At Blois this is particularly noticeable. As an architectural monument the château is a picturesque assemblage of edifices belonging to many different epochs, and, as such, shows, as well as any other document of contemporary times, the varying ambitions and emotions of its builders, from the rude and rough manners of the earliest of feudal times through the highly refined Renaissance details of the imaginative brain of François, down to the base concoction of the elder Mansart, produced at the commands of Gaston of Orleans.
The whole gamut, from the gay and winsome to the sad and dismal, is found here.
The escutcheons of the various occupants are plainly in evidence,—the swan pierced by an arrow of the first Counts of Blois; the ermine of Anne de Bretagne; the porcupine of the Ducs d'Orleans, and the salamander of François Premier.
In the earliest structure were to be seen all the attributes of a feudal fortress, towers and walls pierced with narrow loopholes, and damp, dark dungeons hidden away in the thick walls. Then came a structure which was less of a fortress and more habitable, but still a stronghold, though having ample and decorative doorways and windows, with curious sculptures and rich framings. Then the pompous Renaissance with escaliers and balcons à jour, balustrades crowning the walls, arabesques enriching the pilasters and walls, and elaborate cornices here, there, and everywhere,—all bespeaking the gallantry and taste of the roi-chevalier. Finally came the cold, classic features of the period of the brother of Louis XIII., decidedly the worst and most unlivable and unlovely architecture which France has ever produced. All these features are plain in the general scheme of the Château de Blois to-day, and doubtless it is this that makes the appeal; too much loveliness, as at Chenonceaux or Azay-le-Rideau, staggers the modern mortal by the sheer impossibility of its modern attainment.
In plan the Château de Blois forms an irregular square situated at the apex of a promontory high above the surface of the Loire, and practically behind the town itself. The building has a most picturesque aspect, and, to those who know, gives practically a history of the château architecture of the time. Abandoned, mutilated, and dishonoured from time to time, the structure gradually took on new forms until the thick walls underlying the apartment known to-day as the Salle des États—probably the most ancient portion of all—were overshadowed by the great richness of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. One early fragment was entirely enveloped in the structure which was built by François Premier, the ancient Tour de Château Regnault, or De Moulins, or Des Oubliettes, as it was variously known, and from the outside this is no longer visible.
From the platform one sees a magnificent panorama of the city and the far-reaching Loire, which unrolls itself southward and northward for many leagues, its banks covered by rich vineyards and crowned by thick forests.
The building of Louis XII. presents its brick-faced exterior in black and red lozenge shapes, with sculptured window-frames, squarely upon the little tree-bordered place of to-day, which in other times formed a part of that magnificent terrace which looked down upon the roof of the Église St. Nicolas, and the Jesuit Church of the Immaculate Conception, and the silvery belt of the Loire itself.
On the west façade of this vast conglomerate structure one sees the effigy of the porcupine, that weird symbol adopted by the family of Orleans.