though at the French Revolution the building was not only entirely stripped of everything, but defaced and injured in the most barbarous way, yet still has this same tradition preserved in the most singular manner every particular as to the exact spot, and every terrible little incident of the barbarous deed. There is the closet where Henri III. distributed the weapons to the infamous forty-five gentlemen who were to do him the service, so horrible and so traitorous, that he required at their hands. The very spot where the victim (sent for by the king), after pushing aside the tapestry concealing the door, fell pierced with innumerable wounds, is pointed out to you. The outer room, where the body lay with nought but a rough cloak cast over it, is shown; and it requires but little imagination to bring before one the terrible scene—“the corpse of the once mighty Henri le Balafue, Duc de Guise! the royal miscreant, issuing forth from his apartment to look at his fallen enemy; the absence of all knightly honour, or even common decency of conduct to the dead, which could permit him to commit the outrage of spurning the body from him, as it were, with his foot, while he uttered the well-remembered speech—‘Je ne le croyais pas aussi grand.’” All the terrible drama seems again to live before one. As if this was not enough to give a fearful renown for crime to this gloomy edifice, the king, not satisfied with one life, caused the Cardinal de Lorraine, brother to the murdered man, to be butchered in cold blood, in another part of the same castle, only the day following. They were indeed fearful times to live in!
There is yet one more memento of these awful deeds. A small pavilion, situated in a high tower of the castle, overlooking the river, known by the name of Catherine de’ Medici’s Observatory, the scene where she met her astrologer, and made all her wicked calculations, as the contriver of the infamous plot, seems to belong to the locale connected with this tragedy.
It is quite refreshing, after contemplating such fearful characters, to turn to a very different one whose memory is greatly connected with the castle of Blois, viz., Louis XII., one of the most religious kings that ever wore the French crown. A memory of a far later date still clings to the ancient edifice, seeing that from Blois was dated the last imperial decree ever issued by Napoleon; when, in 1814, the Empress Marie Louise, the young ill-fated king of Rome, and all that yet remained of the army, the court, and the government, were despatched thither by the orders of the Emperor.
From the gloomy traditions attaching to the castle of Blois it is positively refreshing to turn to the gay, festive memories belonging to the magnificent castle of Chambord. The château, though somewhat fantastic, is still a splendid mass of building, containing specimens of nearly every kind of French architecture, from the days of Francis I., its first founder, down to the time of Louis XV. It was after his long captivity in Spain, that Francis indulged his magnificent tastes by erecting this castle or palace on the spot where stood formerly a mere hunting lodge of the counts of Blois. It was begun in the year 1525; more than 1700 workmen were employed under the directions of the famous Primaticcio, and the works were not finished at the death of Francis. The château contains the almost incredible number of 180 rooms.
One matchless beauty of this erection is a tower enclosed within the building, but rising high into the air above it. It is called the Tour de la Fleur-de-Lis de France, on account of the exquisite imitation of that flower, carved in stone, which surmounts it. It contains a most curious double spiral staircase, so contrived, that two parties may ascend and descend at the same time without meeting each other. The salamander occurs in some parts, and in others H. & D. with the crescent, mementoes of Henry II. and Diane de Poitiers, are repeated. How different were the imaginations that filled the mind at Chambord, to those called forth by the gloomy walls at Blois! The brilliancy and beauty of the courts of Francis I. and Henry II.; Charles V. right royally entertained here on his way through France, in 1539, by his generous rival; and the courtly pageants, the splendid banquets, the gay revels, where Mademoiselle de Montpensier lost her heart to the all-fascinating Duc de Lauzun. All in succession seem to rise before one, like the scenes in dissolving views, and then fade away only to be succeeded by a fresh series.
A short distance from Blois the conspicuous Château de Chaumont attracts the attention. It is a mass of those queer-shaped towers so peculiar to French castles, and in its associations it is intimately connected with Blois, as it was for many years the residence of Catherine de’ Medicis. Her room is pointed out as the scene of many a treacherous scheme, and plot for wholesale murder, and many another enormity. Here she resided till the death of her husband, Henry II. After that event she forced his mistress, Diana of Poitiers, to exchange that exquisite gem of a castle Chenonceau, for Chaumont—not that she ever resided there, although her arms carved in stone are everywhere visible,—a blazing hill, Chaud Mont.
And now again the scene is changed, and we pass on to Amboise, a very ancient château, long the residence of the French kings. The earlier part of the edifice dates from Charles VIII., who was born here in 1470, and died here in 1498. There are two wonderful towers of 90 feet in height and 42 feet in circumference; they rise straight from the base of the rock on which the castle stands, and yet they rise to a level with the highest parts of it. Instead of stairs they enclose sloping planes of an ascent so gradual, that horses and carriages even may mount to the summit.
The walls of the castle are of immense thickness. In the cachots or oubliettes (to give these dungeons their more appalling name), beneath the dwelling rooms, were slaughtered 1200 miserable Huguenot prisoners, concerned in the famous “Conjuration d’Amboise,” the object of which was to extricate Francis II., the husband of the young Queen of Scots, from the Guises, in
