Part 22

In the time of King Malcolm, Glamis was a royal residence, and remained so till 1372, when Sir John Lyon, “a young man of very good parts and qualities, and of a very graceful and comely person, and a great favourite with the king” (Robert II.), was made Lord High Chamberlain of Scotland. At that time the king’s daughter, the Princess Jean, fell in love with this young knight, and was given him in marriage together with the lands of the thanedom of Glamis, “_pro laudabili et fideli servitio et continuis laboribus_,” as the charter bears witness, March 18, 1372. Ten years later Sir John fell in a duel with Sir James Lindsay of Crawford, and was buried at Scone among the kings of Scotland. He left one son, from whom the present family of Lyon have descended without a break from _father to son_ to the present day. Fifty years later, Sir Patrick Lyon (Sir John’s grandson), who was one of the hostages to the English for the ransom of James I. from 1424 to 1427, was created Baron Glamis, and appointed Master of the Household to the King of Scotland. For the next hundred years nothing of interest occurred till John, sixth Lord Glamis, married the beautiful Janet Douglas, granddaughter of the great Earl of Angus (Bell-the-Cat), and died in 1528. Lady Glamis married, secondly, Archibald Campbell, of Kepneith, whose relative, another Campbell, fell in love with her. Finding, however, that his addresses were but ill received by this lady, who was as good as she was lovely, his love turned to hate, and he revenged himself by informing the authorities that Lady Glamis, her son, Lord Glamis, and John Lyon, his relative, were conspiring against the life of the king, James V., by poison or witchcraft. They were tried for high treason, and wrongfully convicted! Lady Glamis and her young son were both sentenced to be _burned_, and the estate of Glamis was forfeited and annexed to the Crown by Act of Parliament, December 3d, 1540. However, these brutal judges, on account of the extreme youth of Lord Glamis, feared to bring him to execution, so the boy was kept in prison, with the death sentence hanging over him, while the beautiful Lady Glamis was dragged forth and burned at the stake on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh, July 17th, 1537. Those were days when acts of violence and cruelty were regarded with an indifference that we cannot now realize, although when she stood up in her beauty to undergo this fearful sentence, it is recorded that all heads were bowed in sorrowful sympathy. When this infamous execution was accomplished, remorse seems to have come over Campbell, who was visited by visions of his victim looking at him with sad, reproachful eyes. When, some years later, his death was drawing nigh, he confessed that his evidence at the trial was altogether false. Lord Glamis was therefore released from prison, and his estates and honours restored.

To return to the Castle. The exterior is much ornamented with ancient armorial bearings in carved stone, while a round niche over the front door contains a bust of Earl Patrick. The principal entrance is a striking feature. The doorway is small and low, and a stout iron-clenched oaken door, thickly studded with nails, is guarded on the inside by a heavily grated iron gate, which opens right on to the staircase. A flight of steps to the right of the entrance leads down to the dungeons, vaults, and the old well (now filled up) which supplied the inmates with water in times of siege; while another stair to the left leads up to the Retainers’ Hall (or Crypt as it is now called), low, and fifty feet in length, with walls and arched roof entirely composed of stone. Of the seven windows, which are small, four or five are cut out of the thickness of the walls, and make recesses just large enough to form small rooms, which might have been used as sleeping chambers in old days. Lay figures, clad in complete armour, stand in the recesses, which, especially in the dusk, give an eerie effect to this part of the Castle. It is said that a ghostly man in armour walks this floor at night--possibly the original of one of those armoured figures standing silently in the crypt year after year, who may, perchance, have ended his life in the dungeon that lies exactly underneath.

CHÂTEAU DE CHINON

J. J. BOURRASSÉE

To the traveller who arrives at Chinon from the south or west, the aspect of the old castle is imposing. What an effect it must have produced at the period of its full splendour! Originally it was a fortress situated on an eminence commanding the course of the Vienne and the fertile plain of Veron. It might be regarded as the key of lower Touraine. Therefore we see the Romans, the Visigoths, the Franks, and, later, the Counts of Anjou and Touraine, the Kings of England and France sparing no efforts to secure its possession. In 462, Frederic, brother of Theodoric King of the Visigoths, having advanced as far as the banks of the Loire, seized the Castle of Chinon: up to that time the Romans had occupied it, and by its favourable position it had become the last citadel of their power in this part of Gaul. Ægidius Afranius, the Roman governor of Gaul, hastened into Touraine to recover Chinon; but he could not do it by force of arms. Despairing of carrying the place of assault, the Romans blockaded it. The defenders were at the last extremity from lack of water when a violent storm poured abundant rain within the ramparts. The Romans raised the siege and the Visigoths remained masters of the castle until the defeat of Alaric in the plains of Vouille. The conquering Clovis understood the importance of this military post and made it one of the ramparts of his kingdom.

