CHAPTER III.

THE BLAISOIS AND THE SOLOGNE

The Blesois or Blaisois was the ancient name given to the _petit pays_ which made a part of the government of the Orleannais. It was, and is, the borderland between the Orleannais and Touraine, and, with its capital, Blois, the city of counts, was a powerful territory in its own right, in spite of the allegiance which it owed to the Crown. Twenty leagues in length by thirteen in width, it was bounded on the north by the Dunois and the Orleannais, on the east by Berry, on the south by Touraine, and on the west by Touraine and the Vendomois.

Blois, its capital, was famed ever in the annals of the middle ages, and to-day no city in the Loire valley possesses more sentimental interest for the traveller than does Blois.

To the eastward lay the sands of the Sologne, and southward the ample and fruitful Touraine, hence Blois's position was one of supreme importance, and there is no wonder that it proved to be the scene of so many momentous events of history.

The present day Department of the Loir et Cher was carved out from the Blaisois, the Vendomois, and the Orleannais. The Baisois was, in olden time, one of the most important of the _petits gouvernements_ of all the kingdom, and gave to Blois a line of counts who rivalled in power and wealth the churchmen of Tours and the dukes of Brittany. Gregory of Tours is the first historian who makes mention of the ancient _Pagus Blensensis_.

One must not tell the citizen of Blois that it is at Tours that one hears the best French spoken. Everybody knows this, but the inhabitant of the Blaisois will not admit it, and, in truth, to the stranger there is not much apparent difference. Throughout this whole region he understands and makes himself understood with much more facility than in any other part of France.

For one thing, not usually recalled, Blois should be revered and glorified. It was the native place of Lenoir, who invented the instrument which made possible the definite determination of the metric system of measurement.

One reads in Bernier's "Histoire de Blois" that the inhabitants are "honest, gallant, and polite in conversation, and of a delicate and diffident temperament." This was written nearly a century ago, but there is no excuse for one's changing the opinion to-day unless, as was the misfortune of the writer, he runs up against an unusually importunate vender of post-cards or an aggressive _garcon de cafe_.

Blois, among all the cities of the Loire, is the favourite with the tourist. Why this should be is an enigma. It is overburdened, at times, with droves of tourists, and this in itself is a detraction in the eyes of many.

Perhaps it is because here one first meets a great chateau of state; and certainly the Chateau de Blois lives in one's memory more than any other chateau in France.

Much has been written of Blois, its counts, its chateau, and its many and famous _hotels_ of the nobility, by writers of all opinions and abilities, from those old chroniclers who wrote of the plots and intrigues of other days to those critics of art and architecture who have discovered--or think they have discovered--that Da Vinci designed the famous spiral staircase.

From this one may well gather that Blois is the foremost chateau of all the Loire in popularity and theatrical effect. Truly this is so, but it is by no manner of means the most lovable; indeed, it is the least lovable of all that great galaxy which begins at Blois and ends at Nantes. It is a show-place and not much more, and partakes in every form and feature--as one sees it to-day--of the attributes of a museum, and such it really is. All of its former gorgeousness is still there, and all the banalities of the later period when Gaston of Orleans built his ugly wing, for the "personally conducted" to marvel at, and honeymoon couples to envy. The French are quite fond of visiting this shrine themselves, but usually it is the young people and their mammas, and detached couples of American and English birth that one most sees strolling about the courts and apartments were formerly lords and ladies and cavaliers moved and plotted.

The great chateau of the Counts of Blois is built upon an inclined rock which rises above the roof-tops of the lower town quite in fairy-book fashion,--

"... Batie en pierre et d'ardoise converte, Blanche et carree au bas de la colline verte."

Commonly referred to as the Chateau de Blois, it is really composed of four separate and distinct foundations; the original chateau of the counts; the later addition of Louis XII.; the palace of Francois I., and the most unsympathetically and dismally disposed _pavillon_ of Gaston of Orleans.

The artistic qualities of the greater part of the distinct edifices which go to make up the chateau as it stands to-day are superb, with the exception of that great wing of Gaston's, before mentioned, which is as cold and unfeeling as the overrated palace at Versailles.

The Comtes de Chatillon built that portion just to the right of the present entrance; Louis XII., the edifice through which one enters the inner court and which extends far to the left, including also the chapel immediately to the rear; while Francois Premier, who here as elsewhere let his unbounded Italian proclivities have full sway, built the extended wing to the left of the inner court and fronting on the present Place du Chateau, formerly the Place Royale.

