Château de Saint-Cloud

“ With its triple enclosure, its dungeons, its interior court-yards, its machicolations, its underground passages, its ramparts piled one upon the other, like a bark on a bark and a shield on a shield, the ancient Château of the Clissons rises before your mind and is reconstructed. The memory of past existences exudes from its walls with the emanations of the nettles and the coolness of the ivy. In that castle, men altogether different from us were swayed by passions stronger than ours ”

“ These are now covered with sod and green grass and used for pasturage, while the level places, like the courts within the castle and the parade-ground within the lines of fortification, are subjected to cultivation. The château of Tiffauges was partially built in the time of Saint Louis; the grand tower now remaining is said to belong to that epoch; the large tower, the small tower, the chapel, the great hall wherein the Baron presided over his retainers or, if need be, received such lords and seigniors as77 came to visit him ”

“ Pretty soon we went back to the car and drove 87 into a big forest for ten miles or more to an old feudal castle,—such a magnificent old castle, all towers and turrets and battlements,—the château of Pierrefonds, one of the finest in France. It stands upon a rocky height overlooking a lake, and it does not seem so old, though it had been there forty years when Joan of Arc came, and it looks as if it might remain there about as long as the hill it stands on. It was built by Louis of Orleans, brother of Charles VI, and the storm of battle has often raged about its base. ”

“ The crowd, therefore, constantly flocked towards the Palais Royal.
At Saint Cloud, where all his numerous household used to assemble, there were many ladies who, to speak the truth, would scarcely have been received elsewhere, but many also of a higher set, and great store of gamblers. The pleasures of all kinds of games, and the singular beauty of the place, where a thousand caleches were always ready to whirl even the most lazy ladies through the walks, soft music and good cheer, made it a palace of delight, grace, and magnificence. ”

“ Our fancy lets our feet enjoy their sinecure, and they stretch themselves out in indolent longitude beneath the Tent-table, while we are settled in spirit, a silent thought, on the battlements of our cloud-castle on the summit of Cruachan. What a prospect! Our cloud-castle rests upon a foundation of granite precipices; and down along their hundred chasms, from which the eye recoils, we look on Loch-Etive bearing on its bosom stationary—so it seems in the sunshine—one snow-white sail! ”

“ The frogs sing no longer in the moat through the beautiful summer nights; the sentinel's box is empty; and in the courtyards, instead of clanking swords and spurred heels, the peaceful step of the tourist alone resounds. The château has rendered a long 40 and loyal service, and to-day as a reward enjoys a glorious repose. To visit the castle, you pass over a draw-bridge giving entrance to the châtelet, and no sooner have you set foot on it than the concierge emerges from a little room in the tower dedicated to the service of the lodge-holder. ”

“ Immediately opposite Valence, on the farther side of the Rhone, rises a bold scarp of sandstone cliff, crowned with the ruined castle of Crussol above the village of S. Peray at its feet, where is made a very capital sparkling wine, not at all inferior to champagne. There is also there an odd château, designed, it is believed, by Marshal Vauban, on the plan of a mimic fortress, with bastions, curtains, glacis, portcullis, and loopholes. ”

“ Cloud is even better supplied than our Richmond. In situation, however, they strongly assimilate; the former being placed on an acclivity overlooking the Seine, as the latter is on the banks of the Thames.
St. Cloud, as I have already said, is the usual summer residence of the French court; and with a royal liberality which might be less politic elsewhere, the park is granted for three fairs—September 7, and the three following Sundays, on the last of which I resolved to visit the fête of St. Cloud. ”

“ In a valley, at a short distance, stand the walls of an old castle, in which the Black Prince is said to have passed some of the last hours of his existence; and this was the real object of our pilgrimage.
Having ordered dinner, and left the carriage at Blancford, we wandered down, through some of the beautiful lanes, all breaking forth into the first blossoms of spring, to the ruins of the old château, which afford a sad picture of the decay of human works. ”

“ The living stars faint and fail, and the music of awakening life which accompanies the rising of the young sun falls upon the ear. Slowly the château undergoes transformation. The glittering roof merges into the blue vault of heaven, the tapestried walls become the ivied screens of great forest trees, the princely furnishings are transformed into mossy banks and mounds, and the rugs and carpets beneath Roland’s mailed feet are now merged in the forest ways. ”

“ Whether we admire most the structure of Geoffrey Grise-Gonelle, the elegant edifice of the fifteenth century, or the additions of Charles VII., Louis XI., Charles VIII., Louis XII., or Henri III., we must conclude that to know this conglomerate structure intimately one must actually live with it. Nowhere in France—perhaps in no country—is there a château that suggests so stupendously the story of its past. ”

“ The ruins of the old-time château are a wonderfully impressive reminder of other days, other ways. As a whole, it is a grand ruin only, although an architect or archaeologist may build up somewhat of an approach to the former glorious fabric. The great central tower has not even preserved its walls entire, but what is left stands to-day as one of the most imposing examples of a great feudal keep yet extant. Clisson has some right to be considered up to date, in that some enterprising inhabitant has introduced an electric light plant. ”

“ The southern façade is not excelled by the elevation of any residential structure of any age, and its outlines are varied and pleasing enough to satisfy the most critical; if one pardons the little pepper-boxes on the north and south towers, and perforce one has to pardon them when he recalls the magnificence of the general disposition and sky-line of this marvellously imposing château of the Renaissance. ”

“ But the castle, although it gives itself such aristocratic airs, is, in these days, nothing but a farmhouse, sacks of maize being now stored in rooms where ladies once touched the lute with white fingers, and where gentlemen may have crumpled their frills while swearing eternal love upon their knees. The little cemetery adjoining the château has swallowed up the great and the lowly century after century, and the rank grass, now sprinkled with the lingering flowers of summer, barely covers their mingled bones. The old gravestones, left undisturbed, have sunk into the soil nearly out of sight. ”

