To Angers, with its wonderful fairylike castle, with its seventeen black-banded towers (recalling, also, that this is the “Black Angers” of Shakespeare’s “King John”), repaired the Duc d’Anjou, the brother of Charles IX. and Henri III., who then reigned at Paris.
To this “secret residence” the duc came. Dumas puts it thus:
“‘Gentlemen!’ cried the duke, ‘I have come to throw myself into my good city of Angers. At Paris the most terrible dangers have menaced my life.’... The people then cried out, ‘Long live our seigneur!’”
Bussy, who had made the way clear for the duc, lived, says Dumas, “in a tumble-down old house near the ramparts.” The ducal palace was actually outside the castle walls, but the frowning battlement was relied upon to shelter royalty when occasion required, the suite quartering themselves in the Gothic château, which is still to be seen in the débris-cluttered lumber-yard, to which the interior of the fortress has to-day descended.
In other respects than the shocking care, or, rather, the lack of care, which is given to its interior, the Castle of Angers, with its battalion of tours, now without their turrets, its deep, machicolated walls, and its now dry fosse, presents in every way an awe-inspiring stronghold.
Beyond Angers, toward the sea, is Nantes, famous for the Edict, and, in “The Regent’s Daughter” of Dumas, the massacre of the four Breton conspirators.
Gaston, the hero of the tale, had ridden posthaste from Paris to save his fellows. He was preceded, by two hours, by the order for their execution, and the reprieve which he held would be valueless did he arrive too late.
“On reaching the gates of Nantes his horse stumbled, but Gaston did not lose his stirrups, pulled him up sharply, and, driving the spurs into his sides, he made him recover himself.
“The night was dark, no one appeared upon the ramparts, the very sentinels were hidden in the gloom; it seemed like a deserted city.
“But as he passed the gate a sentinel said something which Gaston did not even hear.