CORRESPONDENCE.
A CHATEAU IN TOURAINE.
On a July day, the road from the station at Azay-le-Ridean is long, hot, dusty, and uninteresting. Two kilometres, in fact, more than a mile, and dazzlingly white and straight as only a French road can be. But an obliging omnibus, with prompt though rough good-nature, rattles you along it, and then through the white streets of the village, all ornamented with half-dead fir-branches; for the great fete of the Republic is only just over. It does not make much show in the rural districts of France,—decorations, some popping-off of guns and fireworks, a general holiday, but no great disturbance of country quiet, or show of enthusiasm. Past these fading relics, the omnibus pulls up suddenly at a great iron gate which closes the end of the street. This is the gate of the chelteau. Here the driver puts you down, promising to come and fetch you in time for the next train. It is not without a certain shyness that you push the heavy gate open, and walk into the first court of the great ChAteau d'Azay-le-Rideau. This shyness is something of a psychological study. It is unknown, I think, to the ordinary tourist, visiting the ordinary monuments historiques of France. But with any knowledge of French private life at all, one feels at once, on setting foot in that courtyard, the private character of Azay-le-Rideau. There is perfect stillness on this summer day. Old trees, large and shady, hang over old white walls and low ranges of buildings ; orange-trees, in their great tubs, are set round the square. There is a scent of mignonette, of roses ; there is a flash of water beyond the court, a gleam of turrets and pale stately walls, set in the midst of glowing flower-beds. All is so still, seemingly so uninhabited, that the distant barking of a dog startles one, and deepens the feeling of having no business there. This is a very beautiful country house, belonging to rich and good people, who live here in perfect security. It is the middle of a summer day ; everybody is either at breakfast or asleep. What possible right has an idle tourist to break in on the peace of Azay-le-Rideau P It has no historical interest ; for the fact that Louis XIV. slept here once is certainly not enough for that. It has been a private house ever since Monsieur Gilles Berthelot built it, in the early days of Francois I. Why, then, is .A..zay-le-Rideau visited by tourists P Simply because of its wonderful beauty. When you talk to French people of those Royal elaiteaur, so various in their attractions, which give distinction to the province of Touraine, they say " But have you seen Azay-le-Rideau P" Many people think it the most beautiful house in France. I have heard others say that it is triste, that its situation is low, that it is terrible in winter. This may be ; I saw it in perfection ; and though the sensation was strangely like approaching an enchanted palace, venturing into the Sleeping Beauty's own domain, I understood that even a leas generous and enlightened proprietor than M. le Marquis de Biencourt would find it difficult to refuse people the privilege of seeing anything so beautiful.
At last, from one of those low shuttered houses, a woman looks out and says that the chateau will be shown presently ; in the meanwhile, you can go into the garden and see the out- side. Can one go all round, everywhere P " Yes, everywhere ; wherever you like." Thus encouraged, one ventures on across a wooden bridge which leads into the half-square formed by the house itself, across the water, broad, quiet, and deep, which surrounds the old walls, and bathes their feet. Amy stands in the very bed of the Indre, as Chenonceanx in that of the Cher. It is very nearly of the same date as Chenonceanz, which also,
curiously enough, was built by a rich man of low degree; but Azay was fortunate, perhaps, in never falling into the hands of Royalty or its favourites. No echo of old rivalries between Catherine de' Medici and Diane de Poitiers troubles the gracious peace of Amy.
