Brantôme described the fourteen-year-old bride as pretty, with black eyes, well-marked eyebrows, black hair, fresh complexion and a dimpled chin, but as Lydia says, one cannot always trust Brantôme, as he painted Catherine de Médici whom he beheld with his mortal eyes in all the glory of the lily and rose, and later, when he saw Queen Elizabeth in London, he wrote of her as beautiful and of lofty bearing. It is quite evident that Brantôme's eyes were bedazzled by the glitter of royalty, or was it the glitter of royal gold?
"Well, whether or not Anne was beautiful, it is a comfort to have her safely married in the midst of so much confusion and warfare," said Miss Cassandra, with the satisfied air of a mother who has just made an eligible marriage for her daughter.
"But we have not done with her yet," exclaimed Lydia. "We shall meet her and her ermine tails and tasseled ropes in every château of the Loire, and at Amboise we shall go a step further in her history, and only reach the last chapter at Blois."
Café Rabelais opposite Château of Langeais
From the mediæval fortress, with its wealth of French and English history that Lydia and our guide poured into our willing ears, we crossed the Rue Gambetta to the little Café Rabelais, opposite the entrance to the château, where we spent a cheerful quart d'heure over cups of tea, and classic buns that are temptingly displayed in the window. Although this genial reformed monk, as Walter is pleased to call Rabelais, was born at Chinon, he seems to have lived at Langeais at two different periods of his wandering and eventful life, Guillaume, Sieur de Langeais, having given him a cottage near the château.
Having come to Langeais by train we engaged a hack to convey us to Azay-le-Rideau, a drive of about six miles. As we drove over a long bridge that crosses the Loire, we had another view of the château, with its three massive towers, many chimneys, and of the wide shining river that flows beside it, bordered by tall poplars and dotted with green islets. Our drive was through a level farming land, where men and women were at work cutting grass and turning over the long rows of yellow flax which were drying in the sun. Here again we saw many women with the large baskets or hottes on their backs, as if to remind us that the burden-bearers are not all of Italy, for the women of France work quite as hard as the men, more constantly it would seem, if we may judge by the number of men who are to be seen loafing about the little inns and cabarets.
Across the wide, low-lying fields and pasture lands, we could see the long line of foliage that marks the forest of Chambord. All these great country palaces of the kings and nobles of France were comparatively near each other, "quite within visiting distance," as Miss Cassandra says. As we walked along the avenue of horse-chestnut trees, and over the little bridge that spans the Indre, we felt that no site could have been better chosen for the building of a palace of pleasure than this. With a background of forest trees, a river flowing around it, the stone walls and bridges draped with a brilliant crimson curtain of American ivy, the Château of Azay-le-Rideau justifies Balzac's enthusiastic description: "A diamond with a thousand facets, with the Indre for a setting and perched on piles buried in flowers." Yet this gay palace, like most of the châteaux of the Loire, has arisen upon the foundations of a fortress, and its odd name was given it in honor of a certain Hughes Ridel or Rideau, who in the thirteenth century built a castle on an island to defend the passage of the Indre, the position being an important one strategically. When our old Dijon friend, Jean Sans-Peur, came this way in 1417, he took care to place a garrison of several hundred men at Azay. These Burgundian soldiers, having a high opinion of the strength of the castle and of their own prowess, undertook to jeer at the Dauphin, afterwards Charles VII, as he passed by on his way from Chinon to Tours, upon which he laid siege to Azay and captured and meted out summary vengeance upon those who had mocked at and insulted him. The story told to us sounds, as Miss Cassandra says, like a chapter from the Chronicles or the Book of Kings, for although a great bear did not come out of the woods and devour those wicked mockers, they were hanged, every one, their captain was beheaded and the castle razed to the ground.
Upon the piles of the old fortress the Château of Azay arose to please the fancy of a certain Grilles Berthold, a relative of the Bohier who built the Château of Chenonceaux, and like him a minister of Finance.
