Part 18

I need not tell you, after our experience with Roman camps, that there was little to be seen upon the site of this one of Angers; but we were interested in the glimpse that we had, in passing through Ancenis, of its ancient chateau with its tower-flanked doorway, the work of an Angevin architect. Within this chateau, M. La Tour tells us, an important treaty was signed by Francois II of Brittany and Louis XI.

As we drew near Nantes the strong salt air blowing in our faces made us realize that we were near the sea. Nantes and St. Nazaire, which is a little north and west of Nantes, are among the great sea ports of the world. And here we find ourselves again in the Dumas country, for it was along the part of the Loire that we have seen to-day that Fouquet fled pursued relentlessly by Colbert. If only Fouquet could have reached Nantes and his own Belle Ile, out beyond St. Nazaire, a different fate might have been his. We follow again in imagination, with almost breathless interest, that close pursuit, of one boat by the other, until we suddenly find ourselves winding through the streets of a town and know that we are in Queen Anne's city of Nantes, that also of the monk Abelard and of the famous warrior surnamed "Bras de Fer."

Gazing upon the redoubtable Chateau of Nantes with its six towers, its bastions and its wide and deep moat, into which the sea poured its rising tide twice each day, we could understand Henri Quatre saying, as he stood before it, "Ventre Saint Gris! the Dukes of Brittany were not men to be trifled with!" It was into the dungeon of this chateau that Fouquet was first thrown, and here Mazarin had Henri de Gondi imprisoned, and from whence, as M. La Tour tells us, he escaped over the side of the Bastion de Mercoeur, by means of a rope smuggled into the prison by his friends. There are no end of interesting associations connected with Nantes, of which not the least important is that Henry of Navarre here signed the Edict of Nantes, the Huguenot charter of liberties.

We needed a full day here, but remembering our promise, we did not even ask whether the chateau was open to visitors, which was really very good behavior on our part. We turned our faces toward the Cathedral of St. Pierre, and spent there our half hour, no more, no less. Here over the sculptured figure of its patron saint are some lines, in old French, which tell us that this building dates back to the year 1434. The chief treasure of the cathedral is the beautiful tomb of Francois II, and his wife Marguerite de Foix, the father and mother of the little Duchess Anne, on which the ermine tails are in full feather, if we may so express it, and also the hound and the lion which are symbols of this ancient house. The tomb, which is one of the masterpieces of that good artist, Michel Colombe, was brought here from the old Eglise des Carmes which was pillaged and burned during the Revolution.

Although we reached Angers only in time for a very late dinner, we were inclined to wander again to-night. I don't know just how it came about; Archie was out on the terrace smoking, and when Lydia appeared at the door he threw away his cigar and joined her. As they walked off together, Lydia turned back and said, in her sweet, demure way:

"Dr. Vernon is taking me to see the ruins of the Abbey of Toussaint by moonlight. Why don't you and Mr. Leonard come too?"

"Oh! no, we don't spoil sport; do we, Zelphine?" said Walter, "and it seems to me, dear, if my memory does not fail me, that moonlight upon ruins has brought good luck to your matchmaking schemes before this. Do you remember how Angela and the Doctor trotted off to see the ruins at Exeter by moonlight?"

"Yes, of course, how could I forget that evening? Poor dear Angela will be thinking of us and missing us to-night."

"Well, she will only have this one night to miss us and this day in Angers has been worth so much to us."

"We have had many delightful days on this trip; but this has been one of the most perfect. Why do many of the people, who do the chateaux so conscientiously, skip Angers?"

"I hope that many may continue to skip it," said Walter, "tourists and trippers would ruin this lovely old place and turn this comfortable, homelike Cheval Blanc into a great noisy caravansary. And now that the lov--I mean, now that your brother and Lydia have had a good start of us, let us go to see the ruins of the old Abbey, Zelphine," and then with a mischievous twinkle in his eye:

"Don't you think that Miss Cassandra and M. La Tour could be persuaded to pair off and go with us?"

Miss Cassandra was just then sleeping sweetly in her chair; she does not confess to any fatigue after our long motor trip, but she must be very tired, and M. La Tour is engaged with some friends from Paris. Much as we like him, and indeed no one could help liking him,--for this one evening we are content to dispense with his kind attentions.

