CHAPTER XII.

AZAY-LE-RIDEAU, USSE, AND CHINON

From Langeais, one's obvious route lies towards Chinon, via Azay-le-Rideau and Usse. These latter are practically within the forest, though the Foret de Chinon proper does not actually begin until one leaves Azay behind, when for twenty kilometres or more one of the most superb forest roads in France crosses many hills and dales until it finally descends into Chinon itself.

Like most forest roads in France, this highway is not flat; it rises and falls with a sheer that is sometimes precipitous, but always with a gravelled surface that gives little dust, and which absorbs water as the sand from the pounce-box of our forefathers dried up ink. This simile calls to mind the fact that in twentieth-century France the pounce-box is still in use, notably at wayside railway stations, where the agent writes you out your ticket and dries it off in a box, not of sand, but of sawdust.

To partake of the hospitality of Azay-le-Rideau one must arrive before four in the afternoon, and not earlier than midday. From the photographs and post-cards by which one has become familiar with Azay-le-Rideau, it appears like a great country house sitting by itself far away from any other habitation. In England this is often the case, in France but seldom.

Clustered around the walls of the not very great park which surrounds the chateau are all manner of shops and cafes, not of the tourist order,--for there is very little here to suggest that tourists ever come, though indeed they do, by twos and threes throughout all the year,--but for the accommodation of the population of the little town itself, which must approximate a couple of thousand souls, all of whom appear to be engaged in the culture of the vine and its attendant pursuits, as the wine-presses, the coopers' shops, and other similar establishments plainly show. There is, moreover, the pleasant smell of fermented grape-juice over all, which, like the odour of the hop-fields of Kent, is conducive to sleep; and there lies the charm of Azay-le-Rideau, which seems always half-asleep.

The Hotel du Grand Monarque is a wonderfully comfortable country inn, with a dining-room large enough to accommodate half a hundred persons, but which, most likely, will serve only yourself. One incongruous note is sounded,--convenient though it be,--and that is the electric light which illuminates the hotel and its dependencies, including the stables, which look as though they might once have been a part of a mediaeval chateau themselves.

However, since posting days and tallow dips have gone for ever, one might as well content himself with the superior civilization which confronts him, and be comfortable at least.

The Chateau d'Azay-le-Rideau is one of the gems of Touraine's splendid collection of Renaissance art treasures, though by no means is it one of the grandest or most imposing.

A tree-lined avenue leads from the village street to the chateau, which sits in the midst of a tiny park; not a grand expanse as at Chambord or Chenonceaux, but a sort of green frame with a surrounding moat, fed by the waters of the Indre.

The main building is square, with a great coiffed round tower at each corner. The Abbe Chevalier, in his "Promenades Pittoresques en Touraine," called it the purest and best of French Renaissance, and such it assuredly is, if one takes a not too extensive domestic establishment of the early years of the sixteenth century as the typical example.

Undoubtedly the sylvan surroundings of the chateau have a great deal to do with the effectiveness of its charms. The great white walls of its facade, with the wonderful sculptures of Jean Goujon, glisten in the brilliant sunlight of Touraine through the sycamores and willows which border the Indre in a genuinely romantic fashion.

Somewhere within the walls are the remains of an old tower of the one-time fortress which was burned by the Dauphin Charles in 1418, after, says history, "he had beheaded its governor and taken all of the defenders to the number of three hundred and thirty-four." This act was in revenge for an alleged insult to his sacred person.

There are no remains of this former tower visible exteriorly to-day, and no other bloody acts appear to have attached themselves to the present chateau in all the four hundred years of its existence.

Gilles Berthelot erected the present structure early in the reign of Francois I. He was a man close to the king in affairs of state, first _conseiller-secretaire_, then _tresorier-general des finances_, hence he knew the value of money. Among the succeeding proprietors was Guy de Saint Gelais, one of the most accomplished diplomats of his time. He was followed by Henri de Beringhem, who built the stables and ornamented the great room known as the Chambre du Roi from the fact that Louis XIV. once slept there, with the magnificent paintings which are shown to-day.

