the brother of the cardinal. The fourth side of the original quadrangle was demol. ished in 1739. A splendid terrace was thus formed, looking out on the Loire, with the main buildings of the castle as background. Cardinal d'Amboise introduced good order, economy, and reform into the French government, repressed brigandage, reformed justice, and became the most influential man of his time. He has often been compared to Wolsey. But he was more happy in his fortunes, for he died immensely wealthy, with all his honors thick upon him. His old red cardi nal's hat is still seen hanging above his carved chair on the altar steps of his chapel at Chaumont. Catherine de Medicis was for a while mistress of the château, where her bed, with its curtains and the old worn prie-dieu, is now shown to visitors. The Duc de Broglie, who preserves it with loving care, is the present lord of this fine old castle.

cullis. The interior court is almost wholly | compact and perfect mansion for Charles, confined by the buildings around it, the high walls which defend it on the outside are cut up at well-guarded angles by massive towers, and protected by a portcullis. The whole length is crowned by heavy machicolated battlements, so that the as pect of the exterior is severe; but the façade which looks upon the court within is not wanting in elegance. Four small towers, each of which contains a spiral staircase, break the monotony of the front, and give access to the different stories." Each story is a repetition of the simple arrangement of rooms adopted on the ground floor. The first château of Langeais, occupied by the Black Prince during the campaign on the Loire, has perished. The present building was erected in 1464, under the direction of Jean Briçonnet, first mayor of Tours. Its present owner, M. Siefried, is turning it "into one harmonious picture of oak carvings, tapestry, and warm-tiled floors." The porch is as lovely as the château. A quaint feature of the place is the guard's chemin de ronde, a little passage beneath the roof formed by the machicolations. It extends all round the château, "lighted by innumerable little windows, which give an ever changing view of the valley of the Loire from the surrounded by its high walk, which leads forest of Chinon, west and south, to the to the raised courtyard immediately in cathedral towers of Tours, far off among front of the main building, a large and the mist towards the east." In the Great very handsome open space rising upon Hall, Anne of Brittany, the vivacious, im- high walls from the lower level, with a perious, yet true-hearted and devout little fine detached tower at the right corner, Breton duchess, was married to Charles the oldest part of the château, the last VIII., and here she spent her brief widow- | relic of its earliest owners." The vine hood until her second marriage with Louis XII.

Chaumont is on the left bank of the Loire, twenty-five miles above Tours. From the magnificent bridge which here spans the river, one of the finest views is obtained of the sweeping current. The forest of Blois shows above the housetops. The towers of Chaumont rise upon the wooded hill, whilst the little village nestles by the river. When the Black Falcon drove the Lord of Saumur out of his castle by his famous night attack, the Count of Blois gave Chaumont to his dependant. This castle was burnt down in one of the perpetual wars with Henry Plantagenet. In the second castle Becket met his royal master for the last time. Here Georges, Cardinal d'Amboise, the great minister of France, was born in 1460. The cardinal's father incurred the displeasure of Louis XI., who rased his château to the ground; but a few years later, Philibert l'Orme built the present

Chenonceaux is associated with the name of Diane de Poitiers, to whom it was given by Henry II. The first view of the château is very impressive. A long range of buildings stand on the right, to the left is Diane's wide terraced garden,

lands slope softly to the river, and the trees round the water's bank form "an exquisite natural setting for one of the most beautiful dwellings ever fashioned by the heart of man." It was built for Thomas Bohier, the great financier. The foundations were laid in 1515, the year when Francis I. came to the throne. A confused medley of spires, minarets, and cupolas greet the eye as you approach from the eastern side. "Every turret, every pinnacle, is crowned with some fantastic ornament," angles jut forth from the pierced and carved work surrounding them. "The surprises, the accidents of the interior multiply with incessant mystery. The numberless halls, chambers, cabinets, present the most striking sign of diversity both as to size and character." Its ruling idea is that of a secular convent, bringing together "halls of state, private apartments, secluded cabinets, and hidden cells" under one roof. The individual life thus finds rcom for development, even