Immediately to the left, in the Basse Cour de Chateau, are the Hotel d'Amboise, the Hotel d'Epernon, and farther away, in the Rue St. Honore, the Hotel Sardini, the Hotel d'Alluye, and a score of others belonging to the nobility of other days; all of them the scenes of many stirring and gallant events in Renaissance times.

This is hardly the place for a discussion of the merits or demerits of any particular artistic style, but the frequently repeated expression of Buffon's "_Le style, c'est l'homme_" may well be paraphrased into "_L'art, c'est l'epoque._" In fact one finds at all times imprinted upon the architectural style of any period the current mood bred of some historical event or a passing fancy.

At Blois this is particularly noticeable. As an architectural monument the chateau is a picturesque assemblage of edifices belonging to many different epochs, and, as such, shows, as well as any other document of contemporary times, the varying ambitions and emotions of its builders, from the rude and rough manners of the earliest of feudal times through the highly refined Renaissance details of the imaginative brain of Francois, down to the base concoction of the elder Mansart, produced at the commands of Gaston of Orleans.

The whole gamut, from the gay and winsome to the sad and dismal, is found here.

The escutcheons of the various occupants are plainly in evidence,--the swan pierced by an arrow of the first Counts of Blois; the ermine of Anne de Bretagne; the porcupine of the Ducs d'Orleans, and the salamander of Francois Premier.

In the earliest structure were to be seen all the attributes of a feudal fortress, towers and walls pierced with narrow loopholes, and damp, dark dungeons hidden away in the thick walls. Then came a structure which was less of a fortress and more habitable, but still a stronghold, though having ample and decorative doorways and windows, with curious sculptures and rich framings. Then the pompous Renaissance with _escaliers_ and _balcons a jour_, balustrades crowning the walls, arabesques enriching the pilasters and walls, and elaborate cornices here, there, and everywhere,--all bespeaking the gallantry and taste of the _roi-chevalier_. Finally came the cold, classic features of the period of the brother of Louis XIII., decidedly the worst and most unlivable and unlovely architecture which France has ever produced. All these features are plain in the general scheme of the Chateau de Blois to-day, and doubtless it is this that makes the appeal; too much loveliness, as at Chenonceaux or Azay-le-Rideau, staggers the modern mortal by the sheer impossibility of its modern attainment.

In plan the Chateau de Blois forms an irregular square situated at the apex of a promontory high above the surface of the Loire, and practically behind the town itself. The building has a most picturesque aspect, and, to those who know, gives practically a history of the chateau architecture of the time. Abandoned, mutilated, and dishonoured from time to time, the structure gradually took on new forms until the thick walls underlying the apartment known to-day as the Salle des Etats--probably the most ancient portion of all--were overshadowed by the great richness of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. One early fragment was entirely enveloped in the structure which was built by Francois Premier, the ancient Tour de Chateau Regnault, or De Moulins, or Des Oubliettes, as it was variously known, and from the outside this is no longer visible.

From the platform one sees a magnificent panorama of the city and the far-reaching Loire, which unrolls itself southward and northward for many leagues, its banks covered by rich vineyards and crowned by thick forests.

The building of Louis XII. presents its brick-faced exterior in black and red lozenge shapes, with sculptured window-frames, squarely upon the little tree-bordered _place_ of to-day, which in other times formed a part of that magnificent terrace which looked down upon the roof of the Eglise St. Nicolas, and the Jesuit Church of the Immaculate Conception, and the silvery belt of the Loire itself.

On the west facade of this vast conglomerate structure one sees the effigy of the porcupine, that weird symbol adopted by the family of Orleans.

The choice of this ungainly animal--in spite of which it is most decorative in outline--was due to the first Louis, who was Duc d'Orleans. In the year 1393 Louis founded the order of the porcupine, in honour of the birth of Charles, his eldest son, who was born to him by Valentine de Milan. The legend which accompanied the adoption of the symbol--though often enough it was missing in the sculptured representations--was _Cominus et eminus_, which had its origin in the belief that the porcupine could defend himself in a near attack, but that when he himself attacked, he fought from afar by launching forth his spines.