Everywhere is there a rich, though not gross, display of decoration, beginning with such constructive details as the pointed-roofed _tourelles_, which are themselves exceedingly decorative. The doors, windows, roof-tops, chimneypieces, and the semi-enclosed circular stairways are all elaborately sculptured after the best manner of the time.

The entrance portico is a wonder of its kind, with a strong sculptured arcade and arched window-openings and niches filled with bas-reliefs. Sculptured shells, foliage, and mythological symbols combine to form an arabesque, through which are interspersed the favourite ciphers of the region, the ermine and the salamander, which go to prove that Francois and other royalties must at one time or another have had some connection with the chateau.

History only tells us, however, that Gilles Berthelot was a king's minister and Mayor of Tours. Perhaps he thought of handing it over as a gift some day in exchange for further honours. His device bore the words, "_Ung Seul Desir_," which may or may not have had a special significance.

The interior of the edifice is as beautiful as is its exterior, and is furnished with that luxuriance of decorative effect so characteristic of the best era of the Renaissance in France.

Until recently the proprietor was the Marquis de Biencourt, who, like his fellow proprietors of chateaux in Touraine, generously gave visitors an opportunity to see his treasure-house for themselves, and, moreover, furnished a guide who was something more than a menial and yet not a supercilious functionary.

Within a twelvemonth this "purest joy of the French Renaissance" was put upon the real estate market, with the result that it might have fallen into unappreciative hands, or, what a Touraine antiquarian told the writer would be the worse fate that could possibly befall it, might be bought up by some American millionaire, who through the services of the house-breaker would dismantle it and remove it stone by stone and set it up anew on some asphalted avenue in some western metropolis. This extraordinary fear or rumour, whatever it was, soon passed away and as a "_monument historique_" the chateau has become the property of the French government.

Less original, perhaps, in plan than Chenonceaux, less appealing in its _ensemble_ and less fortunate in its situation, Azay-le-Rideau is nevertheless entitled to the praises which have been heaped upon it.

It is but a dozen kilometres from Azay-le-Rideau to Usse, on the road to Chinon. The Chateau d'Usse is indeed a big thing; not so grand as Chambord, nor so winsome as Langeais, but infinitely more characteristic of what one imagines a great residential chateau to have been like. It belongs to-day to the Comte de Blacas, and once was the property of Vauban, Marechal of France, under Louis XIV., who built the terrace which lies between it and the river, a branch of the Indre.

Perched high above the hemp-lands of the river-bottom, which here are the most prolific in the valley of the Indre, the chateau with its park of seven hundred or more acres is truly regal in its appointments and surroundings. This park extends to the boundary of the national reservation, the Foret de Chinon.

The Renaissance chateau of to-day is a reconstruction of the sixteenth century, which preserves, however, the great cylindrical towers of a century earlier. Its architecture is on the whole fantastic, at least as much so as Chambord, but it is none the less hardy and strong. Practically it consists of a series of _pavillons_ bound to the great fifteenth-century donjon by smaller towers and turrets, all slate-capped and pointed, with machicolations surrounding them, and above that a sort of roofed and crenelated battlement which passes like a collar around all the outer wall.

The general effect of the exterior walls is that of a great feudal stronghold, while from the courtyard the aspect is simply that of a luxurious Renaissance town house, showing at least how the two styles can be pleasingly combined.

Crenelated battlements are as old as Pompeii, so it is doubtful if the feudality of France did much to increase their use or effectiveness. They were originally of such dimensions as to allow a complete shelter for an archer standing behind one of the uprights. The contrast to those of a later day, which, virtually nothing more than a course of decorative stonework, give no impression of utility, is great, though here at Usse they are more pronounced than in many other similar edifices.

The interior arrangements here give due prominence to a fine staircase, ornamented with a painting of St. John that is attributed to Michel Ange.

The Chambre du Roi is hung with ancient embroideries, and there is a beautiful Renaissance chapel, above the door of which is a sixteenth-century bas-relief of the Apostles. Most of the other great rooms which are shown are resplendent in oak-beamed ceilings and massive chimneypieces, always a distinct feature of Renaissance chateau-building, and one which makes modern imitations appear mean and ugly. To realize this to the full one has only to recall the dining-room of the pretentious hotel which huddles under the walls of Amboise. In a photograph it looks like a regal banqueting-hall; but in reality it is as tawdry as stage scenery, with its imitation wainscoted walls, its imitation beamed ceiling of three-quarter-inch planks, and its plaster of Paris fireplace.