The Frankish princes installed themselves there so well that no foe ever thought of disputing its possession with them. The Carlovingians were still its masters when feudalism transformed to the profit of the great barons the precarious title that they held by the confidence of the sovereign. Thibault the Trickster had Touraine as his share in this vast parcelling out of France. He had the Castle of Chinon repaired and often resided there, as in an impregnable fortress. Thibault’s lot in the partition of the territory was not in the least an agreeable one, for he had to defend it against the envy of his neighbors. Touraine for about a century was a prey over which rival powers fought. In the end it remained with the strongest. The Count of Anjou became completely master of it after the battle of Nouy, fought on the heights of Montlouis in 1044. Even in the bosom of this powerful house there were quarrels over the possession of the Castle of Chinon. An unequal partition between Geoffroy le Barbu and Foulques le Rechin led to war between those two brothers. Abandoned and betrayed by his followers, Geoffroy was made prisoner and cast into the cells of the Castle of Chinon, where he remained closely immured for the space of eighteen years with such rigour that he almost lost his reason. Nothing less than the intervention of Pope Urban II. in 1096 was required to have him set at liberty.

[Illustration: CHÂTEAU DE CHINON, FRANCE.]

Thanks to a marriage, the house of Anjou mounted the throne of England and Chinon became a royal possession. Henry Plantagenet, great-grandson of Foulques le Rechin, brings this fine residence into new relief. Henry II. made it his favourite manor. He made it the seat of a royally privileged domain, comprising Cande, Champigny, La Haye, L’Île Bouchard, Saint Epain, Sainte Maure, Azay le Rideau and Bourgueil. Henry II. added to the Castle of Chinon a fortress distinct from the other buildings, with its own ramparts, moats, gates, drawbridges, buildings for the accommodation of the King, his court and his archers, and its church dedicated to St. George. From his donjon keep, the King of England ceaselessly laboured to increase his territory and his influence on the Continent. By means of his marriage with Eleanor of Guienne, repudiated by King Louis VII., he had become more powerful than his sovereign. It seems as if nothing could stay the course of such success, were it not for discord in his own family. At war with Philip Augustus, and with his own son the famous Richard Cœur de Lion, the King of England retired to Chinon. Necessity compelled him to sign with the King of France the humiliating peace of Azay sur Cher. “Shame!” he cried, “shame to the vanquished king! Cursed be the day I was born! Curses upon my two sons!” This fit of fury sent him to the tomb, July 6, 1189. He was carried without pomp to the Abbey of Fontévrault, near Chinon, where he had desired to be buried.

Ten years later, another train took the same road: it was that of Richard Cœur de Lion. Being mortally wounded at the siege of Chaluz, that prince caused himself to be taken to Chinon, where he quickly succumbed in cruel agony. He was buried beside Henry II. in the Abbey of Fontévrault, that celebrated house that has had as abbess fourteen princesses of the royal blood, and that had deserved the name of _King’s Cemetery_. In an obscure corner are still to be seen the admirable statues of the counts of Anjou, masterpieces of the statuary at the close of the Twelfth Century.

At that time, nothing presaged that the Castle of Chinon was to leave the hands of the Kings of England, when suddenly a protracted cry of horror and indignation resounded through the world. John Lackland had just got rid of his nephew, Arthur of Brittany, by a cowardly murder at Rouen. Philip Augustus summoned the murderer to appear before the court of the peers of the realm. After several adjournments regularly notified, the criminal, not having presented himself, was condemned to lose the fiefs held from the French crown. The sentence was easy to deliver, but not so easy to execute. The King of France hastened to Touraine at the head of an army and took possession of Tours, Loches and Chinon.

It must be admitted that the Castle of Chinon was valiantly defended; it was carried by assault after an obstinate struggle in 1205. Philip Augustus gave it a good garrison. After that day, the English never set foot in it; and when during our intestine discord they profited by treason and dominated many of our provinces, the Castle of Chinon was the last refuge of the monarchy. From there were struck all the blows that gave France back her independence.

Feudalism had greatly lessened the royal power. Noble efforts had been made to restore the authority that the king ought never to have lost. These attempts had produced memorable results; but the great feudatories were discontented. They wanted to profit by the minority of Louis IX. and the regency of a woman to recover the power that had escaped them. Events called St. Louis and Queen Blanche to Chinon. The young king held a parliament of twenty days at the castle gates. The rebel lords refused to attend, but their plans were rendered abortive, thanks to the activity of Blanche of Castile.

Philip Augustus had partly rebuilt the Castle of Chinon: the Thirteenth Century work is easily visible amid the later constructions. Under the reign of St. Louis, further works to render this fortress as a whole more formidable were executed.