Built upon an island, the slow flowing Indre forms a natural moat around the castle, or as Balzac expresses it more picturesquely, "This most charming and elaborate of the châteaux of beautiful Touraine ever bathes itself in the Indre, like a princely galley adorned with lace-like pavilions and windows, and with pretty soldiers on its weathercocks, turning, like all soldiers, whichever way the wind blows." The lace-like effect that Balzac speaks of evidently refers to the exquisite carving on the walls and around the windows, and upon the graceful corner towers of the château. Here, over the driveway and in other places, are the salamander of Francis I and the ermine of his wife, Claude of Brittany, who died before the château was completed. Francis lived to use and enjoy Azay in the hunting season, as did other sovereigns.
The architect, whose name seems to have been lost sight of amid much discussion and some chicanery with regard to the possession of the château, was a wise man in his day and instead of attempting to unite the feudal fortress and the hunting seat, as Le Nepveu was doing at Chambord, he was content to make of Azay-le-Rideau a palace of pleasure. Indeed, he seems to have allowed his fancy free play in the construction of this château, with the result that he has made of it a dwelling place of great beauty, richly decorated but never overloaded with ornament. Even the chimney tops are broidered over with graceful designs and covered with a fine basket work in metal.
Château of Azay-le-Rideau, East Façade
A true gem of the French Renaissance is Azay-le-Rideau, so the learned in architecture tell us, and yet enough of the old fortress construction has been preserved to add strength and compactness to the fairy-like beauty of this château.
Through the handsome double doorway above which the salamander of Francis breathes forth its device, "Nutrisco et extingo," we passed into the beautiful hall and up the grand staircase, with its sculptured vaults of stone, rich beyond compare, adorned with medallions of royal faces and decorations of fruits, flowers, and heraldic emblems. Miss Cassandra, being somewhat fatigued after our ramble through Langeais, sat down upon the steps to enjoy at leisure the delicate beauty of the ornamentation of the stairway, declaring that she was quite ready to take up her abode here, as this château fulfilled all the requirements of a pleasant country home, and after reading Madame Waddington's book she had always wished to try château life in France.
Lydia and I objected, for after the complete and harmonious furnishing of Langeais the interior of Azay-le-Rideau seems a trifle bare, as only two or three of the rooms are thoroughly furnished. As the property now belongs to the State and is in the care of L'Ecole des Beaux Arts, which is gradually collecting rare and beautiful articles of furniture, this compact little château will soon be completely equipped as a Renaissance museum.
The room of Francis I is shown, with handsome carved bed and rich hangings of turquoise blue damask, adjoining it the room in which Louis XIV slept, which is hung in crimson damask. These rooms, with some fine tapestries, scattered articles of furniture and a number of portraits, complete the present equipment of Azay-le-Rideau. Among the portraits that interested us was one of Catherine de Médicis by Clouet, and another by the same artist of Francis I, as he so often appears in his portraits, "with the insufferable smile upon his lips that curl upward satyr-like towards the narrow eyes, the crisp close-cut brownish beard and the pink silken sleeves and doublet." Near by, in strong contrast to the sensual face of Francis, hangs the clear-cut face of Calvin. Here also are the portraits of Henry of Navarre and the wife for whom he cared so little, the beautiful Marguerite of Valois, less beautiful in her portrait than one would expect, and of the woman whom he loved so deeply, Gabrielle d'Estrées, Duchess of Beaufort.
A charm of romance ever surrounds the graceful figure of Gabrielle d'Estrées, whom the usually inconstant Henry seems to have loved tenderly and faithfully to the end of her days. Many persons have excused this connection of the King with la belle Gabrielle because of his loveless and enforced marriage with his cousin Marguerite, who was faithful to her royal husband only when his life or his throne were in danger. At such times she would fly to his aid like a good comrade. The handsomest and the most brilliant and daring of the unfortunate and ill-fated brood of the dreadful Catherine, Marguerite seems to have been particularly happy when she was able to thwart the malicious designs of her mother, from whose plots the King of Navarre so often escaped that he was said to have borne a charmed life.
As we quitted the château to wander through its lovely gardens, gay with many flowers, and over the lawn with its fine copper beeches, exquisite mimosa trees, hemlocks, and delicate larches, we thought of the many great lords and noble ladies who had walked over this fair demesne and, like us, had stopped to enjoy the soft breezes by the side of the little river where the birches spread their long branches over the gently flowing stream. So near the great world and yet so retired from it, it is not strange that Francis, and the kings who followed him, should have often turned from the turmoil and unrest of the court to enjoy this happy valley.
