Aunt Jo's Scrap Bag (Vol. 1-6). Louisa May AlcottЧитать онлайн книгу.
the wayside cottages, with women working in the gardens; villages clustered round some tiny, picturesque church; windmills whirling on the distant hill-tops; vineyards full of peasants tying up the young vines, or trudging by with baskets on their backs, heaped with green cuttings for the goats at home. Old men, breaking stone by the roadside, touched their red caps to the pilgrims, jolly boys shouted at them from the cherry trees, and little children peeped from behind the rose-bushes blooming everywhere.
Soon, glimpses of the winding Cher began to appear, then an avenue of stately trees, and then, standing directly in the river, rose the lovely château built for Diane de Poictiers by her royal lover. Leaving the carriage at the lodge, our sight-seers crossed the moat, and, led by a wooden-faced girl with a lisp, entered the famous pleasure-house, which its present owner (a pensive man in black velvet, who played fitfully on a French-horn in a pepper-pot tower) is carefully restoring to its former splendour.
The great picture-gallery was the chief attraction; and beginning with Diane herself—a tall, simpering baggage, with a bow, hounds, crescent, and a blue sash for drapery—they were led through a rapid review of all sorts of worthies and unworthies, relics and rubbish, without end. Portraits are always interesting. Even Lavinia, who 'had no soul for Art,' as Mat said, looked with real pleasure at a bass-relief of Agnes of Sorel, and pictures of Montaigne, Rabelais, Ninon d'Enclos, Madame de Sévigné, and miniatures of La Fayette and Ben Franklin. The latter gentleman looked rather out of place in such society; but, perhaps, his good old face preached the Dianes and Ninons a silent sermon. His plain suit certainly was a relief to the eye, wearied with periwigged sages and bejewelled sinners.
Here was the little theatre where Rousseau's plays were acted. Here were the gilded chairs in which kings had sat, swords heroes had held, books philosophers had pored over, mirrors that had reflected famous beauties, and painted walls that had looked down on royal revels long ago.
The old kitchen had a fireplace big enough for a dozen cooks to have spoiled gallons of broth in, queer pots and pans, and a handy little window, out of which they could fish at any moment, for the river ran below.
The chapel, chambers, balconies, and terraces were all being repaired; for, thanks to George Sand's grandmother, who owned the place in the time of the Revolution, it was spared out of respect to her, and is still a charming relic of the past.
The ladies went down the mossy steps, leading from the gallery to the further shore, and, lying under the oaks, whiled away the noon-time by re-peopling the spot with the shapes that used to inhabit it. A very happy hour it was, dreaming there by the little river, with the scent of new-mown hay in the fresh wind, and before them the airy towers and gables of the old château rising from the stream like a vision of departed splendour, love, and romance.
Having seen every thing, and bought photographs ad libitum of the wooden-faced lisper, who cheated awfully, the pilgrims drove away, satiated with relics, royalty, and 'regardez.'
Another night in the stony-hearted, orange-coloured rooms, with the sleepless garçon sweeping and murmuring outside like a Banshee, while the hens roosted sociably in the gallery, the horses seemed to be champing directly under the bed, and the dead Huguenots bumping down upon the roof from the castle-walls. Another curious meal wafted from the bowels of the earth and cooled by all the airs that blow—then the shawl-straps were girded anew, the carriage (a half-grown omnibus with the jaundice) mounted, the farewell bows and adieux received, and forth rumbled the duchesses en route for Blois.
'My heart is rent at leaving that lovely château,' said Mat, as they crossed the bridge.
'I mourn the earth-worms, the cacti, and the tireless "gossoon,"' added Amanda, who appreciated French cookery and had enjoyed confidences with Adolphe.
'The cats, the cats, the cats! I could die happy if I had one,' murmured Lavinia; and with these laments they left the town behind them.
Any thing hotter than Blois, with its half dried-up river, dusty boulevards, and baked streets, can hardly be imagined. But these indomitable women 'did' the church and the castle without flinching. The former was pronounced a failure, but the latter was entirely satisfactory. The Emperor was having it restored in the most splendid manner. The interior seemed rather fresh and gay when contrasted with the time-worn exterior, but the stamped leathern hangings, tiled floors, emblazoned beams, and carved fireplaces were quite correct. Dragons and crowns, porcupines and salamanders, monograms and flowers, shone everywhere in a maze of scarlet and gold, brown and silver, purple and white.
Here the historical Amanda revelled, and quenched the meek old guide with a burst of information which caused him to stare humbly at 'the mad English.'
'Regardez, my dears, the chamber and oratory of Catherine de Medicis, who here plotted the death of the Duc de Guise. This is the cabinet of her son, Henri III., where he gave the daggers to the gentlemen who were to rid him of his enemy, the hero of the barricades. This is the Salle des Gardes, where Guise was leaning on the chimney-piece when summoned to the king. This is the little room at the entrance of which he was set upon in the act of lifting the drapery, and stabbed with forty wounds.'
'Oh! how horrid!' gasped Matilda, staring about as if she saw the sanguinary gentlemen approaching.
'So interesting! Do go on!' cried Lavinia, who was fond of woe, and enjoyed horrors.
'This is the hall where the body lay for two hours, covered with a cloak and a cross of straw on the breast,' cut in Amanda, as the guide opened his mouth. 'Here the king came to look upon the corpse of the once mighty Henri le Balafré, and spurned it with his foot, saying, I shall not translate it for you, Mat—"Je ne le croyais pas aussi grand" and then ordered it to be burnt, and the ashes cast into the river. Remember the date, I implore you, December 23, 1588.'
As Amanda paused for breath the little man took the word, and rattled off a jumble of facts and fictions about the window from which Marie de Medicis lowered herself when imprisoned here by her dutiful son, Louis XIII.
'I wish the entire lot had been tossed out after her, for I do think kings and queens are a set of rascals,' cried Mat, scandalized by the royal iniquities to which she had been listening, till the hair stood erect upon her innocent head.
The Salle des États was being prepared for the trial of the men who had lately attempted the Emperor's life, and a most theatrical display of justice was to be presented to the public. The richly carved stair-case, with Francis the First's salamanders squirming up and down it, was a relic worth seeing; but the parched pilgrims found the little pots of clotted cream quite as interesting, and much more refreshing, when they were served up at lunch (the pots, not the pilgrims), each covered with a fresh vine-leaf, and delicately flavoured with butter-cups and clover.
Amanda won the favour of the stately garçon by praising them warmly, and he kept bringing in fresh relays, and urging her to eat a third, a fourth, with a persuasive dignity hard to resist.
'But yes, Mademoiselle, one more, for nowhere else can crême de St. Gervais be achieved. They are desired, ardently desired, in Paris; but, alas! it is impossible to convey them so far, such is their exquisite delicacy.'
How many the appreciative ladies consumed, the muse saith not; but the susceptible heart of the great garçon was deeply touched, and it was with difficulty that they finally escaped from his attentions.
On being presented with a cast-off camp-stool, and a pair of old boots to dispose of, he instantly appropriated them as graceful souvenirs, and clasping his hands, declared with effusion that he would seat his infant upon the so-useful stool, and offer the charming boots to Madame my wife, who would weep for joy at this touching tableau.
With this melodramatic valedictory, he suffered the guests to depart, and the last they saw of him, he was still waving a dirty napkin as he stood at the gate, big, bland, and devoted to the end, though the drops stood thick upon his manly brow, and the sun glared fiercely on his uncovered head.
'I shall write an article on garçons when I get home,' said Lavinia, who was always planning great works and never