The ruins of the Abbey of Toussaint must be interesting at any time, reminding us of those of Nettley and Jumieges, with their exquisite carved arches and windows all overgrown and draped with vines and shrubbery, but by moonlight, like fair Melrose, they take upon them an added charm. We lingered long before the lovely carved window, through which the moonlight streamed in silvery radiance; but we saw nothing of Archie and Lydia. They had probably gone to take a last look at the Castle of Angers by the light of the moon, and when they returned to the Cheval Blanc Miss Cassandra and I had gone upstairs, feeling that we had indeed had a full day, and that the wanderers would probably be quite as happy without us.

XV

ORLEANS AND ITS MAID

ORLEANS, September 14th.

WE set forth early this morning, as we had a long day before us, and as Walter warned us, little time to loiter by the way, great as the temptation might be to stop _en route_.

I don't know that anything has happened, but the atmosphere seems somewhat electric, and if anything has occurred I am quite sure that it is of a cheerful nature, as there is a telltale light in Archie's eyes that seems to say when they meet mine: "I have been sworn to secrecy, find out if you can!" Lydia's face is inscrutable; but her color is a little brighter than usual and she seems to avoid meeting my gaze, and drops her eyelids in a way that she has when the sun is bright. Then, she is beside me and consequently I cannot see her face as I can Archie's. Our places have been changed in the auto; Lydia and Archie are vis a vis this morning and M. La Tour is opposite to me, but this may be quite accidental.

After Walter's solemn warning about the shortness of time, I was afraid to suggest stopping anywhere; but Lydia had told me that she intended, if possible, to see the Chateau de Morains, near Saumur, where Margaret of Anjou died. She made her request with some hesitation.

"Of course we can stop," said Walter, "it won't take long, if Francois knows the way."

Francois did not know the way to the historic shrine, which is evidently neglected by English and American pilgrims; but by making inquiries he found it without much trouble. We saw the outside of the little chateau and what interested us especially, the inscription over the gateway which relates that this Manoir of Vignole-Souzay, formerly Dampierre, was the refuge of the heroine of the War of the Roses, Marguerite of Anjou and Lancaster, Queen of England, the most unfortunate of queens, wives and mothers, who died here the 25th of April, 1482, aged fifty-three years. This little French tablet in memory of the English Queen, who was received with such rejoicings in England upon her marriage with Henry VI, seemed to us most pathetic.

As a return for this stop at Morains, which Walter considered a particular concession to the women of the party, he suggested that we take time to stop at Villandry to see a Druid stone which M. La Tour has been telling him about. You may remember that he and Archie are somewhat insane upon the subject of Druidical remains, but I notice that Archie is not as keenly interested in the Druids, this morning, as usual. He and Lydia are talking over some places that they mean to see in or near Paris. Archie has been reading a description of Fouquet's Chateau of Vaux-le-Vicomte, which is only an hour's ride from Paris, near Melun. Wise in his day and generation is this brother of mine, for nothing could so appeal to Lydia's historic soul as just such an expedition as this! This was the chateau at which the great financier entertained the King with such magnificence that he aroused the jealousy of his royal master. You remember Dumas's description of it, and La Fontaine's _Songe de Vaux_, in which he says that everything conspired for the pleasure of the King, music, fountains, Moliere's plays, in which he was praised,--even the moon and the stars seemed to shine for him, on those nights at Vaux.

"And the fruits of the earth, and of the greenhouses yielded up their treasures for him," said M. La Tour. "In his old age Louis was wont to say that no peaches were equal to those of Vaux-le-Vicomte in flavor and quality."

"I am quite sure that he had never tasted those of Anjou!" exclaimed Walter, and at this most opportune moment Francois produced a basket of these same Anjou peaches, and some pears also, all surrounded by green leaves, as only the French know how to set them forth. We feasted on the fat things of the earth, as we made our way to Villandry, where we saw the ancient monument of the Druids, which was not much to see after all. Walter, however, takes a solid satisfaction in visiting the things that he feels it is his duty to see. The same sort of a rainbow illuminates his horizon after a duty of this sort is performed, that irradiates our path when you and I have accomplished a series of perfunctory visits, and yet he tells Lydia and me that we take our sightseeing quite too seriously.

M. La Tour has been telling us about the elaborate New Year's ceremonies once held at Chartres, by the Druids. The mistletoe was cut by the eubage, with a golden _faucelle_, or sickle, belonging to one of the Druidesses and then distributed to the people. The eubage was, it appears, a combination of priest and bard whose pleasing task it was to cut the throats of the human victims offered upon the Druidical altar of sacrifice. This distribution of the mistletoe at the beginning of the year may have led to our later use of the mistletoe in the Christmas holiday festivals. Walter says that he does not know about this, nor does M. La Tour; but they intend to look it up and communicate the result one to the other. From this conversation you will naturally infer that we are again in the land of the mistletoe.

