第11章

We have entered the court,by the way,by jumping over the walls.The more orthodox method is to follow a modern,terrace,which leads to the left,from the side of the chateau that I began by speaking of,and passes round,ascending,to a little square on a considerably higher level,which is not,like a very modern square on which the back (as I have called it)looks out,a thoroughfare.This small,empty place,oblong in form,at once bright and quiet,with a certain grassgrown look,offers an excellent setting to the entrancefront of the palace,the wing of Louis XII.

The restoration here has been lavish;but it was perhaps but an inevitable reaction against the injuries,still more lavish,by which the unfortunate building had long been overwhelmed.It had fallen into a state of ruinous neglect,relieved only by the misuse proceeding from successive generations of soldiers,for whom its charming chambers served as barrackroom.

Whitewashed,mutilated,dishonored,the castle of Blois may be said to have escaped simply with its life.This is the history of Amboise as well,and is to a certain extent the history of Chambord.Delightful,at any rate,was the refreshed facade of Louis XII.as I stood and looked at it one bright September morning.In that soft,clear,merry light of Touraine,everything shows,everything speaks.Charming are the taste,the happy proportions,the color of this beautiful front,to which the new feeling for a purely domestic architecture an architecture of security and tranquillity,in which art could indulge itself gave an air of youth and gladness.It is true that for a long time to come the castle of Blois was neither very safe nor very quiet;but its dangers came from within,from the evil passions of its inhabitants,and not from siege or invasion.The front of Louis XII.is of red brick,crossed here and there with purple;and the purple slate of the high roof,relieved with chimneys beautifully treated,and with the embroidered caps of pinnacles and arches,with the porcupine of Louis,the ermine and the festooned rope which formed the devices of Anne of Brittany,the tone of this richlooking roof carries out the mild glow of the wall.The wide,fair windows look as if they had expanded to let in the rosy dawn of the Renaissance.Charming,for that matter,are the windows of all the chateaux of Touraine,with their squareness corrected (as it is not in the Tudor architecture)by the curve of the upper corners,which makes this line look above the expressive aperture like a pencilled eyebrow.The low door of this front is crowned by a high,deep niche,in which,under a splendid canopy,stiffly astride of a stiffly draped charger,sits in profile an image of the good King Louis.Good as he had been,the father of his people,as he was called (I believe he remitted various taxes),he was not good enough to pass muster at the Revolution;and the effigy I have just described is no more than a reproduction of the primitive statue demolished at that period.