1501, "my king, my lord, my Cæsar" was run away with by his pony in the field, near Amboise. He was in great danger, "nevertheless God, the protector of widow women and the defence of orphans,” protected the young prince from accident. One day Francis let loose a wild boar in the court, which scattered the servants and then rushed towards the great staircase, where he killed it with his dagger. From Amboise the young prince first left for court, and hence his mother journeyed

on foot to "Notre Dame de Fontaines, to recommend to her him whom I love more

the morrow's spectacle. "The very roofs were black with spectators, and a merry barter was carried on by the fortunate owners of houses looking out upon the square." The prisoners sang Clement Marot's rendering of "God be merciful unto us and bless us :

The

Dieu nous soit doux et favourable
Nous bénissant par sa bonté.
Et de son visage adorable
Nous fasse luire la clarté.

horror of Amboise was over. No such

ghastly scene was ever witnessed by the

châteaux of Touraine.

Guise a quarter of a century later at Blois. Vengeance overtook the hated race of the mellowed beauty of Langeais or AzayThat great château has been restored with rare skill and thoroughness. It has not ture help a visitor to reconstruct the three le-Rideau, but its three styles of architecgreat ages of which it is a memorial. Its eastern wing is a splendid monument of

the earlier Renaissance.

strains grew fainter as the fast falling axe thinned the choir. The young than myself, my glorious son and my vic-king turned pale, and would fain have torious Cæsar, who has subdued the gone in, but the Guises would not suffer Helvetians." Leonardo da Vinci rests in him to retire. As the last victim mounted the block singing, the crowd seemed ready the little chapel at Amboise. Marie Stuart made a triumphal entry here in to rescue him, but the axe fell, and the November, 1559, with her young husband, Francis II. Five months later the conspiracy of Amboise began. The doctrines of Calvin had taken firm hold on Touraine. Fierce religious persecution made the the blood for protection from the hated Huguenots turn eagerly to the princes of Guises. Suppliants flocked into Tou raine from all parts to lay their wrongs before the king. The Guises suddenly awoke to their danger. The court moved from Blois to what was considered the safer fortress at Amboise, where "as a matter of fact the castle was almost without troops or stores, where the town was full of Protestants, and Tours, hard by, was hostile or indifferent." La Renaudie had formed a plot to seize the Guises, but some of his confederates, who were enticed into Amboise on promise of a free pass to the king's presence, were there cast into prison, and "tormented with hellish cruelty." The men sent for their rescue were seized and dragged in "at the horses' tails" to die. Some two thousand scoundrels flocked to Amboise in order to share the murder and plunder. A terrible month followed. Every cut-throat in the Guises' pay made his fortune, "for the country swarmed with men who waited to be killed, or citizens like those of Toulouse, who refused to move before they had spoken to the king, and were only cured of their importunity by being hanged from the castle windows." Amboise was thronged by suppliants claiming justice or mercy, but there was no relenting in the breasts of the Guises. Scaffolds were raised in full view of the balcony overlooking the Loire, tiers of planked seats rose all round the square in which the executions were to take place. Thousands of people slept in the fields that they might be ready for

The architectural scheme is very simple. Three rows of pilasters are superimposed one above another. At about two-thirds down the front the open spiral staircase juts out and towers upwards. It seems at first to stand free, breaking up the even succession of with the bold projection of its octagonal lines. small columns and their perpendicular descent But above it is embossed and caught into the whole mass by the broad crowning cornice which gathers within its strengthening bands every various curve. The sculptured dormers fret along its edge, searching the air with their pointed tongues, and twice the carved cases of the chimney-stacks break aloft through the roof, like towers, but the cornice keeps firm hold upon their base.*

The winding staircase, with its fine carvings, is a triumph of art which never ceases to charm a student of architecture.