Near Usse is the Chateau de Rochecotte which recalls the name of a celebrated chieftain of the Chouans. It belongs to-day, though it is not their paternal home, to the family of Castellane, a name which to many is quite as celebrated and perhaps better known.

The chateau contains a fine collection of Dutch paintings of the seventeenth century, and in its chapel there is a remarkably beautiful copy of the Sistine Madonna. The name of Talleyrand is intimately connected with the occupancy of the chateau, in pre-revolutionary times, by Rochecotte.

On the road to Chinon one passes through, or near, Huismes, which has nothing to stay one's march but a good twelfth-century church, which looks as though its doors were never opened. The Chateau de la Villaumere, of the fifteenth century, is near by, and of more than passing interest are the ruins of the Chateau de Bonneventure, built, it is said, by Charles VII. for Agnes Sorel, who, with all her faults, stands high in the esteem of most lovers of French history. At any rate this shrine of "_la belle des belles_" is worthy to rank with that containing her tomb at Loches.

As one enters Chinon by road he meets with the usual steep decline into a river-valley, which separates one height from another. Generally this is the topographic formation throughout France, and Chinon, with its silent guardians, the fragments of three non-contemporary castles, all on the same site, is no exception.

"We never went to Chinon," says Henry James, in his "Little Tour in France," written thirty or more years ago. "But one cannot do everything," he continues, "and I would rather have missed Chinon than Chenonceaux." A painter would have put it differently. Chenonceaux is all that fact and fancy have painted it, a gem in a perfect setting, and Chinon's three castles are but mere crumbling walls; but their environs form a _petit pays_ which will some day develop into an "artists' sketching-ground," in years to come, beside which Etretat, Moret, Pont Aven, Giverny, and Auvers will cease to be considered.

At the base of the escarped rock on which sit the chateaux, or what is left of them, lies the town of Chinon, with its old houses in wood and stone and its great, gaunt, but beautiful churches. Before it flows the Vienne, one of the most romantically beautiful of all the secondary rivers of France.

From the _castrum romanum_ of the emperors to the feudal conquest Chinon played its due part in the history of Touraine. There are those who claim that Chinon is a "_cite antediluvienne_" and that it was founded by Cain, who after his crime fled from the paternal malediction and found a refuge here; and that its name, at first _Caynon_, became Chinon. Like the derivation of most ancient place-names, this claim involves a wide imagination and assuredly sounds unreasonable. _Caino_ may, with more likelihood, have been a Celtic word, meaning an excavation, and came to be adopted because of the subterranean quarries from which the stone was drawn for the building of the town. The annalists of the western empire give it as _Castrum-Caino_, and whether its origin dates from antediluvian times or not, it was a town in the very earliest days of the Christian era.

The importance of Chinon's role in history and the beauty of its situation have inspired many writers to sing its praises.

"... Chinon Petite ville, grand renom Assise sur pierre ancienne Au haute le bois, au bas la Vienne."

The disposition of the town is most picturesque. The winding streets and stairways are "foreign;" like Italy, if you will, or some of the steps to be seen in the towns bordering upon the Adriatic. At all events, Chinon is not exactly like any other town in France, either with respect to its layout or its distinct features, and it is not at all like what one commonly supposes to be characteristic of the French.

Dungeons of mediaeval chateaux are here turned into dwellings and wine-cellars, and have the advantage, for both uses, of being cool in summer and warm in winter.

Already, in the year 371, Chinon's population was so considerable that St. Martin, newly elected Bishop of Tours, longed to preach Christianity to its people, who were still idolators. Some years afterward St. Mesme or Maxime, fleeing from the barbarians of the north, came to Chinon, and soon surrounded himself with many adherents of the faith, and in the year 402 consecrated the original foundation of the church which now bears his name.