It is a temptation to linger on the bridge, gazing down into the green reflections of the water, all in a cool and pleasant shade. But the beautiful front of the house attracts one, too, for a nearer view. Over the great double doorway, mingled in the rich design of windows over it, are to be seen the old Royal emblems of the salamander, with the motto, Nutrisco et Exstinguo, and the ermine, Ung seal desir. The tower on the left is being restored,—a rich new cream-colour, beautiful in itself, is taking the place of the old yellow, stained with dark moss, of the rest of the building. If Azay belonged to me, however, I should grudge every touch of the chisel on those old stones. The workmen, hardly seen at first as they lay in the shade, are waking from their midday sleep, and the thin, ringing sound of their work begins to break the silence that surrounded the chateau. One wanders on round the corner of the building, out of sight and hearing of restoration, where brilliant bands of flowers of every colour lie along the edge of the water, and shady walks lead away through groups of tall trees into the fresh green distance of the park. There is no gate or barrier anywhere ; and all round the splendid house the same silence and loneliness, when the workmen are left behind. Not a face at a window, not a figure crossing the wandering paths. The other side, the south-west, is even more striking than the front, when one stands away in the shade and looks at it across the bright mass of flowers, and the broad, still moat that holds its reflection. It is a square, stately mass of building, with round turrets at the corners, with all the rich decoration of walls and windows, delicate soaring roofs and pinnacles, that marks the finest Renaissance period.
It would be easy and delightful to wander away into the park, to spend hours in the warm shade, seeing the house from twenty different points of view. But time flies, even here in the garden; and presently, going back to the front, one finds that this palace of sleep is beginning to wake to every-day life again. A woman crosses the court ; a man's figure strolls in the distance among the trees ; finally, a servant dressed in blue linen, with a frizzled head, advances from a turret-door•, and proposes to show the interior• of the chateau. There one is led through beautiful rooms, dark from the thickness of the walls and the smallness of the windows, but furnished with a sort of stately comfort. This must be rather disturbed sometimes by the entrance of tourists, for there is no day in the week, apparently, when M. de Biencourt forbids his house to be shown. One is in- clined to wonder whether he ever wishes for a homelier dwelling. In the meanwhile, strangers may study a great collection of beautiful things : enamelled medallions, early Italian pictures, French historical portraits in great number, among which poor Louis XVII. smiles like a happy, healthy little boy. The great stone staircase, which is celebrated for its beauty, is now under repair ; but, on the whole, the interior of Amy seems less striking, less infinitely removed from French houses in general, than its stately exterior. That, splendid in itself, wants only one thing to make its beauty perfect,—a lawn of green velvet, an English lawn, as setting to the gorgeous jewellery of its flower-beds. Here, as almost everywhere in France, the most charming garden is spoilt by rough, coarse grass, which looks green and bright enough in the far distance, but uncivilised and ugly on a nearer view. However, that very ward "uncivilised" perhaps gives one an explanation, and explains the rough grass by a glance at the fitness of things. The civilisation of these old French houses, though most real in itself, is a civilisation of a hundred years ago. It is none the worse for that. But just as long, rough grass in an English garden, round a modern English house, would look altogether out of place and wrong, so perhaps borders and lawns of shaven turf would seem unsuitable at the foot of these great rugged walls nearly four centuries old. They belong, in fact, to the world before the Revolution : and that says everything. They have a history written on their walls, and cannot be modernised, even as old English houses can. On the whole, it seems that one must apologise to Azay-le-Rideau for wishing it an English lawn.
The omnibus was as good as its word. It rattled up to the great gate as the chateau clock struck half-past 1. Instantly, at the turn of the street, one lost sight of this most beautiful house, and found one's self in the dusty outside world again. But Azay-le-Rideau is not a place to be forgotten. Perhaps the strange way in which it lies hidden close to its little town,. surrounded by walls and trees, with no air of dominating the country, but with the single idea, as it seems, of living its own peaceful, old-world life, like thousands of other less beautiful chateaux, sleeping, if it chooses, through half the day, and admiring itself in the quiet waters of the Indre that steal' so. slowly round it,—all this character, perhaps, is the secret of its strange attractiveness. It has no history, except a list of names of proprietors, generally courtiers in the old time, more or less distinguished. No public history : but Azay-le-Rideau and the Indre, as one gazes at the other, keep the secret,. unless I am much mistaken, of a good many romances in real life. Its own beauty, however, without any associations, is enough to fill the eyes and mind of a visitor to Azay.
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