In the meadows we noticed a delicate little mauve-colored flower, something like an orchid, which Francois told me was a crocus, blooming for the second time this season, and in the gardens of the little gray houses, with their red-tiled roofs, and by the roadside were gorgeous asters of all shades of purple. In the less cultivated places, heather blooms luxuriantly and yellow gorse which attracted Miss Cassandra's trained botanist's eye, and she suddenly quoted the old Scotch saw, with about the same appropriateness as some of the remarks of "Mr. F's Aunt" in Bleak House: "'When gorse is out of season, kissing is out of fashion,'" and looking straight at Archie, she added encouragingly "you see it is still blooming."

[Illustration: FORGE NEAR STONE STAIRWAY AT LUYNES]

It would be impossible to accuse Miss Cassandra of flirtatious intent, and yet at her glance and words Archie blushed a beautiful scarlet. I tried not to look at him, as I knew that he was inwardly swearing at the thinness of his skin, or whatever it is that makes people blush. I couldn't see Lydia without turning around and staring at her; but Walter, who enjoyed the whole scene from his coign of vantage beside Francois, told me afterwards that "Lydia never turned a hair, and so you see, Zelphine," he said, laughing gaily, "it all rests between Miss Cassandra and Archie."

Seeing in the distance the curious, enigmatical Pile de Cinq Mars, we suddenly realized that we were quite near Luynes, and Walter told Francois to stop there as he knew that Archie would be charmed with the beauty of the situation of this chateau which hangs high, like an eagle's nest, upon a bluff above the lowlands and the river. While we were walking around and about the chateau, we suddenly came upon Mr. and Mrs. Otis Skinner standing at the entrance to a little smithy, quite near the rock-hewn steps that lead up to the chateau. We have seen so few Americans, and no friends or acquaintances since we left Tours, and now, as we are again approaching the old town, to meet these good friends was a great pleasure. Mr. Skinner took us into the smithy, which is so charmingly situated, and we wondered again, as at Cheverny, why even a blacksmith's workshop is so much more picturesque here than in England or America. While Mr. Skinner was standing talking to the blacksmith, Lydia and Archie and Mrs. Skinner managed to get snapshots of the forge. If it is satisfactory, I will send you a photograph, as we intend to exchange pictures and you shall have the very best.

After this encounter, we sped along on our way toward Tours, wondering whether Mr. Skinner was collecting material, atmosphere, etc., for a French play. We are glad that our way lay through Tours and that Archie could have even a fleeting glimpse of the old capital. To motor across the great bridge and along the wide Rue Nationale, and to have another look at St. Gatien, with its two beautiful towers, and at those other towers of Charlemagne and de l'Horloge was a joy, even if there was not time to stop over at Tours for an hour.

At Blois we gathered up our luggage, left the automobile and took the train for Orleans. We parted from our Francois with much regret, as we have come to like his honest, frank face and his pleasant French ways. Walter and Archie, I am quite sure, gave him a generous remembrance, Archie especially being quite in sympathy with his dreams of love in a Touraine cottage. We all wished him happiness, not without some misgivings on my part, I must admit, lest his Eloisa of the bright eyes should play him false for the charms of some one of those red-legged soldiers, who seem to possess an irresistible charm for French women, who are always ready to sing "J'aime le militaire."

From Blois to Orleans is a railroad journey of a little over an hour, through a fertile, but a rather monotonous country abounding in fields of turnips. From the quantities of this vegetable raised here, we naturally conclude that the peasants of this part of France subsist chiefly upon turnips, as the Irish do upon potatoes. We passed through many gray villages, which tone in with the shades of the silver poplars, and this with certain gray atmospheric effects in the landscape makes us realize how true to life are the delicate gray-green canvases of many of the French artists.

The Orleans station, like that of Tours, is a delusion and a snare, as we were suddenly landed at Les Aubrais, one of the outskirts of the old city and from thence had to make our way to Orleans as best we could. We had fortunately been able to send our small luggage directly through to Paris by putting it in the _consigne_, and paying ten centimes on each article. This convenient and economical device, which with all our travel we had never discovered, was revealed to us by the two charming Connecticut ladies whom we met at Amboise. Walter calls down blessings upon the pretty heads of these two wise New England women whenever we make a stop over between trains; and Miss Cassandra ejaculates: "It takes a Yankee, my dears, to find out the best way to do everything on the top of the earth!"