Clovis made Chinon one of the strongest fortresses of his kingdom, and in the tenth century it came into the possession of the Comtes de Touraine. Later, in 1044, Thibaut III. ceded it to Geoffroy Martel. The Plantagenets frequently sojourned at Chinon, becoming its masters in the twelfth century, from which time it was held by the Kings of France up to Louis XI.

The most picturesque event of Chinon's history took place in 1428, when Charles VII. here assembled the States General, and Jeanne d'Arc prevailed upon him to march forthwith upon Orleans, then besieged by the English.

Memories of Charles VII., of Jeanne d'Arc, and of Francois Rabelais are inextricably mixed in the guide-book accounts of Chinon; but their respective histories are not so involved as would appear. There is some doubt as to whether the Pantagruelist was actually born at Chinon or in the suburbs, therefore there is no "_maison natale_" before which literary pilgrims may make their devotions. All this is a great pity, for Rabelais excites in the minds of most people a greater curiosity than perhaps any other mediaeval man of letters that the world has known.

Though one cannot feast his eye upon the spot of Rabelais's birth, historians agree that it took place at Chinon in 1483. Much is known of the "Cure de Chinon;" but, in spite of his rank as the first of the mediaeval satirists, his was not a wide-spread popularity, nor can one speak very highly of his appearance as a type of the Tourangeau of his time. His portraits make him appear a most supercilious character, and doubtless he was. He certainly was not an Adonis, nor had he the head of a god or the cleverness of a court gallant. Indeed there has been a tendency of late to represent him as a buffoon, a trait wholly foreign to his real character.

As for Charles VII. and Jeanne d'Arc, Chinon was simply the meeting-place between the inspired maid and her sovereign, when she urged him to put himself at the head of his troops and march upon Orleans.

Chinon is of the sunny south; here the grapes ripen early and cling affectionately, not only to the hillsides, but to the very house-walls themselves.

Chinon's attractions consist of fragments of three castles, dating from feudal times; of three churches, of more than ordinary interest and picturesqueness; and many old timbered and gabled houses; nor should one forget the Hotel de France, itself a reminder of other days, with its vine-covered courtyard and tinkling bells hanging beneath its gallery, for all the world like the sort of thing one sees upon the stage.

There is not much else about the hotel that is of interest except its very ancient-looking high-posted beds and its waxed tiled floors, worn into smooth ruts by the feet of countless thousands and by countless polishings with wax. It is curious how a waxed tiled floor strikes one as being something altogether superior to one of wood. Though harder in substance, it is infinitely pleasanter to the feet, and warm and mellow, as a floor should be; moreover it seems to have the faculty of unconsciously keeping itself clean.

_The Chateau de Chinon_, as it is commonly called, differs greatly from the usual Loire chateau; indeed it is quite another variety altogether, and more like what we know elsewhere as a castle; or, rather it is three castles, for each, so far as its remains are concerned, is distinct and separate.

The Chateau de St. Georges is the most ancient and is an enlargement by Henry Plantagenet--whom a Frenchman has called "the King Lear of his race"--of a still more ancient fortress.

The Chateau du Milieu is built upon the ruins of the _castrum romanum_, vestiges of which are yet visible. It dates from the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, and was restored under Charles VI., Charles VII., and Louis XI.

One enters through the curious Tour de l'Horloge, to which access is given by a modern bridge, as it was in other days by an ancient drawbridge which covered the old-time moat. The Grand Logis, the royal habitation of the twelfth to fifteenth centuries, is to the right, overlooking the town. Here died Henry II. of England (1189) and here lived Charles VII. and Louis XI. It was in the Grand Salle of this chateau that Jeanne d'Arc was first presented to her sovereign (March 8, 1429). From the hour of this auspicious meeting until the hour of the departure for Orleans she herself lived in the tower of the Chateau de Coudray, a little farther beyond, under guard of Guillaume Belier.