We were tempted to linger so long in the grounds that we had only a short time to spend in the interesting eleventh century church which adjoins the park and, like the château, belongs to the State. The façade of the church is richly decorated with quaint statuettes and carvings, and here also is a seigniorial chapel with inscriptions of the Biencourt family who owned the château of Azay-le-Rideau before it passed into the hands of the government.
Our appetite for châteaux has so increased with the seeing of them that we regretted not having time to go to Ussé this same afternoon, but we shall have to make a separate trip to this palace, which is said to be a superb example of Gothic architecture. Although the château is often inhospitably closed to visitors, its exterior, with innumerable towers and tourelles, and the terraces, gardens, and vast park, nearly seven miles in circumference, are well worth a visit.
As usual, the afternoon was not long enough, and the shortening September light warned us that we must take a train from the station at Azay-le-Rideau about six in order to reach Tours in time for dinner.
VII
TWO QUEENS AT AMBOISE
Pension B–, Tours, September 5th.
This morning we spent at the Château of Amboise, which we reached by crossing two bridges over the Loire, as the wide river is divided at this point by the Isle St. Jean. None of all these beautiful royal castles owes more to the Loire than Amboise, whose magnificent round machiolated tower commands the approaches to the bridge, while the fine pointed windows and arched balcony give a fairyland lightness and grace to the adjoining façade which crowns a bluff high above the river.
We reached the château by many hillside steps, and through a garden which stands so high upon its terrace above the street that it seems, like the famous gardens of Babylon, to hang in the air. Upon a nearer view we found that the garden rests upon a solid foundation of rock and earth, and is surrounded by strong walls and parapets of masonry. From these walls the light buttresses of the little Chapel of St. Hubert spring. This lovely chapel, which with its fine delicate spire and chiselled pinnacles, standing out against the blue sky, gives an effect of indescribable beauty, was built by Charles VIII after his return from Italy. The wonderful carvings above the doorway, representing St. Hubert's miraculous encounter with a stag, were doubtless executed by Italian workmen whom he brought with him, as only skilled hands could have produced a result so rich and decorative and yet so exquisitely fine and delicate. Other beautiful carvings ornament the façade and the interior of the chapel, which in form is a miniature Sainte Chapel, less brilliant in color and richer in carving than the ancient Chapel of St. Louis, in Paris.
A cheerful château, perched upon a rock and bathed in sunshine, Amboise appeared to us to-day, whether we looked at it from the bridge or from the garden, with nothing to remind us of the sad and tragic events in its history. This we are told reaches back to the time of Julius Cæsar, who, recognizing the strategic value of this high bluff above the Loire, built a strong tower here. Upon the well-wooded Isle St. Jean, directly opposite the château, Clovis and Alaric are said to have held an important conference, and our own good King Arthur is credited with owning the Castle of Amboise at one time, and of graciously returning it to the Franks before he sailed away to conquer Mordred and to meet his own death upon the Isle of Avalon. All of these tales we may believe or not as we please, for Touraine is full of ancient legends, more or less credible, and especially rich in those pertaining to Cæsar and his conquests, and of the beloved St. Martin's miraculous success in destroying the conqueror's towns, landmarks, and images of the gods.
While Lydia was gloating over the very ancient history of Amboise, Walter and I were glad to connect it with a later time when Louis VII met Thomas à Becket here with a view to bringing about a reconciliation between the proud prelate and his lord and master, Henry II of England. This meeting seemed comparatively recent, after the shadowy traditions of Cæsar and St. Martin that were poured into our ears, and we began to feel quite at home in the castle when we learned that our old friend of Langeais, Charles VIII, was born at Amboise and spent his childhood here under the care of his good and clever mother, Charlotte of Savoy. She taught him all that he was permitted to learn, his father, the crafty Louis XI, for some reason only known to himself, desiring his son and heir to grow up in ignorance of books as well as of the world of men.
