Amboise

“ We were staying once, he and I, at Amboise, that little village with its gray-slate roofs and steep streets and gaunt grim gateway, where the quiet cottages nestle like white pigeons into the sombre clefts of the great bastioned rock, and the stately Renaissance houses stand silent and apart—very desolate now, but with some memory of the old days still lingering about the delicately-twisted pillars, and the carved doorways, with their grotesque animals, and laughing masks, and quaint heraldic devices, all reminding one of a people who could not think life real till they had made it fantastic. ”

“ It is not that it is so very hot in degree, but that the lack of shade-trees along its quays gives Amboise a shimmering resemblance to a much warmer place than it really is. The Loire is none too ample here, and frets its way, as it does through most of its lower course, through banks of sand and pebbles in a more or less vain effort to look cool.
Amboise is old, for, under the name of Ambatia, it existed in the fourth century, at which epoch St. Martin, the patron of Tours, threw down a pagan pyramidal temple here and established Christianity ”

“ Turner’s mind saw more truly than the camera. The castle of Amboise is superb and its creamy white stone a glory. Then came Blois, with a quite different reading of a castle, where plenty of colour and gilding and Gothic richness gave the character—not so restful to eye and mind as Amboise. Through both the châteaux we were marshalled along by a guide. I would sooner learn less of a place, by myself, than be told all by a tiresome man in a cicerone’s livery. Plenty of horrors were supplied us at both places, vitiating my otherwise simple pleasure as a painter in the sight of so much beauty. ”

“ It seemed to us that we had never been in a place where there are so many points of vantage to look down from. In the matter of position Amboise is certainly supreme in the list of perched places; and I say this with a proper recollection of the claims of Chaumont and of Loches—which latter, by the way (the afterthought is due) , is not on the Loire. The platforms, the bastions, the terraces, the high-niched windows and balconies, the hanging gardens and dizzy crenellations, of this complicated structure, keep you in perpetual intercourse with an immense horizon. ”

“ That she loved him more heartily than the monk, and fled from the hovel where she was detained for profit of his pleasure by Don Marsilis. And then she had gone in great haste to Amboise, the castle of the said lord, where she had had a thousand pastimes, hunting, and dancing, and beautiful dresses fit for a queen. One day the Sire de la Roche-Pozay having been invited by the Sire d’Amboise to come and feast and enjoy himself, the Baron d’Amboise had allowed him to see her then speaking, as she came out naked from her bath. ”

“ On leaving Orléans, the Loire, and the fertile pastures through which it rolls its waters, excited our admiration. We had on our right the beautiful vineyards of Beaugency. The road, as far as Amboise, is delightful. I then began to think, that Paris and its environs might perhaps be forgotten, if the country of Senegal, to which we were going, was as fine as that through which we were journeying. We slept at Amboise, which, being situated at the confluence of the Loire and the Maise, presents a most agreeable appearance. ”

“ The conspiracy of Amboise became popular among the Reformers. Brantôme relates, that many said, “Yesterday, we belonged not to the conspiracy, and we would not have been of it for all the gold in the universe; to-day, we would be so for the smallest coin, and we say that the enterprise was good and holy.”
The Lorraines, however, endeavoured to turn the affairs of Amboise to the profit of their ambition. On the 17th of [84] March, the Duke de Guise had himself named lieutenant-general of the kingdom. Francis II. promised to comply with everything that his uncle might do, order, and execute. ”

“ At Amboise I took a cross-road, which led me to the romantic borders of the Cher and the château of Chenonceau. This beautiful château, as well as that of Chambord, was built by the gay and munificent Francis the First. One is a specimen of strong and massive architecture—a dwelling for a warrior; but the other is of a lighter and more graceful construction, and was designed for those soft languishments of passion with which the fascinating Diane de Poitiers had filled the bosom of that voluptuous monarch. ”

“ The King kept writing to her to come back, and began to get very angry at her delay. The Cardinal d’Amboise, who was very much in the confidence of them both, wrote three sensible and urgent letters,331 assuring her that he had never seen the King so displeased, and begging her to return; saying what a pity it would be if any dissension should arise between them; also that the King was going back to Blois and thence by water to Amboise, taking Princess Claude and the Countess d’Angoulême with him. The Queen therefore brought her Breton tour to an end, and returned to Blois in September. ”

“ Amboise (5) , a town on the Loire, 14 m. E. of Tours, with a castle, once the residence of the French kings. The Conspiracy of A., the conspiracy of Condé and the Huguenots in 1560 against Francis II., Catharine de Medici, and the Guises. The Edict of A. (1563) conceded the free exercise of their worship to the Protestants.
Amboise, George de, Cardinal, the popular Prime Minister of Louis XII., who, as such, reduced the Public burdens, and as the Pope's legate in France effected a great reform among the religious orders; is said to have died immensely rich (1460-1510) . ”

“ He has braved death again and again in the battle-field with dauntless valour. In person he is tall and handsome. In manners, he is frank, bold, and prepossessing; but when offended, his proud nature easily turns to vindictive and almost savage revenge. Invested with the double dignity of General of the royal forces and Constable of France, he comes to Amboise to salute the King and the princesses, who are both strangely interested in his career, and to take the last commands from Francis, who does not now propose accompanying his army into Italy. ”

“ They fill the reader's soul with a haunting desire to lay down his well-worn cares and pleasures, to say good-bye to home and kindred, and to seek that favoured spot. Touraine is full of beauty, and steeped to the lips in historic crimes. Turn where we may, her fairness charms the eye, her memories stir the heart. But Mr. Molloy claims for Amboise something rarer in France than loveliness or romance, something which no French town has ever yet been known to possess,—a slumberous and soul-satisfying silence. ”

