esent structure on the foundations of
an old mill. The design is attributed, with I know not what justice, to
Pierre Nepveu, _alias_ Trinqueau, the audacious architect of Chambord.
On the death of Bohier the house passed to his son, who, however, was
forced, under cruel pressure, to surrender it to the Crown in
compensation for a so-called deficit in the official accounts of this
rash parent and predecessor. Francis I. held the place till his death;
but Henry II., on ascending the throne, presented it out of hand to that
mature charmer, the admired of two generations, Diana of Poitiers. Diana
enjoyed it till the death of her protector; but when this event occurred
the widow of the monarch, who had been obliged to submit in silence, for
years, to the ascendency of a rival, took the most pardonable of all the
revenges with which the name of Catherine de'Medici is associated and
turned her out of doors. Diana was not in want of refuges, Catherine
went through the form of giving her Chaumont in exchange; but there was
only one Chenonceaux. Catherine devoted herself to making the place more
completely unique. The feature that renders it sole of its kind is not
appreciated till you wander round to either side of the house. If a
certain springing lightness is the characteristic of Chenonceaux, if it
bears in every line the aspect of a place of recreation--a place
intended for delicate, chosen pleasures--nothing can confirm this
expression better than the strange, unexpected movement with which, from
behind, it carries itself across the river. The earlier building stands
in the water; it had inherited the foundations of the mill destroyed by
Thomas Bohier. The first step therefore had been taken upon solid piles
of masonry; and the ingenious Catherine--she was a _raffinee_--simply
proceeded to take the others. She continued the piles to the opposite
bank of the Cher, and over them she threw a long, straight gallery of
two tiers. This part of the chateau, which mainly resembles a house
built upon a bridge and occupying its entire length, is of course the
great curiosity of Chenonceaux. It forms on each floor a charming
corridor, which, within, is illuminated from either side by the
flickering river-light. The architecture of these galleries, seen from
without, is less elegant than that of the main building, but the aspect
of the whole thing is delightful. I have spoken of Chenonceaux as a
"villa," using the word advisedly, for the