Having only ourselves to dispose of, we soon found an omnibus which conveyed us to the Place du Martroi, the soul and centre of the ancient city of Orleans, where is fitly placed an equestrian statue of Jeanne d'Arc, by Foyatier. This statue does not, however, happily suggest the Maid, as the peasant girl of Domremy is here represented with a fine Greek profile, and, as Archie noticed, with his keen horseman's eye, the charger upon which she is mounted is a race-horse and not a war-horse. It is, however, a noble and dignified memorial, on the whole, in which it differs from the grotesque affair at Chinon, and Dubray's low reliefs on the sides of the pedestal, representing important scenes in the life of the Maid, are beautiful and impressive.

Here in Orleans, the scene of Joan's first and most remarkable success, we live more completely in the life and spirit of that wonderful period than at Chinon. The marvel of it all impressed us more forcibly than ever before. That this peasant girl, young and ignorant of the art of war, by the power of her sublime faith in her heaven-sent mission and in herself as the divinely appointed one, should have wrested this city from the English, seems nothing short of the miracle that she and her soldiers believed it to be. Even that hard-headed and cold-hearted sovereign, Louis XI, was so overawed by the story of Joan's victories that he marked with tablets the little room at Domremy where she was born, and also the convent of Sainte Catherine de Fierbois, where she was received and where she found her sword with the five crosses.

We knew that the Place du Martroi was not the scene of Joan's martyrdom, and yet this wide, noble square, with her monument in the centre, from which diverge so many streets associated with her history, stood for infinitely more to us than anything we had seen at Rouen, the actual place of her martyrdom.

From the square, M. La Tour conducted us to the cathedral, which has been criticized by Victor Hugo and many others, and which we, perhaps from pure perversity, found much more harmonious than we had expected. The facade, which the local guidebook pronounces majestic, even if _batarde_ in style, is rich in decoration, and the little columns on the towers I thought graceful and beautiful, however _batarde_ they may be. Two cathedrals have stood upon the site of the present Sainte Croix, the last having been destroyed by the Huguenots, to whom are attributed the same sort of destruction that marked the course of Oliver Cromwell's army in England. It is said that the great Protestant leader, Theodore de Beze, himself blew up the four noble pillars that once supported the belfry. However this may be, and Miss Cassandra says that we are all free to believe such tales or not, as we choose, very little is left of the old edifice except the eleven chapels and the side walls. Even if Theodore de Beze destroyed the old cathedral, the building as it now stands was the work of his former chief, for it was Henry of Navarre who laid the corner stone of the new edifice, in 1601, to fulfill a vow made to Pope Clement VIII who had absolved him from the ban of excommunication.

In the side windows, in richly colored glass, is the story of the Maid of Orleans, from the day when she heard the voices and a vision appeared to her while she kept her father's sheep in the fields near Domremy, to the hour when she and her troops gave thanks for the victory of Orleans in this cathedral. On through the eventful months of her life to the sad and shameful scenes at Rouen, where the innocent and devoted Maid was burned at the stake, while France which she had delivered, and Charles whom she had crowned, made no sign, the story is told in a series of pictures. Even if of modern glass and workmanship, these windows seemed to us most beautiful, especially those on the right-hand side through which the light streamed red, yellow and blue from the jewelled panes. The window representing the crowning of Charles VII at Rheims is especially rich in color. Joan, with a rapt ecstatic expression on her face, is here to see her King crowned and with her is the banner that she loved even more than her mystic sword. Below are inscribed her own simple words, "It has been with him in the suffering, it is right that it should be with him in the glory." Ever self-effacing, it was of her beloved banner that Joan was thinking, never of herself.

The whole wonderful story is written upon these windows so plainly that any child may read it. We have been thinking of Christine and Lisa, and wishing that they were here to read it with us. They will learn of Joan of Arc in their histories, but it will never be so real to them as it is here where her great work was done, and where she is so honored. Some day we promise ourselves the pleasure of bringing the children here and going with them through all the Joan of Arc country. M. La Tour, who has made the journey, says that, as the Joan of Arc cult is increasing all the time, every spot associated with her is marked and everything most carefully preserved.