Many things in Compiègne are beautiful, but not many of them are very old. Joan's statue looks toward the handsome and richly ornamented hôtel de ville, but Joan could not have seen this building, for it dates a hundred years after her death. There are the handsome churches, in one or both of which she doubtless worshiped, when she had first delivered the city, and possibly a few houses of that ancient time still survive.
Next morning we visited the palace. It has been much occupied by royalty, for Compiègne was always a favorite residence of the rulers of France. Napoleon came there with the Empress Marie Louise, and Louis Philippe and Napoleon III both found retirement there.
I think it could not have been a very inviting or restful home. There are long halls and picture-galleries, all with shiny floors and stiffly placed properties, and the royal suites are just a series of square, fancily decorated and upholstered boxes strung together, with doors between. But then palaces were not meant to be cozy. Pretty soon we went back to the car and drove into a big forest for ten miles or more to an old feudal castle,—such a magnificent old castle, all towers and turrets and battlements,—the château of Pierrefonds, one of the finest in France. It stands upon a rocky height overlooking a lake, and it does not seem so old, though it had been there forty years when Joan of Arc came, and it looks as if it might remain there about as long as the hill it stands on. It was built by Louis of Orleans, brother of Charles VI, and the storm of battle has often raged about its base. Here and there it still shows the mark of bombardment, and two cannon-balls stick fast in the wall of one of its solid towers. Pierrefonds was in bad repair, had become well nigh a ruin, in fact, when Napoleon III at his own expense engaged Viollet-le-Duc to restore it, in order that France might have a perfect type of the feudal castle in its original form. It stands to-day as complete in its structure and decoration as it was when Louis of Orleans moved in, more than five hundred years ago, and it conveys exactly the solid, home surroundings of the mediæval lord. It is just a show place now, and its vast court and its chapel and halls of state are all splendid enough, though nothing inside can be quite as magnificent as its mighty assemblage of towers and turrets rising above the trees and reflecting in the blue waters of a placid lake.
It began raining before we got to Paris, so we did not stop at Crepy-en-Valois or Senlis, or Chantilly, or St. Denis. In fact, neither the Joy nor I hungered even for Paris, which we had once visited. The others had already seen their fill, so, with only a day's delay, we all took the road to Versailles.
It was at Rambouillet that we lodged, an ancient place with a château and a vast park; also, an excellent inn—the Croix Blanche—one of those that you enter by driving through to an inner court. Before dinner we took a walk into the park, along the lakeside and past the château, where Frances I died, in 1547.
We were off next morning, following the rich and lovely valley of the Eure, to Chartres. We had already seen the towers from a long distance, when we turned at last into the cathedral square, and remembered the saying that "The choir of Beauvais and the nave of Amiens, the portal of Rheims and the towers of Chartres would together make the finest church in the world." To confess the truth, I did not think the towers of Chartres as handsome as those of Rouen, but then I am not a purist in cathedral architecture. Certainly, the cathedral itself is glorious. I shall not attempt to describe it. Any number of men have written books trying to do that, and most of them have failed. I only know that the wonder of its architecture, the marvel of its relief carving, "lace in stone," and the sublime glory of its windows somehow possessed us, and we did not know when to go. I met a woman once who said she had spent a month at Chartres and put in most of it sitting in the cathedral, looking at those windows. When she told me of it I had been inclined to be scornful. I was not so any more. Those windows, made by some unknown artist, dead five hundred years, invite a lifetime of contemplation.
We left Chartres by one of the old city gates, and through a heavenly June afternoon followed the straight, level way to Châteaudun, an ancient town perched upon the high cliff above the valley of the Loir, which is a different river from the Loire—much smaller and more picturesque.
The château itself hangs on the very verge of the cliffs, with starling effect, and looks out over a picture valley as beautiful as any in France. This was the home of Dunois, who left it to fight under Joan of Arc. He was a great soldier, one of her most loved and trusted generals. We spent an hour or more wandering through Dunois's ancient seat, with an old guardian who clearly was in love with every stone of it and who time and again reminded us that it was more interesting than any of the great châteaux of the Loire, Blois especially, in that it had been scarcely restored at all. About the latest addition to Châteaudun was a beautiful open stairway of the sixteenth century, in perfect condition to-day. On the other side is another fine façade and stairway, which Dunois himself added. In a niche there stands a statue of the famous old soldier, probably made from life. If only some sculptor or painter might have preserved for us the features of Joan!
Through that golden land which lies between the Loir and the Loire we drifted through a long summer afternoon, and came at evening to a noble bridge that crossed a wide, tranquil river, beyond which rose the towers of ancient Tours, capital of Touraine.
The Touraine was a favorite place for kings, who built their magnificent country palaces in all directions. There are more than fifty châteaux within easy driving distance of Tours.