How splendidly in its gay young time it
displayed the inimitable beauties of its position!
its streets rising from the water edge in
steeper ascent than Ryde, and boasting loftier
houses than Bath. Then its bridge,— wasn't
that a thing to be proud of, spanning the
clearest of French rivers, and leading directly
towards the château? Not the great, strong,
solid construction of the present day with its
pyramid in the middle, surmounted by a cross,
but the long narrow highway which ran
between strong parapets, and sustained on its
central portion the oratory of St. Fiacre—that
saint who has since extended his protection
to the fraternity of hackney coachmen, but
was unable, in seventeen hundred and fourteen,
to defend his own residence from the
accumulated ice which on the breaking up of
the frost in that year came down in heaped-up
masses, shocking against the piers, piling
itself up over arch, over architrave, over parapet;
and then with one great crash which must
have been heard in every part of the city, carrying
away stone, iron, earth—everything; even
the image of St. Fiacre, and leaving Blois
"lone, sitting by the shore," without the
power of visiting its opposite neighbours.
And there were many churches at that golden
time, all ringing out with joyous bells when the
town made holiday; these are now reduced
to the paltry number three, and have forgotten
even how to pretend to look happy. But the
charm of all, the crowning monument of the
city's splendour, was the noble Castle of Blois.
It was a real feudal palace, built in the purest
taste, vast in its extent, magnificent in its
decorations, and giving life, and wealth, and
dignity to the whole county.

I do not speak of the time dear to the
hearts of patriotic Englishmen, when King
Stephen resided here, and probably provided
himself in his native capital, with those
expensive habiliments which Shakespeare has
not disdained to celebrate. And what a fine
touch of character it is, to make that gross
and coarse rival of Matilda break forth into
such vulgar reflections on the tradesman who
supplied the clothes. Not of the times of
that worthy peer do I speak, but of a
more civilised and gentlemanly personage,
the gay and gallant Louis the Duke of
Orleans. That was the climax of the grandeur
and the happiness of the city. There
were crowds in the streets, hundreds of
retainers in the castle-yard, knights and
nobles coming in to ball or tournament from
Orleans or Tours, or even distant visitors
from Nevers or Limoges. For Louis is young
yet: this is in fourteen hundred and ninety-
six, and he is only thirty-four years of age;
he is planning new additions to his native
château; he is recovering from the disagreeable
three years he had spent in a prison at Bourges,
where, by the kindness of his sister-in-
law, Anne of Beaujeu, he is locked up
every night in an iron cage; he is
congratulating himself on his victories in the
Italian campaign of Charles the Eighth;
he is consoling himself for the plainness of his
wife, the gentle Jeanne de Yalois (who had
been forced upon him by her father Louis
the Eleventh), with noble entertainments to
all the beauties of the country. He is doing
all these things, and Blois rejoices. It even
breaks out into trade in the sunshine of royal
favour. The gloves of Blois become famous,—
whether soft and white for the fair hands of
princesses, or gauntlets of proof for warriors
in the lists; cloths are imported from
Holland and Flanders; merchants grow
illustrious and rich; and the cream from St.
Gervais—alas! what must we confess? The
glover is unknown; the cloth importation
has ceased; the merchants are few and spiritless;
and nothing remains but the famous
St. Gervais cream! So much more enduring
(as a philosophic historian would say) are the
products of agriculture than the ephemeral
successes of trade. Suddenly a rumour finds
its way to Blois that Charles the Eighth is
very ill. The knights and nobles flock in
faster than ever, the ladies smile more
sweetly; the town rings out its bells more
merrily; and, when in fourteen hundred and
ninety-eight, the great herald, after a
fatiguing journey from Amboise, dressed in
mourning, all the fleurs-de-lis on his tabard
covered with crape, enters the great hall in
the château, and kneels at the Duke of
Orleans' feet, the city knows no end of its
pride and exultation; it has actually given
birth to a king, and the racketting, handsome,
outspoken inhabitant of the Castle is Louis
the Twelfth of France. Vive le Roi!

What was the first thing this emblem and
embodiment of chivalry does? He sends an
insulting message to his poor little wife—Jeanne
de Valois— and a message of a very different
kind to the widow of his predecessor—Anne
of Brittany. He pays a visit of condolence
to the dowager-heiress of that wealthy dukedom,
but the condolence ought to have been
addressed to the king's daughter, who sat in
silence and sorrow, and heard the rejoicings
for her husband's elevation to the throne.
Within the year the widowed Anne became a
second time Queen of France; and Jeanne,
disgraced, despised, repudiated, found refuge
in a convent.

It is curious to observe that, in the course
of time, this exemplary gentleman became
brother-in-law to Henry the Eighth of England.
But it is with the grand days of Blois
we have to do, not with the characters of
royal Bluebeards, in either nation. The
French, of all the people in the world, know
best how to house their monarchs. They have
a massive taste in architecture which
imprints something solemn on their royal
dwellings, as if the divinity that hedged a king
made his ordinary residence a sort of temple
of earthly power. The Castle of Blois grew
royal in right of the tenants it contained:
prouder turrets were added to its walls,