Froissart, the chronicler, was once chaplain in Blois. Here Valentine Visconti mourned the death of her husband, Louis d'Orléans, who had been murdered in the streets of Paris. During her brother's ab sence Margaret of Navarre went twice a day through all the buildings and grounds to hasten Francis the First's workmen. Many a state pageant was witnessed in the

Renaissance of Art in France, i. 51.

château. But the chief event in its history | seemed to be a village in the air. Soon is the downfall of the house of Guise. the enormous towers of Chambord, sixty In 1576, Henry III. summoned the feet in diameter, were seen. Mr. Henry States-General to meet at Blois. Henry James calls the place, "An irresponsible, of Guise, known as Le Balafré, was then insoluble labyrinth." There are thirteen in the height of his power. The king, great staircases, besides numberless weary of his schoolmaster, was plotting smaller ones, and four hundred and forty for his murder. Guise was so confident that he despised all warnings. A note in his dinner-napkin was thrown away unread. On December 22 every arrangement for the tragedy was complete. A tenth warning, given at the last moment, failed to stay the victim's steps. He marched calmly on to the cabinet where the king was said to be waiting for him. The murderers now set upon him, but he dragged them,

rooms. The outlying work which gave the great château of Francis I. its dignity has disappeared. "The broad foundations and heavy arches which rose proudly out of the waters of the moat no longer impress the eye. The truncated mass squats ignobly upon the turf, the waters of the moat are gone, gone are the deep embankments crowned with pierced balustrades, gone is the no-longer needed bridge with its guardian lions."* The double staircase, like two corkscrews whose curves ascend together yet never touch, is one of the wonders of the place. The perplexed visitor sees his companion mounting with him step by step, but never joins him till he reaches the top. Francis I. spent his last days here, hunt

struggling, from one end of the room to the other, staggering with arms outstretched, dull eyes within their staring sockets, and mouth half opened, as one already dead. At last he fell [pierced with more than forty wounds] beside the curtains of the bed. Then came out the king, and with all the meanness of his pitiful nature spurned with his heel the face of the dying man—a terrible reprisal this, foring in his Touraine estates and idolized the cruelty of De Guise himself to the grey hairs of Coligny; and the last sigh of the great duke, who rendered up his strong spirit slowly and with almost unconquerable effort, was received by the courtier who was kneeling down to rifle the pockets of the corpse; it was covered with a grey cloak, and a cross of straw was thrown upon it.

His body and that of his brother, the cardinal, who was murdered next day, were burned within the castle, and their ashes scattered on the waters of the Loire. Detestable as the assassination was, it shows that justice had at length overtaken the hated house whose hands were red with butchery at Amboise, and to whom was due the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Arthur Young, the famous agriculturist, who visited Blois in 1787, dwells upon "the bigotry and ambition, equally dark, insidious, and bloody," of those times, and adds grimly: "The parties could hardly be better employed than in cutting each other's throats."

Crossing to the left bank of the Loire by a fine stone bridge- the first public work of Louis Philippe - - we pass through a flat vine country to Chambord, ten miles to the east of Blois. It is amusing to find Arthur Young's mind full of turnips as he wanders among these scenes of old court life in France. If ever he says the king wished to form "one complete and perfect farm under the turnip culture of England, here is the place for it." At the end of a long avenue Mr. Cook discerned what

by his sister, Margaret of Navarre. Louis XIV. watched the plays of Molière acted here, but he afterwards deserted the Versailles of Touraine in order to fix his home nearer Paris. Marshal Saxe, who won the estate by his victory at Fontenoy, decorated it with cannon, and had here a regiment of lancers whom he reviewed daily from the terrace.

The château of Azay-le-Rideau, built in 1520, rises almost out of the waters of the Indre like an L set on its side, with a turreted and crested tower at each corner, and an effect of distance and beauty of line "unequalled among a series of architectural triumphs." The river banks, shaded with limes and cedars, make a perfect setting for the lovely château, which is now the home of the Marquis de Bien court. The place itself lacks historic interest, but "all the ages of French history look down upon us as we pass through its picture-gallery. The fair women who once exercised such an influence over the destinies of France live on the canvas. Here is Catherine de Medicis and a charming picture of Marie Stuart framed beside her young husband." Diane de Poitiers was "powerful enough even to crush the venomous Italian queen into subjection for a time; but the day of Catherine of Medicis was not long in coming, and for three more years her hand was at the throat of France, her influence

• Renaissance of Art in France, i. 55.

mansions.