The meeting between the king and the "Maid" is described by an old historian of Touraine as follows: "The inhabitants of Chinon received her with enthusiasm, the purpose of her mission having already preceded her.... She appeared at court as '_une pauvre petite bergerette_' and was received in the Grande Salle, lighted by fifty torches and containing three hundred persons." (This statement would seem to point to the fact that it was not the _salle_ which is shown to-day; it certainly could not be made to hold three hundred people unless they stood on each other's shoulders!) "The seigneurs were all clad in magnificent robes, but the king, on the contrary, was dressed most simply. The 'Maid,' endowed with a spirit and sagacity superior to her education, advanced without hesitation. '_Dieu vous donne bonne vie, gentil roi_,' said she...."

The Grand Logis is flanked by a square tower which is separated from the Chateau de Coudray and the Tour de Boissy by a moat. In the magnificent Tour de Boissy was the ancient Salle des Gardes, while above was a battlemented gallery which gave an outlook over the surrounding country. This watch-tower assured absolute safety from surprise to any monarch who might have wished to study the situation for himself.

The Tour du Moulin is another of the defences, more elegant, if possible, than the Tour de Boissy. It is taller and less rotund; the French say it is "svelt," and that describes it as well as anything. It also fits into the landscape in a manner which no other mediaeval donjon of France does, unless it be that of Chateau Gaillard, in Normandy.

The primitive Chateau de Coudray was built by Thibaut-le-Tricheur in 954, and its bastion and sustaining walls are still in evidence.

The Vienne, which runs by Chinon to join the Loire above Saumur, is, in many respects, a remarkable river, although just here there is nothing very remarkable about it. It is, however, delightfully picturesque, as it washes the tree-lined quays which form Chinon's river-front for a distance of upward of two kilometres. In general the waterway reminds one of something between a great traffic-bearing river and a mere pleasant stream.

The bridge between Chinon and its faubourg is typical of the art of bridge-building, at which, in mediaeval times, the French were excelled by no other nation. To-day, in company with the Americans, they build iron and steel abominations which are eyesores which no amount of utility will ever induce one to really admire. Not so the French bridges of mediaeval times, of the type of those at Blois on the Loire; at Chinon on the Vienne; at Avignon on the Rhone; or at Cahors on the Lot.

If Rabelais had not rendered popular Chinon and the Chinonais the public would have yet to learn of this delightful _pays_, in spite of that famous first meeting between Charles VII. and Jeanne d'Arc.

If the modern founders of "garden-cities" would only go as far back as the time of Richelieu they would find a good example to follow in the little Touraine town, the _chef-lieu_ of the Commune, which bears the name of Richelieu. When Armand du Plessis first became the seigneur of this "_little land_" he resolutely set about to make of the property a town which should dignify his name. Accordingly he built, at his own expense, after the plans of Lemercier, "a city, regular, vast, and luxurious." At the same time the cardinal-minister replaced the paternal manor with a chateau elaborately and prodigally royal.

Richelieu was a sort of "petit Versailles," which was to be to Chinon what the real Versailles was to the capital.

To-day, as in other days, it is a "_ville vaste, reguliere et luxueuse_," but it is unfinished. One great street only has been completed on its original lines, and it is exactly 450 metres long. Originally the town was to have the dimensions of but six hundred by four hundred metres; modest enough in size, but of the greatest luxury. The cardinal had no desire to make it more grand, but even what he had planned was not to be. Its one great street is bordered with imposing buildings, but their tenants to-day have not the least resemblance to the courtiers of the cardinal who formerly occupied them.

Richelieu disappeared in the course of time, and work on his hobby stopped, or at least changed radically in its plan. Secondary streets were laid out, of less grandeur, and peopled with houses without character, low in stature, and unimposing. The plan of a _ville seigneuriale_ gave way to a _ville de labeur_. Other habitations grew up until to-day twenty-five hundred souls find their living on the spot where once was intended to be only a life of luxury.

Of the monuments with which Richelieu would have ornamented his town there remains a curious market-hall and a church in the pure Jesuitic style of architecture, lacking nothing of pretence and grandeur.

Not much can be said for the vast Eglise Notre Dame de Richelieu, a heavy Italian structure, built from the plans of Lemercier. However satisfying and beautiful the style may be in Italy, it is manifestly, in all great works of church-building in the north, unsuitable and uncouth.

There was also a chateau as well, a great Mansart affair with an overpowering dome. Practically this remains to-day, but, like all else in the town, it is but a promise of greater things which were expected to materialize, but never did.