Naturalists will tell you that the porcupine does no such thing; but in those days it was evidently believed that he did, and in many, if not all, of the sculptured effigies that one sees of the beast there is a halo of detached spines forming a background as if they were really launching themselves forth in mid-air.

Above this central doorway, or entrance to the courtyard, is a niche in which is a modern equestrian statue of Louis XII., replacing a more ancient one destroyed at the Revolution. This old statue, it is claimed, was an admirable work of art in its day, and the present statue is thought to be a replica of it.

It originally bore the following inscription--a verse written by Fausto Andrelini, the king's favourite poet.

"Hic ubi natus erat dextro Lodoicus Olympo, Sumpsit honorata Regia sceptra manu; Felix quae tanti fulfit lux nuntia Regis; Gallia non alio Principe digna fuit.

FAUSTUS 1498."

According to an old French description this old statue was: "_tres beau et tres agreable ainsy que tous ses portraits l'ont represente, comme celui qui est au grand portail de Bloys_."

Above rises a balustrade with fantastic gargoyles with the pinnacles and fleurons of the window gables all very ornate, the whole topped off with a roofing of slate.

Blois, in its general aspect, is fascinating; but it is not sympathetic, and this is not surprising when one remembers men and women who worked their deeds of bloody daring within its walls.

The murders and other acts of violence and treason which took place here are interesting enough, but one cannot but feel, when he views the chimneypiece before which the Duc de Guise was standing when called to his death in the royal closet, that the men of whom the bloody tales of Blois are told quite deserved their fates.

One comes away with the impression of it all stamped only upon the mind, not graven upon the heart. Political intrigue to-day, if quite as vulgar, is less sordid. Bigotry and ambition in those days allowed few of the finer feelings to come to the surface, except with regard to the luxuriance of surroundings. Of this last there can be no question, and Blois is as characteristically luxurious as any of the magnificent edifices which lodged the royalty and nobility of other days, throughout the valley of the Loire.

A numismatic curiosity, connected with the history of the Chateau de Blois, is an ancient piece of money which one may see in the local museum. It is the oldest document in existence in which, or on which, the name of Blois is mentioned. On one side is a symbolical figure and the legend _Bleso Castro_, and on the other a _croix haussee_ and the name of the officer of the mint at Blois, _Pre Cistato, monetario_.

The plan of the Chateau de Blois here given shows it not as it is to-day, but as it was at the death of Gaston d'Orleans in 1660. The constructions of the different epochs are noted on the plan as follows:

ERECTED BY THE COMTES DE CHATILLON

1. Tour de Donjon, Chateau-Regnault, Moulins, or des Oubliettes.

2. Salle des Etats.

3. Tour du Foix or Observatory.

ERECTED BY THE DUCS D'ORLEANS

4. Portico and Galerie d'Orleans. (Destroyed in part by the military.)

5. Galerie des Cerfs. (Built in part by Gaston, but made away with by the city of Blois when the Jardins du Roi were built.)

ERECTED BY LOUIS XII.

6. Chapelle St. Calais. (Destroyed in part by the military.)

7. La Grande Vis, or Grand Escalier of Louis XI.

8. La Petite Vis, or Petit Escalier, in one chamber of which the corpse of the Duc de Guise was burned.

9. Portico and Galerie de Louis XII.

10. Portico.

11. Salle des Gardes,--of the queen on the ground floor and of the king on the first floor.

12. Bedchamber,--of the queen on the ground floor and of the king on the first floor.

13. Corps de Garde.

14. Kitchen. (To-day Salle de Reception for visitors.)

ERECTED FROM THE TIME OF FRANCOIS I. TO HENRI III.

15 and 16. Portico and Terrace Henri II. (In part built over by Gaston.)

17. Grand Staircase.

18. Galerie de Francois I.

19. Staircase of the Salle des Etats. (Destroyed by the military.)

20. First floor, Salle des Gardes of the queen; second floor, Salle des Gardes of the king.

21. Staircase leading to the apartments of the queen mother. Here also Henri III. had made the cells destined for the use of the Capucins, and here were closeted "_pour s'assurer de leur discretion_," the "_Quarante-Cinq_" who were to kill the Duc de Guise.