Château of Langeais, from the Loire
After her marriage at Langeais, Anne de Bretagne made a right royal progress to St. Denis, where she was anointed and crowned with great state and ceremony, the crown, which was far too heavy for the head of the little Queen of fourteen, being held over her by the Duke of Orleans. The new Queen, after making a solemn entrance into Paris and receiving the homage of all the civil and military officers of the Châtelet, the Provost of Paris, and of many other dignitaries, returned with her husband to Amboise, where most of their married life was spent. Additions were made to the château at this time and its interior was fitted up with great splendor; thousands of yards of cloth of gold, silk, tapestries from Flanders, and other precious stuffs were used as hangings, to the amount of ten thousand pounds, says one chronicler. "Past and contemporary events were portrayed on the tapestries. André Denisot and Guillaume Ménagier, workers of Tours, had charge of the furnishing; one room by Ménagier was hung with silk tapestry on which the history of Moses was represented, and the floor was covered with a large, fine silk Moorish carpet." All this, and much more in the way of rich furnishings and handsome silver, was brought to the old castle to do honor to the Bretonne bride, who was destined to know little happiness in her new home. Her eldest son, the Dauphin Charles, who was described by Philippe de Commines as "a fine child, bold in speech, and fearing not the things other children are frightened at," a child whose birth was hailed with rejoicing as an heir to the Duchy of Brittany and the Kingdom of France, fell ill and died at Amboise while his mother was near the frontier of Italy celebrating the King's recent victories. A curious story is told by Brantôme about the mourning of the King and Queen for this beloved son.
"After the death of the Dauphin," says this chronicler, "King Charles and his Queen were full of such desolate grief that the doctors, fearing the weakness and feeble constitution of the King, were of opinion that excess of sorrow might be prejudicial to his health; they therefore advised as many distractions as possible, and suggested that the princes at court should invent new pastimes, dances, and mummeries to give pleasure to the King and Queen, which being done, the Monseigneur d'Orléans devised a masquerade with dances, in which he danced with such gaiety and so played the fool that the Queen thought he was making merry because he was nearer the throne of France, seeing that the Dauphin was dead. She was extremely displeased, and looked on him with such aversion that he was obliged to leave Amboise, where the court then was, and go to his Castle of Blois."
This was, as Walter remarks, rather shabby treatment of a royal prince and a former suitor; but the little Queen was hot tempered, strong in her likes and aversions, and never unmindful of the fact that she was Duchess of Brittany in her own right, as well as Queen of France by her marriage.
Lydia reminds us that the unappreciated Duke of Orleans had his innings later when he became King, after the death of Charles, and the second husband of Anne. You may notice that we are quite up on the history of Anne of Brittany, as we came across a charming biography of her at Brentano's in Paris, A Twice Crowned Queen, by the Countess de la Warr, in addition to which we have been looking over an old copy of Brantôme that we found at a book store here.
In the three years following the death of the Dauphin two sons and a daughter were born to Charles and Anne. These children all died in infancy. "In vain," says the Countess de la Warr, "did Anne take every precaution to save the lives of these little creatures whom death snatched from her so ruthlessly. She summoned nurses from Brittany, and the superstitious beliefs of her own country came back to her mind. She presented them with amulets, a Guienne crown piece wrapped up in paper, a piece of black wax in a bag of cloth of gold, six serpents' tongues,—a large one, two of medium size, and three little ones,—and rosaries of chalcedony and jasper; she not only sent votive offerings to the venerated shrines of the saints in Brittany, and presented rich gifts every year to the Holy Virgin of Auray, but she went herself on a pilgrimage. Alas! it was all to no purpose; a relentless fate followed the poor Queen."
A still heavier blow was destined to fall upon Anne, a few years later, in the death of her husband, to whom she seems to have been devotedly attached. In the midst of his work of beautifying Amboise with the spoils of his Italian wars, Charles was suddenly struck down with apoplexy, induced it is thought by a blow. He hit his head, never a very strong one, according to all accounts, against the stone arch of a little doorway and died a few hours after. We were shown the entrance to the Galerie Hacquelebac where the King met with his fatal accident as he was on his way to the tennis court with the Queen and his confessor, the Bishop of Angers. The door, which was very low at that time, was later raised and decorated with the porcupine of Louis XII.