At the bottom of a little valley, in a fertile plain, lies Fontevrault, or what there is left of it, for the old abbey is now nothing more than a matter-of-fact "_maison de detention_" for criminals. The abbey of yesterday is the prison of to-day.

Fontevrault is an enigma; it is, furthermore, what the French themselves call a "_triste et maussade bourg_." Its former magnificent abbey was one of the few shrines of its class which was respected by the Revolution, but now it has become a prison which shelters something like a thousand unfortunates.

For centuries the old abbey had royal princesses for abbesses and was one of the most celebrated religious houses in all France. It is a sad degeneration that has befallen this famous establishment.

In the eleventh century an illustrious man of God, a Breton priest, named Robert d'Arbrissel, outlined the foundation of the abbey and gathered together a community of monks. He died in the midst of his labours, in 1117, and was succeeded by the Abbess Petronille de Chemille.

For nearly six hundred years the abbey--which comprised a convent for men and another for women--grew and prospered, directed, not infrequently, by an abbess of the blood royal. It has been claimed that, as a religious establishment for men and women, ruled over by a woman, the abbey of Fontevrault was unique in Christendom.

It is an ample structure with a church tower of bistre which forms a most pleasing note of colour in the landscape. The basilica was begun in 1101, and consecrated by Pope Calixtus II. in 1119. Its interior showed a deep vaulting, with graceful and hardy arches supported by massive columns with quaint and curiously sculptured capitals.

The twelfth-century cloister was indeed a masterwork among those examples, all too rare, existing to-day. Its arcade is severely elegant and was rebuilt by the Abbess Renee de Bourbon, sister of Francois I., after the best of decorative Renaissance of that day. The chapter-house, now used by the director of the prison, has in a remarkable manner retained the mural frescoes of a former day. There are depicted a series of groups of mystical and real personages in a most curious fashion. The refectory is still much in its primitive state, though put to other uses to-day. Its tribune, where the lectrice entertained the sisters during their repasts, is, however, still in its place.

The curious, bizarre, kilnlike pyramid, known as the Tour d'Evrault, has ever been an enigma to the archaeologist and antiquarian. Doubtless it formed the kitchens of the establishment, for it looks like nothing else that might have belonged to a great abbey. It has a counterpart at the Abbey of Marmoutier near Tours, and of St. Trinite at Vendome; from which fact there would seem to be little doubt as to its real use, although it looks more like a blast furnace or a distillery chimney.

This curious pyramidal structure is like the collegiate church of St. Ours at Loches, one of those bizarre edifices which defy any special architectural classification. At Fontevrault the architect played with his art when he let all the light in this curious "_tour_" enter by the roof. At the extreme apex of the cone he placed a lantern from which the light of day filtered down the slope of the vaulting in a weird and tomblike manner. It is a most surprising effect, but one that is wholly lost to-day, since the Tour d'Evrault has been turned into the kitchen for the "_maison de detention_" of which it forms a part.

The nave of the church of the old abbey of Fontevrault has been cut in two and a part is now used as the dormitory of the prison, but the choir, the transepts, and the towers remain to suggest the simple and beautiful style of their age.

In the transepts, behind an iron grille, are buried Henry II., King of England and Count of Anjou, Eleanore of Guienne, Richard Coeur de Lion, and Isabeau of Angouleme, wife of Jean-sans-Terre. Four polychromatic statues, one in wood, the others in stone, lying at length, represent these four personages so great in English history, and make of Fontevrault a shrine for pilgrims which ought to be far less ignored than it is. The cemetery of kings has been shockingly cared for, and the ludicrous kaleidoscopic decorations of the statues which surmount the royal tombs are nothing less than a sacrilege. It is needless to say they are comparatively modern.

At Bourgueil, near Fontevrault, are gathered great crops of _reglisse_, or licorice. It differs somewhat in appearance from the licorice roots of one's childhood, but the same qualities exist in it as in the product of Spain or the Levant, whence indeed most of the commercial licorice does come. It is as profitable an industry in this part of France as is the saffron crop of the Gatinais, and whoever imported the first roots was a benefactor. At the juncture of the Vienne and the Loire are two tiny towns which are noted for two widely different reasons.

