Is Of Red Brick, Crossed
Here And There With Purple; And The Purple Slate Of
The High Roof, Relieved With
Chimneys beautifully
treated, and with the embroidered caps of pinnacles
and arches, with the porcupine of Louis, the ermine
and
The festooned rope which formed the devices of
Anne of Brittany, - the tone of this rich-looking roof
carries out the mild glow of the wall. The wide, fair
windows look as if they had expanded to let in the
rosy dawn of the Renaissance. Charming, for that
matter, are the windows of all the chateaux of Touraine,
with their squareness corrected (as it is not in the
Tudor architecture) by the curve of the upper corners,
which makes this line look - above the expressive
aperture - like a pencilled eyebrow. The low door of
this front is crowned by a high, deep niche, in which,
under a splendid canopy, stiffly astride of a stiffly
draped charger, sits in profile an image of the good
King Louis. Good as he had been, - the father of
his people, as he was called (I believe he remitted
various taxes), - he was not good enough to pass
muster at the Revolution; and the effigy I have just
described is no more than a reproduction of the
primitive statue demolished at that period.
Pass beneath it into the court, and the sixteenth
century closes round you. It is a pardonable flight
of fancy to say that the expressive faces of an age
in which human passions lay very near the surface
seem to look out at you from the windows, from the
balconies, from the thick foliage of the sculpture.
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