22. Cabinet Neuf of Henri III. (Second floor.)

23. Gallery where was held the reunion of the Tiers Etats of 1576.

24. First floor, bedchamber of the king; second floor, bedchamber of the queen.

25. Oratory.

26. Cabinet.

27. Passage to the Tour de Moulins.

28. Passage to the Cabinet Vieux, where the Duc de Guise was struck down.

29. Cabinet Vieux.

30. Oratory, where the two chaplains of the king prayed during the perpetration of the murder.

31. Garde-robe, where was first deposited the body of De Guise.

ERECTED BY GASTON D'ORLEANS

32. Peristyle. (Destroyed by the military.)

33. Dome.

34. Pavilion des Jardins.

35. Pavilion du Foix.

36. Petit Pavilion of the Meridionale facade. (Destroyed in 1825.)

37. Terraces.

38. Bastions du Foix and des Jardins.

39. L'Eperon.

40. Le Jardin Haut, or Jardin du Roi.

The interior court is partly surrounded by a colonnade, quite cloister-like in effect. At the right centre of the Francois I. wing is that wonderful spiral staircase, concerning the invention of which so much speculation has been launched. Leonardo da Vinci, the protege of Francois, has been given the honour, and a very considerable volume has been written to prove the claim.

Within this "_tour octagone"--"qui fait a ses huit pans hurler un gorgone_"--is built this marvellous openwork stairway,--an _escalier a jour_, as the French call it,--without an equal in all France, and for daring and decorative effect unexcelled by any of those Renaissance motives of Italy itself. Its ascent turns not, as do most _escaliers_, from left to right, but from right to left. It is the prototype of those supposedly unique outside staircases pointed out to country cousins in the abodes of Fifth Avenue millionaires.

It is as impossible to catalogue the various apartments and their accessories here, as it is to include a chronology of the great events which have passed within their walls. One thing should be remembered, and that is, that the architect Duban restored the chateau throughout in recent years. In spite of this restoration one may readily enough reconstruct the scene of the murder of the Duc de Guise from the great fireplace on the second floor before which De Guise was standing when summoned by a page to the kingly presence, from the door through which he entered to his death, and from the wall where hung the tapestry behind which he was to pass. All this is real enough, and also the "Tour des Oubliettes," in which the duke's brother, the cardinal, suffered, and of which many horrible tales are still told by the attendants.

Duban, the architect, came with his careful restorations and pictured with a most exact fidelity the decorations and the furnishings of the times of Francois, of Catherine, and of Henri III. The ornate chimneypieces have been furbished up anew, the walls and ceilings covered with new paint and gold; nothing could be more opulent or glorious, but it gives the impression of a city dwelling or a great hotel, "newly done up," as the house renovators express it.

One contrasting emotion will be awakened by a contemplation of the two great Salles des Gardes and the apartments of Catherine de Medici; here, at least for the moment, is a relief from the intrigues, massacres, and assassinations which otherwise went on, for one recalls that, at one period, "_danses, ballets et jeux_" took place here continuously.

In the apartments of Catherine there is much to remind one of "the base Florentine," as it has been the fashion of latter-day historians to describe the first of the Medici queens. Nothing could be more sumptuous than the Galerie de la Reine, her _Cabinet de Toilette_, or her _Chambre a Coucher_, with its secret panels, where she died on the 5th of January, 1589, "adored and revered," but soon forgotten, and of no more account than "_une chevre mort_," says one old chronicler.

The apartments of Catherine de Medici were directly beneath the guard-room where the Balafre was murdered, and that event, taking place at the very moment when the "queen-mother" was dying, cannot be said to have been conducive to a peaceful demise.

Here, on the first floor of the Francois Premier wing, the _reine-mere_ held her court, as did the king his. The great gallery overlooked the town on the side of the present Place du Chateau. It was, and is, a truly grand apartment, with diamond-paned windows, and rich, dark, wall decorations on which Catherine's device, a crowned C and her monogram in gold, frequently appears. There was, moreover, a great oval window, opposite which stood her altar, and a doorway, half concealed, led to her writing-closet, with its secret drawers and wall-panels which well served her purposes of intrigue and deceit. A hidden stairway led to the floor above, and there was a _chambre a coucher_, with a deep recess for the bed, the same to which she called her son Henri as she lay dying, admonishing him to give up the thought of murdering Guise. "What," said Henri, on this embarrassing occasion, "spare Guise, when he, triumphant in Paris, dared lay his hand on the hilt of his sword! Spare him who drove me a fugitive from the capital! Spare them who never spared me! No, mother, I will _not_."

