falls. It is quite natural
that in a region chosen by Royalty for its sojourn, where the
court was long established, great families and fortunes and
distinguished men should have settled and built palaces as grand
as themselves."

But is it not incomprehensible that Royalty did not follow the advice
indirectly given by Louis XI. to place the capital of the kingdom at
Tours? There, without great expense, the Loire might have been made
accessible for the merchant service, and also for vessels-of-war of
light draught. There, too, the seat of government would have been safe
from the dangers of invasion. Had this been done, the northern cities
would not have required such vast sums of money spent to fortify
them,--sums as vast as were those expended on the sumptuous glories of
Versailles. If Louis XIV. had listened to Vauban, who wished to build
his great palace at Mont Louis, between the Loire and the Cher, perhaps
the revolution of 1789 might never have taken place.

These beautiful shores still bear the marks of royal tenderness.
The chateaus of Chambord, Amboise, Blois, Chenonceaux, Chaumont,
Plessis-les-Tours, all those which the mistresses of kings, financiers,
and nobles built at Veretz, Azay-le-Rideau, Usse, Villandri, Valencay,
Chanteloup, Duretal, some of which have disappeared, though most of them
still remain, are admirable relics which remind us of the marvels of
a period that is little understood by the literary sect of the
Middle-agists.

Among all these chateaus, that of Blois, where the court was then
staying, is one on which the magnificence of the houses of Orleans and
of Valois has placed its brilliant sign-manual,--making it the most
interesting of all for historians, archaeologists, and Catholics. It was
at the time of which we write completely isolated. The town, enclosed
by massive walls supported by towers, lay below the fortress,--for the
chateau served, in fact, as fort and pleasure-house. Above the town,
with its blue-tiled, crowded roofs extending then, as now, from the
river to the crest of the hill which commands the right bank, lies a
triangular plateau, bounded to the west by a streamlet, which in these
days is of no importance, for it flows beneath the town; but in the
fifteenth century, so say historians, it formed quite a deep ravine, of
which there still remains a sunken road, almost an abyss, between the
suburbs of the town and the chateau.

It was on this plateau, with a do