“ The highest formed an immense quadrangle, in the center of [63] which stood the château and its out-buildings. It was of gray stone and of a graceful style of architecture, a mantle of ivy climbing over its turrets and arching the long row of windows which commanded the terraces. Behind it were the stables and the house of the steward of the estate. The whole place was in perfect order and beautifully situated on the spur of the hill, overlooking the river and sheltered by a small forest in the rear. ”

“ Here it seems as if the architect had allowed himself unlimited freedom in decoration, in which he was aided by such artists as Jean Goujon and Cousin, who zealously worked upon the ornamentation of these bell turrets, balconies and towers, as if to prove the sincerity and beauty of French art. This luxuriant flowing forth, in stone carving, of foliage, flower, boss and emblem, has resulted in an ensemble of indescribable charm, the dazzling light stone of Bourré, of which the château is built, lending itself harmoniously to the elaborate Renaissance decoration. ”

“ A long stretch of solid wall is still there, and some of the old towers are converted into modern dwellings. It looked out of place to see ordinary lace curtains tied back with a ribbon and pots of red geraniums in the high narrow windows, when one thought of the rough grim soldiers armed to the teeth who have stood for hours in those same windows watching anxiously for the first glimpse of an armed band appearing at the edge of the meadows. The château must have been a fine feudal fortress in its time and has sheltered many great personages. ”

“ From this point one gets quite the most imposing aspect of the château to be had, its towers and turrets piercing the sky high above the head, and carrying the mind back to the days when civilization meant something more—or less—than it does to-day, with the toot of a steam-tram down below on the river's bank and the midday whistles of the factories of Tours rending one's ears the moment he forgets the past and recalls the present. ”

“ It is but a dozen kilometres from Azay-le-Rideau to Ussé, on the road to Chinon. The Château d'Ussé 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 château to have been like. It belongs to-day to the Comte de Blacas, and once was the property of Vauban, Maréchal of France, under Louis XIV., who built the terrace which lies between it and the river, a branch of the Indre. ”

“ Its chief charm to me is its obscurity; no curiosity-hunter or ordinary tourist has ever frightened away the dryads from its chestnut groves or the naiads from its fresh streams. Even a flitting poet has scarcely ever betrayed its rural mysteries. My château has none of the grandeur that you have, perhaps, ascribed to it. Picture to yourself a pretty country-house, lightly set on a hill-top, and pensively overlooking the Creuse flowing at its feet under an arbor of alder-bushes and flowering ash. ”

“ Hugh’s grandfather must have built the old keep of Avalon Castle, which still stands above the modern château, and a family whose arms are, on a field or the eagle of the empire sable, were builders, both of necessity and of choice. When every baron, or at least every baron’s father, had built himself a castle, planned and executed under his own eye; when King Richard in person could plan and superintend the building of his great Castle Saucy, the Château Gaillard, it is not wonderful that Hugh also should be ready and willing to do much in stone and mortar. ”

“ It is exactly what one expects to find,—a fine riverside establishment of its epoch, and in architectural style combining the well-recognized features of late Gothic and the early Renaissance. It is not moss-grown or decrepit in any way, which fact, considering its years, is perhaps remarkable.
The park of the château is only of moderate extent, but the structure itself is, comparatively, of much larger proportions. The ideal view of the structure is obtained from midway on that ungainly bridge which spans the Loire at this point. ”

“ But on the western side of the château improvements were visible. A stone terrace, or colonnade, wide, and supported by pillars, with a flight of steps at each end and in the middle, rose before its windows, and lovely pleasure-grounds extended out to the far distance. A verdant, undulating lawn; fragrant shrubs; retired walks, where the trees met overhead; sheltered banks, grateful to recline upon in the noonday sun; a winding shrubbery; a transparent lake: all of their kind charming. For all this, Beaufoy was indebted to the taste of its English mistress. ”

“ My husband and several of the owners of large estates gave work to many with their regular "coupe" of wood, but that only lasts a short time, and the men who are willing to work but can find nothing drift naturally into cafés and billiard saloons, where they read cheap bad papers and talk politics of the wildest description.
We found our château very well situated on the top of a hill, a good avenue leading up to the gate, a pretty little park with fine trees at the back, the tower of the village church just visible through the trees at the end of the central alley. ”

“ On the east side are the chapel and a small outbuilding, which form a double projection and enclose a little terrace on the ground floor. Over the great entrance door are carvings and heraldic devices, and over the whole façade of the [156] château there is a rich luxuriance of ornamentation which, with the wide moat surrounding it, and the blooming parterres spread before it, give the entire castle the air of being en fête, not relegated to the past like Langeais, Amboise, and some of the other châteaux that we have seen. ”

“ The vistas which one sees when coming toward Chambord, through the drives and alleys of its park, with the château itself brilliant in the distance, are charming and fairy-like indeed. Straight as an arrow these roadways run, and he who traverses one of those centring at the château will see a tiny white fleck in the sunlight a half a dozen kilometres away, which, when it finally is reached, will be admitted to be the greatest triumph of the art-loving monarch. ”

“ We turned off sharply to the left and at the end of a long avenue saw the house, half hidden by the trees. The entrance through a low archway, flanked on each side by high round towers covered with ivy, is most picturesque. The château is built around three sides of a square court-yard, the other side looking straight over broad green meadows ending in a background of wood. A moat runs almost all around the house—a border of salvias making a belt of colour which is most effective. We found the family—Marquis and Marquise de Lasteyrie and their two sons—waiting at the hall door. ”