With this wonderful program before us, we crossed the Loire, and traversing a wooded country with areas of vineyards and gardens, came to Azay-sur-Indre. There were not even hints of a château, nothing but the aimless cobbled streets of the typical French town. We halted beside a long wall which holds back the encroaching village and betrays no sign of the surprise in store within. Any one about to see his first château would do well to visit Azay-le-Rideau, a veritable gem of Renaissance style. This graceful pile of white architecture, as seen to-day, belongs to the early part of the sixteenth century. François I built it. That patron of the beaux arts has placed our twentieth century under lasting obligation. Every line is artistic. There is the picture of airy lightness in the turrets and carven chimneys that rise from the high sloping roofs of blue slate. In gratitude for the preservation of this perfect work one forgets the ravages of the French Revolution. Passing over a small bridge, we followed the gardien through the sculptured doorway and up the grand staircase so often ascended by François and his Parisian favorites. We were permitted to see the ancient kitchen and old kitchen utensils of wrought iron. Paintings and Flemish tapestries adorned the billiard room. The king's bedroom has a fine specimen of rare mediæval flooring. The ballroom, with its Gobelin tapestries, suggested the artistic luxury of the age. From nearly every window there were pleasing outlooks on a green woodland and on the sunny branch of the Indre, which surrounds the château on three sides. It was all a picture of peace. Azay-le-Rideau is a château of elegance, instead of defense. One could imagine it built by a king who had leisure to collect beautiful works of art and whose throne was not seriously threatened by invading armies.
Quite different from it is the château of Chinon, an immense ruined fortress built on a hill above the Vienne River. The walls are as impregnable as rocky cliffs. Chinon was the refuge of a king who had need of the strongest towers. Charles VII, still uncrowned, assembled here the States-General while the English were besieging Orléans. It was a time of despair. The French were divided, discouraged, helpless, their richest provinces overrun by English armies. At this lowest ebb of French history, a simple peasant girl came to Chinon. Only a solitary gable and chimneypiece remain of the Grande Salle du Trône where Jeanne d'Arc told the king of her visions from heaven and of mysterious voices commanding her to save the nation. We entered the tower, her rude quarters till she departed a few weeks later to lead the French troops to the victory of Orléans.
After lunch we motored through the gardens of Touraine to the magnificent château of Ussé. The elegant grounds and surrounding woods formed an appropriate setting. Terraces descended to the wall below, where our view swept over a wide range of picturesque country, watered by the Indre. Much to our regret, we were not permitted to visit the château, which is now occupied by a prominent French family.
Langeais, a few miles away, gave us a more hospitable welcome. It is a superb stronghold upon the Loire, and has dark, frowning towers and a heavy drawbridge which looks very mediæval. The widow of M. Siegfried, a Parisian millionaire, lives here part of the year with her daughter. M. Siegfried, who bought the château, was interested in art as well as in ships. He lavished his wealth to furnish the different rooms with furniture and objets d'art peculiar to the period. His will provides that after the wife's death the château is to belong to the Institute of France, and that a sum equal to six thousand dollars is to be devoted to its upkeep. Other tourists had arrived. The concierge conducted our party through the many different rooms, lavishly furnished and decorated in the period of Louis XI and Charles VIII. There were wide, open fireplaces. We were interested in the Grand Salon, where the marriage of Charles VIII and Anne of Brittany was celebrated in 1491.
The return to Tours led along the banks of the Loire. Rain was falling, a cold drizzle which the rising wind dashed in our faces. The wide sweeps of the river grew indistinct. There were few carts to check our homeward spurt through the darkening landscape. We were fortunate in having so comfortable a hostelry for a goal. The dinner, equal to the best French cuisine, proved a pleasant ending to a memorable day.
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood
The Chateau of Loches behind its imposing entrance Page 187
The next morning ushered in one of those golden fall days that seemed made for "châteauing." The swift kilometers soon carried us to Loches, that impressive combination of state prison, Château Royal, and grim fortress overlooking the valley of the Indre. So many horrible memories are linked with the prisons of Loches that we almost hesitate to record our impressions. We have seen the dungeon cells of the Ducal Palace in Venice and the equally gruesome chambers of the Castle of Chillon, but the dungeons of Loches are the most fear-inspiring that we have ever penetrated. Perhaps a part of this impression was due to the concierge who showed us the prisons where famous captives were incarcerated and tortured at the will of monarchs. There was one dark cell with a deep hole, purposely fashioned that the victims should stumble headlong to their fate. Our guide gave us a graphic description of this method of execution. In that gloomy hole, his sudden climax of "Très horrible," would have made any one shiver. Some of these cells extend an interminable distance underground. It is not the most cheerful experience to descend deeper and deeper into this subterranean darkness, to see the daylight growing fainter, to hear the trickle of water from the cold rocks, and then to imagine the slow, frightful death of many a political captive. Louis XI, not satisfied with the capacity of the dungeon, built a great round tower, the Tour Neuve, where he imprisoned the rebellious barons whose lives could not be taken.
Some one has written of this amiable king that "his reign was a daily battle, carried on in the manner of savages, by astuteness and cruelty, without courtesy and without mercy." In the cell occupied by Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan, may be seen the paintings, sun dial, and inscriptions with which he tried to ward off approaching madness. This prisoner is said to have died from the joy of regaining his liberty. Louis XI was resourceful in his method of imprisonment. In a subterranean room of the Tour Neuve we were shown where the Cardinal Balue was suspended in a small cage. One reads that he "survived so much longer than might have been expected this extraordinary mixture of seclusion and exposure." Almost as horrible was the window cell in one of the torture chambers. The prisoner was confined on a narrow stone ledge between two rows of bars. There was barely space to stand up or lie down. A handful of straw served for a bed. On the one side, he was exposed to the elements, and on the other, he viewed the torments of fellow prisoners.