Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine and the Loire Country

by M. F. Mansfield

Duban, the architect, came with his careful restorations and pictured with a most exact fidelity the decorations and the furnishings of the times of François, of Catherine, and of Henri III. The ornate chimneypieces have been furbished up anew, the walls and ceilings covered with new paint and gold; nothing could be more opulent or glorious, but it gives the impression of a city dwelling or a great hotel, "newly done up," as the house renovators express it.

One contrasting emotion will be awakened by a contemplation of the two great Salles des Gardes and the apartments of Catherine de Medici; here, at least for the moment, is a relief from the intrigues, massacres, and assassinations which otherwise went on, for one recalls that, at one period, "danses, ballets et jeux" took place here continuously.

In the apartments of Catherine there is much to remind one of "the base Florentine," as it has been the fashion of latter-day historians to describe the first of the Medici queens. Nothing could be more sumptuous than the Galerie de la Reine, her Cabinet de Toilette, or her Chambre à Coucher, with its secret panels, where she died on the 5th of January, 1589, "adored and revered," but soon forgotten, and of no more account than "une chèvre mort," says one old chronicler.

The apartments of Catherine de Medici were directly beneath the guard-room where the Balafré was murdered, and that event, taking place at the very moment when the "queen-mother" was dying, cannot be said to have been conducive to a peaceful demise.

Here, on the first floor of the François Premier wing, the reine-mère held her court, as did the king his. The great gallery overlooked the town on the side of the present Place du Château. It was, and is, a truly grand apartment, with diamond-paned windows, and rich, dark, wall decorations on which Catherine's device, a crowned C and her monogram in gold, frequently appears. There was, moreover, a great oval window, opposite which stood her altar, and a doorway, half concealed, led to her writing-closet, with its secret drawers and wall-panels which well served her purposes of intrigue and deceit. A hidden stairway led to the floor above, and there was a chambre à coucher, with a deep recess for the bed, the same to which she called her son Henri as she lay dying, admonishing him to give up the thought of murdering Guise. "What," said Henri, on this embarrassing occasion, "spare Guise, when he, triumphant in Paris, dared lay his hand on the hilt of his sword! Spare him who drove me a fugitive from the capital! Spare them who never spared me! No, mother, I will not."

As the queen-mother drew near her end, and was lying ill at Blois, great events for France were culminating at the château. Henri III. had become King of France, and the Balafré, supported by Rome and Spain, was in open rebellion against the reigning house, and the word had gone forth that the Duc de Guise must die. The States General were to be immediately assembled, and De Guise, once the poetic lover of Marguerite, through his emissaries canvassed all France to ensure the triumph of the party of the Church against Henri de Navarre and his queen,—the Marguerite whom De Guise once professed to love,—who soon were to come to the throne of France.

The uncomfortable Henri III. had been told that he would never be king in reality until De Guise had been made away with.

The final act of the drama between the rival houses of Guise and Valois came when the king and his council came to Blois for the Assembly. The sunny city of Blois was indeed to be the scene of a momentous affair, and a truly sumptuous setting it was, the roof-tops of its houses sloping downward gently to the Loire, with the chief accessory, the coiffed and turreted château itself, high above all else.

Details had been arranged with infinite pains, the guard doubled, and a company of Swiss posted around the courtyard and up and down the gorgeous staircase. Every nook and corner has its history in connection with this greatest event in the history of the Château of Blois.

As Guise entered the council-chamber he was told that the king would see him in his closet, to reach which one had to pass through the guard-room below. The door was barred behind him that he might not return, when the trusty guards of the "Forty-fifth," under Dalahaide, already hidden behind the wall-tapestry, sprang upon the Balafré and forced him back upon the closed door through which he had just passed. Guise fell stabbed in the breast by Malines, and "lay long uncovered until an old carpet was found in which to wrap his corpse."