As the queen-mother drew near her end, and was lying ill at Blois, great events for France were culminating at the chateau. Henri III. had become King of France, and the Balafre, supported by Rome and Spain, was in open rebellion against the reigning house, and the word had gone forth that the Duc de Guise must die. The States General were to be immediately assembled, and De Guise, once the poetic lover of Marguerite, through his emissaries canvassed all France to ensure the triumph of the party of the Church against Henri de Navarre and his queen,--the Marguerite whom De Guise once professed to love,--who soon were to come to the throne of France.

The uncomfortable Henri III. had been told that he would never be king in reality until De Guise had been made away with.

The final act of the drama between the rival houses of Guise and Valois came when the king and his council came to Blois for the Assembly. The sunny city of Blois was indeed to be the scene of a momentous affair, and a truly sumptuous setting it was, the roof-tops of its houses sloping downward gently to the Loire, with the chief accessory, the coiffed and turreted chateau itself, high above all else.

Details had been arranged with infinite pains, the guard doubled, and a company of Swiss posted around the courtyard and up and down the gorgeous staircase. Every nook and corner has its history in connection with this greatest event in the history of the Chateau of Blois.

As Guise entered the council-chamber he was told that the king would see him in his closet, to reach which one had to pass through the guard-room below. The door was barred behind him that he might not return, when the trusty guards of the "Forty-fifth," under Dalahaide, already hidden behind the wall-tapestry, sprang upon the Balafre and forced him back upon the closed door through which he had just passed. Guise fell stabbed in the breast by Malines, and "lay long uncovered until an old carpet was found in which to wrap his corpse."

Below, in her own apartments, lay the queen-mother, dying, but listening eagerly for the rush of footsteps overhead, hoping and praying that Henri--the hitherto effeminate Henri who played with his sword as he would with a battledore, and who painted himself like a woman, and put rings in his ears--would not prejudice himself at this time in the eyes of Rome by slaying the leader of the Church party.

Guise died as Henri said he would die, with the words on his lips: "_A moi, mes amis!--trahison!--a moi, Guise,--je me meurs_," but the revenge of the Church party came when, at St. Cloud, the monk, Jacques Clement, poignarded the last of the Valois, and put the then heretical Henri de Navarre on the throne of France.

Within the southernmost confines of the chateau is the Tour de Foix, so called for the old faubourg near by. The upper story and roof of this curious round tower was the work of Catherine de Medici, who installed there her astrologer and maker of philtres, Cosmo Ruggieri.

Ruggieri was a most versatile person; he was astrologer, alchemist, and philosopher alike, besides being many other kinds of a rogue, all of which was very useful to the Medici now that she had come to power.

Catherine built an outside stairway up to the platform of this tower, and a great, flat, stone table was placed there to form a foundation for Ruggieri's cabalistic instruments. Even this stone table itself was an uncanny affair, if we are to believe the old chronicles. It rang out in a clear sharp note whenever struck with some hard body, and on its surface was graven a line which led the eye directly toward the golden _fleur-de-lys_ on the cupola of Chambord's chateau, some three leagues distant on the other side of the Loire. What all this symbolism actually meant nobody except Catherine and her astrologer knew; at least, the details do not appear to have come down to enlighten posterity. Over the doorway of the observatory were graven the words, "_Vraniae Sacrum_," _i. e._, consecrated to Uranius.

Wherever Catherine chose to reside, whether in Touraine or at Paris, her astrologer and his "_observatoire_" formed a part of her train. She had brought Cosmo from Italy, and never for a moment did he leave her. He was a sort of a private demon on whom Catherine could shoulder her poisonings and her stabs, and, as before said, he was an exceedingly busy functionary of the court.

That part of the structure built by Mansart for Gaston d'Orleans appears strange, solemn, and superfluous in connection with the sumptuousness of the earlier portions. With what poverty the architectural art of the seventeenth century expressed itself! What an inferiority came with the passing of the sixteenth century and the advent of the following! One finds a certain grandeur in the outlines of this last wing, with its majestic cupola over the entrance pavilion, but the general effect of the decorations is one of a great paucity of invention when compared to the more brilliant Renaissance forerunners on the opposite side of the courtyard.

It was under the regime of Gaston d'Orleans that the gardens of the Chateau de Blois came to their greatest excellence and beauty. In 1653 Abel Brunyer, the first physician of Gaston's suite, published a catalogue of the fruits and flowers to be found here in these gardens, of which he was also director. More than five hundred varieties were included, three-quarters of which belonged to the flora of France.

