[Illustration: Copyright by Underwood & Underwood
The Hôtel de France nearby spread before us a ménu so good that we confiscated the _carte du jour_ as a souvenir.
Eagerly we looked forward to Chenonceaux, built on the Cher, most exquisite of the French châteaux and for centuries the rendezvous of wit and beauty. Motor cars lined the roadside by the gates of the park. Some of the visitors had driven in carriages from the nearest railway stations. We sauntered down an avenue of trees to a large garden, rather a formal piece of landscape work. The drawbridge offered access to the château. François I purchased it. Later, Henry II, ascending the throne, gave it to his mistress, Diane de Poitiers. The French women of that day had a big share in the shaping of history; the conversations of the boudoir were often more influential than state councils. Diane built a bridge which connected the castle with the other side of the river. Twelve years later, the death of Henry II gave his widow, Catherine de' Medici, a chance to relieve her embittered feelings. She forced Diane to exchange Chenonceaux for another château. Upon the bridge built by her rival, Catherine erected a long gallery, surmounted by a banqueting hall. This fairy-like structure is so strangely placed, one is reminded of a fantastic ship moored in the river. It is remarkable for its celebrated Renaissance architecture and for the absence of bloody traditions. "Blois is stained with the blood of Guise; Amboise was the scene of massacre; Loches stands upon unnumbered dungeons; Chenonceaux alone has no bloodstain on its stones and no groan has ever risen from its vaults. Eight generations of kings took their pleasure there, and a long line of brilliant and beautiful women makes its history like a rope of pearls." Even the gloomy, plotting Catherine did nothing to disturb the peaceful records and gorgeous _fêtes_ of Chenonceaux. In the "_chambre de Diane de Poitiers_" we saw a painting representing Catherine. Those cold, brooding eyes looked capable of anything, from the murder of the Duc de Guise to the massacre of St. Bartholomew.
Two other châteaux of our itinerary still remained, Amboise and Blois, the latter perhaps the most famous of them all. We decided to visit these châteaux _en route_ down the valley of Loire to Orléans. The following morning we bade farewell to Tours. The road swept us along the left bank of the Loire, all aglitter in the September sunshine. What a wonderful stream it is, the longest river in France, with its basin embracing one fourth of that country! There is not a river in the world like it. One feels the breath of romance, the spell of historical associations, the beauty of its curves sweeping through a smiling land. "Perhaps no stream, in so short a portion of its course, has so much history to tell."[6] Along its banks flourished for three centuries the court of the Valois kings. There are vineyards, the remains of mediæval forests, little villages that have scarcely changed in a hundred years, and splendid châteaux like those of Blois, Chaumont, Chambord, and Amboise, almost reflecting their towers in the water and rich in the wonders of the French Renaissance.