If the tenement
selected for this honour could not be ancient and em-
browned, it should at least have been detached.
There is a charming description, in his little tale
of "La Grenadiere," of the view of the opposite side
of the Loire as you have it from the square at the end
of the Rue Royale, - a square that has some preten-
sions to grandeur, overlooked as it is by the Hotel de
Ville and the Musee, a pair of edifices which directly
contemplate the river, and ornamented with marble
images of Francois Rabelais and Rene Descartes.
The former, erected a few years since, is a very honor-
able production; the pedastal of the latter could, as
a matter of course, only be inscribed with the _Cogito
ergo Sum._ The two statues mark the two opposite
poles to which the brilliant French mind has travelled;
and if there were an effigy of Balzac at Tours, it ought
to stand midway between them. Not that he, by any
means always struck the happy mean between the
sensible and the metaphysical; but one may say of
him that half of his genius looks in one direction
and half in the other. The side that turns toward
Francois Rabelais would be, on the whole, the side
that takes the sun. But there is no statue of Balzac
at Tours; there is only, in one of the chambers of
the melancholy museum, a rather clever, coarse bust.
The description in "La Grenadiere," of which I just
spoke, is too long to quote; neither have I space for
any one of the brilliant attempts at landscape paint-
ing which are woven into the shimmering texture of
"Le Lys dans la Vallee." The little manor of Cloche-
gourde, the residence of Madame de Mortsauf, the
heroine of that extraordinary work, was within a
moderate walk of Tours, and the picture in the novel is
presumably a copy from an original which it would be
possible to-day to discover. I did not, however, even
make the attempt. There are so many chateaux in
Touraine commemorated in history, that it would take
one too far to look up those which have been com-
memorated in fiction. The most I did was to endeavor
to identify the former residence of Mademoiselle
Gamard, the sinister old maid of "Le Cure de Tours."
This terrible woman occupied a small house in the
rear of the cathedral, where I spent a whole morning
in wondering rather stupidly which house it could be.
To reach the cathedral from the little _place_ where we
stopped just now to look across at the Grenadiere,
without, it must be confessed, very vividly seeing it,
you follow the quay to the right, and pass out of sight
of the charming _coteau_ which, from beyond the river,
faces the town, - a soft agglomeration of gardens, vine-
yards, scattered villas, gables and turrets of slate-
roofed chateaux, terraces with gray balustrades, moss-
grown walls draped in scarlet Virginia-creeper. You
turn into the town again beside a great military
barrack which is ornamented with a rugged mediaeval
tower, a relic of the ancient fortifications, known to
the Tourangeaux of to-day as the Tour de Guise.
The young Prince of Joinville, son of that Duke of
Guise who was murdered by the order of Henry II. at
Blois, was, after the death of his father, confined here
for more than two years, but made his escape one
summer evening in 1591, under the nose of his keepers,
with a gallant audacity which has attached the memory
of the exploit to his sullen-looking prison. Tours has
a garrison of five regiments, and the little red-legged
soldiers light up the town. You see them stroll upon
the clean, uncommercial quay, where there are no
signs of navigation, not even by oar, no barrels nor
bales, no loading nor unloading, no masts against the
sky nor booming of steam in the air. The most active
business that goes on there is that patient and fruitless
angling in, which the French, as the votaries of art for
art, excel all other people. The little soldiers, weighed
down by the contents of their enormous pockets, pass
with respect from one of these masters of the rod to
the other,as he sits soaking an indefinite bait in the
large, indifferent stream. After you turn your back to
the quay you have only to go a little way before you
reach the cathedral.
II.
It is a very beautiful church of the second order
of importance, with a charming mouse-colored com-
plexion and a pair of fantastic towers. There is a
commodious little square in front of it, from which
you may look up at its very ornamental face; but for
purposes of frank admiration the sides and the rear
are perhaps not sufficiently detached. The cathedral
of Tours, which is dedicated to Saint Gatianus, took
a long time to build. Begun in 1170, it was finished
only in the first half of the sixteenth century; but the
ages and the weather have interfused so well the tone
of the different parts, that it presents, at first at least,
no striking incongruities, and looks even exception-
ally harmonious and complete. There are many
grander cathedrals, but there are probably few more
pleasing; and this effect of delicacy and grace is at
its best toward the close of a quiet afternoon, when the
densely decorated towers, rising above the little Place
de l'Archeveche, lift their curious lanterns into the
slanting light, and offer a multitudinous perch to
troops of circling pigeons. The whole front, at such
a time, has an appearance of great richness, although
the niches which surround the three high doors (with
recesses deep enough for several circles of sculpture)
and indent the four great buttresses that ascend beside
the huge rose-window, carry no figures beneath their
little chiselled canopies. The blast of the great Revo-
lution blew down most of the statues in France, and
the wind has never set very strongly toward putting
them up again.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 3 of 75
Words from 2041 to 3064
of 75796