These two towns are Montsoreau and Candes, the former noted for the memory of that bloodthirsty woman who gave a plot to Dumas (and some real facts of history besides), and the other noted for its prunes, Candes being the chief centre of the industry which produces the _pruneaux de Tours_.

Descending the Vienne from Chinon, one first comes to Candes, which dominates the confluence of the Vienne with the Loire from its imposing position on the top of a hill.

Candes was in other times surrounded by a protecting wall, and there are to-day remains of a chateau which had formerly given shelter to Charles VII. and Louis XI. It has, moreover, a twelfth-century church built upon the site of the cell in which died St. Martin in the fourth century. The native of the surrounding country cares nothing for churches or chateaux, but assumes that the prune industry of Candes is the one thing of interest to the visitor.

Be this as it may, it is indeed a matter of considerable importance to all within a dozen kilometres of the little town. All through the region round about Candes one meets with the fruit-pickers, with their great baskets laden with prunes, pears, and apples, to be sent ultimately to the great ovens to be desiccated and dried. Fifty years ago, you will be told, the cultivators attended to the curing process themselves, but now it is in the hands of the middle-man.

At Montsoreau much the same economic conditions exist as at Candes, but there is vastly more of historic lore hanging about the town. In the fourteenth century, after a shifting career the fief passed to the Vicomtes de Chateaudun; then, in the century following, to the Chabots and the family of Chambes, of which Jean IV., prominent in the massacre of St. Bartholomew's night, was a member. It was he who assassinated the gallant Bussy d'Amboise at the near-by Chateau of Coutanciere (at Brain-sur-Allonnes), who had made a rendezvous with his wife, since become famous in the pages of Dumas and of history as "La Dame de Montsoreau."

To-day the old bourg is practically non-existent, and there is a smugness of prosperity which considerably discounts the former charm that it once must have had. But for all that, there is enough left to enable one to picture what the life here under the Renaissance must have been.

The parish church--that of the ancient Paroisse de Retz--still exists, though in ruins, and there are very substantial remains of an old priory, an old-time dependency of the Abbey of St. Florent, now converted into a farm.

Beside the highroad is the fifteenth-century chateau. It has a double facade, one side of which is ornamented with a series of _machicoulis_, great high window-openings, and flanking towers; and, in spite of its generally frowning aspect, looks distinctly livable even to-day.

The ornamental facade of the courtyard is somewhat crumbled but still elegant, and has incorporated within its walls a most ravishing Renaissance turret, smothered in exquisite _moulures_ and _arabesques_. On the terminal gallery and on the panels which break up the flatness of this inner facade are a series of allegorical bas-reliefs, representing monkeys, surmounted with the inscription, "_Il le Feray_."

The interior of this fine edifice is entirely remodelled, and has nothing of its former fitments, furnishings, or decorations.

Near Port Boulet, almost opposite Candes, is the great farm of a certain M. Cail. Communication is had with the Orleans railway by means of a traction engine, which draws its own broad-wheeled wagons on the regular highway between the _gare d'hommes_ and the tall-chimneyed manor or chateau which forms the residence of this enterprising agriculturist.

The property consists of nearly two thousand acres, of which at least twelve hundred are under the process of intensive cultivation, and is divided into ten distinct farms, having each an overseer charged directly with the control of his part of the domain. These farms are wonderfully well kept, with sanded roadways like the courtyard of a chateau. There are no trees in the cultivated parts, and the great grain-fields are as the western prairies.

The estate bears the generic name of "La Briche." On one side it is bordered by the railroad for a distance of nearly forty kilometres, and it gives to that same railway an annual freight traffic of two thousand tons of merchandise, which would be considerably more if all the cattle and sheep sent to other markets were transported by rail.

As might be expected, this domain of "La Briche" has given to the neighbouring farmers a lesson and an example, and little by little its influence has resulted in an increased activity among the neighbouring landholders, who formerly gave themselves over to "_la chasse_," and left the conduct of their farms to incompetent and more or less ignorant hirelings.