It is a fascinating valley, full of history, full of romance. The Plantagenets have lived and died here, the Black Prince has fought up and down the river. Sir Walter Raleigh served his first campaign here with the Protestants; even King Arthur has been heard of at Amboise. Here are scenes that Turner has painted; where Landor and Wordsworth have watched the setting sun; here in the heart of France, in the most French of all her provinces, there seems a special interest for the Englishman. royal river flowing past Fontevrault to the A special beauty in this sea, in this broad smiling landscape clad with vines,

poisoning its court." There are other gaiety and never-ending intrigue. Mr. châteaux which a traveller will do well to Cook's volumes on Old Touraine will be a visit, such as Cheverny, Beauregard, Ra- | mine of delight to those who wish to study morantin, and Montrichard. Almost every the social life, the art and architecture of eminence indeed is crowned by some old these bygone times. He sometimes puzmansion with a history. Many details zles us by forgetting that his readers have are given in Murray's "Handbook to not been steeped in the life of these old France" which seem to bring the modern châteaux as he himself has been. A few aspect of these châteaux more clearly be connecting links are dropped here and fore the eyes of a reader of "Old Tou- there; but his book is a notable work, raine." It ought to be consulted at every dealing with a theme of enduring interest turn by any one who wishes to know the for England as well as for France. We present condition of the valley of the may take our leave of the work by quoting Loire. Its descriptions often contain its closing sentences about the valley of happy phrases which give new vividness the Loire. to the pages of Mr. Cook's volume. It is a guide-book, but it is literature as well. We must now turn back again to Tours. The town owed much of its prosperity to the myriad châteaux of the Loire. Louis XI. and his two immediate successors dwelt for the most part in that city, not in Paris. Every art of the decorator flourished, for kings and nobles vied with each other in erecting and adorning magnificent Tapestry was so eagerly sought in the middle of the sixteenth century that it appeared as though it would take the place of painting in Tours. Venetian workmen were brought to instruct the artificers. Some of the Tours artists even visited Rome to perfect their learning. Two great fairs were held by royal charter in March and September for the sale of silks and cloth of gold and silver. The company of silkmakers figure in the processions of the time, with mercers, armorers, and jewellers. Those were days of great prosperity in Tours. The Edict of Nantes stimulated its trade. Mulberrytrees were planted by the king's order here, at Orleans, and Paris. Tours did not escape the religious troubles of the time. The Huguenots were killed in its streets, or on boats and barges floating in the river. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes scattered forty out of its eighty thousand inhabitants. The town has never recovered that mad stroke at the very vitals of France. But its prosperity is returning. It now has a population of sixty thousand busy in the large printing and publishing trade of the town, and in the manufacture of silk, cloth, carpets, and chemicals.

Readers of Frances Elliot's "Old Court Life in France" will be surprised to find how large a place the châteaux of Touraine fill in the brilliant scenes of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. The old French memoir writers lead us from castle to castle in an incessant round of

Where from the frequent bridge
Like emblems of infinity,

The trenched waters run from sky to sky.

AUNT ANNE.*

Copyright, 1892, by Harper & Brothers.

CHAPTER XXIII.

IT was a long night that followed. A telegram had arrived from the Hibberts. They were on their way, and coming as fast as possible, they said; but through the dark hours, as Mrs. North sat beside Aunt Anne, she feared that death would come still faster.

Her bronchitis was worse at times; she could hardly breathe; it was only the almost summer-like warmth that saved her. She talked of strange people when she could find voice to do so- people of whom Mrs. North had never heard before; but it seemed somehow as if they had silently entered as if they filled the house, and were waiting. At midnight and in the still small hours of the morning she could fancy that they were going softly up and down the stairs; that they

• Aunt Anne. A Novel. By Mrs. W. K Clifford, Post 8vo, cloth, ornamental, $1.25. Published by author of "Love Letters of a Worldly Woman," etc. Harper & Brothers, New York.