In 1308, a great bustle was manifest in the Castle and town of Chinon: Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Order of the Templars, Hughes de Péraldo, Visitor of France, and the Commanders of Cyprus, Aquitaine and Normandy had just been brought in. Other Knights of the same Order had already been confined there. They were all to be taken to Poictiers where were Pope Clement V. and Philippe le Bel, King of France; but several of them had fallen ill on the road, so the sovereign pontiff deputed three cardinals to proceed with the investigation at Chinon. Every one knows the result of these grave proceedings: the Order of the Templars was suppressed, and those who were prisoners at Chinon only left their cells to go to the stake at Paris. They had confessed their crimes in the question to which they had been put; but most of them retracted amidst the flames. This frightful execution took place in 1313.

Towards the end of the Fourteenth Century, Charles VI. ceded the duchy of Touraine and the county of Chinon to his brother Louis, Duke of Orleans, who was afterwards assassinated by order of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy. This period recalls the most mournful memories of our history. Our land was ravaged by bands of English, skilful to profit by our dissensions. At last the hour of deliverance has arrived. France will now see more prosperous days; and Charles VII., the Victorious, will stretch his sceptre over the territory formerly subject to his ancestor.

Charles VII. established his court at Chinon. Joan of Arc came to see him there and to inaugurate her extraordinary mission beneath the castle arches. Everybody knows the details of the heroine’s arrival at Chinon: how she recognized the disguised king in the midst of his courtiers, revealed a secret known only to himself and God, showed herself full of confidence in the cause that she was to make triumphant and finally succeeded in inspiring the hearts of others with the enthusiasm that overflowed her own.

Thus the first public deeds of the providential mission of Joan of Arc are connected with Chinon. At this moment, Charles VII. had by his side another woman of generous heart and strong spirit: this was the queen, Marie of Anjou. Her influence was greater than historians have recognized; it was much more salutary and efficacious than that of Agnes Sorel. When the latter appeared at Chinon for the first time before the eyes of Charles VII., it was already six months since Joan of Arc had gone to the stake at Rouen. Is not that enough for us to say that France had already been saved and that the advice and remonstrances of Agnes Sorel came too late?

However that may be, the presence of Agnes Sorel at the court of Chinon was insupportable to the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XI. He even made it a pretext for a conspiracy against his father. These designs of an unnatural son did not succeed, but they poisoned the King’s last years.

In 1461, Charles VII. died at Mehun sur Yèvre, and Louis XI. succeeded to the throne. Louis XI. took up his abode by preference at the Castle of Plessis-lez-Tours: he often came to Chinon. It was in the environs of that town, at the Castle of Forges, that he felt the first attack of the malady that carried him off. Philippe de Commines, Seigneur d’Argenton, governor of the Castle of Chinon, informs us how this accident, which was nothing less than an attack of apoplexy, came upon him.

In the very year of the death of Louis XI. a famous personage in buffoon literature was born at Chinon. François Rabelais is the most cynical of writers, and if, as some people assert, he tried to hide his philosophy beneath the masque of folly, it must be acknowledged that he succeeded.

After the reign of Louis XI., the Castle of Chinon was very little frequented by the court. Catherine de’Medici was there in 1560, and the Duke of Anjou, afterwards Henri III. appeared there at the head of his army, marching against the Reformers, who were to be so rudely chastised in the plains of Montoncour.

In 1629, the Princess de Conti, who possessed Chinon by virtue of an exchange of property with Henry of Lorraine, Duke of Chevreuse, sold the castle with all its dependencies to Cardinal Richelieu. The sale gave the signal, so to speak, for the demolition of the royal castle of the Plantagenets and French monarchs. When the Revolution, that piled up so many ruins arrived, it found nothing more to do here.

The remains of the old manor are still gigantic. Those high walls, dismantled curtains, crenellated masonry, and discrowned turrets harbour glorious memories; but it is not always easy to distinguish what belongs to each century, or clearly to discern the work of the Romans or the Visigoths, of Thibault the Trickster, Henry II., Philip Augustus, Charles VII., or Louis XI. The greater part of these ruins, however, is characteristic of the Fifteenth Century. Scarcely anything remains intact except the belfry tower, now called the _Tour de l’Horloge_, twenty to twenty-five meters in height. These picturesque ruins belong to the town of Chinon, having been left to it by the house of Richelieu.

THE SUMMER PALACE

MAURICE PALÉOLOGUE

THE last time that I saw the Imperial Palace of Pekin was on a morning in the last of April. The air was fresh and limpid, and the vault of heaven seemed to have lifted itself to a prodigious height. It was not that somewhat misty atmosphere of spring in France, which seems impregnated with damp and vegetable odours, and which bathes the unstable outlines of objects; neither was it that tenuous light of those mornings in the East that overspreads the distances, envelops objects, and defines their planes. It was a very dry air, for five months had passed since a drop of rain had fallen, with an almost brutal clearness which seemed to bring the horizon nearer and which harshly exhibited the forms of the buildings and the lines of the landscape.