Among the delicacies and novelties of the time to be found here was the Prunier de Reine Claude, from which those delicious green plums known to all the world to-day as "Reine Claudes" were propagated, also another variety which came from the Prunier de Monsieur, somewhat similar in taste but of a deep purple colour. The _pomme de terre_ was tenderly cared for and grown as a great novelty and delicacy long before its introduction to general cultivation by Parmentier. The tomato was imported from Mexico, and even tobacco was grown; from which it may be judged that Gaston did not intend to lack the good things of life.

All these facts are recounted in Brunyer's "Hortus Regius Blesensis," and, in addition, one Morrison, an expatriate Scotch doctor, who had attached himself to Gaston, also wrote a competing work which was published in London in 1669 under the title of "Preludia Botanica," and which dealt at great length with the already celebrated gardens of the Chateau de Blois.

Morrison placed at the head of his work a Latin verse which came in time to be graven over the gateway of the gardens. This--as well as pretty much all record of it--has disappeared, but a repetition of the lines will serve to show with what admiration this paradise was held:

"Hinc, nulli biferi miranda rosaria Pesti, Nec mala Hesperidum, vigili servata dracone. Si paradisiacis quicquam (sine crimine) campis Conferri possit, Blaesis mirabile specta. Magnifici Gastonis opus! Qui terra capaci ...

* * * * *

JACOBUS METELANUS SCOTUS."

Not merely in history has the famous chateau at Blois played its part. Writers of fiction have more than once used it as an accessory or the principal scenic background of their sword and cloak novels; none more effectively than Dumas in the D'Artagnan series.

The opening lines of "Le Vicomte de Bragelonne" are laid here. "It should have been a source of pride to the city of Blois," says Dumas, "that Gaston of Orleans had chosen it as his residence, and held his court in the ancient chateau of the States."

Here, too, in the second volume of the D'Artagnan romances, is the scene of that most affecting meeting between his Majesty Charles II., King of England, and Louis XIV.

Altogether one lives here in the very spirit of the pages of Dumas. Not only Blois, but Langeais, Chambord, Cheverny, Amboise, and many other chateaux figure in the novels with an astonishing frequency, and, whatever the critics may say of the author's slips of pen and memory, Dumas has given us a wonderfully faithful picture of the life of the times.

In 1793 all the symbols and emblems of royalty were removed from the chateau and destroyed. The celebrated bust of Gaston, the chief artistic attribute of that part of the edifice built by him, was decapitated, and the statue of Louis XII. over the entrance gateway was overturned and broken up. Afterward the chateau became the property of the "domaine" and was turned into a mere barracks. The Pavilion of Queen Anne became a "_magasin des subsistances militaires_," the Tour de l'Observatoire, a powder-magazine, and all the indignities imaginable were heaped upon the chateau.

In 1814 Blois became the last capital of Napoleon's empire, and the chateau walls sheltered the prisoners captured by the imperial army.

Blois's most luxurious church edifice was the old abbey church of St. Sauveur, which was built from 1138 to 1210. It lost the royal favour in 1697, when Louis XIV. made Blois a city of bishops as well as of counts, and transferred the chapter of St. Sauveur's to the bastard Gothic edifice first known as St. Solenne, but which soon took on the name of St. Louis. In spite of the claims of the old church, this cold, unfeeling, and ugly mixture of tomblike Renaissance became, and still remains, the bishop's church of Blois.

One must not neglect or forget the magnificent bridge which crosses the Loire at Blois. A work of 1717-24, it bears the Rue Denis Papin across its eleven solidly built masonry piers. Above the central arch is erected a memorial pyramid and tablet which states the fact that it was one of the first works of the reign of Louis XV.

Blois altogether, then, offers a multitudinous array of attractions for the tourist who makes his first entrance to the chateaux country through its doors. The town itself has not the appeal of Tours, of Angers, or of Nantes; but, for all that, its abundance of historic lore, the admirable preservation of its chief monument, and the general picturesqueness of its site and the country round about make up for many other qualities that may be lacking.