“ TALE II. The wife of a muleteer of Amboise chose rather to die cruelly at the hands of her servant than to fall in with his wicked purpose. (1)
In the town of Amboise there was a muleteer in the service of the Queen of Navarre, sister to King Francis, first of that name. She being at Blois, where she had been brought to bed of a son, the aforesaid muleteer went thither to receive his quarterly payment, whilst his wife remained at Amboise in a lodging beyond the bridges. ”

“ La Renaudie must soon discover by my arrangements that we are warned. Last night Nemours was to follow detachments of the Reformers who are pouring in along the cross-roads, and the conspirators will be forced to attack us at Amboise, which place I intend to let them enter. Here,” added the duke, pointing to three sides of the rock on which the chateau de Blois is built; “we should have an assault without any result; the Huguenots could come and go at will. Blois is an open hall with four entrances; whereas Amboise is a sack with a single mouth.” ”

“ You may go to Amboise either from Blois or from Tours; it is about half-way between these towns. The great point is to go, especially if you have put it off repeatedly; and to go, if possible, on a day when the great view of the Loire, which you enjoy from the battlements and terraces, presents itself under a friendly sky. ”

“ It was in such a company that he recited the last ironical but tender song wherein he talks of his lost youth and vigour and ends by bidding all present a salute in the name of his old age.
So he sat, half regal, holding a court of song in Blois and Tours, a forerunner in verse of what the new time was to build in stone along the Loire. And it was at Amboise that he died. ”

“ On the appointment of the duke of Orleans as governor of Normandy, d’Amboise became his lieutenant-general. In 1498 the duke of Orleans mounted the throne as Louis XII., and d’Amboise was suddenly raised to the high position of cardinal and prime minister. His administration was, in many respects, well-intentioned and useful. Having the good fortune to serve a king who was both economical and just, he was able to diminish the imposts, to introduce order among the soldiery, and above all, by the ordinances of 1499, to improve the organization of justice. ”

“ This personage, to whom Queen Margaret frequently alludes in her tales, was Charles d’Amboise, nephew of the famous Cardinal d’Amboise, minister to Louis XII. In turn admiral and marshal, Governor of Paris, and Grand-Master, in France, of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, he figured prominently in the Italian wars of the time, and notably at the battle of Aignadel. ”

“ For her Charles VIII rebuilt the château at Amboise, and for her Louis XII began the château at Blois, and at Loches made an oratory that bears her name. The Book of Hours of Anne of Brittany has never been surpassed. It was for her a liberal education to live in contact with her second husband’s minister of state, Cardinal Georges I d’Amboise, who is said to have employed practically every Flamboyant and Renaissance architect and sculptor of the time on his château at Gaillon, and whose tomb in Rouen Cathedral retains much of the truly French spirit of Michel Colombe’s school. ”

“ He travelled at the rear of the conspirators as far as Vendome, intending to support them in case of their success. When the first uprising ended by a brief skirmish, in which the flower of the nobility beguiled by Calvin perished, the prince arrived, with fifty noblemen, at the chateau of Amboise on the very day after that fight, which the politic Guises termed “the Tumult of Amboise.” As soon as the duke and cardinal heard of his coming they sent the Marechal de Saint-Andre with an escort of a hundred men to meet him. ”

“ The walls of the castle of Amboise bristled with troops, and the open country towards Loches was full of soldiers. Trusty guards stationed on the double bridge across the Loire were instructed by the Duc de Guise, who wielded absolute power and who had now gained minute knowledge of the plot, to take all
COUÇY.
suspected persons prisoners, or if needful, slay them as they stood. ”

“ Being fifteen years of age, he had more pleasure in hunting and hawking than in looking at beautiful ladies.
1 This is undoubtedly Francis I., then Count of Angoulême. M. de Lincy thinks that the scene of the story must be Amboise, where Louise of Savoy went to live with her children in 1499, and remained for several years; Louis XII. having placed the château there at her disposal. Francis, however, left Amboise to join the Court at Blois in August 1508, when less than fourteen years old (see Memoir of Queen Margaret, vol. i. p. xxiii.) ”

“ Catherine’s object was to draw them towards Amboise and there destroy them. Band after band, in small detachments the better to avoid suspicion, rode up from Nantes where they lay, to concentrate in force on the Loire and within Amboise itself. When sufficiently strong they proposed to carry off the King and Queen by a coup-de-main, make away with the Jesuitical Guises, banish the Queen-mother to some distant fortress, and place Condé on the throne as Regent. ”

“ May God [Pg 266] have you in his keeping and guide you to a wise decision." "Sir messenger," replied the governor, "Messire Charles d'Amboise is a captain too well acquainted with war to think himself master of the town and castle of Roche-Pont because he has got possession of a tower and a curtain. He knows what it has cost him to advance even so far; and there is still a considerable space between this retrenchment and the castle, and the castle is good and defensible. ”

“ Although Louis and Anne established their residence at the King's birthplace, the Château of Blois, the Queen was at Amboise during the spring after her marriage, where her return was celebrated with rejoicings and festivities which were as original as they were picturesque, and well calculated to please a wine-drinking populace. ”

“ This château country of the Loire must be one of the most interesting spots on earth, centring as it did the old Court life of France, and Brown says it really is so. He has travelled tremendously and remembers everything, though he is nothing but a chauffeur.
Each place we have come to I have thought must be the best; but I know that no other castle will make me take Amboise down off the pedestal I've set it on, in my mind. ”

“ ABOUT THE MONK AMADOR, WHO WAS A GLORIOUS ABBOT OF TURPENAY One day that it was drizzling with rain—a time when the ladies remain gleefully at home, because they love the damp, and can have at their apron strings the men who are not disagreeable to them—the queen was in her chamber, at the castle of Amboise, against the window curtains. ”