The little widow, not yet twenty-one, was so overcome with grief at the death of her husband that she spent her days and nights in tears and lamentations. The only comfort that she found was in ordering a magnificent funeral for Charles, to every detail of which Louis d'Orléans, the new King, attended with scrupulous care, defraying himself the whole cost, not only of the ceremony itself, but of that incurred in conveying the body from Amboise to St. Denis. Even this devotion on the part of her husband's successor did not satisfy the Queen, as she redoubled her lamentations upon seeing him, and although he did everything in his power to comfort her in the most winning way, she still refused to eat or sleep and insisted between her sobs: "Je dois suivre le chemin de mon mari!" which for some reason sounds infinitely more pathetic than the plain English, "I must follow the way of my husband."
The way of the beloved Charles Anne was not destined to follow, as we find her, in less than a year, following in the way of his successor, Louis XII. The enforced and altogether unhappy marriage between Louis and his cousin, Jeanne of France, having been annulled by Alexander VI, in return for certain honors conferred upon his son, Cæsar Borgia, and the decree of separation having been pronounced by him at Chinon, Louis d'Orléans was free to offer his heart and his hand to the lady of his choice. This he did with all despatch, and was as promptly accepted by the widowed Queen.
The marriage of Louis XII and Anne was solemnized in her own castle, at Nantes, January 8, 1499, less than nine months after the death of her husband. The Queen bestowed rich gifts upon the churches of Brittany, the King having already conferred upon the Pope's representative, Cæsar Borgia, a pension of twenty thousand gold crowns, besides which he created him Duke of Valentinois.
"All this goes to prove," as Miss Cassandra says, "that bribery and corruption in high places are not strictly modern methods, since this good King Louis, called the Father of his people, resorted to them."
With this exception, Louis seems to have been quite a respectable person for a royal prince of that time, as he did everything in his power to make up to the discarded Jeanne for her disappointment at not being invited to share the throne of France with him. He conferred upon her the Duchy of Berry and other domains, and with them a handsome income which enabled the pious princess to do many good works and to found the religious order of the Annonciade, of which she became Superior.
Although Louis and Anne established their residence at the King's birthplace, the Château of Blois, the Queen was at Amboise during the spring after her marriage, where her return was celebrated with rejoicings and festivities which were as original as they were picturesque, and well calculated to please a wine-drinking populace. Anne's biographer says: "The boulevard between the River Loire and the castle was transformed into a huge pavilion, in the middle of which were erected two columns bearing the devices of Louis and Anne,—a porcupine and an ermine,—and from the mouth of each, wine poured. A dais of red damask had been prepared for the King and one of white for the Queen; but Anne alone took part in this ceremony, either because Louis was prevented from being present or because he did not wish by his presence to recall sad memories."
Despite her wilfulness and obstinacy, Louis was very fond of ma Bretonne, as he playfully called his wife, and yielded to her in many instances. It is recorded, however, that when Anne wished to marry their daughter Claude to the Archduke Charles of Austria, the King stood out stoutly against the persuasions of his spouse and insisted upon her betrothal to his cousin and heir, Francis d'Angoulême, telling his wife, after his own humorous, homely fashion, that he had resolved "to marry his mice to none but the rats of his own barn."
Even with occasional differences of opinion, which the King seems to have met with charming good humor, the union of Anne and Louis was far happier than most royal marriages. The little Bretonne, who had begun by disliking Louis d'Orléans, ended by loving him even more devotedly than her first husband, which does not seem strange to us, as he was a brave and accomplished gentleman, altogether a far more lovable character than Charles.
