Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine and the Loire Country

by M. F. Mansfield

CHAPTER XIV.

SOUTH OF THE LOIRE

The estuary of the Loire belongs both to Brittany and to the Vendée, though, as a matter-of-fact, the southern bank, opposite Nantes, formed a part of the ancient Pays de Retz, one of the old seigneuries of Bretagne.

It was Henri de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz, who was the bitter rival of Mazarin. French historians have told us that when the regency under Anne of Austria began, Mazarin, who had been secretary to the terrible Richelieu, was just coming into his power. He was a subtle, insidious Italian, plodding and patient, but false as a spring-time rainbow. Gondi was bold, liberal, and independent, a mover of men and one able to take advantage of any turn of the wind, a statesman, and a great reformer,—or he would have been had he but full power. It was Cromwell who said that De Retz was the only man in Europe who saw through his plans.

Gondi had entered the church, but he had no talents for it. His life was free, too free even for the times, it would appear, for, though he was ordained cardinal, it was impossible for him to supplant Mazarin in the good graces of the court. As he himself had said that he preferred to be a great leader of a party rather than a partisan of royalty, he was perhaps not so very greatly disappointed that he was not able to supplant the wily Italian successor of Richelieu in the favour of the queen regent. Gondi was able to control the parliament, however, and, for a time, it was unable to carry through anything against his will. Mazarin rose to power at last, barricaded the streets of Paris, and decided to exile Gondi—as being the too popular hero of the people. Gondi knew of the edict, but stuck out to the last, saying: "To-morrow, I, Henri de Gondi, before midday, will be master of Paris." Noon came, and he was master of Paris, but as he was still Archbishop-Coadjutor of Paris his hands were tied in more ways than one, and the plot for his supremacy over Mazarin, "the plunderer," fell through.

The whole neighbouring region south of the Loire opposite Nantes, the ancient Pays de Retz, is unfamiliar to tourists in general, and for that reason it has an unexpected if not a superlative charm. It was the bloodiest of the battle-grounds of the Vendean wars, and, though its monumental remains are not as numerous or as imposingly beautiful as those in many other parts, there is an interest about it all which is as undying as is that of the most ornate or magnificent château or fortress-peopled land that ever existed.

Not a corner of this land but has seen bloody warfare in all its grimness and horror, from the days when Clisson was pillaged by the Normans in the ninth century, to the guerilla warfare of the Vendean republicans in the eighteenth century. The advent of the railway has changed much of the aspect of this region and brought a twentieth-century civilization up to the very walls of the ruins of Clisson and Maulévrier, the latter one of the many châteaux of this region which were ruined by the wars of Stofflet, who, at the head of the insurgents, obliged the nobility to follow the peasants in their uprising.

Now and then, in these parts, one comes upon a short length of railway line not unlike that at which our forefathers marvelled. The line may be of narrow gauge or it may not, but almost invariably the two or three so-called carriages are constructed in the style (or lack of style) of the old stage-coach, and they roll along in much the same lumbering fashion. The locomotive itself is a thing to be wondered at. It is a pigmy in size, but it makes the commotion of a modern decapod, or one of those great flyers which pull the Southern Express on the main line via Poitiers and Angoulême, not fifty kilometres away.

There is a little tract of land lying just south of the Loire below Angers which is known as "le Bocage Vendéen." One leaves the Loire at Chalonnes and, by a series of gentle inclines, reaches the plateau where sits the town of Cholet, the very centre of the region, and a town whose almost only industry is the manufacture of pocket-handkerchiefs.

The aspect of the Loire has changed rapidly and given way to a more vigorous and varied topography; but, for all that, Cholet and the surrounding country depend entirely upon the great towns of the Loire for their intercourse with the still greater markets beyond. Like Angers, Cholet and all the neighbouring villages are slate-roofed, with only an occasional red tile to give variety to the otherwise gray and sombre outlook.