OLD TOITRAINE.* TH18 useful and interesting book will be welcome
to all who care for France and French history, and especially to those who know and love the old provinces on the Loire. No other part of France, perhaps, has so much varied historical interest, from Charles Martel at Tours to Henry V.'s visits to Cham- bord, where the letter was written which finally ruined the Legitimist cause. It is as well to be able to understand that Henry's logic was inevitable and fine, if unfortunate. The last of the Bourbons could not, for any reason, have turned his beak on the white flag.
This was a fitting touch with which to close the long romantic history of royalty in Touraine. In French pro-. vincial life now, there is nothing at all to strike the imagination : all splendour has departed. Touraine, however, as well as its neighbouring provinces, has an attractive charm which only partly depends upon the past. Touraine, to begin with, is a country where a climate not unlike that of England is touched into perfection by sunshine of a southern brilliancy. Those old, half-mythical springs and summers of England, which we suppose, on the authority of the poets, to have existed long ago, must always have been quite occasional visitors to this country. But when English poetry and love of Nature were first springing into life, English Kings were -also Counts of Anjou, and the communication was constant between England and these provinces. The exquisite April, the shining, flowery May, the rich summer of Anjou and Touraine inspired English poets in those days. Towable, in July, is full of red-gold cornfields; its vine-covered slopes are brilliant green, its grass is rich and long under beautiful trees by clear streams, and there is no sharp breath in any air -that moves under that dazzling blue sky.
Mr. Cook touches some of the beauty of Touraine when he says:— " Here the grass is as green in August as in May among the
• Old Touraine: the We and History of the Famous Chdteaux of France. By 'Theodore Andrea Cook, M.A. 2 vols. London : Percival and Co. 1892.
orchards and the groves. Look across the river at the other bank, and it will be seen hanging in the air, so faithfully is cloud and sky reflected in the stream. The sands that line the river's bed are fringed with willows, bending down as if to sip its waters ; poplars, aspens, and acacias shade the stream, where countless little islets break the silver current."
This is the valley of the Loire; and the mention of the great river suggests the names of its tributaries, the Cher, the Iudre, the Vienne, reminding us also of those "famous chateaux," royal and other, which even in their decay give its chief dis- tinction to Touraine. Blois, Amboise, Chaumont, Langeais, grandly overlooking the wide Loire; 0 henonceaux, wonderfully beautiful, lonely on her terraces, with her long bridge across the Cher, which has gently washed her foundations for nearly four hundred years ; Azay-le-Rideau, her rival in Renaissance beauty, with a quieter and less magical story to tell, mirrored in the green and stealing Indre, which higher up guards the stately walls and the dungeons of Loches ; Chinon, a rain, with the oldest history of all, and the most interesting to English people, standing high above the Vienne which divides Touraine from Anjou. Then Chambord, alone and very sad among the remains of her forests, must not be forgotten among the great houses of Touraine ; and the most famous of older castles, Plessis-les-Tours, must not pass without men- tion, though now a mere uninteresting ruin, with hardly any trace of its former greatness left. Other chateaux described here, such as Cheverny and Beauregard, are no doubt beau- tiful and interesting in their own way, but possess little of the historical associations which have made the rest objects of the world's pilgrimage.
The author of the present book gives a full and satisfactory history and description of all the chateaux we have mentioned. He does not quite confine himself to Touraine, allowing the history of Chinon and Henry II. to carry him on to Fontev- rault, which does not belong to Touraine, but to the hardly less interesting province of Anjou,— a fell account of which has therefore no business here. The town of Saumnr, too, being entirely Angevin, has no claim to be described in a book on Touraine, and this is not made quite clear. Not, of course, that there is any objection to its being included in what is practically a historical guide to all this part of the Loire.
If we were to suggest a fault in a book which must please all lovers of Touraine, it would be that Mr. Cook has attempted a little too much. He thoroughly describes the chateaux, their architecture, their present state, everything that is to be seen in and out of them. His account of their picture galleries, especially rich in the Clonet school, will attract artists. He tries to make the old walls live again by taking us back to the days of kings and queens and favourites who reigned there, describing pageants and festivities by the help of the old chronicles, and enlarging on the characters of all those—Plantagenets, Valois, Medicis, Bourbons—who were attracted to Touraine in the golden days of Chinon, Blois, Chenonceaux, Chambord. He also gives a history of those who, in the time of Louis XL and Charles VIII., suffered in the prisons of Loches. All this is very good, as long as the background remains the same. In a book like this, which is not a history of the French Kings, but of the chateaux of Touraine, the background, the scene, ought to be of more im- portance than the figures. They should be drawn for it, not it for them. Mr. Cook might as well, we think, have followed Henry II. through English history, or Mary Stuart through her whole life and reign, as Charles VIII. through his Italian wars, or three Dukes of Orleans through all their adventures, because they spent part of their lives at Amboise and at Blois.
Neither was it necessary to tell the whole history of Lodovico Sforza, because he spent his last years in the dungeons of Loches, nor to give Louis XIL's reign in full, because his life and that of Anne of Bretagne were much connected with Touraine. For these reasons we especially enjoy Mr. Cook's account of Chinon, keeping to what actually happened at the castle, and also the way in which he first tells the fascinating story of Chenonceanx.
Many persons, no doubt, will much appreciate all the history and biography that Mr. Cook gives them in connec- tion with the chateaux of Touraine. But we fancy that many of them will be persons who have not already mounted the wonderful staircase of Chambord—which, by the way, is far from being unique—or climbed the hill at Chaumont between haycocks and flowering bushes and the shining Loire ; or gathered wild flowers on a soft and dreamy day on the roofs of Loches, glad to have escaped from the cold dungeons below ; or watched Azay reflected in the lazy Indre. People who have done all this and much more in that quiet, solitary way which means the deepest mental enjoyment, and furnishes the mind with pictures to last its life, are content to listen to the story that the old walls and towers themselves tell, and are satisfied with the fewest and barest facts of history and biography that give the imagination something to work upon. But to the more practical kind of tourist Mr. Cook's book will be invaluable. He will not be foolish enough to take the advice we feel inclined to give : Read the book before you visit Touraine—and forget it ! Or rather, remember such parts of it as are really helpful; and these indeed are many, for it is full of useful information, and tells a traveller everything he ought to know about Touraine. The illustrations, some original, some from familiar photographs, are very pretty and very interesting, and the appendix is delightful. The excellent index also adds greatly to the value of the book.
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