I went out very early, and the windings of my course took me to the Imperial City, one of the three cities that compose the capital of the Middle Kingdom. The streets differed in appearance from those of the quarters I had just traversed, the shops became rarer, the roadways wider, and the temples and palaces closer together. But at this early hour there was still greater animation here, and a crowd of horsemen, pedestrians, and carriages made passage difficult.

I was about to turn in order to return to the French Legation, when a cart, peculiarly constructed upon two wheels placed almost at the back, and escorted by two horsemen, made my horse stand aside; it was a Tartar carriage from the court stables: a black mule harnessed with yellow leather and led by a groom, also in yellow livery, drew it along with great strides.

In front, visible between the open curtains, a young woman was seated with her legs crossed beneath her. She was clothed in a large mantle of salmon-pink silk bordered with blue and gold lace and ornamented down the front and on the sleeves with clusters of flowers embroidered with very delicate brilliancy and delicious harmony of colour. This vestment almost entirely covered her gown of a pale and dead green that fell in folds about her.

Her hair, gathered up on the top of her head, was divided in two thick folds, crossed here and there by long pins of gold, surmounted by butterflies of silver filagree, and artificial flowers of the strangest forms and hues. Also, as is customary among ladies of quality, her face was entirely painted with ceruse; but the cheeks and the dimple of the chin and the lips were coated with a thick layer of carmine, while a line of antimony immoderately lengthened her eyes out towards the temples, and two black _mouches_ stuck near the cheek-bone, gave a peculiar appearance, a sort of air of morbid coquetry, to this depressing face in which life seemed to have been extinguished.

[Illustration: THE SUMMER PALACE, CHINA.]

She held herself in a paralyzed immobility, with a hebetated fixity of gaze and a doubtful glimmer of intelligence, oscillating like a waxen puppet or an idol in a procession, at each jolt of the carriage. She was, doubtless, judging from the livery of the driver and the escorting horsemen, a young Tartar lady of the court, one of the Empress’s maids of honour, or one of the imperial princesses shut up in the Palace.

I set out to follow her at a distance. Her chariot ascended the inclined plane of a bridge, the flooring of which was of marble; the balustrade, also of marble, supported some sculptured dragons.

Beneath the arches, the waters of a lake glittered. The light of the sun, still near the horizon, barely touched the liquid surface but spread its brilliancy everywhere else. In certain spots, lotus flowers blossomed and made the lake look like a meadow floating upon the clear and sleeping waters. It was the “Golden Lake,” a dependency of the Imperial Palace, whose high walls and golden roofs could be seen in the background.

Light buildings, such as kiosks and temples, reached to the shore. The vast number of these roofs assumed rosy hues and the slightest details of their complicated architecture stood out clearly, looking in the liquid air that enveloped them, elegant, graceful and fresh amid the apricot trees and blossoming mimosas that covered the banks.

North China was, in fact, just emerging from her long winter’s mourning, and the impression given by that spring-tide picture of earth’s new awakening was exquisite.

The Tartar chariot continued to advance with the rapid steps of its mule: it was now passing at the foot of an artificial hill, planted with green trees, at the summit of which rose a Buddhist obelisk that stood out almost harshly against the blue of the sky.

But along the shore of the lake, the tints had already become deeper, and the lines less sharp. The kiosks, the pavilions, and the temples that rose upon the banks exhibited the original type of Chinese buildings, a canvas tent with turned up corners. The extreme profusion of ornamental details did not succeed in hiding the poverty of the original conception: dragons, chimeras, phœnixes, and tortoises, an entire fabulous and fantastic zoology of sculptured wood or terra cotta, surcharged the ridge-poles; figurines and painted flowers of clay weighed down the cornices, the larmiers, and the pediments; gaudy colors made a motley mixture upon the capitals of the columns and the architraves; but beneath this bristling and unrestrained decoration, you always found the absolute and invariable type that China has uniformly adopted at every epoch of her history and throughout her entire empire.

However, I had by this time arrived at the fortified enclosure of the palace. High above me a rampart reared itself, thirty feet high and surrounded by a wide moat. At regular intervals, towers with turned-up roofs jutted out over this line of stone which extended so far that it seemed to shut in an entire city. A few trees had crossed the sloping wall, and the shadows of their branches spread over the dark and stagnant waters of the moat.

A large gateway, surmounted by an enormous square tower, gave access to the interior of the palace, and three gigantic black letters engraved upon a golden panel at the summit of the tower seemed a mysterious inscription placed at the threshold of an unknown world.