The Sologne, lying between Blois, Vierzon, and Chateauneuf-sur-Loire, is a great region of lakelets, sandy soil, and replanted Corsican pines, which to-day has taken on a new lease of life and a prosperity which was unknown in the days when the Comtes de Blois first erected that _maison de plaisance_, on its western border which was afterward to aggrandize itself into the later Chateau de Chambord. The soil has been drained and the vine planted to a hitherto undreamed of extent, until to-day, if the land does not exactly blossom like the rose, it at least somewhat approaches it.

The _chaumieres_ of the Sologne have disappeared to a large extent, and their mud walls and thatched roofs are not as frequent a detail of the landscape as formerly, but even now there is a distinct individuality awaiting the artist who will go down among these vineyard workers of the Sologne and paint them and their surroundings as other parts have been painted and popularized. It will be hot work in the summer months, and lonesome work at all times, but there is a new note to be sounded if one but has the ear for it, and it is to be heard right here in this tract directly on the beaten track from north to south, and yet so little known.

The peasant of the Sologne formerly ate his _soupe au poireau_ and a morsel of _fromage maigre_ and was as content and happy as if his were a more luxurious board, as it in reality became when a stranger demanded hospitality. Then out from the _armoire_--that ever present adjunct of a French peasant's home, whether it be in Normandy, Touraine, or the Midi--came a bottle of _vin blanc_, bought in the wine-shops of Romorantin or Vierzon on some of his periodical trips to town.

To-day all is changing, and the peasant of the Sologne nourishes himself better and trims his beard and wears a round white collar on fete-days. He is proud of his well-kept appearance, but his neighbours to the north and the south will tell you that all this hides a deep malice, which is hard to believe, in spite of the well recognized saying, "_Sot comme un Solognat_." The women have a physiognomy more passive; when young they are fresh and lip-lively, but as they grow older their charms pass quickly.

The Sologne in most respects has changed greatly since the days of Arthur Young. Then this classic land was reviled and vehement imprecations were launched upon the proprietors of its soil,--"those brilliant and ambitious gentlemen" who figure so largely in the ceremonies of Versailles. To-day all is changed, and the gentleman farmer is something more than a _bourgeois parisien_ who hunts and rides and apes "_le sport_" of the English country squire.

The jack-rabbit and the hare are the pests of the Sologne now that its sandy soil has been conquered, but they are quite successfully kept down in numbers, and the insects which formerly ravaged the vines are likewise less offensive than they used to be, so the Sologne may truly be said to have been transformed.

To-day, as in the days of the royal hunt, when Chambord was but a shooting-box of the Counts of Blois, the Sologne is rife with small game, and even deer and an occasional _sanglier_.

"_La chasse_" in France is no mean thing to-day, and the Sologne, La Beauce, and the great national forests of Lyons and Rambouillet draw--on the opening of the season, somewhere between the 28th of August and the 2d of September of each year--their hundreds of thousands of Nimrods and disciples of St. Hubert. The bearer of the gun in France is indeed a most ardent sportsman, and in no European country can one buy in the open market a greater variety of small game,--all the product of those who pay their twenty francs for the privilege of bagging rabbits, hares, partridges, and the like. The hunters of France enjoy one superstition, however, and that is that to accidentally bag a crow on the first shot means a certain and sudden death before the day is over.

La Motte-Beuvron is celebrated in the annals of the Sologne; it is, in fact, the metropolis of the region, and the centre from which radiated the influences which conquered the soil and made of it a prosperous land, where formerly it was but a sandy, arid desert. La Motte-Beuvron is a long-drawn-out _bourgade_, like some of the populous centres of the great plain of Hungary, and there is no great prosperity or "up-to-dateness" to be observed, in spite of its constantly increasing importance, for La Motte-Beuvron and the country round about is one of the localities of France which is apparently not falling off in its population.

La Motte has a most imposing Hotel de Ville, a heavy edifice of brick built by Napoleon III.--who has never been accused of having had the artistic appreciation of his greater ancestor--after the model of the Arsenal at Venice.

This is all La Motte has to warrant remark unless one is led to investigate the successful agricultural experiment which is still being carried out hereabouts. La Motte's hotels and cafes are but ordinary, and there is no counter attraction of boulevard or park to place the town among those lovable places which travellers occasionally come upon unawares.

To realize the Sologne at its best and in its most changed aspect, one should follow the roadway from La Motte to Blois. He may either go by tramway _a vapeur_, or by his own means of communication. In either case he will then know why the prosperity of the Sologne and the contentment of the Solognat is assured.

