Morrison placed at the head of his work a Latin verse which came in time to be graven over the gateway of the gardens. This—as well as pretty much all record of it—has disappeared, but a repetition of the lines will serve to show with what admiration this paradise was held:
"Hinc, nulli biferi miranda rosaria Pesti,
Nec mala Hesperidum, vigili servata dracone.
Si paradisiacis quicquam (sine crimine) campis
Conferri possit, Blaesis mirabile specta.
Magnifici Gastonis opus! Qui terra capaci ...
. . . . . . . . . . .
JACOBUS METELANUS SCOTUS."
Not merely in history has the famous château at Blois played its part. Writers of fiction have more than once used it as an accessory or the principal scenic background of their sword and cloak novels; none more effectively than Dumas in the D'Artagnan series.
The opening lines of "Le Vicomte de Bragelonne" are laid here. "It should have been a source of pride to the city of Blois," says Dumas, "that Gaston of Orleans had chosen it as his residence, and held his court in the ancient château of the States."
Here, too, in the second volume of the D'Artagnan romances, is the scene of that most affecting meeting between his Majesty Charles II., King of England, and Louis XIV.
Altogether one lives here in the very spirit of the pages of Dumas. Not only Blois, but Langeais, Chambord, Cheverny, Amboise, and many other châteaux figure in the novels with an astonishing frequency, and, whatever the critics may say of the author's slips of pen and memory, Dumas has given us a wonderfully faithful picture of the life of the times.
In 1793 all the symbols and emblems of royalty were removed from the château and destroyed. The celebrated bust of Gaston, the chief artistic attribute of that part of the edifice built by him, was decapitated, and the statue of Louis XII. over the entrance gateway was overturned and broken up. Afterward the château became the property of the "domaine" and was turned into a mere barracks. The Pavilion of Queen Anne became a "magasin des subsistances militaires," the Tour de l'Observatoire, a powder-magazine, and all the indignities imaginable were heaped upon the château.
In 1814 Blois became the last capital of Napoleon's empire, and the château walls sheltered the prisoners captured by the imperial army.
Blois's most luxurious church edifice was the old abbey church of St. Sauveur, which was built from 1138 to 1210. It lost the royal favour in 1697, when Louis XIV. made Blois a city of bishops as well as of counts, and transferred the chapter of St. Sauveur's to the bastard Gothic edifice first known as St. Solenne, but which soon took on the name of St. Louis. In spite of the claims of the old church, this cold, unfeeling, and ugly mixture of tomblike Renaissance became, and still remains, the bishop's church of Blois.
One must not neglect or forget the magnificent bridge which crosses the Loire at Blois. A work of 1717-24, it bears the Rue Denis Papin across its eleven solidly built masonry piers. Above the central arch is erected a memorial pyramid and tablet which states the fact that it was one of the first works of the reign of Louis XV.