Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/594

586 mark of his high station, and was dressed in a remarkably plain set of clothes, still she at once recognised him, and singled him out, as the favoured object to whom her high and sacred mission was to be delivered.

The ruins are of vast extent; the situation of the castle must have been magnificent, as the lofty rock on which it stands is full 300 feet above the river; the royal apartments are beneath, the only habitable part of the edifice. The scene of the memorable interview between the Dauphin Charles, and the shepherd girl of Donrèmy, is now a broken ruin, open to the sky; there, where the careless and luxurious Charles enjoyed the splendours of his magnificent court, nothing now is to be seen but a mass of luxuriant vegetation instead of the gorgeous flooring; stone walls, for gay hangings; the open air of heaven, in lieu of the perfume-laden atmosphere, in which dwelt that effeminate prince. So complete is the ruin, that one wonders at the faithfulness of tradition, that still points out the exact locality of those scenes we have been describing; but we have not yet done with the recollections belonging to these old walls. In the third court, we were shown the towers of La Glacière, where it is said Jacques de Molay, the Grand Master of the Templars, was imprisoned; and still more interesting to one’s feelings (at least our romantic feelings), the Tour d’Argentan is now before the visitor; from hence, a secret passage had been fabricated under ground, leading beyond the outer walls, to the Maison de Robardeau, the retreat of poor Agnes Sorel, the king’s mistress. Contemplate those two lives, side by side, both women eminently gifted, mentally and corporeally—both intimately connected with the same royal personage, only in a totally different manner; neither of them born in high life; the one renouncing all her feminine attributes to serve her country’s cause and her king’s; the other, through the depth of her affection for the man, sacrificing all a woman holds most dear; but, from the time of her fall, devoting all her influence, and all her time, to doing good and showing, from her utter indifference to all the luxuries, the gorgeous dwellings, the careful tendance with which Charles surrounded her, that neither ambition, nor love of pleasure, nor a love of wealth had any share in bringing about her fall. And as widely different were their lives, so different also were their deaths: one betrayed by those who owed her most, died a miserable death, a martyr and a heroine to the last; while Agnes Sorel died tranquilly on her bed, making her final acts promote the good of numbers yet unborn, by endowing public institutions with the wealth lavished upon her by Charles, and greatly as she erred, so deeply did she repent her fall.

Who that has read the delightful pages of our matchless novelist, is not familiar with the name of Plessis les Tours, the castellated den, for really one is loth to give any other name to the residence of the cruel, crafty tyrant and bigot, Louis XI., who mixed up the most abominable hypocrisy with the most open and barefaced crimes? This castellated house (for a real castle, even a French one, it certainly is not) is situated near a small hamlet on the outskirts of the town of Tours. It resembles, in some measure, the Palace of Hampton Court, which is about the same date; but the mean, niggardly nature of Louis, so cramped the plans of his architects, while his miserable cowardice so multiplied all the means of defence, battlements, drawbridges, walls of inclosure, &c., &c., that it resembled as a whole something between a prison and an ill-built mansion; though, in some points, it recalled to one’s mind, our own far more stately palace. Only a small part of the original building now remains; it is of dark red brick, with a very pointed, high-pitched roof. The vaulted chambers under ground still remain, and according to old records of the place, dungeons abounded in this gloomy spot. At the end of the garden there is a deep vault, which is shown to strangers, and it retains the name of Cardinal Baluc’s prison. He was shut up here for telling his master’s secrets to his rival, Charles Duke of Burgundy. The barred window, the narrow stone stair, bear signs of great age. Not very far from the spot is a small deeply-vaulted chapel, which is called Louis’s Oratory. Here he spent half the day or night, in abject entreaty to the Virgin, or some one of his favourite saints, for the restoration of his health, when suffering from the different maladies that finally put an end to his life. He died as he had lived; to the very last a hypocrite, forming crafty plans for the defeat of his enemies, by every sort of wicked device, or cruel scheme, that even his fertile fancy could invent. In 1483 he breathed his last at Plessis, more abjectly and utterly miserable than any of those whom he had persecuted. A worthy end to so hateful a life!

As one passes from Tours to Angers, taking the route by Saumur, there are still several of these historical châteaux to be cursorily noticed. The name of Cinq Mars will recall the handsome, spirited, clever and ambitious favourite of Louis XIII., the sharer in all his pleasures, courageous, courtly, and fascinating; and as we gaze on the ruined walls of the castle whence he derived his title, a whole romance seems to unfold before one: indeed, his fate has been made the subject of both a French and an English novel. Not all his advantages were of any avail when he roused the suspicious fears of Cardinal Richelieu: a plot against the omnipotent minister was discovered, his share in it proved, and the cardinal represented him to the king as a traitor to his royal master. Louis made a stand in favour of Cinq Mars, and for a long while refused to give him up; but it was all in vain, the fiat had gone forth, and the favourite perished, a victim to the insatiable ambition and love of power of the cardinal. The castle is now only a picturesque ruin.

It is singular in this part of France that there is hardly a small hamlet that cannot boast of its château. Langeais, which in England would only be called a flourishing village, is still distinguished by a castle in very good preservation. It is somewhat remarkable as having been the scene of the marriage of Charles VIII. and Anne of Brittany; this great province being the appanage of Anne, became henceforth united to the Crown of France. It was built as far back as in the time of Philippe le Hardi, by Pierre le Brosse,