AN ENCHANTED SPOT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19952, 20 November 1926, Page 10

AN ENCHANTED SPOT.

COUNTEY OF THE LOIEE. WONDERS L? THE CHATEAUX. ‘THE GARDEN OF FRANCE.” There is an enchanted spot not many hours from Paris which invariably attracts visitors to Europe at this summer time of the year. The many tourist agencies which have sprung up like so many mushrooms since the war call a pilgrimage to the Chateaux country. This spot extends out from Bois and Tours, most of the chateaux having been built on the banks of the rivers which water this fertile, gracious region of France. It has rigthly been called the garden of France, for it is a land flowing, if not with mill* and honey, at least With fruit and nuts and grain, and the most wonderful of golden wines. It was because of its rich luxuriousness that it was chosen in preference to other regions of France by the kings and the powerful feudal lords of bygone days as a site for their chateaus. You can drive for days at a time and never see one barn patch of ground, where it is strewn with grain, with fruit trees bearing down neath the weight of their harvest,'or with row upon row of the vines, whose grapes, when garnered. will be turned into the golden vintage of Vouvray, which is the rare pride of Touraine. Night and day the air is balmy with the scent of fruit and flowers, and wherever you turn you see smiling faces and hear people speaking in gentle, polished voices, so that the mere thought of Paris, with its population of nerve-racked, rude-spoken individuals, becomes a nightmare. . . , .. t But if Touraine is rich in the fruits of the earth, how much richer is it in historical memories. So linked up are the histories of France and England with the legends connected with the different chateaux, and, more so, with treir dungeons, that one finds it difficult to return to a modern world of tvams and telephones and republics. One feels that the world must surely be peopled with knights dashing round in clinking armour, kings pi‘Uying hide and seek in stately yew tree walks with their beauteous mistresses, prisoners languishing in iron cages and other personages of mediaeval lore, whose memory the very walls seem steeped in. It would be impossible in the b“hed space at my disposal to refer to all the chateaux that still exist in this part ot France. But reference at least can bo made to those in which English sovereigns played a part, and one in particular which has an indirect interest for Australia. This is the Chateau de Langeais, the foundations of which were laid as far back as the tenth century by the formidable, villanious seigneur of the time, Foulques Nerra. The Chateau de Langeais has been the scene ot many historical events, among - the most important being tne wedding there of the son of Foulques to Mathilda, daughter of Henry I. King of England. Their children were Geoffrey and Henry Plantagenet, the latter of whom afterwards became King of England and the father of Richard Coeur de Lion, who in turn became King of England, Count of Touraine and Lord ot Langeais. In 1427 the castle was captured by the English, who by this time had invlded the greater part of Touraine, and who were not forced from it until Joan of Arc took a hand in the military direction of her country. It was here, too, that Anne de Bretagne was married to Charles VIII by which union was Brittany united to France and an end put to the wars which had devastated both countries for years. The castle at one time belonged, so legend has it, to the Cardinal Du Bellav, the friend and protector, of Rabelais, that joyous child of Touraine. But where the chateau has a kind of link with Australia is in the fact that its present owner is—or, rather, was,, as he died some years ago-M. Jacques Siegfried, and Madame Siegfried, uncle and aunt, of the Dr Andre Siegfried who accompanied the French mission to Australia in MSiegfried bought the chateau m. 1886, and, with the help of, his wife, carried on the work of restoration to such a pitch ot perfection that it is now a veritable museum of historical records. Furthermore, for fear the chateau would ever fall into unappreciative hands, as it has more than once during the many years of its existence, M. Siegfried leff it to the Institut de France »t the same time leaving a sum of money sufficient to bring in an annual sum for its UP Sher castle, that cannot fail to fascinate British visitors is that ot Chenonceaux, for it was here that Mary .Queen Soots came as the vonthful bride ot the still more youthful Francis n, to be the tool of his formidable mother, Catherine de Medici. Scratched on one of the walls of Catherine’s private chapel is a rough inscription, attributed to one of Mary s Scottish Guard : “The ire of man never wreaked tbe will of God,” it reads, a significant utterance if one is to believe "’ h^J^ ,st °L y records of the dark deeds that were committed in those days of fatal despotism. The castle is now. the property of M. Menier, the millionaire manufacturer ot tne chocolate that bears his name. There is another castle that has memories to tell of Marv Stuart, grim ones enough. This is the Chateau d’Ambosie. where she lived with her weakling of a husband and her virago of a mother-m-law, in the midst of a court which was renowned even in those days for its intrigues and wasteful libertinago. It was during her stay here that the dark deed was committed which cast a blot for all time on the name of Amhoise. In 1560, that is, during the reign of Francis 11, a "umber of Huguenots and Catholics, discontented at the influence of the House of Guise, formed a conspiracy with the object of seizing the Due do Guise and his brother, and of removms the King from their power. The leaders of the conspiracy were the Prince de Comic and a nobleman named La Rennndie. . id it was planned to get possession of the castle during the dinner hour . Theywould probably have carried out their r ,an - hn “ they not been hetraved by one of their number, a certain d’Avenolles, a Paris lawyer. Having been warned the Due de Guise hid his troops in the forest, and attacked the conspirators as they approached the chateau in small detachments. A large number of them were killed, the .™ ma,n “ ar were captured and subjected, without the slightest pretence of a trial, to the ino* hideous of tortures. There were 1503 m all and while the mutilated bodies of the leaders were hung outside on the iron balcony overhanging the town, by wav of a gentle warning to others with budding ideas of conspiracy, the rest were tortured and butchered in the courtyard behind, m that Catherine, Francis, Mary Stuart, and the ladies and gentlemen of their court could amuse themselves after dinner each day watching the sport. In 1872 a bill was passed by which the Chateau d’Amboise was restored to the House of Orleans, and it is now a royal hostel for the aged servants of all the branches of the Orleans family, the guide by his deferential manner and polished speech, has obviously boon a butler trained in the service of a great house, and as he takes you through the warden to shew you the tomb of Leonardo da Vinci, who left his native Italy to come and live at Amhoise at the invitation of his friend and protector, Francis 1., and who died there a few years later, to show you the wonderful gem of Renaissanco art that is the Chapelle St. Hubert, or to bee you to notice tne lowly-built, doorway against the top of which Charles VIII is supposed to have crocked his skull, you catch ghnipses ot bent forms hobbliu" along on sticks nr black-robbed figures topped bv neat little bonnets lingering arm in arm in shady paths, where one probably the debonnaire Francis I and the - beauteous Diane de Poitiers were wont to linger in amorous tryst. One leaves Amhoise with a feeling’ of envy for these old servants who have been pensioned off in such an idyllic retreat. Then there is the Chateau de I.ochcs, or what remains of it in ruins, which was also built on the basis of one of Foulques Nerra’s redoubtable dungeons. Here you will see traces of . the occupation of Richard Coeur do Lion; the tomb, surmounted by a reclining statue beautifully executed in marble, of Agnes Sorel. the gentle lady who ruled the heart of Charles VII. and guided the destinies of France during his rein; you will sen the chestnut tree that Francis I planted 400 years ago and whieh has spread its branches so massively that it now measures nearly 400 feet in circumference : from the tower roof vou will see the ruins of the Abbey of Beaulieu, on the opposite bonk of the Indre. occupied bv the English, and from where | they made a vain attempt- to enter the town of Loohes in 1412. Near by are the remains of what was certainly one of the most redoubtable dungeons in France at that-time; it was built by the crafty, relentless Louis XI not a hundred varus away from the private underground chapel

