed twelve hundred.
This castle was the favourite residence of Francis the First, and it was here that he so magnificently received and entertained the Emperor Charles the Fifth. Francis the First was in every respect a true French Knight; gallant, magnificent, and religious in the extreme. There was formerly a pane of glass in one of the windows of this chateau, on which Francis the First had written the two following lines;