“Toward the middle of the month of May, 1660, when the sun was fast absorbing the dew from the ravenelles of the Château of Blois, a little cavalcade entered the city by the bridge, without producing any effect upon the passengers of the quai-side, except a movement of the tongue to express, in the purest French then spoken in France (Touraine has ever spoken the purest tongue, as all know), ‘There is Monsieur returning from the hunt.’... It should have been a trifling source of pride to the city of Blois that Gaston of Orleans had chosen it as his residence, and held his court in the ancient château of its states.”
It was in the Castle of the States of Blois that Louis XIV. received that unexpected visit from “His Majesty Charles II., King of England, Scotland, and Ireland,” of which Dumas writes in the second of the D’Artagnan series.
“‘How strange it is you are here,’ said Louis. ‘I only knew of your embarkation at Brighthelmstone, and your landing in Normandy.’...
“Blois was peaceful that morning of the royal arrival, at which announcement it was suddenly filled with all the tumult and the buzzing of a swarm of bees. In the lower city, scarce a hundred paces from the castle, is a sufficiently handsome street called the Rue Vieille, and an old and venerable edifice which, tradition says, was habited by a councillor of state, to whom Queen Catherine came, some say to visit and others to strangle.”
Not alone is Blois reminiscent of “Les Mousquetaires,” but the numberless references in the series to Langeais, Chambord,—the châteaux and their domains,—bring to mind more forcibly than by innuendo merely that Dumas himself must have had some great fondness for what has come to be the touring-ground of France par excellence.
From “Le Vicomte de Bragelonne,” one quotes these few lines which, significantly, suggest much: “Do you not remember, Montalais, the woods of Chaverney, and of Chambord, and the numberless poplars of Blois?” This describes the country concisely, but explicitly.
Beyond Blois, beyond even Tours, which is Blois’ next neighbour, passing down the Loire, is Angers.
CASTLE OF ANGERS—CHÂTEAU OF BLOIS
In “La Dame de Monsoreau,” more commonly known in English translations as “Chicot the Jester,” much of the scene is laid in Anjou.