A Little Tour In France [25]
certain stagnation - it affects more senses than one - about the picturesque pools of Azay. On the hither side of the bridge is a garden, overshadowed by fine old sycamores, - a garden shut in by greenhouses and by a fine last-century gateway, flanked with twin lodges. Beyond the chateau and the standing waters behind it is a so-called _parc_, which, however, it must be con- fessed, has little of park-like beauty. The old houses (many of them, that is) remain in France; but the old timber does not remain, and the denuded aspect of the few acres that surround the chateaux of Touraine is pitiful to the traveller who has learned to take the measure of such things from the manors and castles of England. The domain of the lordly Chaumont is that of an English suburban villa; and in that and in other places there is little suggestion, in the untended aspect of walk and lawns, of the vigilant British gardener. The manor of Azay, as seen to-day, dates from the early part of the sixteenth century; and the industrious Abbe Chevalier, in his very entertaining though slightly rose-colored book on Touraine,* (* Promenades pittoresque en Touraine. Tours: 1869.) speaks of it as, "perhaps the purest expres- sion of the _belle Renaissance francaise_." "Its height," he goes on, "is divided between two stories, terminat- ing under the roof in a projecting entablature which imitates a row of machicolations. Carven chimneys and tall dormer windows, covered with imagery, rise from the roofs; turrets on brackets, of elegant shape, hang with the greatest lightness from the angles of the building. The soberness of the main lines, the harmony of the empty spaces and those that are filled out, the prominence of the crowning parts, the delicacy of all the details, constitute an enchanting whole." And then the Abbe speaks of the admirable staircase which adorns the north front, and which, with its extention, inside, constitutes the principal treasure of Azay. The staircase passes beneath one of the richest of porticos, - a portico over which a monumental salamander indulges in the most deco- rative contortions. The sculptured vaults of stone which cover the windings of the staircase within, the fruits, flowers, ciphers, heraldic signs, are of the noblest effect. The interior of the chateau is rich, comfortable, extremely modern; but it makes no picture that compares with its external face, about which, with its charming proportions, its profuse yet not extravagant sculpture, there is something very tranquil and pure. I took particular fancy to the roof, high, steep, old, with its slope of bluish slate, and the way the weather-worn chimneys seemed to grow out of it, like living things out of a deep soil. The only defect of the house is the blankness and bareness of its walls, which have none of those delicate parasites attached to them that one likes to see on the surface of old dwellings. It is true that this bareness results in a kind of silvery whiteness of complexion, which carries out the tone of the quiet pools and even that of the scanty and shadeless park.
IX.
I hardly know what to say about the tone of Langeais, which, though I have left it to the end of my sketch, formed the objective point of the first ex- cursion I made from Tours. Langeais is rather dark and gray; it is perhaps the simplest and most severe of all the castles of the Loire. I don't know why I should have gone to see it before any other, unless it be because I remembered the Duchesse de Langeais, who figures in several of Balzac's novels, and found this association very potent. The Duchesse de Lan- geais is a somewhat transparent fiction; but the castle from which Balzac borrowed the title of his heroine is an extremely solid fact. My doubt just above as to whether I should pronounce it excep- tionally grey came from my having seen it under a sky which made most things look dark. I have, how- ever, a very kindly memory of that moist and melan- choly afternoon, which was much more autumnal than many of the days that followed it. Langeais lies down
IX.
I hardly know what to say about the tone of Langeais, which, though I have left it to the end of my sketch, formed the objective point of the first ex- cursion I made from Tours. Langeais is rather dark and gray; it is perhaps the simplest and most severe of all the castles of the Loire. I don't know why I should have gone to see it before any other, unless it be because I remembered the Duchesse de Langeais, who figures in several of Balzac's novels, and found this association very potent. The Duchesse de Lan- geais is a somewhat transparent fiction; but the castle from which Balzac borrowed the title of his heroine is an extremely solid fact. My doubt just above as to whether I should pronounce it excep- tionally grey came from my having seen it under a sky which made most things look dark. I have, how- ever, a very kindly memory of that moist and melan- choly afternoon, which was much more autumnal than many of the days that followed it. Langeais lies down