The murders and other acts of violence and treason which took place here are interesting enough, but one cannot but feel, when he views the chimneypiece before which the Duc de Guise was standing when called to his death in the royal closet, that the men of whom the bloody tales of Blois are told quite deserved their fates.
One comes away with the impression of it all stamped only upon the mind, not graven upon the heart. Political intrigue to-day, if quite as vulgar, is less sordid. Bigotry and ambition in those days allowed few of the finer feelings to come to the surface, except with regard to the luxuriance of surroundings. Of this last there can be no question, and Blois is as characteristically luxurious as any of the magnificent edifices which lodged the royalty and nobility of other days, throughout the valley of the Loire.
A numismatic curiosity, connected with the history of the Château de Blois, is an ancient piece of money which one may see in the local museum. It is the oldest document in existence in which, or on which, the name of Blois is mentioned. On one side is a symbolical figure and the legend Bleso Castro, and on the other a croix haussée and the name of the officer of the mint at Blois, Pre Cistato, monetario.
The plan of the Château de Blois here given shows it not as it is to-day, but as it was at the death of Gaston d'Orleans in 1660. The constructions of the different epochs are noted on the plan as follows:
Erected by the Comtes de Chatillon
1. Tour de Donjon, Château-Regnault, Moulins, or des Oubliettes.
2. Salle des États.
3. Tour du Foix or Observatory.
Erected by the Ducs d'Orleans
4. Portico and Galerie d'Orleans. (Destroyed in part by the military.)
5. Galerie des Cerfs. (Built in part by Gaston, but made away with by the city of Blois when the Jardins du Roi were built.)
Erected by Louis XII.
6. Chapelle St. Calais. (Destroyed in part by the military.)
7. La Grande Vis, or Grand Escalier of Louis XI.
8. La Petite Vis, or Petit Escalier, in one chamber of which the corpse of the Duc de Guise was burned.
9. Portico and Galerie de Louis XII.
10. Portico.
11. Salle des Gardes,—of the queen on the ground floor and of the king on the first floor.
12. Bedchamber,—of the queen on the ground floor and of the king on the first floor.
13. Corps de Garde.
14. Kitchen. (To-day Salle de Réception for visitors.)
Erected from the Time of François I. to Henri III.
15 and 16. Portico and Terrace Henri II. (In part built over by Gaston.)
17. Grand Staircase.
18. Galerie de François I.
19. Staircase of the Salle des États. (Destroyed by the military.)
20. First floor, Salle des Gardes of the queen; second floor, Salle des Gardes of the king.
21. Staircase leading to the apartments of the queen mother. Here also Henri III. had made the cells destined for the use of the Capucins, and here were closeted "pour s'assurer de leur discretion," the "Quarante-Cinq" who were to kill the Duc de Guise.
22. Cabinet Neuf of Henri III. (Second floor.)
23. Gallery where was held the reunion of the Tiers Etats of 1576.
24. First floor, bedchamber of the king; second floor, bedchamber of the queen.
25. Oratory.
26. Cabinet.
27. Passage to the Tour de Moulins.
28. Passage to the Cabinet Vieux, where the Duc de Guise was struck down.
29. Cabinet Vieux.
30. Oratory, where the two chaplains of the king prayed during the perpetration of the murder.
31. Garde-robe, where was first deposited the body of De Guise.
Erected by Gaston D'Orleans
32. Peristyle. (Destroyed by the military.)
33. Dome.
34. Pavilion des Jardins.
35. Pavilion du Foix.
36. Petit Pavilion of the Méridionale façade. (Destroyed in 1825.)
37. Terraces.
38. Bastions du Foix and des Jardins.
39. L'Eperon.
40. Le Jardin Haut, or Jardin du Roi.
The interior court is partly surrounded by a colonnade, quite cloister-like in effect. At the right centre of the François I. wing is that wonderful spiral staircase, concerning the invention of which so much speculation has been launched. Leonardo da Vinci, the protégé of François, has been given the honour, and a very considerable volume has been written to prove the claim.
[Cypher of François Premier and Claude of France, at Blois]
![[Cypher of François Premier and Claude of France, at Blois]](#3662465787148151151_illus108.jpg.id-7602554678001064120.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
Within this "tour octagone"—"qui fait à ses huit pans hurler un gorgone"—is built this marvellous openwork stairway,—an escalier à jour, as the French call it,—without an equal in all France, and for daring and decorative effect unexcelled by any of those Renaissance motives of Italy itself. Its ascent turns not, as do most escaliers, from left to right, but from right to left. It is the prototype of those supposedly unique outside staircases pointed out to country cousins in the abodes of Fifth Avenue millionaires.
It is as impossible to catalogue the various apartments and their accessories here, as it is to include a chronology of the great events which have passed within their walls. One thing should be remembered, and that is, that the architect Duban restored the château throughout in recent years. In spite of this restoration one may readily enough reconstruct the scene of the murder of the Duc de Guise from the great fireplace on the second floor before which De Guise was standing when summoned by a page to the kingly presence, from the door through which he entered to his death, and from the wall where hung the tapestry behind which he was to pass. All this is real enough, and also the "Tour des Oubliettes," in which the duke's brother, the cardinal, suffered, and of which many horrible tales are still told by the attendants.