With all her devotion to her husband, the Duchess Queen was a thrifty lady, with an eye to the main chance, and when poor Louis was ill and thought to be dying at Blois, she attempted to provide against the chances and changes of sudden widowhood by sending down the river to Nantes several boats loaded with handsome furniture, jewels, silver, and the like. These boats were stopped between Saumur and Nantes by the Maréchal de Gié, his excuse being that as the King was still alive Anne had no right to remove her possessions from the castle. Although Maréchal de Gié was a favorite minister of Louis, Anne had him arrested and treated with great indignity. Not only was the unfortunate Maréchal punished for his recent sins, but by means of researches into his past life it was found that he had committed various offences against the State. Indignities and miseries were heaped upon him, and so hot was the wrath of the royal lady that when it was proposed that the Maréchal de Gié should be sentenced to death, she promptly replied that death was far too good for him, as that ended the sorrows of life, and that for one of high estate to sink to a low estate and to be overwhelmed with misfortunes was to die daily, which was quite good enough for him. All of which shows that even if Anne was something of a philosopher she was also possessed of a most vindictive spirit, and quite lacking in the sweetness and charity with which her partial biographer has endowed her. Fortunately the King, recovering, "through the good prayers of his people," intervened on behalf of his late favorite and mitigated the rigor of his sentence, which was even then more severe than was warranted by his offence.
Château of Amboise, from Opposite Bank of the Loire
I tell you this little tale because it is characteristic of the time, as well as of the imperious little Duchess Queen, and makes us realize that Louis was well named the good, and had need of all the generosity and amiability that has been attributed to him as an offset to the fiery temper of his Breton wife.
Among the many interesting additions that Charles VIII made to Amboise was the great double Tours des Minimes, adjoining the royal apartments. This tower was used as an approach to the château by means of inclined planes of brick work, which wound around a central newel, graded so gently that horses and light vehicles could ascend without difficulty. These curious ascents were doubtless suggested to the King by the low broad steps in the Vatican over which the old Popes were wont to ride on their white mules. Lydia reminds us that it was upon this dim corkscrew of a road winding upward that Brown performed his remarkable feat in The Lightning Conductor. Brown might have made this dizzy ascent and perilous descent in his Napier; but it could be done by no other chauffeur, "live or dead or fashioned by my fancy," although kings and princes once rode their horses up these inclines, which answered the purpose of porte cochère and stairway. By this way Francis I and his guest Charles V rode up to the royal apartments when the Emperor made his visit here in 1539, amid general rejoicings and such a blaze of flambeaux that, as the ancient chronicler tells us, even in this dim passage one might see as clearly as at midday.
In the terraced garden of Amboise, near a quincunx of lime trees, is a bust of Leonardo da Vinci. We wondered why it was placed here until we learned from our invaluable Joanne that the Italian artist had lived and died at Amboise, inhabiting a little manor house near the château. It was Francis I, the beauty loving as well as the pleasure seeking King, who brought Leonardo to France and to Amboise, the home of his childhood. The Italian artist was over sixty when he came to France and only lived about three years here, dying, it is said, in the arms of Francis. Among his last requests were minute directions for his burial in the royal church of St. Florentin, which once stood in the grounds of the castle. When this church was destroyed, in the last century, a skull and some bones were found among the ruins which were supposed to be those of Leonardo. A bust was erected on the spot where the remains were found. Whether or not the bones are those of Leonardo, a fitting memorial to the great artist is this bust near the lovely quincunx, whose overshadowing branches form a roof of delicate green above it like the pergolas of his native Italy. We afterwards visited the little Château de Cloux, where Leonardo had once lived.
A long stretch of years and several reigns lie between Anne of Brittany and Mary of Scotland, yet it is of these two twice-crowned queens that we think as we wander through the gardens and halls of the Château of Amboise. Both of these royal ladies came here as brides and both were received with joyful acclamations at Amboise. Mary's first visit to the château was in the heyday of her beauty and happiness, when as la reine-dauphine she won all hearts.
Do you remember a charming full-length portrait, that we once saw, of Mary and Francis standing in the embrasure of a window of one of the royal palaces? Although a year younger than Mary, Francis had been devoted to her little serene highness of Scotland ever since her early childhood, and she seems to have been equally attached to her boyish lover, as chroniclers of the time tell us that they delighted to retire from the gayety and confusion of the court to whisper their little secrets to each other, with no one to hear, and that they were well content when according to the etiquette of the period they established their separate court and ménage at Villers Cotterets as roi et reine-dauphine.