Romorantin, still characteristic of the Sologne and its historic capital, is famous for its asparagus and its paternal chateau of Francois Premier, where that prince received the scar upon his face, at a tourney, which compelled him ever after to wear a beard.

To-day the Sous-Prefecture, the Courts and their prisoners, the Gendarmerie, and the Theatre are housed under the walls that once formed the chateau royal of Jean d'Angouleme; within whose apartments the gallant Francois was brought up.

The Sologne, like most of the other of the _petits pays_ of France, is prolific in superstitions and traditionary customs, and here for some reason they deal largely of the marriage state. When the _paysan solognais_ marries, he takes good care to press the marriage-ring well up to the third joint of his spouse's finger, "else she will be the master of the house," which is about as well as the thing can be expressed in English. It seems a simple precaution, and any one so minded might well do the same under similar circumstances, provided he thinks the proceeding efficacious.

Again, during the marriage ceremony itself, each of the parties most interested bears a lighted wax taper, with the belief that whichever first burns out, so will its bearer die first. It's a gruesome thought, perhaps, but it gives one an inkling of who stands the best chance of inheriting the other's goods, which is what matches are sometimes made for.

The marriage ceremony in the Sologne is a great and very public function. Intimates, friends, acquaintances, and any of the neighbouring populace who may not otherwise be occupied, attend, and eat, drink, and ultimately get merry. But they have a sort of process of each paying his or her own way; at least a collection is taken up to pay for the entertainment, for the Sologne peasant would otherwise start his married life in a state of bankruptcy from which it would take him a long time to recover.

The collection is made with considerable _eclat_ and has all the elements of picturesqueness that one usually associates with the wedding processions that one sees on the comic-opera stage. A sort of nuptial bouquet--a great bunch of field flowers--is handed round from one guest to another, and for a sniff of their fragrance and a participation in the collation which is to come, they make an offering, dropping much or little into a golden (not gold) goblet which is passed around by the bride herself.

In the Sologne there is (or was, for the writer has never seen it) another singular custom of the marriage service--not really a part of the churchly office, but a sort of practical indorsement of the actuality of it all.

The bride and groom are both pricked with a needle until the blood runs, to demonstrate that neither the man nor the woman is insensible or dreaming as to the purport of the ceremony about to take place.

As every French marriage is at the Mairie, as well as being held in church, this double ceremony (and the blood-letting as well) must make a very hard and fast agreement. Perhaps it might be tried elsewhere with advantage.

Montrichard, on the Cher, is on the borderland between the Blaisois and Touraine. Its donjon announces itself from afar as a magnificent feudal ruin. The town is moreover most curious and original, the great rectangular donjon rising high into the sky above a series of cliff-dwellers' chalk-cut homes, in truly weird fashion.

There is nothing so very remarkable about cliff-dwellers in the Loire country, and their aspect, manners, and customs do not differ greatly from those of their neighbours, who live below them.

Curiously enough these rock-cut dwellings appear dry and healthful, and are not in the least insalubrious, though where a _cave_ has been devoted only to the storage of wine in vats, barrels, and bottles the case is somewhat different.

Montrichard itself, outside of these scores of homes burrowed out of the cliff, is most picturesque, with stone-pignoned gables and dormer-windows and window-frames cut or worked in wood or stone into a thousand amusing shapes.

Montrichard, with Chinon, takes the lead in interesting old houses in these parts; in fact, they quite rival the ruinous lean-to houses of Rouen and Lisieux in Normandy, which is saying a good deal for their picturesque qualities.

One-third of Montrichard's population live underground or in houses built up against the hillsides. Even the lovely old parish church backs against the rock.

Everywhere are stairways and _petits chemins_ leading upward or downward, with little facades, windows, or doorways coming upon one in most unexpected and mysterious fashion at every turn.

The magnificent donjon is a relic of the work of that great fortress-builder, Foulques Nerra, Comte d'Anjou, who dotted the land wherever he trod with these masterpieces of their kind, most of them great rectangular structures like the donjons of Britain, but quite unlike the structures of their class mostly seen in France.

Richard Coeur de Lion occupied the fortress in 1108, but was obliged to succumb to his rival in power, Philippe-Auguste, who in time made a breach in its walls and captured it. Thereafter it became an outpost of his own, from whence he could menace the Comte d'Anjou.