he had built for himself, in which h* could allay his superstitious fears and find balm for his troubled conscience. Here you have your sense of pity strained to the utmost by the sight of the sunless, water-logged dungeons in which Louis was in the habit of throwing his political prisoners until death came to bring them a happy release, and have your blood curdled by the graphic recital of a guide with a fine sense of the _ dramatic _ of various details connected with the live* of different famous prisoners who languished away their lives within these grim walls, or tumbled into the oubliettes dug for that purpose. In another part of the dungeon you are shown the torture chamber, that stiil bears traces in the form of iron bars and bolts of the hideous practices which were carried on within it. In one corner of the room is the iron cage where liouis XI is said to have imprisoned Cardinal La Balue for fourteen years for having betrayed him to his arch-enemy the Duke of Burgundy. If this legend is correct, there is a kind of ironical justice in this act of the crafty Louis, for most of the tortures of that day were due to the ferocious imagination of the terrible ecolesiast. But most interesting of all because of its ancient historical associations, no less than for the beauty of the panorama from it lofty battlements across the Vienne and surrounding country, is the Chateau of Chinon. Should you ever read “The Heroic Deeds and Sayings of the Good Pantagruel” again, you will find many an allusion to Chinon, which is only natural, as it is here that Rabelais was bom towards the end of the fifteenth century. In those days he wrote of Chinon: Chinon, Little Town, Great reknown. On old stone, Long has stood, There's the VLimo, if you look down; If you look up there’s the wood. To-day a descendant of his could write the same lines, and they would still hold good as a description of the old town that has been nestling at the foot of the old castle ruins all these years and living on the memories of the time when the Romans made it an important military centre, and connected it by their incomparable roads with other strategical points in Touraine. Several of the first Christian saints founded churches and monasteries here. Bound about the year 500 A.D., Clovis made it one of hi# principal fortresses, setting an example which later was to be followed by Geoffrey Martel, Henry II of England, Charles VO, and Louis XI. But Chinon to Henry II was more than a stronghold: it was the place he preferred above all others when on the Continent, _ because of its unrivalled position in the midst of such a garden land, and the wonderful view from its battlements.

After delving into the past by such & visit one can be excused for feeling as person awakened from a dream as the car sweeps one back along the banks of the Loire. Into these, cellars have been hollowed out far back into the cliff, in which the golden wine of Vouvray is stored, in a limitless number of bottles and casks, and in front of which people have built the quaintest of troglodyte habitations. One has this feeling of a dreamer awakened even more on return to Tours, that charming old city of beautiful buildings and soft-spoken people, to find a world of clanging tramcars._ of squads of young English and American misses, who have been sent to Tours to master the perfect accent spoken by the inhabitants of this part ot France, being marshalled along the streets by a severefnced governess, and of filled with people whose one aim in life apnarenfly is to consume as much as possible of the rillons and the rillettes, the two delicacies for which the city _ia gasfamous, and wash it down ■with a befitting quantity of Vouvray.