Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/568

560 Henri II. bestowed this charming residence on his mistress Diana, and here her royal lover always resorted after a day’s hunting in the Forest of Loches. Her initial D. is seen everywhere; sometimes alone, sometimes united with Henri’s in a monogram, thus ; but after Henri’s death she was no longer allowed to retain possession, as we have shown in our account of Chaumont. The next illustrious inmate, after the detested Catherine de’ Medici, was Louise de Lorraine, the widow of Henri III.; the black hangings—tokens of her grief—still remain in her room; and to pass from royalty to those ennobled by learning or talent who have been its inmates, we may mention Voltaire, Bolingbroke during his exile, Rousseau, and many others, drawn together by the then owner of the château, the beautiful and highly accomplished Madame Dupin, who lived as late as the year 1799, through many of the horrors of the Revolution.

Many an hour may be most agreeably spent by the curious visitor in examining the interesting portraits preserved here, including those of all the dwellers at Chenonceau Diana’s own picture in the costume of her goddess namesake, the skirt all sprigged with gold fleurs-de-lis, is there; but, as is so often the case with likenesses of celebrated beauties in old times, it does not, to our eyes, give any idea of her matchless charms. Henri Quatre, Sully, Rabelais,—all call for marked attention; but what most attracted me was a cast taken from the lovely face of Agnes Sorrel. We shall speak of the origin of this cast when we come to the Castle of Loches. It is a very remarkable fact, that all through the troubled times of the Revolution, when nearly every place or thing connected in any way with royalty was desecrated and destroyed in the most ruthless manner, the Castle of Chenonceau should wholly have escaped, owing to the respect felt for Madame Dupin in all that neighbourhood; and a stronger tribute to the unassuming virtues of a private individual was surely never paid!

But we must leave these bright and riante scenes, and pass along the dreary road leading us partly through the Forest of Loches to a castle which teems with gloomy and terrible recollections, having been a prison of State especially during the reign of Louis XI.

The town is one of the most picturesque in France; one cannot fail to be struck by it the moment it appears in sight, at the end of the drive from Chenonceau, with its historic, but most ill-omened castle, domineering over the landscape, and forming the one prominent feature in every view of the place. The castle is now partly in ruins, but in former days it was the scene of royal revels when James V. of Scotland came to wed the French princess Magdalen, then in the prime of life and the bloom of beauty; but these memories are swallowed up and lost in the fearful traditions belonging to it, as one of the State prisons in the days of that cruel, crafty tyrant Louis XI. All the more secret acts of cruelty with which even he did not choose to pollute his own palace, are known to have taken place here, in the awful dungeons, deep down in the bowels of the earth, some not even known to the keepers, till some unfortunate victim was to be consigned to this living death, when some one in Louis’s confidence revealed to the keeper (who was to be entrusted with the prisoner) this fresh place of torment. It was here that those cages were kept, so constructed that the wretched creature placed therein could neither stand nor stretch himself at full length in them; these were invented by one high in the good graces of the monarch, the Cardinal Balne. That this fearful place might have a fitting head gaoler placed over it, the appointment was given to the celebrated Olivier le Daim, the king’s barber and chief-counsellor, and his equal in every sort of wickedness. The castle was erected as early as the eleventh century by one of the Counts of Anjou. The walls are over eight feet in thickness; and the château forms an immense mass of buildings of many different ages.

The lofty White Tower, as it is called, measuring 120 feet in height, and rising over the verge of a steep precipice, is very striking. Close to it is the tower containing the fearful cachots I have spoken of, deep down, one below the other. Here Ludovico Sforzo il Moro, Duke of Milan, was imprisoned for ten wretched years, in 1500, till he was mercifully released from his suffering by his death, in 1510. The famous historian, Philip de Commines, was imprisoned here in 1486; the Duc d’Alençon, in 1456. Charles de Melun, in 1468, was shut up in one of these donjons, and finally beheaded; but were I to continue the list of the miserable victims who have languished out a fearful existence, longing for death to release them, and to put an end to their long martyrdom, I should never have done. These awful cages still existed as late as 1789.

How awful it is to think of the long catalogue of crimes committed within those doomed walls, many of them at the command of one man! It would be almost too painfully exciting to visit the actual scenes of such deep and revolting tragedies, were it not that even here there is a softening side to the picture, in the recollections of the beautiful, tender-hearted Agnes Sorel, the much-loved mistress of Charles VIII. She was born in the neighbourhood, and in the days of her influence with Charles, she was known as the active, untiring protectress and friend of all those in distress. Humble-minded, gentle, and generous, she was never wearied of seeking out fresh cases where her aid might be effectual. Her monument is placed in the chapel at Loches. It is carved in limestone, white as snow, and placed on a base of black marble. The effigy of “La Belle des Belles,” as she was called, is most rarely beautiful; her hands are clasped and raised as if in prayer, while two angels bend over her. Long, flowing drapery clothes her figure, while a simple circlet is her only ornament. The exquisite sweetness, gentleness, and refinement that were the characteristics of her beauty, are rendered with rare fidelity in this statue. The cast I mentioned some pages back, was taken from it. Certainly, poor Agnes Sorel was a singular case of a king’s favourite never, in any known instance, exercising her influence over him but for good.