Chapter 7

We never went to Chinon; it was a fatality. We
planned it a dozen times; but the weather interfered,
or the trains didn't suit, or one of the party was
fatigued with the adventures of'the day before. This
excursion was so much postponed that it was finally
postponed to everything. Besides, we had to go to
Chenonceaux, to Azay-le-Rideau, to Langeais, to Loches.
So I have not the memory of Chinon; I have only the
regret. But regret, as well as memory, has its visions;
especially when, like memory, it is assisted by photo-
graphs. The castle of Chinon in this form appears
to me as an enormous ruin, a mediaeval fortress, of
the extent almost of a city. It covers a hill above the
Vienne, and after being impregnable in its time is in-
destructible to-day. (I risk this phrase in the face of
the prosaic truth. Chinon, in the days when it was a
prize, more than once suflered capture, and at present
it is crumbling inch by inch. It is apparent, however,
I believe, that these inches encroach little upon acres
of masonry.) It was in the castle that Jeanne Darc ?????
had her first interview with Charles VII., and it is in
the town that Francois Rabelais is supposed to have
been born. To the castle, moreover, the lover of the
picturesque is earnestly recommended to direct his
steps. But one cannot do everything, and I would
rather have missed Chinon than Chenonceaux. For-
tunate exceedingly were the few hours that we passed
at this exquisite residence.

"In 1747," says Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in his
"Confessions," "we went to spend the autumn in Tou-
raine, at the Chateau, of Chenonceaux, a royal resi-
dence upon the Cher, built by Henry II. for Diana of
Poitiers, whose initials are still to be seen there, and
now in possession of M. Dupin, the farmer-general.
We amused ourselves greatly in this fine spot; the liv-
ing was of the best, and I became as fat as a monk.
We made a great deal of music, and acted comedies."

This is the only description that Rousseau gives
of one of the most romantic houses in France, and of
an episode that must have counted as one of the most
agreeable in his uncomfortable career. The eighteenth
century contented itself with general epithets; and
when Jean-Jacques has said that Chenonceaux was a
"beau lieu," he thinks himself absolved from further
characterization. We later sons of time have, both for
our pleasure and our pain, invented the fashion of
special terms, and I am afraid that even common
decency obliges me to pay some larger tribute than
this to the architectural gem of Touraine. Fortunately
I can discharge my debt with gratitude. In going
from Tours you leave the valley of the